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enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Love. My way.

Very tired, dudes. Went to bed at the usual time but woke up early and could not fall asleep again!

Usually, this does not happen to me. I think I must be getting excited about flying to Italy. On the other hand, I always feel anxious when someone I love is in the air - I actually wake up and turn on the radio to morbidly listen to CBC on the hour, hoping there will be no reported plane crashes - so that is probably it. C. is almost certainly very safely in Amsterdam and getting ready for the weekend at his friend's wedding.

I want to be in Amsterdam!

So many lovely things to do in the world! (I'm trying to justify having spent so much money in my life, so bear with me! ;-)) I don't know where I would be without travel. I surely would not be the same person.

The first time I bought a plane ticket by myself was to um Philadelphia! I spent all of my money from my job selling tickets at the local arena, to visit a friend who was studying at U Penn. I went with a girlfriend. We were still in high school. We ate Philly steak sandwiches and mooned around our friend's dorm room singing along to Depeche Mode's Somebody. It was great. I felt so liberated...so independent. I even remember the price of the ticket: $350.

The most important travel that I did was when I was older. I mean, taking off and backpacking around Asia and Australia with my boyfriend Andrew was a highlight. I wouldn't trade those months of working on farms in the northeast of Oz for anything. I remember cooking up big meals at the hostel, and riding on a little bus at 5 a.m. for the 40km out to the sugar cane farm, watching the sun rise over the slumped heads of the other farm workers, kangaroos at the roadside also arising from slumber.

I remember those challenging months that I spent in a small town in South Korea. I almost lost the ability to speak English at moments, because my tongue was so unpractised.

And then there were those exquisite moments of running the London marathon, riding a bicycle in the early morning hours along rivers and cobbled streets in Belgium to take coffee at little abbeys, running through cemeteries and country fields in other places. And in Japan, getting up at dawn to run through the rush of people racing to work in Tokyo; and later running along the cement port in Yokohama in the steel grey of winter, giant ships in view.

The world is an amazing place. If I hadn't traveled in my youth I wouldn't have had the opportunity to fly into the old Hong Kong airport, to which one had to fly directly towards the mountain, bank, and then fly alongside highrise buildings. You could see what people were doing inside! Amazing! Absolutely amazing!

If I hadn't traveled when I was younger I wouldn't have met people across the U.S. (so that I would learn something that the media wouldn't tell me), and I wouldn't have seen with my own eyes the poverty in the Caribbean. I wouldn't have driven across Canada to see the storms set in over the endless horizon on the Prairies. When listening to the radio here in Ottawa I wouldn't actually have some sense of what those people in Saskatchewan are going on about in regards to their wheat.

I find I can imagine things but when I get to see and feel them I develop empathy for them that is of a richness that I don't think I could have known before. The world seems smaller and I love more people in it, feel more tolerant and open to difference. Or at least I hope I am. Certainly, Florence is less of a idealized location than a comfortable friend at this point.

Still, these places persist in giving us a feeling of dreaming, do they not? I have been following a blog that has been describing a trip to Australia in the last couple of weeks and it has brought me back to the feelings that I had when I sat in the Sydney Botanical Gardens at dusk with the bats swooping overhead (so many bats - you would not believe, and giant ones that look like squirrels, whose proper name I have forgotten).


I'm rambling. Blame it on the fact that I did not ration my cereal properly this week. Doh! I thought I had it worked out perfectly but there was not enough of my delicious, fibre-y breakfast cereal available for this morning.

Oops! Had better get ready or I will be later to work than I want to be. Last day before the trip! Wheee!

Do you know, I am so organized in my packing that I should be able to go to yoga and then go to the airport afterwards tomorrow?

Go me!


This is another silly me entry! I am so fortunate! I know it! Although I'm frightened to death of flying, so it's not all great! Love to you all!

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8:23 a.m. - 2009-05-08

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