Journal 8-7-16

journal8-07-16

Someday I hope to travel without a week of sickening dread that I will do something egregiously wrong in the process. I figure if I can just do it ENOUGH I will come to accept it as a grand adventure, instead of a labyrinth of half-understood public transit options punctuated by moments of breathtaking scenery.

I want to be a world traveler. I want to be that calm person who just wanders across Europe with a rail pass and a backpack of clothes that can be packed for six weeks without wrinkling. I want to speak familiarly of markets in both Bangkok and Berlin.

I just am not very good at it. Anxiety problems tend to manifest for me as a terrible fear that I am Doing It Wrong and if I don’t know all the unwritten rules, I am sure to be Wrong and I will say something that will mortally offend someone because Americans seem to have a natural talent for that and even though I was given dispensation by my friend Heather to pretend to be Canadian while traveling because I apologize instinctively and can dig a car out of deep snow, thereby qualifying for at least honorary protective status, there are so many, many unwritten rules.

The only solution seems to be to keep trying as often as my budget will allow. And to go with people who know all the rules already, or who have that mystical gift of making friends with total strangers, which I envy but do not at all possess.

One thought on “Journal 8-7-16

  1. R Coots says:

    Going with others! Much yes to that! If I could find someone to go with me to say…Norway, or Germany, I would be very happy. My family has what we call the X Family Travel/Moving Adventures, where something ALWAYS seems to go belly up when we’re on the move (I got strandeded in Seoul when I was 16. My dad’s truck rolled into the deepest lake in BC and found the ONLY bench in the entire thing… 0.o) but still. Having experience with crud happening and dealing with it in a country where you don’t speak the language are two different things. *puzzles on this* Have they invented translator robots for us yet?

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