Fifteen Years Ago- Travel
Ξ September 3rd, 2009 | → 1 Comments | ∇ me me me |
I didn’t get the chance to travel much when I was younger. I was born and grew up in California. In middle school my family went on a vacation to Hawaii, and it was the first time I flew in an airplane. We visited Las Vegas fairly often, but didn’t even visit many of the other states.
My only journey to another country was an ill-advised drive to Tijuana with a cousin.
When I thought about traveling in my futre, I had vague ideas of traveling to countries like England, France and Scotland, and doing some sightseeing. I didn’t really have an interest in the people of other cultures and definitely did not dream of living in another country!
But in college I started going to various Christian conferences with friends, and the road-trip became a much-beloved tradition. I can’t even count the number of times my friends and I drove to Colorado, Texas and New Mexico for various trips.
Then after my junior year of college, I took that fateful trip to Cambodia that completely changed the way I think of travel.
I learned that I could love a whole people. That my heart could break just thinking of their spiritual bondage. That travel could be more meaningful than just seeing a few sites.
And that one trip to Cambodia brought with it two visits to Bangkok, Thailand, where a man offered to buy me from the woman I was walking through the hotel with.
Then there was a second trip to Cambodia, which also included two more trips to Thailand where I actually got to spend a night with one of my best friends who was in Thailand for a couple months.
Later I went on a short-term trip to Moscow, Russia. That trip brought with it a few days in Germany, where we got to attend a festival and see the Gutenberg Bible.
From Russia we then went to Slovenia, a country I didn’t even know existed before I discovered I was going there.
And in Slovenia some friends and I rented a car (which I was elected to drive since I drove stick) and then we drove through the Alps to Austria, where we had lunch, and then to Italy where we had gelato. The switchbacks and hairpin turns I navigated that day in the Alps numbered in the hundreds, but so did the gorgeous hidden views of countries I had never expected to be in.
A few years later found me actually living in Japan for three and a half years. Two of my children were born there in a Japanese hospital.
I’ve also been able to visit Jamaica, Cancun and Mazatlan on various vacations.
I have no idea where we might travel next or for how long.
But I’m sure it will be more than I dreamed fifteen years ago.
on September 7th, 2009 at 6:30 am
First, the tag on this post {me, me, me} is cracking me up.
Isn’t it amazing all the places we can go now – and you have been to some amazing places!!