“Good girls go to heaven and bad girls everywhere” are part
of the lyrics from the hit song “Wanderlust” by the Band The Weekend. I guess I
get to go everywhere. I am really a gypsy at heart. So heaven can wait.
Though I’d love to visit every nook and corner of the world,
yet when I step into an aircraft I turn into a chicken. I have no doubt that
traveling by plane is the most unnatural way to go from one place to another.
Cooped up in a small space like a caged animal and subject to the most foul
smells and loud talking and most inconsiderate fellow passengers whose heads
are practically in your lap when they lean back the seats in front of you is
not my definition of fun. I’d rather lean back in my own chair on my deck and
read Emily Dickinson’s, “There is no frigate like a book!” and be carried away
by my imagination to every far away land there is. For good measure from time
to time I’d glance at the Grand Canal twenty yards from my property and imagine
it to be the Nile or the Danube or any other famous body of water that
corresponds with the cuisine on hand.
These days, even before you leave home for any distant land,
you can, thanks to Google Earth, virtually be there. So why must I subject
myself to the indignities and inconveniences that travel entails? Millions of
people do, however. The answer seems to be that virtual presence is not the
same as the real deal. How does one smell the flora of a place on the computer
or the television screen? How does one dip one’s toes in the river Amazon or
hold an adorable sloth against one’s chest or nuzzle a dolphin’s bottle nose if
one doesn't seek them out physically?
If one wants the direct
experience of a place one needs to be standing on the native soil and breathing
in the same air the natives do. There is really no substitute to savoring a
place in person all your senses sated by the direct contact with every facet of
the place. A book can be a frigate only up to a point. Sorry, Emily. Then
again, you were a recluse. Or were you just too busy penning those timeless
poems to be wasting your time traveling. Anyway, at least in my case, my
boarding an actual frigate leads to material often worth a whole book. Not to
mention the photos and videos these days to share with the entire world.
Would the modern world’s mobility
and technological inventions have changed Emily’s perspective? And what a
different take her contemporary Mark twain had on travel? “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many
of our people need it sorely on these accounts,” he declared. Often, I feel
amused at the sight of people in public places where life in its many faceted
splendor is happening right before their eyes yet they are lost in their books,
or in today’s world more likely their smart phones or laptops.
These days, before you leave for a place you can check it
out as if you are already there and then when you return you revisit it as many
times as you want in so many ways without leaving your home. How wonderful is
that?
In March of 2012, I began my plans to visit Europe that May.
Paris was to be our last stop. Because particularly in Paris it’s hard to find
a place of your liking to stay easily, Paris is where I booked my apartment
first, for three nights and four days using Waytostay.com. As the other pieces
of my trip fell into place, I realized I needed a place to stay one more night
at the beginning of my stay in Paris. The place I had booked was occupied that
previous night. I was willing to book another place for that one night but
wanted it close to my apartment. I used Google Earth and bingo, I found a room
with a private bath at Le Montclaire Hostel across
from my Waytostay.com apartment. I was thrilled. But this convenience of being
close to my apartment came with more adventure than I had bargained for. My
sleep was compromised to put it mildly. But the experience of hostel night life
in middle age was still something to write home about. So was the unlimited
breakfast buffet with fresh coffee and fresh orange juice and ooh lala, fresh croissant
and a variety of jams in a quaint den-like basement setting and surrounded by
youngsters from around the world lusting to wander in all ways possible.
Anyway, what’s travel without some adventure? When you plan
a vacation all on your own with no travel agent to hold your hand, believe you
me, you have more than your share of adventure. Sometimes enough to last a
lifetime. You really need a gypsy’s un-moored DNA to withstand surprise-filled travel.
Indeed, heaven can wait. I do plan to wander more once I get
over my fear of flying. Until then I will curl up with Emily’s poems and call
my own little Grand Canal across from my home the Grand Canal of Venice as I
wolf down my spiced-up pasta.
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