Touching foot in nineteen different countries scattered over three continents in the last six months, it is good to be back in my favorite corner of the world. While Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg may have done something similar in eighty, even with more than twice that time I often felt like I was moving too quickly and I can't help daydreaming about a similar trip in the future, but next time with an open-ended return date. I arrived in Edmonton yesterday after a direct flight out of London - a little less than nine hours in the air - and hung out with friends before crashing at night after more than twenty-five hours without sleep.
Besides seeing a few sights and gathering a few stories, what I have noticed in six months are the changes back here: Relationships have grown stronger or dissolved altogether, people have switched jobs and moved locations and of course the snow has left. All that, and I am just a guy with longer hair and a full passport. A friend said to me while I was traveling to soak it all in and not to consider what I might be missing if I was still back home; that the mundane is all that was going on. While the day-to-day life of settled lives might be considered mundane, there is a magic to that sort of living as well, though I think it is easier to be lulled into considering the days rather unimportant. Getting into a new city or tasting some new food or deciphering a foreign language are all things that kept me keyed into living in the moment and soaking up everything that was right in front of me, and as I now head back into routine (as unsustainable as experiencing something new everyday is) I am going to try to maintain the sort of focus on the immediate. Even if it is something I am intimately familiar with.
While I can't point to any epiphanies that have struck me to my core or experiences over the last six months that have fundamentally altered the way I try to live my life, I am not surprised. I figured out a while back that it is only through reflection that I personally come to anything resembling certainty about pivotal life moments, and it will be in hindsight over the coming months (and not to be melodramatic, but maybe years) that I will be able to look back and reflect on how my trip around the world contributed to who I am.
This got a little deep. Thanks for reading along.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Over and Out
With the bass pumping through the floor of the eight-bed dorm literally causing my head to shake on the pillow Friday night, I questioned the sanity of trying to fall asleep before the bar below turned off its music. While the music had been discernible on the three previous nights, Friday nights apparently demand a further forty or so decibels. Eventually I did fall asleep, but I didn't wake up this morning feeling well rested.
After my lazy day on Tuesday in London, basically just puttering around Greenwich parks and daydreaming, I started my Wedneday sightseeing with a vengeance: A walk under the Thames and then west along the northern bank to Tower Bridge, then a tour through the Tower of London, checked out The Monument to those lost in the Great Fire of 1666, attended the evensong service at St. Paul's Cathedral, walked past The Globe Theatre, the London Eye, and finally Big Ben at the Place of Westminster. I estimate I covered about fifteen kilometers by foot, and the next day was more of the same as I climbed to the upper dome of St. Paul's for a fantastic view of the city, and then ambled through the National Gallery and the Tate Modern.
I was glad that admission to the museums was free, for while I enjoyed the National Gallery, I doubt I will ever be able to drum up any reasonable enthusiasm for modern art. Installations, like a Volkswagen van in front of a herd of sleds, each with a block of fat and a roll of felt, were interesting, though not something I could appreciate given my unfortunately bourgeoisie view of art. I did get to see my first Jackson Pollock though, which was special for me. Pollock is an old nemesis from a college art class where I had been assigned to write a paper about his life and work. This was after the teacher had been shocked by my treasonous assertion that his work would not be what I would consider art. I was one of this teacher's least favorite students for the rest of the year, just ahead of the guy who compared Monet's haystacks to finger-painting. I thought that seeing Pollock's paintings might change my opinion of him, but I still think it's crap. Who says with education comes appreciation?
At the end of Thursday to headed to Trafalgar Square where a stage had been set up to celebrate - you guessed it - Canada Day! The festivites had been going on all day, including a ball-hockey tournament, poutine, mounties posing for pictures and numerous travel booths extoling the beauty of Canada. I found a spot to sit as the concert full of imported Canadian talent started (Hawksley Workman, Sarah Harmer, Jully Black - and some others I didn't recognize) and afterwards made my way back over the now-familiar transit route to Greenwich after another long day.
I spent yesterday basically lazing around; going for a short walk and then polishing off a novel and starting another, and I expect to do more of the same over the next two days before my flight on Tuesday morning. I do want to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace - nothing more touristy than that I know, but hey, I embrace it - and there are a couple of more things to do, but nothing pressing. That being said, this will be last post from me outside of Canada - thanks for following along with what I am afraid were often rather rambling pieces of prose over the last six months, and if you're reading this from Canada, see ya there soon.
After my lazy day on Tuesday in London, basically just puttering around Greenwich parks and daydreaming, I started my Wedneday sightseeing with a vengeance: A walk under the Thames and then west along the northern bank to Tower Bridge, then a tour through the Tower of London, checked out The Monument to those lost in the Great Fire of 1666, attended the evensong service at St. Paul's Cathedral, walked past The Globe Theatre, the London Eye, and finally Big Ben at the Place of Westminster. I estimate I covered about fifteen kilometers by foot, and the next day was more of the same as I climbed to the upper dome of St. Paul's for a fantastic view of the city, and then ambled through the National Gallery and the Tate Modern.
I was glad that admission to the museums was free, for while I enjoyed the National Gallery, I doubt I will ever be able to drum up any reasonable enthusiasm for modern art. Installations, like a Volkswagen van in front of a herd of sleds, each with a block of fat and a roll of felt, were interesting, though not something I could appreciate given my unfortunately bourgeoisie view of art. I did get to see my first Jackson Pollock though, which was special for me. Pollock is an old nemesis from a college art class where I had been assigned to write a paper about his life and work. This was after the teacher had been shocked by my treasonous assertion that his work would not be what I would consider art. I was one of this teacher's least favorite students for the rest of the year, just ahead of the guy who compared Monet's haystacks to finger-painting. I thought that seeing Pollock's paintings might change my opinion of him, but I still think it's crap. Who says with education comes appreciation?
At the end of Thursday to headed to Trafalgar Square where a stage had been set up to celebrate - you guessed it - Canada Day! The festivites had been going on all day, including a ball-hockey tournament, poutine, mounties posing for pictures and numerous travel booths extoling the beauty of Canada. I found a spot to sit as the concert full of imported Canadian talent started (Hawksley Workman, Sarah Harmer, Jully Black - and some others I didn't recognize) and afterwards made my way back over the now-familiar transit route to Greenwich after another long day.
I spent yesterday basically lazing around; going for a short walk and then polishing off a novel and starting another, and I expect to do more of the same over the next two days before my flight on Tuesday morning. I do want to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace - nothing more touristy than that I know, but hey, I embrace it - and there are a couple of more things to do, but nothing pressing. That being said, this will be last post from me outside of Canada - thanks for following along with what I am afraid were often rather rambling pieces of prose over the last six months, and if you're reading this from Canada, see ya there soon.
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