What I miss about overseas travel
Try making a list of everything you love about travelling abroad. It could go on ad infinitum but let’s get the stream flowing.
Shamelessly borrowing an idea from my colleague Philip Adams (The Weekend Australian Magazine, February 20-21) about nostalgia for things past, I started to make a list of what I miss about overseas travel. It could go on ad infinitum but let’s get the stream flowing. Practising other languages. Feeling triumphant when someone understands me. Walking a new city early in the morning. Relishing fresh sounds, smells and oddities. Coming across a perfect place for coffee. Watching commuters scurry past.
Hopping on public transport. Buying a bus ticket to the end of the line and back. Peering into neighbourhoods. Noting house styles, places of worship, front lawns, imagining different kinds of lives and beliefs. Taking a food tour. Tasting odd specialties. Sipping tonics the murky colour of medicine. Sometimes trying not to pull a face. Understanding more about exotic cultures via the everyday essentials of existence.
Shopping in craft markets for bric-a-brac and handmade treasures. Wondering about that word craft, and how “art” would be more appropriate for such exquisite skills. Wondering how I could have lived without a Peruvian alpaca wool throw, a Laotian hand-spun cotton bedspread, a tiny Japanese teacup of exquisite fragility. Talking to artisans, learning their stories, admiring the unsung who devote their lives to creating objects of ineffable beauty. Worrying about mounting shopping bags. Checking excess baggage fees. Devising how to explain myself to family members at home. Will they even let me in the door with a new stash of cardboard boxes.
Staying in hotels of any style or status. Savouring the feeling of being alone and snug. The shamelessly piggy thrill of breakfast on a tray in bed. Watching soaps on telly at 3am. Tubes of Pringles and chocolates shaped like the alps. Shaking crumbs from the sheets. Not feeling (too) guilty about clothing flung every which way and damp towels left in a heap. Shedding my domestic tidiness like an unwanted skin. Leaving generous tips for housekeeping staff as atonement.
Waiting in an airport lounge. People-watching. Assigning names, occupations, backstories to fellow travellers. The click of the seatbelt. The eternal wonder of taking off. Nodding to the next-seat passenger. Pretending I understand no known language. Putting on headphonesimmediately. Squinting at a tiny screen. Wondering just how many movies Julia Roberts has made. Napping fitfully. Landing. The faces of those I love. The happy reunion. Unpacking. Changing into daggy clothes. Shoving the suitcase in a corner. Plotting and planning again. The click of the front gate behind me. The release.