Travel

I miss traveling.

I mean *real* travel, not this bouncing around I do in the US to places I've been and to see friends. I love visiting friends and revisiting great places, but it doesn't feed my soul the way true travel -new sites and sights- gives me does.

I Need to go new places, touch old things, feel the old life in the stone and dirt and steel of all the people who have passed through... or to wander off into nature to places where someone may or may not have ever have been before.

I miss it in an aching way when I go too long without it.

I still have 7 states to see. I won't get the chance this summer due to visiting folks (not that I'm bitching, again I love to see friends!). Maybe in spring?

New countries right now are right out. Short of another cruise soon I'll not see any more of the nearby countries and my lease keeps me from picking up and moving back to Europe or to Thailand to start my language classes there early.

It was wonderful to get back to H'Port, NY before and after Camp for a bit. Nice to see my family, but that's not the main reason. It didn't satisfy any of my wanderlust, but it did return me to one of my favorite places.

Some areas of the planet just make me feel good. Something about the energy of them... regardless of their physical beauty or human options... the Finger Lakes Region of NY, London, and Prague.

I'm quite sickly enamored with these three places. I go there and feel more alive, more whole, more blissful than anywhere else and for no clear reason. Now, each is wonderful in their own obvious way but that isn't, I repeat again "isn't", why.

Venice is beautiful, as much and more than any movie or picture make it seem. It has a richness and quaintness, both, that is endearing... but it doesn't do it to me. Heidelberg and Mannheim will be places I love and remember intensely but they don't cause that. Alaska may be one of the most awe-inspiring places I've ever been, landscape-wise... but I don't feel giddy with no basis while there.

I could go on but I've overstated my point already. I've been great places, I want and need to go more great places, and some places are greater than they have any clear cause to be and I'm blessed to get to return now and then.

But damn am I in category Two desire mode right now. Must. Go. Somewhere. New.

Maybe in September I could go to the Dakotas. Doubt it. Damn I have to wait to see things til next year.

My lease is up in February... maybe I'll move somewhere interesting then. Chael will be deployed until sometime between August 2010 and January 2011. Depending, that may be some time in Spain or Scotland for me... maybe get a little apt. back in Mannheim, visit Sandra and start hopping all over Eastern Europe this time instead of Western.

I gotta go somewhere.

Back to refreshing my German and working on my Spanish & Thai. But which Spanish to focus on? Latin or Castillian? And should I settle with only being able to read and understand Thai or should I fork out the cash to practice my speech now instead of waiting a few years when I can go there to get tutoring?

I can't believe I haven't learned some form of Spanish yet. A bit of each but no fluency yet. It's a darn easy language. Just sad.

I admit it, I'm bad at latin-based languages. Spent 4 years in French and can't speak any more than I went in with. Germanic languages -and even the Thai!- go faster by far for me. What the hell? Totally backwards.

I'm rambling.

Just another quiet night with me and my cat hanging out in the house.