As I Travel, Some Thoughts on Travel

Well, I found the comma key but not the apostrophe one, so I wıll have to make do.

On a recent season of The Bachelorette (thıs ıs a no judgment web zone when ıt comes to TV watchıng habıts) a contestant, who was ın Turkey no less, says somethıng about how travel ıs such a good way to get to know someone. Lıke so much about The Bachelorette, thıs sentıment struck me as false. I would hope ıf you are on a realıty TV romance show, the person you meet could get down wıth an ABC sponsored vacatıon. If I were produce a realıty romance TV show, I would call ıt Tedıous and Mundane and gıve the hopeful romantıcs a budget and 20 mınutes ın a supermarket to shop for the week. That ıs a real way to get to know someone.

And generally, most people are lıkeable on vacatıon. I suppose people have dıfferent travel styles, but ıf you are bıkıng through Eastern Europe and you meet some other rıders along the way, chances are you can chıll together for a week or so. 

But stıll, havıng met some bıkers on a beach ın Bulgarıa (and lıkıng to bıke myself, though travelıng by bus) and then meetıng up wıth them agaın ın İstanbul, travel does seem to be ıf, not a perfect way to get know someone else, a good way to remember who I am. Lıke wıth few practıcal oblıgatıons or socıal sıgnıfıcers or any ıdea what to do ın İstanbul, thıs ıs who I am, meetıng new people, explorıng a new place. And ıt ıs good and bad, but all sort of famılıar and true.

Dateline: Sofia

Hey Team Internet,

So I’m in Bulgaria right now, visiting my BFF since middle school, exploring the city and drinking lots of fresh mineral water. This European interlude comes after a ten-day vacation in the Adirondacks, where I did a lot of hiking and eating of cheese.

There's a thing in the Adirondacks about doing all 46 peaks over 4000 feet. Last summer, I stayed at Johns Brook Lodge, a full service cabin 3.5 miles into the woods, to better approach the Saddleback and Basin peaks. There was this teenager who was also staying at the lodge and also doing Saddleback and Basin. Every time he reached the top, he would scream out the number of peaks he had done. So when he got to Saddleback, he yelled out  “37!" triumphantly only to get to Basin and do the same thing with the number 38. I did four High Peaks on this trip, and when I got to the top of each one, I yelled out my number ironically. I have a feeling this is the kind of joke which will get less ironic and more obnoxious over time. Other highlights of the trip included taking a nap on Hough and going trail running on my friend’s property with two unleashed dogs and then swimming in a pond with my running clothes on.

Coming back to New Rochelle, I had a brief bout of anxiety over all the travel (and I suppose glamour) my summer includes, but once I was on my way to Heathrow, I gave into the momentum of the plane and all of my summer plans. I slept the whole way on the second flight from London to Sofia, while the couple next to me was having a romantic meet cute. Now I’m a towel and about to go to a Roma neighborhood with my friend.

PS This computer doesn’t have a spell check, so no judgment.

Just A Thing I Was Thinking About After Signing My New, And Soon To Be Used, Passport

I remember going to the supermarket with my dad when I was a little kid, and watching him sign his credit card bill, and thinking his J… A… signature was a pretense. I was like 7, and had probably signed my name, I don’t know, four times in my whole life. No one could really be as lazy as my dad with a signature. 

And yet adult life gives one countless opportunities to sign things. And my signature is usually something like R… A… While signing my passport forty minutes ago, I tried to spell out the whole thing, though I got disenchanted somewhere around “au.”

Boring story aside, I just bought a ticket to Sofia, Bulgaria.