learning to linger

“There are three things you need to travel: money, time, and health.  You will rarely have all three at the same time, so you have to go when there are at least two.” –Mark Starchman (friend)

For the longest time I wanted to backpack Europe.   There were various reasons it was not checked off as an achieved goal.  I complained about money, time, lack of friends to go with me.   Yet something miraculous happened.  All three items would simultaneously be present in my life.  The summer I was getting my doctorate I was  25 years old, had time before I started my new job, and had extra loan money to burn.    I taught myself how to travel.

Growing up my family’s vacations used the mini-van as our sole mode of transportation.  Our destination generally was my grandparents’ homes in Pennsylvania and at that time two miraculous trips to the Philippines to visit  more family.  Yet I was going to do something adventurous and teach myself how to travel internationally.  I purchased at least five to ten guidebooks for Europe, including everything from Europe for Dummies to Rick Steve’s Off the Beaten Path series.  I studied the books like I did  books on psychopathlology or Clinical interviewing, reading them intently, writing in the margins, and highlighting important points.

Originally I told all my friends, “I’m going to Europe for three months, who wants to come?”  Many people initially signed on, but few followed through.  In the end, two friends would join me at two different points on my trip.  Crystal, a friend from Los Angeles, agreed to meet up with me in Nice France.  We met up at coffee shops weekly to outline our route, which headed to  Monacao, Florence, Venice, and Rome in two weeks.  While I was with her we could splurge and stay in low end hotels, which complimented my hostel stays that encapsulated the rest of the stay.   We followed a travelers guide for single women, which encouraged us to wear rings on our engagement fingers to steer away unwanted advances.
Shoba, a colleague from grad school, would meet up with me in Cork Ireland and stay in a hostel, as we attended a two week Adlerian psychology conference.

I knew to plan my trip around these travelling companions, with two months to spare to my itinerary 15 countries were squeezed into this allotted time.  Little did I know how little would I get to squeeze into each country following the outline and pace of group travel tours.    I began to realize when I moved so fast, I wasn’t allowed to linger in cafes or with new international people I befriended in hostels.  The experiences I had were richer than any guidebook could place in it’s sidebars.  The learning curve taught me the next summer to slow down and leave some flexibility for my one month European trip, again solo.

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.- John Steinbeck