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On Travel
So, now that I've gone and trapped myself again, I think for the sake of my sanity I need to take a real vacation. I haven't ever had one of those. I think things will have settled down by the end of August, so my plan is to pick a city, spend a week there, do the tourist thing for a few days, and then just wander and see what I can find. Also, I aim to get some use out of my passport, since I've already called off my Canada plans (no music festivals this summer! Agh!).
I just can't decide where, exactly, I want to go. London is easy, and probably a good place to start, but I think if I spend some time reviewing my French I could survive almost as well in Paris. Those are my top two choices. But I'm also coming off of a very unhappy and unstable couple of months (and all I have between me and more of them is hope), so I'm not against throwing myself into a city I could be completely, hopelessly lost in, like Tokyo (though most tickets to Tokyo are almost double those to London and Paris, so I think Tokyo is a For Later plan. And probably For More Than a Week).
My goal, someday, is to be able to do this every year, though I know that's a long way off. This plan is already going to dent my savings, but dear goodness it is necessary right now, because I have to shake off this feeling of being trapped.
So, what do you guys think? Where should I go? I know there are a lot of places that haven't even crossed my mind yet, but should've. Barcelona? Moscow? Amsterdam? Hong Kong? Sydney? I'm leaving out lush, foresty real vacation-y places for now, because I want to explore, not... catch malaria and break both of my ankles. (I know myself. That would happen. I'll stick to probably getting hit by a double-decker bus or getting clobbered with baguettes or accidentally becoming a pop idol or something other or refrigerator.)
[Poll #1577942]
I just can't decide where, exactly, I want to go. London is easy, and probably a good place to start, but I think if I spend some time reviewing my French I could survive almost as well in Paris. Those are my top two choices. But I'm also coming off of a very unhappy and unstable couple of months (and all I have between me and more of them is hope), so I'm not against throwing myself into a city I could be completely, hopelessly lost in, like Tokyo (though most tickets to Tokyo are almost double those to London and Paris, so I think Tokyo is a For Later plan. And probably For More Than a Week).
My goal, someday, is to be able to do this every year, though I know that's a long way off. This plan is already going to dent my savings, but dear goodness it is necessary right now, because I have to shake off this feeling of being trapped.
So, what do you guys think? Where should I go? I know there are a lot of places that haven't even crossed my mind yet, but should've. Barcelona? Moscow? Amsterdam? Hong Kong? Sydney? I'm leaving out lush, foresty real vacation-y places for now, because I want to explore, not... catch malaria and break both of my ankles. (I know myself. That would happen. I'll stick to probably getting hit by a double-decker bus or getting clobbered with baguettes or accidentally becoming a pop idol or something other or refrigerator.)
[Poll #1577942]
no subject
I worry that if I expand my vacation to places outside of a specific city I will get distracted and never come back again. Like, if I went out to see castles and history and vineyards and TV show sets I'd just kind of forget about my return flight and next thing I'd know it'd be about three months later, I'd be hitchhiking around Holland or something, and I'd also have accidentally become a citizen of Luxembourg after a brief Las Vegas-style fling during the fifth week of my vacation. Whereas if I limit myself to the city limits I can do a lot of walking around and seeing things people don't ever remember to tell you to see.
I think I've ruled Tokyo out at this point, because it'd be too expensive, I'd be really overwhelmed, and you'd hate me. I'm not sure if I'll ever not be torn between London and Paris, though. I know I'd probably have an easy time in London, I'd enjoy the accents, and it'd be a good place to start since I'm an inexperienced tourist and I'll (most likely) be traveling alone. But there's no way I could be in England and not go to Stratford-upon-Avon, and that throws me into the whole infinite distraction problem, especially since Oxford is along the way. And Paris... the food would be better, I could help young hooligans throw Smart cars into the Seine, and I did manage to remember on my own that "Help!" is "Au secours!" so I'd probably be okay there, too (though the morning conversations I keep imagining with café owners are frustratingly brief and entirely about how "Il fait chaud" or "Je suis americaine,
mais ici je pretends que je suis canadienne.Puis-je avoir un croissant?" or my old standby "J'ai un couteau, j'ai un couteau, regardez mon bon manteau!" (the latter being particularly unsuited to airports). I should've known better than to devote my French skills to nonsense all through high school and college).And here I've just realized how stupid-close London and Paris are, because Marseilles is actually farther from Paris than London. It's a shame three days in each wouldn't be nearly enough.
I think it's Trip to the Library for Tour Guides time!