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Does travel change you?

December 14, 2014 6:53 AM , 2 Comments ,

[Author’s note:  This is the next in a series of writing challenges first proposed to me by Leslie Farnsworth.  Leslie has organized and expanded the challenge to include a larger group of excellent blog writers.  Once per month, one member of the group will propose a topic and we will all give our own unique take on the subject.  This latest installment was proposed by Joan Johnson.  You may want to look at the other bloggers listed below to see what they came up with:]

The first trip that I can remember was the trip up from Colombia. I have moved around the Americas since I was born.  First from Chile to Ecuador and then from Ecuador to Colombia.  I remember nothing from those trips.

My father is a geologist and he was constantly being assigned new jobs in foreign places.  My family followed from one project to another.  Finally my dad was assigned to the States and we moved to the promised land of Houston and have lived there for the last 37 years and counting.

I arrived in the US on my feet.  I was about 6 at the time and we we’re landing at Miami international on a 747 back in 1977.  Back then stewardesses didn’t give a damn what you did so I unbuckled, stood up, braced myself between two seats in the isle and landed in the US along with the plane on my feet.  It was the start of a new adventure and I didn’t want to waste a second of it.

To me the US was a magical land.  The birthplace of my father, the country that sent astronauts to the moon, and where Mickey Mouse was from.  I wanted to see and do it all.  Of course there was one slight hold up.  I didn’t speak the language .

That was my first substantive change.  I had to retrain my mind in English.  I was assigned to first grade but could barely speak a word.  One day a lovely old lady, who was a teaching assistant, took me to the back of the classroom and using the flash cards meant for pre-K kids taught me the alphabet in English and how to pronounce the letters.

Now I can barely recall what it’s like to think in Spanish anymore. I can do it of course but it now takes a conscious effort.

Of course you can say that this doesn’t really qualify as “travel”.  It’s not like a vacation.  But to my seven-year old mind it was a vacation.  It wasn’t till the first couple of years had passed that I accepted it as my new living condition.

If you want a real trip type of experience I would have to say a field trip just before my senior year in college would qualify as life changing.  We were assigned to a small resort town in Colorado and did some field exercises in the rocky mountains.  A very pleasant and bucolic trip with no real bad incidents.  But what it did do for me is to give me a taste of the sorts of things that geographers did every day when they went about their research.

Before that geography was a dry scholarly pursuit.  A very sterile and lifeless exercise.  No reason to get your hands dirty but here we were getting to do research in the rawest and purest form.  All that data we were used to getting in packets or looking up in books in the library had to come from someplace and here we learned how it went.

Geography to most people means drawing maps, or looking at globes or whatnot but really it branches out into so many fields like botany, biology, soil sciences, geology, anthropology, and sociology and of course how these interact and shape each other.

Learning how the land shapes the climate which shapes the plants and then the animals and finally man who of course goes back and shapes all these too.  That’s geography.

I think that’s when I decided that this would be more than just a degree to get just any job.  It was here that I found that not only did I have the capability of doing this type of work but that I could get passionate about.  That is  when I went from being just another undergrad looking for a piece of paper to get me a job after college to being someone who cared about the thing he was studying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in: thought, travel

Massages, the end of trips, and looking forward. Vacation 2014 Part 3 Friday and conclusions

December 13, 2014 6:11 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’m lying on a table.  The scents of jungle flowers, and citrus are heavy in the air.  Soothing music plays in the background.  I am being massaged. My travel buddy suggested it would be the perfect way to end the vacation and prepare for the trip back.

This is not the first time that I’ve gotten a massage but was certainly better than the last time.  Back in 2013 I got a massage at Mohonk Mountain lodge.  The massage itself was great but the problem was that I had never had a massage in my life and I was more than a little nervous.

This time it was different.  I knew what to expect and enjoyed a 90 minute long deep tissue massage. As I was being worked on I had time to reflect.  Not just on the past week but the past year and my life in general.

Life had been good this past year.  No denying that.  But I had many things left undone and many goals left incomplete.  Even if I had completed these goals, the pressures and strains of life had carved deep into me.

The point of this vacation had been to undo those strains and pressures.  To let some of those difficulties in life resolve themselves and just to let my mind and body relax and breathe.  In that it was successful.

I usually write these things up at the end of the trip or back home days after I get back.  This time I can’t.  I don’t have the time.  I will be in the midst of finishing the year and preparing for the next as December draws to a close.  But now I don’t mind.  I now have a better perspective on the way forward than the perspective I had a week ago.

2015 will eclipse 2014 in accomplishments and will be a breakout year for me in several ways.  I can’t say all the credit goes to this vacation but I have to give it its fair due.  This has really opened my eyes in several ways and let me see the way forward.

Till next we meet, Vacation.  I don’t know where it will be or when but I look forward to it.

 

Posted in: activities, vacations

ATV’s, zip lines, and coastal restaurants. Vacation 2014 part 3 – Thursday

December 12, 2014 8:16 AM , Leave a Comment ,

We had signed up for one last major activity during the trip.  The Montezuma adventure.  The pamphlets said something about ATV’s and zip lines but I didn’t pay too much attention.

For those who don’t know, an ATV is an all terrain vehicle.  Basically a 4 wheeled motorcycle.  As it turned out we would be (or rather I would be) driving to our location on this. The guide, Juan, showed us how to start it and shift it into gear and basically let us get to it.  My travel partner looked at it and recommended that I drive.  Even though we were both novices she felt safer letting me drive.  Why? I don’t know.

We set off down the road in motorcycle helmets and sunglasses looking like a pair of hipsters.  I would pop the clutch each time I shifted gears and we both bounced round on the back of that behemoth.  She was gripping my shoulders as tightly as possible till I suggested it would be better for her to wrap her arms round me to hang on.

We got to the zip lines.  This was on top of a hill and you got hooked into a harness and sped along the treetops at breakneck speed.  We were joined by some German couples and slowly descended down the hill.  Nice but not too exciting as my friend had done zip lines several times.

Then we headed to the Montezuma water fall.  Here’s where things got interesting.  The trail up to the waterfall was along a sometimes steep and twisty mountain road.  I nearly drove us off the edge of a ravine a couple of times.  My friend was clinging for dear life with her arms tightly laced round my waist and screaming in my ear “Will, Look out!!”  All I’m thinking at this point is that I don’t want to get her killed.

After the second time we nearly went off-road I was nearly ready to give up but she seemed to have faith in me and so we tried again.

Eventually by driving slower and more carefully we got there.  We had to hike to get to the falls. Up and down slippery rocks.  We got there.  Impressive but honestly too touristy.  Too many people hanging out, cooking lunch, selling cheap trinkets. Hippie hollow back in Austin has (or at least had) a similar vibe.

We left there and went to a nearby town for a spot of lunch.  Some wonderful fish dishes at a local restaurant/hotel.  We sat and talked with our guide Juan for hours.  After a brief walking tour of the town we went back to our resort.  The trail back was much smoother and my control improved considerably though it was still a white knuckle ride all the way.

Near town we had to contend with traffic.  Cars, motorcycles, other ATV’s, and pedestrians, that were all seemingly intent on getting in our way and getting killed.

Okay, it wasn’t all that bad and my travel buddy yelled encouragements throughout the trip back so that definitely helped a lot.  Not something that I would do every day but definitely something you should try once in your life.

We ended Thursday with work emails and concerns from back home.  Houston was calling in more ways than one.  I think every traveler experiences this feeling in one way or another.  For as wonderful as a vacation may be (and this was a wonderful trip), one begins to long for the familiar surroundings, experiences, and routines of home.

 

Posted in: activities, vacations

monkeys, bicycles, long runs, just getting to know someone. Vacation 2014 Part 3

December 11, 2014 6:14 AM , Leave a Comment ,

After Monday full day we tried for a half day trip to the Curu National preserve on Tuesday.  We got up extra early and met our guide.  His name was Pablo and apart from being a tour guide he was also a graduate student studying the local archaeology, a chef, and a conservationist.  Just an exceptionally talented young man.

We wound our way over hills and valleys towards the preserve.  Even in the of Winter, Costa Rica was exceptionally green and beautiful.  The Preserve was a park reserved for local endangered wildlife.  Pablo went through the entire tour and pointed out the various types of plants and fauna.  He didn’t seem to be reciting prepared notes.  He genuinely knew what all these things were and was genuinely interested in the topic.

We got to see three types of monkeys.  The almost black howler monkeys, the white-faced monkeys, and the spider monkeys.  It was an amazing almost safari like adventure.

After we returned from the trip we went running.  A bit of a mistake on my part as I am not a day time runner.  When it comes to running I am almost a vampire.  Direct sunlight saps my strength.  Running near noontime with the hot tropical sun on me didn’t feel great but with a lot of encouragement from my friend I made it.

We had a lazy afternoon.  She went and had a massage and I lounged and did some email work.  We then had dinner and then came the favorite part of my day.  Just hanging out and talking and working on the various things that needed to be done.

Wednesday we programmed as a “lazy” day.  We hung out in the morning and talked.  We had another run earlier in the morning and this felt much better for me. We talked through most of the run and I got to know a lot about her.

We then really got adventurous and went on bikes to the local town to find lunch.  We zipped over to a “soda” which is what they call the local diners and ordered a chicken lunch. Both of us were nervous about possible parasites in raw food so we just stuck to the chicken and left the rest.

The local town, St Teresa, is pretty much a surfer town.  Surfer kids in their 20s walking down the road shirtless and carrying surfboards, all sorts of hostels, cheap diners, and beach stores.  Everyone just focused on the tourism trade.

In the afternoon we worked on more of our emails and work items and personal goals.  The real world always seems to intrude doesn’t it?  We ended the afternoon with a swim in the pool as a fiery red sun set over the pacific ocean.

Just a perfect day.  Just goes to show that you don’t need to be doing “something” each and every day of your vacation.  You can sometimes just do “nothing” and have a good day too.

 

Posted in: activities, vacations

planes, surfing, horseback riding, and just relaxing. Vacation 2014 part 2

December 9, 2014 6:23 AM , Leave a Comment ,

So in the last episode my travel partner and I had planned a trip together.  We had picked out Costa Rica and were on the verge of traveling.  We reasoned that the airport would not be too crowded on a Saturday and that it wouldn’t be too much of a problem to travel and we didn’t need to arrive two hours early.

I got to the airport and found the opposite.  Huge crowds waiting for us and everyone in the check in line had their own special problem.  By the time I got to the front they had closed the booking for the flight.  Luckily my travel buddy talked to one of the agents, explained the situation and got him to reopen the line for us.

But our day was just beginning.  We got on the plane and she said “Do you smell oil?”  Indeed we all did.  The hydraulic system on the plane had failed.  Everyone on board had to be shuffled off and we had to hike to another plane.  This in turn was delayed for take off.

One little thing after another seemed to delay us more and more.  We finally set our feet on the ground in San Jose about three hours late and had missed our original flight.  On top of that we had to search for our luggage.  We caught the next leg of the trip that would take us to the Nicosia peninsula.  The plane was a small prop plane.  That was a wonderful experience.

We landed in a tiny airstrip on the coast seemingly wrenched out of the surrounding jungle and found the hotel had sent a car to wait for us. A bumpy ride to say the least.  My friend didn’t look too good.  We hadn’t eaten all day and the van ride was aggravating.  But she’s a trooper and kept it together.

We arrived at night and really couldn’t see much of the property.  We got a fairly large villa with two bedrooms.  But what was needed more than anything was food.  That helped out the situation a lot.

On Sunday we got a good look round the property and planned our week.  The place has quite a range of activities.  Two things we picked out for the week were surfing and horseback riding for Monday.

Surfing.

Anyone that knows me, knows I’m not the “cowabunga, dude” or tribal arm band tattoo wearing, bro type of guy.  But surfing seemed to be one of the main activities on the coast.  After some good-natured cajoling by my partner, I decided to go for it.

My instructor, Miguel, was extremely patient with me.  He explained all the techniques gave me a lot of pointers and kept on wading out into the surf with me over and over again as I tried to get on the board and would inevitably fall off.  I finally hit my knee on an underwater rock and I decided that was it for me.  For the record I did get up on the board once…before falling off again.

But the fun wasn’t over.  We were both going horseback riding in the afternoon.  It turned out that Miguel was the guide for this too.  My partner is an excellent rider and was frequently ahead of everyone.  I on the other hand hadn’t been on a horse in thirty years.  We wound our way up hills and down valleys inside a huge ranch.  We finally ended up on the beach and rode for home.  A pleasant little ride and the best part was that I didn’t fall off.

I shouldn’t say that. No.

The best part has been relaxing with my friend.  She is just so wonderful to be with.  We’ve talked for hours and hours.  We’ve laid out on the beach reading and watched the sun set over the Pacific together.

We both needed this trip for our own personal reasons.  Life can get so overwhelming and tiresome at times.  It really warps you in a way.  But vacations serve the purpose of letting all those little knots untangle themselves naturally and allow you to find your balance once again.

The trip had a rough start but hopefully the rest of the journey will be a pleasant life affirming experience.

 

Posted in: activities, thought, travel, vacations

Vacation trips, sorting life out and just decompressing. Vacation 2014 Part 1

December 7, 2014 6:33 AM , Leave a Comment ,

One of the things that I get out of vacations is the chance to step out of my daily routine and really explore what my life has been about this past year.

Life has been good this year.  I can’t deny that.  To say otherwise would be a grave disservice to those that don’t have it as good as me. But even when things are going good they can be daunting, challenging, and otherwise put you into a state where you’re stretched to the limit.

Such a thing was and is happening to me.  I have so many things going that some days I am left in state of paralysis jut trying to decide what, where, and when to do things.

This trip was mandatory.

Planning began months ago.  Maybe even as far back as New York.  I sort of knew I would need it even then.  The first step as always is figuring out where to go and what to do.  I began with the most improbable and impractical of destinations.

The Maldives islands.  Literally on the other side of the world.  Why there?  Cause it was there?  I don’t know.  I wanted something exotic.  Something no one else I knew could say they’d done.  A friend pointed out that this would entail 4 days of solid travel on my part.  Sort of killed that option right then and there.

I started on a long list of location in this hemisphere that I could enjoy closer to home.  Honestly nothing was sticking.  I haven’t been to these places and I do find them to be alluring but the plain fact of the matter is that it would be another vacation alone.  I could vacation anywhere in the world and still be alone and quite frankly I had already been there and done that.

So things sort of went into limbo till late August until a chance text conversation sparked things up again.

A friend of mine was looking for a travel partner to share in her vacation.  She was in need of her own vacation to sort things out.  She suggested we team up for a joint vacation.  I thought about it less than a second and agreed.  She was thrilled at the idea and we began making our plans.

Planning was….daunting.  We had about 2 or so months to plan, book, and prepare and we were both busy beyond belief.  We floated several dates, nothing was open, she was busy, then I was busy.  Nothing was getting done.

But seemingly at the end of our tether we found a resort (or rather she did) that we both agreed we liked.  The dates were open, the flights available, the booking agent was cooperative and with a little disbelief on both our parts we found that we had done it. We had booked our vacation.

We met up in early November and we couldn’t quite believe it.  I still don’t to a degree.

With less than a month I began putting together some necessities for the trip and clearing my schedule for things to come.  The last was the hardest part.  With the way that modern office life is, we can’t really afford to ignore work totally and we can’t totally unplug.  I had to scramble to get a cushion of time opened up for the trip.  I imagine she had to do the same.

Finally the day came and I found myself at the airport waiting in the ticket line.  That’s when thing took a turn for the worse…

 

Posted in: activities, vacations

the winter slowdowns

December 5, 2014 6:34 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been going through a slow period lately and I don’t like it at all.  It started back in November.

First I missed a day of running, then another, and another.  I would only average four or five days of exercise a week and then this week I’ve barely done 2 days.  I have to confess it has me a little worried.  But it’s not just the exercise portion of my life, though that is the most apparent, I’ve felt myself slowing down all over.

My conscience has been going over it every day and my mind has been trying to find a reason for it.  At first I reasoned it was the change in the weather.  We had a somewhat strong cold surge early in the month and that definitely didn’t help things.  Hard to motivate oneself to go out into the freezing cold at 4 in the morning.  But the weather’s moderated.

On top of everything the fitness app I had on my smartphone updated and erased 15 months of fitness records.  I was just flabbergasted.  I sent off a quite angry email to the support team for the app.  All I got back was an automated email reply.  All those records gone.  Still can’t believe it.

Then I looked at my goals page and realized I had achieved most of them.  So maybe that’s part of the problem.  I did my “epic” 16 mile run, I ran a timed race (I did fairly well if I do say so myself), I hit most of my fitness goals for the year.  Now that I have most of that taken care of maybe I’ve got nothing to shoot for.

Of course maybe it’s the opposite and I have too much on my plate.  I’ve got a trip coming up and I’m running around trying to get everything prepared for the trip, and at home, and at work while I’m away.  Maybe I’m spread too thin.

It could also just be that with the end of the year at hand and with things coming to an end that my mind is slowing down as well.  Maybe come January things will go back to normal. I don’t have any studies or proof for this but I do see it a lot in the attitudes of people who I’ve known that they seem to start coasting and doing the minimal amount towards the end of the year.

I don’t know.  I just want to get back to feeling normal.

Posted in: activities, attitude, habits, life in general

the beard

December 3, 2014 6:19 AM , Leave a Comment ,

About June of 2002 it was.  The first company I had worked at just out of college had just shut down.  My old boss had died of a brain tumor and I spent the last month closing down the office and getting ready to start my consultancy.

So I turned in my office keys and walked out of the building for the last time on a Friday afternoon.  Oddly enough it was 8 years to the day that I had begun work.  Don’t ask.  These weird coincidences happen to me all the time.

Anyways, next Monday I woke up without a thing to do or place to be.  Going through my morning routine I reached for the razor and then paused looking at my scruffy ‘weekend’ face in the mirror.  I realized it had been awhile since I had no real responsibilities or a schedule to keep.  I decided that I wanted to take advantage of that.  I was 31 and this might be the last real chance to be a bum.  So that’s what I did for the next 2 months, and the first step in that process was to do something (or rather not do something) that I had wanted to do for a long time.  Grow a beard.

 a popular web comic’s take on beards

Growing a beard is a difficult proposition in the modern office environment.  Specially if you are in a sales or other job that requires you to meet with people.  The growth stage is stubbly, awkward, and itchy.  Not things that you want clients to see.  But really there’s no other way to do it.  You have to go through the weeks of ugly, stilted, and ugly fuzz until one day it starts looking like a beard.

The first beard grew and grew over the course of the next two months and finally reached a Fidel Castro-esque stature.  I could actually wring it out after a shower.  A female acquaintance I had not seen for a while became mesmerized by it and wanted to touch it to see if it was real or not.

No.  No photos exist of this.  They were all “lost”.

Alas after a few months I decided to get rid of it.  My family hated it and since I was in the midst of my consultancy I decided I needed to look more professional for clients.

So I had a barber trim it off and leave a mustache.  I’ve always had a very boyish face and I wanted something to age my appearance to what I felt would be an appropriate look for my age.

For the next few years I carried on with my mustache till I turned 40 and decided I was now ready to start a new phase in my life and why not with a beard again?  But not a crazy all out beard as before but a trimmed and well-managed beard.  A somber thoughtful beard for a thoughtful somber person.

Officially my beard is a Van Dyke or a circle beard.  This is a short clipped beard connecting the mustache to the chin that does not connect to the sideburns.  Not as conceited as the goatee, not as scary as the full beard.  A beard with the benefits of a beard and not as many of the drawbacks.

I realize that a beard may be a turn off to some women and I’ve had some suggestions that I remove even this modest amount of facial hair for a clean look.  If the right person requested it I would probably shave it.  Perhaps one day I will anyways.  But at this moment I think it projects the image that I want the world to see.

More importantly, this is who I feel I am right now and that carries an importance in itself.  Don’t be the person that other people want you to be so you’ll fit their view of what you should look like in their world.  Be the person you want to be in your world.  When you are who you want to be then people will respect you for it and accept you, beard (or no beard) included.

 

Posted in: fashion, grooming

vacation work

December 1, 2014 7:04 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Even vacations can be work.  Well not really but yeah.

My daily routine and my life doesn’t end just because I’m going on vacation.  If anything, my life gets concentrated.  Those little breathers that we all have built into our daily routine disappear and I find out just how much I can really get done when the pressure is on.

I have to dig out the suitcase and take out of it all those things I “temporarily” stored in there and move them somewhere else.  Think about and find whatever clothes I will take on the trip and acquire those things that I don’t have and will need and if the place you’re going to is out of season, good luck finding beach wear in the Winter.

Some things I will buy for the trip and some things that I normally use everyday will go with me.  But which ones?

The personal kit.  That tube of toothpaste is dried out, get a new one, that razor is rusty, these pepto bismol pills are out of date, those band aids are all stuck together. Most hotels carry things like soap and shampoo but you know the one time you don’t pack them…

Cram it all into the suitcase.  Put the socks into the shoes.  Packing cubes are great but no matter what you only have so much space.  Play Tetris and try to change cubes around to get more things in.

Electronics.  How much to take and how much is overkill?

Besides all of that, like I said my life doesn’t stop because I’m going on a trip.  I have work to juggle round.  Clients that need to know you won’t be there and arrangements to make at the office.  At home I have to tag people to come check on things at home while I’m away.  I have to make sure my bills are paid and up to date till at least a week after I return so I don’t get caught short on time.

I still have to eat of course so grocery shopping.  Some of the items I will take on the trip, I need to use everyday.  I can’t pack them yet so I have to make sure I have space for it in the suitcase and not forget to pack it at the last-minute and hope that it doesn’t disrupt all the packing.

The seconds tick away as the departure date draws near.  Nerve wracking in a way.  Once the day arrives whatever gets done, gets done.  Everything else you will have to do without.

Then of course once your vacation is under way the clock starts running again and you’re counting the minutes till you have to go back.

Posted in: life in general, plans, vacations, work

Holidays and alternatives

November 29, 2014 6:58 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Just to get it out-of-the-way, I’m not a fan of the holidays.  I’m not any sort of misanthrope or anything but honestly I’m not someone who enjoys hours and hours of planned activities and pageantry and ritual.  Small little intimate gatherings planned on the fly and with little to no structure.  That’s what I like.

So you can imagine what my reaction would be to family holiday parties and dinners.  Not really keen on them.  Even less when I have to host and there’s no early escape for me.  My family has wonderful people and it’s got nothing to do with them.  Rather as an introvert I can only take so much before I feel trapped.

But as bad as that gets, the alternative of having to spend holidays alone is even worse.  I’m not talking about the Memorial days or July 4ths or Presidents days.  No one really cares what you do or don’t do on those days.  The big ones, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.  Those are the ones that get to you.

I’ve spent a few of those alone over the years.  Sometimes it was bad scheduling.  The other people in the family had other plans or were otherwise engaged.  Sometimes it was a last-minute snafu and I couldn’t be there.  Those things can’t be helped.  Of course sometimes it was bad planning on my part.

One New Year’s in particular I decided I should pass the holiday alone on vacation.  I went to New Orleans for a week.  The week itself was fine.  The crescent city loses nothing in Winter and I argue that the cooler weather actually makes the experience better.  New Year’s eve however was anything but a good experience.

All day long I got the sense of people planning and getting ready for something special.  I know that I came here alone and that I hadn’t planned to be with other people but before it didn’t matter.  Now all of a sudden it did seem to matter.  The restaurants were booked solid and they would not take single diners for any reason.  I don’t remember where I ended up eating.  As the evening wore on and I was in my hotel room I suddenly got this sense of claustrophobia and extreme solitude.  I needed to be around people.

So I headed over to the French Quarter and wandered round waiting for the stroke of midnight.  I  ambled into Jackson square where the fortune tellers come out at night and do readings.  Just out of curiosity I consulted one and asked her about my future.  She was a palmist and went through her routine of ogling and tracing out the creases in my hand.  Finally she pronounced that I would die around 45 years of age from a heart attack and I would be alone.  Not exactly what I’d been expecting.

I wandered the crowded streets full of semi drunken revelers, tourists, sailors, pick pockets, thugs, and policemen.  Sometimes the throng was so densely packed that I could barely get through but in spite of that I felt alone.  Midnight came and went.  People all around me were doing the midnight kiss or hugging each other and wishing each other a happy new year.  I wandered off into the darkness away from the celebrations that would go into the dawn and silently walked back to my hotel pondering the hard-won wisdom that I had just acquired.

I went home the next day and asked my family all about their New Years and listened intently to each and every detail.  I don’t say that I look forward to holiday parties and planned activities for holidays but it’s definitely preferable to the alternative.

 

Posted in: holidays, life in general