Wanderlust

Image: Google

I suppose the whole moving countries thing has spoiled me a bit in terms of acting on my urge to travel. I've always had a sorry case of wanderlust; if you've ever read The Magic Tree House series, you'll know why. The series was written by Mary Pope Osbourne for kids. It was about a brother and a sister - Jack and Annie - who live in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania and on one stormy afternoon they decide to wander in the woods behind their house for an adventure (as little kids do). When it starts to rain, they take shelter in a tree house they find in the woods. Turns out, the tree house is filled with books on every topic imaginable and they encounter the librarian/keeper of the books, the mysterious Morgan le Fay, who gives them a series of riddles they must solve to help her and complete various tasks. These things are accomplished by going into the books and travelling back in time to periods like the Middle Ages, the American Revolution, and the Titanic and also all over the world to the Amazon, to the North Pole, and to swim with dolphins.

So you can see where I got it from.



What eight year old kid who shared a name with a mysterious librarian, who loved books and history and dolphins, wouldn't love that series? I bring this up in the first place because as I grew older, that sense of wanderlust never ceased to exist. In 2005, I finally had a chance to act on it by participating in the People to People Student Ambassador program to England and France. For a fourteen year old, it was a bit of a rough trip (a statement to which my parents would most likely agree...) but years later I knew I wanted to keep travelling. Living four months in Cairo, Egypt brought me a chance to also visit Athens, Greece and also knock out two wonders of the Ancient world in one go (remnants of the lighthouse in Alexandria and the pyramids of Giza) plus some! Don't get me wrong, I was more than glad to come home from those four months, but when I got back to Gettysburg, I got restless. Anxious.

So here I am, over five months into living in a brand new country and as you can tell by the rest of my blog posts here, the insatiable urge to travel has not been quenched. If anything, the new trips I take only feed the wanderlust-demon, so to speak. But there's always a catch... since my second term has started, the chances to plan more trips like Ireland or Liverpool have significantly decreased. As a result, I often sit at my computer inside, or stare at a book, and get significantly antsy and anxious and often leaves me with a bad case of cabin fever.

Usually, the cure is to stare longingly at pictures on the internet, play with Google Maps and train times, or look up the cheapest flights anywhere in the world. Thanks Europe, for not making me pay $1000 to fly to Norway for a weekend (which Kristina and I are seriously considering - not the $1000 bit, but the Norway weekend bit)... All in all, I'm not satisfied unless I have a trip planned in the near future. And of course these urges have been acted upon in the form of day trips on the weekends, which is about all that can be managed at the moment. On January 19th, I took a walk to a nearby park, made friends with a tiny little dog, did a loop or two of the park to revel in the fresh air and trees and tiny creek, and on my walk back encountered a full double rainbow... It was magic!

The entire walk back home every person I passed was stopping to stare, or take pictures, or just smile. I know, I know, it sounds cheesy and like a movie scene but I'm not kidding you... I passed three BBC workers on their way to the BBC Scotland building stop, close up their umbrella, and stand alongside the Clyde looking at the rainbows. It was a pretty cool day, almost like my first full day in Ireland when Ramona and I saw a rainbow from the car.

The walk did alleviate some of the wanderlust and I felt significantly better and less caged than I had when I left. But by six days later, the wanderlust had come back in full force, so Chelsea, Kristina and I picked a tiny train stop along the shore called Largs. Turns out, Largs is a Victorian style sea-side town with lots of ice cream shops and a National Park nearby that we were supposed to hike around in. But instead, we chose to walk the beach... in the pouring rain and pelting sleet and freezing cold. Typical Scotland! All was well when we went into a shop for some fish and chips and nice hot tea for lunch before venturing out again. It truly was a day where all four seasons happened at once as not only did it rain and become extremely windy, but I also saw lightning, heard thunder, saw a rainbow, saw a snow covered mountain from afar, and had a bit of sunshine.

Largs turned out to be good fun, despite the fact that many of our friends asked why we were going there in the first place. I think it's good to get away from the typical tourist locations and enjoy a bit of senseless adventure from time to time.

That's why I'm sitting inside on a beautiful day (seriously, clear skies... how rare!) writing this blog post because I'm bummed I didn't have the foresight to consider a random train trip to the shore, a National Park/Forest, or something. But hey, there are some adventures a few weeks away that are planned out - Alex and Leah are coming to visit in three weeks on the nose, and shortly after they leave I'll be headed to York - but not York, PA of course - for a weekend for a Viking conference, and there are prospective plans for London, Oslo, and many more.

But until those big plans happen, I guess I'll have to feed the wanderlust with little day trips to keep cabin fever at bay. Cheers! (Until the next impromptu adventure...)