No Matter Where You Go...There You Are

These days it feels like I am in perpetual motion. Always moving forward to the next place, the next sight, the next city, the next train. In the past 24 hours I have been on five trains in four countries, attempting to get to somewhere to call home for a day or two. That next place is Interlaken, Switzerland, until it isn't.

It's an interesting thing to always be somewhere new or to be traveling from place to place. It's like I am constantly on the first day of school, meeting people on their vacation in the best possible mood at all times. Who isn't happy during vacation? It leads to a lot of quickly developed friendships and/or conversations, and, at "best," an add on Facebook.

That leads me to the one thing that I've started to miss while traveling: roots. When you're always moving, it is pretty difficult to cultivate lasting connections. Granted, I could easily change this for myself by sticking around somewhere for a little more than a day or two at a time, but there is so much to do and so little time! It's a choice I've made, and there is no reason I cannot go to some of my favorite places later and develop those roots.

But it is kind of interesting...when I look back to the places I liked the most (Wanaka, Melbourne, Hiroshima, Chiang Mai, London, Paris, Heidelberg, Barcelona) they were all (besides Hiroshima) marked by extended stints in one place. The only reason why I don't change my itinerary and simply stick it out at one or two locations for my remaining time is for one simple reason: I know if I did that the opposite would be true.

I would be ten days into my stay in Prague, enjoying a coffee and the mighty fine architecture they have but thinking "man, it sure would have been cool if I made it to Budapest." You always want what you don't have...isn't that true?

That said, in my current final version of my remaining itinerary, I think I get the  best of both worlds. A ton of places in there, but with multi-day stints in Interlaken, Siena (Italy), Zagreb (Croatia), Budapest (Hungary), Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Bruges/Brugge (Belgium). Sure, it would be cool to go to Greece or Turkey or Poland (or rather non former concentration camp parts of Poland), but this allows me the best of both worlds: elongated stays while also visiting a bunch of places that are awesome.

Because really, the fact that I stayed in those favorite places for multiple days isn't the reason why they are favorites. I stayed there multiple days because they were awesome and I didn't want to leave them. If these places coming up are crap, I'll leave, simple as that.

Roots be damned.

Music of the day: Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground - Self Titled Debut