Thursday, February 14, 2008
Oh, the Places You'll Go!
I got this little travel map thingie from Facebook. Looking at all the places I have been to makes me both proud (as I never thought I'd travel anywhere when I was growing up) and also makes me realize how much more I would like to see and do.
My beginnings as a traveler were not promising. When I was 7, we loaded up the ol' Cutlass Supreme and took off to attend a bar mitzvah in Toronto. There's nothing like a multi-day day road trip with Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Bubbe, Sister, and me smooshed in one car. My strongest memories of the journey include stopping so that my grandpa could pee on the side of the road, after which he explained that this was one of the benefits of being a boy, and eating at a pancake house and filling out a customer satisfaction survey.
A few years after that, I vividly recall telling a friend that I would not go on our school trip to Washington, DC when I was in 7th grade because it was too scary to go so far away from home with my asthma. (When the time came, I did go and found that I liked DC a lot.) Then during my second year of college, I had the opportunity to travel to Florence and Rome for 14 days for free as part of a leadership/scholar program, and I hesitated because it was over winter break and would cut into my time to see my family. Also, I was scared to go somewhere in which I didn't know the language. (Ah, I was so cute back then.) My parents immediately and firmly urged me to take advantage of such a fantastic opportunity, so I went. After that, the travel bug firmly took hold, and the rest is a story of business travel, frequent flier miles, a honeymoon, more frequent flier miles, more business travel, and some big splurges.
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my mother pushed me out on my own to travel quite early. at 13 i went to a youth convention in florida. i barely knew the people on the 2 buses that drove for 2 days straight. then when i was 16 she 'forced' me on a trip to london with my hs. what a horrid mother!
ReplyDeletei've tried to tamp down the wanderlust ever since, but can't wait to meet you in another two weeks!
love the travel bug! its a good, though expensive, one.
ReplyDeletewhen i was little, my dad traveled a LOT (he is a scientist and would go to other labs around the world for 1-3 months to work). i decided to go into a science based career because i thought that is how one got to travel for work... little did i know.
anyway, now i think my travel map would look a lot like yours, but it has nothing to do w/ work. and i ended up a surgeon(sort of science related)
That map is perfect. I often wondered about all the places you've visited. When you had to stay in DC another night because of inclement weather, many kids cried, but you were thrilled!
ReplyDeleteDo you think we were pushy when we urged you to go to Italy?!
No way! I didn't feel pressured to go to Italy at all. If anything, it removed any guilt I might've felt at going somewhere else and missing time at home. As for the snow delay in DC, I forgot all about that. How funny.
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