Short story written at the request and prompt of Kat.
Danielle didn't tell anybody before she left, because after all, she was trying to disappear. And it's not very well a disappearance if everybody already knows, now, is it?
When the idea had first occurred to her, she'd wanted to take off now, now, now. But then she'd probably have to just come back after a month or two, because she hadn't planned; and returning from a mysterious disappearance after anything less than a year behind her seemed a bitter defeat, slinking back with her tail between her legs. No, this was going to be a triumph, and for that she had to plan. No, to scheme.
Soon the wait had become fun, because she was keeping this delicious secret, adding all the time to her strategy. First she decided, in order to get to that all-important one year mark, to get a job, so she did not find herself running out of funds. Of course, moving to another country just to start more monotonous work wasn't quite the idea, even if doing so when nobody knew you were leaving and nobody knew where you were did have a certain charm to it. But mostly it was a start, a warm-up, and it was insurance.
She'd taken almost a full year to work everything out. She wasn't sure how she felt about this. On the one hand, it took away much of the whimsy, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants spontaneity.
On the other hand, she'd kept the secret all that time, letting on to nobody, not to her brother, not to her best friend, that she would soon dissolve into thin air.
And now she was boarding the plane.
.
Four weeks ago she'd taken a little trip to the airport and bought a ticket with cash. At 10 o'clock that morning, her lease had been up, though nobody else knew it besides her landlord, as they'd all assumed she'd renewed. And thirty minutes ago, as she sat in the terminal waiting for the plane to come, munching on the McDonald's which she bought only when she was in an airport, but every single time that happened, she sent an email to everybody in her address book:
Hi everyone.
I'm safe. I'm just taking off for a while. Don't worry about me.
I'll see you when I see you!
--Danielle
It would satisfy nobody, but nonetheless they would not be panicky. She'd have rather not tell anybody she was leaving, but she also didn't want anybody to worry too much, so she had to strike some sort of compromise between the two.
And now, she was standing in line, waiting for her seat (section B, row 37) to be called over the loudspeaker.
Excitement welled up within her. It was happening! She had been planning this moment for nearly a year, and finally, finally it was here!
It took most of her willpower to keep herself from skipping to her seat when it was called.
She had a window seat, which she loved. She stowed her backpack (filled with everything she would need; she had a suitcase in checked luggage as well, but it held nothing essential, for she knew eventually she would be leaving it behind, somewhere or other) in the overhead compartment, and sat back in her seat, watching everybody else file in and get situated.
"I'm free," she whispered, and in that moment she truly felt it. Years of anxiety, of expectations, of monotony and domestication, felt as though they were just falling away from her, and she was shedding the weight of her stressful life and all that was left, as she lifted into the air, was herself, pure and unburdened.
The plane lifted, and her heart lifted, and the way she felt, she was not inside of a man-made metal contraption, able to fly through the application of science and engineering.
No, she had been so filled with joy that the buoyancy lifted her right into the air, and twirling and laughing in sheer exhilaration, she was now dancing her way across the sky.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Seoul Underground
You're in a small underground bar in Insadong, Seoul, South Korea. Throbbing music pulsates so forcefully that it replaces your heartbeat. Hooka smoke fills the air, lit bright blue by the floor lights. And you sip a mixed drink, savoring the taste and the buzz in this lush atmosphere. Lean back and chill with some friends-- it's hard to find a feeling like this one.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Baseball and the DMZ
This past weekend I visited the DMZ-- that is, the demilitarized zone, the two kilometers on either side of the border between North and South Korea. The videos they showed and the signs giving information were talking about how relations were getting better and better between North and South Korea... obviously they were all made before the past few months!!
I wasn't allowed to take pictures of any of the cool stuff, I guess because they're afraid of spies or something? Who knows. But I did get to see the border itself; you could see the South Korean flag flying on one side, and the North Korean flag on the other. (To tell exactly which flags they were you'd have to view it through those coin-operated binoculars, but I could definitely see each of the flagpoles with my naked eye.) Also, North Korea built these villages with very affluent-looking houses right on their side of the border. The idea is to make it seem like conditions in North Korea are good, but they're *very* obviously fake. We also toured these tunnels that the North Koreans dug between North and South Korea, in an attempt to invade Seoul directly. The North Koreans claim that they were mining coal, and even painted (yes, *painted*) the ceiling and walls of the tunnels black. However, it is clearly rock painted black, and not coal, so we are pretty confident it was actually an intended invasion tool.
I probably shouldn't do much more traveling this month, though, as the trip to Seoul and the DMZ pretty much wiped me out. I need to start saving some money!
Last night I ate dinner and watched baseball with Brett and the Korean teachers; it was very fun. The game was Korea versus Japan, and I imagine it must be quite a grudge match-- the Koreans *hate* the Japanese (considering the Japanese occupied them for decades in the early 20th century, can you really blame them?). I explained the rules of baseball to Brett-- did you know there's this big worldwide baseball tournament going on right now, World Cup-style? Because I sure didn't, although apparently America's participating too.
I tried to explain to Koreans how patriotic we get about baseball-- you know, the whole "As American as baseball and apple pie" thing. It was hard to express using very simple language; the closest I got was to say it was like kimchee for Koreans. This isn't quite true, but the Koreans were for some reason *very* impressed with this explanation. Mr. Gim was also impressed (or something) with my cheering for the game. He called me a "passionable" woman. (Okay.)
It was actually a rather boring game-- there was only one run the whole game, and it came right at the beginning. But KOREA WON!!! YAAY!!
So, Koreans and Americans (or people from any English-speaking country as far as I know) answer negative questions differently. Specifically, Koreans answer them logically, while we answer them illogically. So if you say "Don't you want to go to the movies?" and you did, then you would say "Yes," right? But Koreans say "No." Technically Koreans are right-- No, I don't not want to go to the movies. But it makes for a lot of misunderstandings-- if you think how often we ask negative questions, there is a lot of the time that a person is actually answering exactly the opposite of what it sounds like. Last night, this general source of confusion led to the other teachers believing that I have a secret husband. ("You are not married?" "No." *look of shock* "WHAT?!") I fear this may become a running joke.
There's another cultural difference, and this one I just discovered last night: Koreans make a habit of feeding their friends (particularly after they've taken a big gulp of alcohol). Like, Mr. Gim picked up a strawberry, and after I took a sip of beer, fed it to me. Luckily I'd been prepared for this a few minutes earlier when Brett fed Mrs. Song a strawberry. This is a completely friendly thing to them, with no implication of romantic interest or the like.
It's strange that something so intimate in one culture is so commonplace in another, isn't it?
I wasn't allowed to take pictures of any of the cool stuff, I guess because they're afraid of spies or something? Who knows. But I did get to see the border itself; you could see the South Korean flag flying on one side, and the North Korean flag on the other. (To tell exactly which flags they were you'd have to view it through those coin-operated binoculars, but I could definitely see each of the flagpoles with my naked eye.) Also, North Korea built these villages with very affluent-looking houses right on their side of the border. The idea is to make it seem like conditions in North Korea are good, but they're *very* obviously fake. We also toured these tunnels that the North Koreans dug between North and South Korea, in an attempt to invade Seoul directly. The North Koreans claim that they were mining coal, and even painted (yes, *painted*) the ceiling and walls of the tunnels black. However, it is clearly rock painted black, and not coal, so we are pretty confident it was actually an intended invasion tool.
I probably shouldn't do much more traveling this month, though, as the trip to Seoul and the DMZ pretty much wiped me out. I need to start saving some money!
Last night I ate dinner and watched baseball with Brett and the Korean teachers; it was very fun. The game was Korea versus Japan, and I imagine it must be quite a grudge match-- the Koreans *hate* the Japanese (considering the Japanese occupied them for decades in the early 20th century, can you really blame them?). I explained the rules of baseball to Brett-- did you know there's this big worldwide baseball tournament going on right now, World Cup-style? Because I sure didn't, although apparently America's participating too.
I tried to explain to Koreans how patriotic we get about baseball-- you know, the whole "As American as baseball and apple pie" thing. It was hard to express using very simple language; the closest I got was to say it was like kimchee for Koreans. This isn't quite true, but the Koreans were for some reason *very* impressed with this explanation. Mr. Gim was also impressed (or something) with my cheering for the game. He called me a "passionable" woman. (Okay.)
It was actually a rather boring game-- there was only one run the whole game, and it came right at the beginning. But KOREA WON!!! YAAY!!
So, Koreans and Americans (or people from any English-speaking country as far as I know) answer negative questions differently. Specifically, Koreans answer them logically, while we answer them illogically. So if you say "Don't you want to go to the movies?" and you did, then you would say "Yes," right? But Koreans say "No." Technically Koreans are right-- No, I don't not want to go to the movies. But it makes for a lot of misunderstandings-- if you think how often we ask negative questions, there is a lot of the time that a person is actually answering exactly the opposite of what it sounds like. Last night, this general source of confusion led to the other teachers believing that I have a secret husband. ("You are not married?" "No." *look of shock* "WHAT?!") I fear this may become a running joke.
There's another cultural difference, and this one I just discovered last night: Koreans make a habit of feeding their friends (particularly after they've taken a big gulp of alcohol). Like, Mr. Gim picked up a strawberry, and after I took a sip of beer, fed it to me. Luckily I'd been prepared for this a few minutes earlier when Brett fed Mrs. Song a strawberry. This is a completely friendly thing to them, with no implication of romantic interest or the like.
It's strange that something so intimate in one culture is so commonplace in another, isn't it?
Sunday, November 9, 2008
I know this is a topic that has been discussed ad nauseum in the traveller community, but I've been thinking about the traveller/tourist distinction lately, and thought that I may as well weigh in on the debate.
As many people on my friends lists are, inexplicably to me, not travel junkies, I'll start by explaining the issue. “Travellers” hate “tourists.” This has been the case for quite some time, actually, as evidenced by quotes from the great minds of bygone eras such as Paul Theroux:
“Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.”
or G. K. Chesterton:
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.”
It's a distinction that has been very much taken to heart by travellers. But why? Why is it so important to travellers to make this distinction, to try and make it clear that they are most assuredly not tourists?
For one thing, travel is important to travellers. I know this seems like a vacuously true statement, but it needs to be noted nonetheless. Travellers make travel one of the top priorities of their lives; it is a lifestyle, and everything they do relates to it in some way. Even when, like me, they're sitting in some normal American city working a 9-5, Monday-Friday job, they're doing it with one purpose in mind: funding future travel. Do I want to buy that bottle of wine? I could survive for 10 days in Cambodia with that money, so, no thanks. Do I want to go to the movies? That's 15 days in Senegal... I think I'll watch something for free on my computer.
When I'm saving money, greedily watching the number in my checking account tick upward, I am not thinking about buying an iPhone (I'm still using my parents' little phone from 2004), or about a down payment on a house (why would I possibly want something to tie me down to a specific geographical spot?!). I'll admit that I am thinking about paying off my student loans, but only because this is a necessity. What I am really thinking is that it will fund a trip. And when I look into airfare, possible places to visit, there's not even a twinge of guilt at the thought of the amount of money it will cost. I don't think, “Shouldn't I be using it on something more important?”, because there is nothing more important (except, of course, family and close friends). Travel is my priority. That's what the money's there for-- if I don't use it on travel, then what?
When something is that important to you, as to be your passion, your life, well, usually you don't like being equated with a dabbler, a hobbyist. Anyone can be a tourist, and most people from the traveller's home country probably are, at some point in their lives. Nearly everybody in developed countries travels at some point. They call it a vacation, and it's a brief, fun, relaxing diversion from their lives for a week or two.
If a traveller is disdainful of a tourist, it's important to remember that most tourists-- who are tourists for a couple of weeks a year, perhaps, and a local for the rest of it-- are probably equally so of travellers; or rather, they would be, if they ever stopped to think about such people. To them, travellers are just taking an extended vacation, for a year or two or three, almost certainly just trying to dodge real life. To them, travel is a vacation, not a lifestyle.
I think that some of the resistance to tourists is a resistance to the view of travel as diversion. If travellers approached travel the way most tourists do, then they would be drifters wasting their lives away on idleness. Instead, to them, it is the only way to live life to the fullest.
So do I think the tourist/traveller distinction exists? Absolutely. What I don't think is that there is any inherent value judgment attached to either of them-- neither is intrinsically superior or inferior to the other.
I don't think that a tourist necessarily should approach a trip the same way a traveller would. What is everyday life to a traveller is a special treat, and a chance to relax and get away from the pressures of their work for a tourist. And, in more cases than not, I'd wager, the reverse is true: what is everyday life to a tourist is a vacation to the traveller: one of those times when they return home to visit family or friends and take the opportunity of returning to their homeland to relax and catch their breath again.
Everybody treats what they regard to be their “real life” as different from their break. The difference between a tourist and a traveller is only what they consider real life, and what's the breather.
As many people on my friends lists are, inexplicably to me, not travel junkies, I'll start by explaining the issue. “Travellers” hate “tourists.” This has been the case for quite some time, actually, as evidenced by quotes from the great minds of bygone eras such as Paul Theroux:
“Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.”
or G. K. Chesterton:
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.”
It's a distinction that has been very much taken to heart by travellers. But why? Why is it so important to travellers to make this distinction, to try and make it clear that they are most assuredly not tourists?
For one thing, travel is important to travellers. I know this seems like a vacuously true statement, but it needs to be noted nonetheless. Travellers make travel one of the top priorities of their lives; it is a lifestyle, and everything they do relates to it in some way. Even when, like me, they're sitting in some normal American city working a 9-5, Monday-Friday job, they're doing it with one purpose in mind: funding future travel. Do I want to buy that bottle of wine? I could survive for 10 days in Cambodia with that money, so, no thanks. Do I want to go to the movies? That's 15 days in Senegal... I think I'll watch something for free on my computer.
When I'm saving money, greedily watching the number in my checking account tick upward, I am not thinking about buying an iPhone (I'm still using my parents' little phone from 2004), or about a down payment on a house (why would I possibly want something to tie me down to a specific geographical spot?!). I'll admit that I am thinking about paying off my student loans, but only because this is a necessity. What I am really thinking is that it will fund a trip. And when I look into airfare, possible places to visit, there's not even a twinge of guilt at the thought of the amount of money it will cost. I don't think, “Shouldn't I be using it on something more important?”, because there is nothing more important (except, of course, family and close friends). Travel is my priority. That's what the money's there for-- if I don't use it on travel, then what?
When something is that important to you, as to be your passion, your life, well, usually you don't like being equated with a dabbler, a hobbyist. Anyone can be a tourist, and most people from the traveller's home country probably are, at some point in their lives. Nearly everybody in developed countries travels at some point. They call it a vacation, and it's a brief, fun, relaxing diversion from their lives for a week or two.
If a traveller is disdainful of a tourist, it's important to remember that most tourists-- who are tourists for a couple of weeks a year, perhaps, and a local for the rest of it-- are probably equally so of travellers; or rather, they would be, if they ever stopped to think about such people. To them, travellers are just taking an extended vacation, for a year or two or three, almost certainly just trying to dodge real life. To them, travel is a vacation, not a lifestyle.
I think that some of the resistance to tourists is a resistance to the view of travel as diversion. If travellers approached travel the way most tourists do, then they would be drifters wasting their lives away on idleness. Instead, to them, it is the only way to live life to the fullest.
So do I think the tourist/traveller distinction exists? Absolutely. What I don't think is that there is any inherent value judgment attached to either of them-- neither is intrinsically superior or inferior to the other.
I don't think that a tourist necessarily should approach a trip the same way a traveller would. What is everyday life to a traveller is a special treat, and a chance to relax and get away from the pressures of their work for a tourist. And, in more cases than not, I'd wager, the reverse is true: what is everyday life to a tourist is a vacation to the traveller: one of those times when they return home to visit family or friends and take the opportunity of returning to their homeland to relax and catch their breath again.
Everybody treats what they regard to be their “real life” as different from their break. The difference between a tourist and a traveller is only what they consider real life, and what's the breather.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Decisions have been made...
...and even if they're just contingent decisions, it still feels good.
Here's the deal: If I haven't heard from Peace Corps by the middle of December, I am taking off.
Not in December-- in the middle of February/beginning of March. I should have about $5000 saved up by then. I'll get a free plane ticket to Israel and spend 10 days with my room and board paid for. And then... then I go where the world takes me.
I'll have a few possibilities lined up. Probably I'll arrange an English teaching job maybe 6 months in the future, probably in Asia, and travel overland in 6 months to wherever I have the job. I'll probably sign up for the WWOOF network and work on an organic farm in exchange for room and board. I'll carry a copy of my college diploma so that I can get slightly better jobs, even if I probably can't get a visa while I'm in country.
Now, this doesn't actually mean that I'll definitely be leaving the country in February/March. If the Peace Corps sends me an invite for April or May, then I'll stick around until my departure date and do Peace Corps as planned. So I can't tell anyone with complete confidence just when I'll be leaving. I won't be able to tell you until (a) Peace Corps sends me an invitation (or a denial of medical clearance), or (b) the deadline for a refund of my Birthright deposit passes so I'll be going on that trip.
So as I said: a contingent decision. But a decision nonetheless. I am ready to get out of here, and live the life I've wanted for so long.
Here's the deal: If I haven't heard from Peace Corps by the middle of December, I am taking off.
Not in December-- in the middle of February/beginning of March. I should have about $5000 saved up by then. I'll get a free plane ticket to Israel and spend 10 days with my room and board paid for. And then... then I go where the world takes me.
I'll have a few possibilities lined up. Probably I'll arrange an English teaching job maybe 6 months in the future, probably in Asia, and travel overland in 6 months to wherever I have the job. I'll probably sign up for the WWOOF network and work on an organic farm in exchange for room and board. I'll carry a copy of my college diploma so that I can get slightly better jobs, even if I probably can't get a visa while I'm in country.
Now, this doesn't actually mean that I'll definitely be leaving the country in February/March. If the Peace Corps sends me an invite for April or May, then I'll stick around until my departure date and do Peace Corps as planned. So I can't tell anyone with complete confidence just when I'll be leaving. I won't be able to tell you until (a) Peace Corps sends me an invitation (or a denial of medical clearance), or (b) the deadline for a refund of my Birthright deposit passes so I'll be going on that trip.
So as I said: a contingent decision. But a decision nonetheless. I am ready to get out of here, and live the life I've wanted for so long.
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