MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and
chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.
24 July 2015
Friday Question NOT from the Book of Questions So nice to be back! So, here it is: Where do you dream of visiting?
Here's a few places I often think I'd really like to visit: Vietnam, Thailand, Norway, Scotland, Tanzania, Morocco, everywhere in Italy I haven't been, and Iceland.
I'd like to go back to Australia, which I left 50 years ago when I was a child. I'd also love to go to India, particularly the north. Iceland looks amazing too, and it's not all that far from the UK.
Tough question. I've not been too many places in my life, and have only ventured out of the US twice.
My daughter honeymooned in Ireland, and her pictures from there look amazing. Japan fascinates me. My half-brother visits Bali regularly and loves it.
So...um...Anywhere but Indiana?
Pretty much anywhere that's not on the east or west coast of the United States. I finally got my first passport at the age of 49 last year but have yet to figure out what to do with it. You can't really go to Europe for just a week and I've never actually taken a two week vacation in my life. Theoretically I could take that much time off at a time but I'd be so flummoxed about the logistics of such a thing that I'm not sure that I ever will.
Octo, consider a trip with Intrepid. They are great and socially alert, their groups are small, and they travel like real people not spoiled tourists, it's a great way to break the ice of heading abroad.
Octothorpe, Toronto is about a 5 hour drive from pgh (a toss up as to how long you'll be at the border).
I want to see the Yeats sesquicentennial exhibits in western Ireland and the Great War exhibits/sites in Italy, France, Belgium and UK that I didn't get a chance to see last fall. I have to go to LA in August for a woman-only "we love favorite elderly relative" lunch ( I've tried to make it clear to the cousins organizing that they MUST include her granddaughter-in-law, niece and great-nieces or there will be hurt feelings). My mother is included in this and it did not go well when I had to be around her at the shareholders' meeting. The biological kids of the woman who truly nurtured me told me that the unveiling of her grave marker(Jews do this at least a year later)may be in September in AZ and I want to be there for that.
Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as so negative. My wife and I have been talking about an Italy trip for at least a decade but have never managed it. It's not the money, we're fine on that, it's just the time and logistics and having to work through the negotiations as a couple of making all the decisions and such.
My wife actually went to Zurich twice last year for work which was the first time she'd been to Europe since she was two years old. She was born in Naples but has never been back.
I also need to work on my emotional well being when traveling. I'm usually a pretty stable person but somehow any setback when I'm not at home sends me right over the edge. I managed to step on my only pair of glasses when I was on a business trip to Silicon Valley a few years ago and had a totally sobbing meltdown for hours. Somehow the anxiety of travel leaves me with zero emotional buffer to deal with any contingencies. I din't know if it's the jet-lag or what but I always feel like I'm on the edge when I'm not at home.
Well, travel has its frustrations, its stresses. There is jet lag. Airports are seldom fun to negotiate. Travel also shocks the system. You get accustomed to a routine. You get accustomed to situations where everyone understands you when you open your mouth. And then you throw yourself into a situation where that's not the case.
If you can get through all that, though, the rewards are simply amazing.
As for me, I'd love to visit:
The Republic of Georgia
Indonesia
Papua New Guinea
Sardinia
that primeval forest in eastern Poland
Berlin
Gothenburg -- to research my ancestors
a rain forest
the Arctic
Cuba. I've always wanted to visit this place. Also, Ireland, and especially England, to look up the places my ancestors came from. My great, great grandfather wrote a book called "Darlington Half Holiday Guide" and I'd love to see the places he wrote about.