The Wanderings

Introduction

     The thumps produced from the assembly of jaws, dropping, shocked, to the floor, one by one…thud, thud, thud…echo still.  And there was I…standing proudly and alert before family and friends. I thrust my hand into my pocket, clasped a piece of paper and raised it triumphantly skyward.  It was a plane ticket.  After years upon years of repeatedly asserting my worldly intentions to the masses I finally acted. I finally ended all the trifled repetition. One sheet of parchment held firmly within my grasp represented the realization of my long held dream.  I was going, finally going, on my global tour of monumental proportions.

     Why all the doubt and looks of shock?  Well, my family and friends did have a point.  I may have cried wolf a few too many times.  My plan to embark on a global tour had been bounced around at family dinners or over pizza and beers with my buddies for years.  I repeated it over and over and over again.  I actually began to feel sorry for them as the looks on their faces came to resemble how one would look after banging ones heads repeatedly and endlessly upon the edge of a coffee table...a coffee table made from glass  But that scrap of paper meant that I was actually now going.  Prior to this, I had a very meager history of international travel.  Other than regular cross-border tax-evasion schemes to pick up cheap boxes of Frankenberry and tanks of cheap gasoline when I was a youngster, I was not much of a world traveler.  Sure we took a family trip or two to see Mickey and Minnie, however ventures outside of Canada were few and far between.  As a young adult, my passport was only used for one trip to Cancun with my high-school buds and one fantasy drunken trip to Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela with my sister.  Both of those trip were not very memorable occasions…tequila tends to have the occasional unintended side effects to ones memory.  Hence, the prospect to pack some duds in a bag and walk around foreign lands on the other side of the world for an undetermined amount of time would be a exceptional event in my young life. 

     My dream started back in university. Being a History major, I spent countless hours studying the cultural, social and military histories of divergent societies and nation-states.  My interests ranged from the histories of France, USA, Germany, parts of Africa, China, Japan, Scotland, England, the Middle East, Russia…you get the drift.  While the focus of my education centered on political and social trends, much of my interest was related to the corresponding wars that broke out as a result of those geopolitical pressures.  However, while the blood and guts maintained me, I was always fascinated with the underlying people and cultures from each region.  Often while I was submerged under mounds of books, my mind would wander and I would imagine what it would be like to live amongst the people I was reading about.  I would see myself trudging along in the dust following the great Emperor Napoleon and his Grande Armee into Russia… abounding with confidence and bravado.  I imagined standing upon a cobblestone sidewalk in 16th century London.  Looking out, horses and buggies would compete for space with pedestrians and street merchants.  The ubiquitous destitute vagabonds would scurry like rats back into the alleyways as I promenaded along.  I would imagine cheering on the gladiator as he emerged into the heaving Roman Coliseum only to bravely be eaten by his competitor, the king of the jungle.  It was from my chair in Periodicals 2 that I would daydream and wonder through the lands described in my mountain of books. However, it was in that very seat where I promised myself that once I was finished all that useless book-learning that I would reward myself with a global tour to see it all in person.  

     Looking out beyond the pile one important question remained…where should I go?  It was during one of my daydream sessions where I walked over to a library globe and gave it a mighty spin.  The globe whirled in a blur and first spin finally rested on the continent of Africa.  Africa?  I couldn’t go to Africa.  I was a historian and not an zoologist.  Thus, I politely declined and proceeded to give her another spin.  My second spin stopped on India.  However, knowing that there isn’t enough room for one more person to cram into that country, I continued on.  Also, I being a caker my constitution was not yet acclimatized to hot curries of any sort.  Next stop…Asia.  Nah, Asia was Greek to me.  And Greece?  Nah, I’m not into any of those back-door shenanigans.  Spin…spin…spin some more.  Despite being the epicenter of ancient civilized history, I couldn’t afford life insurance so when it landed on the Middle East, I blew it off and let her rip again.  Here was a good one… Australia.  Now, that would be cool, however it would also require me to spend another year of demoralizing work behind the old desk in order to earn enough money to go.  Next …South America?  Ummm…No.  Whenever I think of South America I visualize the guy with the donkey carrying coffee beans up and down hills.  I know it is silly and there is probably more to the continent that Juan Valdez and his ass however, I left the continent for another day.  After spending a significant amount of my study time sitting at my desk spinning my globe over and over again, I merely positioned the continent of Europe in front of me and with glee and excitement proudly stated “Excellent….that is where I will go…I will go to Europe”.