Jan Talkmeme - whooooaaa if you want toooo rooooam around the wooooorld...

[tielan]

jenab: If you had unlimited funds where would you travel in the world? What have been some of the most memorable places you have visited?

I would take one of those 'three months on a cruise ship traveling around the world', and I would hire a cabin or a suite, and then pay for people to come travelling with me for various legs of the trip, because travelling is always more fun when you have other people to share it with.

Or I would do a road trip across the US - again, doing 'legs' of the journey with various people as their time and budget allowed.

Or I would travel across Europe-Asia - from the UK all the way over to Russia, and then down through Asia and back home.

Africa. I want to see Africa, but it feels like something you should do with people, not just by yourself.

Basically, my big issue in travelling is that 75% of the time I have nobody to travel with, so if I had unlimited funds, I'd pay for other people to come travelling with me (they put in, say, $1000, and I'd pay the rest). And I'd go everywhere, man!

Memorable places? Hm...

2015 - the Vietnam War Museum: Sickening, shocking, awful stories, but, I think, a very necessary insight into who we can become as people, about the nature of humanity. Because the men who perpetrated such horrors are the fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers who were loving family men to those who knew them, but had no compunction about slaughter and brutality that was far, far beyond the line of 'following orders'. It poses the question: who do we become when our leashes are taken off? And the answer is an unpleasant one.

2013 - Estes Park, CO: sjhw_tolerance took me on her Labor Day Weekend trip to Estes Park in Colorado, where she goes walking with her cousin and niece, and it was spectacular - beautiful landscapes, some lovely walks, and I'm definitely looking forward to going back in 2016 with the Sam/Jack Horsewomen from SG1 fandom! Just somewhere to go and enjoy the beauty of America.

2011 - Europe: I know, there's a lot of Europe. But I remember going into one of the tourist cathedrals/churches, with it's dramatic statuary and icons, with it's gothic spires and stained glass glory, and the decorated relics that sat grisly on the sides, and feeling...sad. All this grandeur for the glory of God, and yet: "Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me...Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; Plead the case of the widow." Isaiah 1:14-17 (I skipped 15-16, they're pretty much reiterations of v14). They were beautiful churches, but empty of the kind of worship that God desires.

2008 - China: There's something about visiting a country where your ancestry goes back thousands of years; where much of the architecture is massive and old and unelaborate and the history, frankly, doesn't give a shit. You are a blip on the face of their three thousand years of civilisation - you from your teeny little colony of 220 years that's only been a country for just over 100 years, and who stomped all over a forty-thousand year old culture to claim that you'd been 'birthed'. WE DISDAIN YOU DISDAINFULLY.

2005 - Canberra: okay, so this is memorable mostly for the change in experience - from Sydney to Canberra is a big change. I was there for work, so it wasn't exactly a holiday, but it was still travel. And Canberra - as a capital - isn't DC. It's pretty much like a big small town. When I went, everyone clocked off at 4:30 - at 5pm, my boss came around to my desk and told me to go home; coming from Sydney work culture which finishes at 6pm, if not later, this was a shock. The 'peakhour traffic' was actually 'peakfiveminutes traffic'. And the nightlife was pretty much dead. I'd lived in small towns before, but living in a small town that was a capital city like this? Very different.

2000 - Arizona and Disneyland: The very first time I travelled overseas by myself, and the first time I went to America. Before 9/11 so it was a very different experience in flying and travelling - much more open, much more easygoing. I went to Arizona, Disneyland, and New York City and met internet people for the second time (the first was a Terry Pratchett Discworld group back in 1998). Everything was new and bizarre and exciting, and the one thing that I most regret was not having someone to drag around and share it all with - particularly in New York City.

I'm still friends and friendly with at least one of the people I met in 2000: we met up in Atlanta last year, while I was at Dragon*Con. It's been a long time. :)

Sorry for taking a break from this. One of the questions required graphics and I never remember until I'm in no position to actually create graphics for it.

I'll be back in, posting again every couple of days. I promise...

Comments

[everbright]

Oh man, sign me up for your World tour if you win the lottery. Everything you want to do sounds amazing.