Traveling and Adventures

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.  ~Mark Twain

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.  ~George Bernard Shaw

This past year was supposed to be my year for travel before I entered into serious study towards a degree in Human Rights or International Relations or something along those lines. Instead, I made some really stupid decisions, didn't really travel anywhere, and I actually forgot to SEND the application, although I did fill out everything for it! 

I'm in crisis mode right now, trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life: because whatever it is, it's gotta start this September or I can't justify keeping my job and living at home. I refuse to be a loafer for my life occupation... and I'm pretty sure my parents won't let me mooch off of them forever. Still. Not leaving the province at the end of August for between 1 and 4 years, if not forever, means that I have some time to sort through things. One thing I know I will be doing in the next year is taking that year to travel. What is my definition of travel? It's not the modern idea of vacation... if I wanted to simply rest and relax, I would say "Screw you" to the world and lock myself in my house, as I've been known to do periodically. 

When I travel, I go for adventure and more than that, I go for the culture. Top things that interest me in a place? Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology. Okay. I know that sounds weird: but the history of the culture, the people in that culture, and the ways that culture functions. To be invited to participate in that culture, even if only for a day or two, is possibly the greatest gift that could be given.

I'm hoping that I will be able to spend this next year focusing on travel and volunteering... 

End of April I'm supposed to be going on a week vacation to Veradero, Cuba with some friends. I'm hoping to be able to travel off the resort but I may give in and just do the normal vacation thing, drink and hang out on the resort. It will be warm there. 

The last week-ish in June, I will be in Washington state for a friends wedding and visiting another friend for a week. <3

Then.. once September comes, I really don't know what I'll do. Sometime in the upcoming year, I would like to go to Scotland and Ireland for a decent length trip... my plan was, at one point, to take three weeks and backpack the UK. I would also like to participate in one of Not For Sale's first level schools, against human trafficking. Since that is predominantly where I wish to focus my career on, gaining any training at all is a crucial benefit.

Next summer, I am supposed to be doing a roughly three week long Euro trip. We will start in France, and I believe the plan is to end in Italy, but we'll be visiting other western European countries en route.