What a long, strange trip it's been...

[pat]

brian1789 and I have had, over time, an interesting relationship, with its own unique (not always healthy) dynamics. One of the things that we do well -- very well, actually --is travel together.

Part of this is because traveling requires each of us to pay attention to the other. Without outside commitments and other people, we have to cover each other's back. This is true even though much of his traveling has been done for work related purposes: we still spend a great deal of time with each other. (In many ways, the latest trip to Spain was the least satisfactory of the international trips we've taken together.)

He indulges my passion for spending insane amounts of time in art museums and cathedrals, I overlook his tendency to over-schedule and love of driving long distances at as high a speed as possible. (I think he topped 240 km/h driving through stretches of the Autobahn north of Munich.) We've weathered pickpockets, bad climate, stolen passports, Parisian traffic, a homicidal Kiwi sheep-truck driver, and being stranded in St. Petersburg airport under the watchful glare of Russian police carrying machine guns.

We share a traveling philosophy, one of the biggest secrets to traveling well together. (Namely: humility gets you a long way in a foreign country; never pass up a chance to learn something; and, wherever possible, take the road less traveled.) We have developed bywords upon which hang longer stories: "four-hundred-dollar lacquer bowls" and "chinchilla races" and "Bavaria."

We have attended opening night at the Sydney Opera House; watched the midnight sun glinting through the windows of the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg, looking on as a normally staid and reserved Russian physicist danced on the tables; listened to the sounds of angels in Magdeburg Cathedral; pounded on the door of "Dornrosenschlosse" after midnight in a rainstorm, half expecting Count Dracula to answer the door; been moved beyond words by Anne Frank's Secret Annexe and the rusting hulks of beached troop transports on Omaha Beach. We have slept in a French chateau and a German castle, and in small inns and bed and breakfasts from Canberra and Aukland to Bruges and Amsterdam. We even have "our" hotel in Paris (the Hotel de Nice, above a biker bar near the Place de Bastille).

The kids are getting older, and leaving them alone while I go away is getting harder. The disruption to their routine is rough on them, especially on my middle son. And my mom is getting old enough that she's not really able to take care of them for me. So, increasingly, it will not be possible for me to go away with him. This makes me very sad.

Because I would not have traded a moment of our adventures together (well, except maybe a half hour in St. Petersburg airport) and there is no one I would rather travel with.

Happy Valentine's Day, my fellow traveler.

Comments

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

awwww...what a sweet expression of your love for him, and way to encapsulate some of your favorite memories. Personally, I'd like to hear about the chinchilla races.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's the problem -- we *can't* tell you about the chinchilla races. In 1991, we were driving from Sydney to Parks, NSW, when out in the middle of nowhere we saw a sign saying "Chinchilla Races, 6 km" pointing down a dirt road. We decided we were just too pressed for time to stop, and have regretted it ever since. "Chinchilla races" is shorthand for things that are quirky and unexpected and is a reminder that if you simply go from point A to B without looking at things along the way you lose out on a lot. And who knows, the chinchilla races may have been completely uninteresting, but we'll never know now.

"Bavaria" stands for "yes, it is possible to try and cram too much into one day." "Four-hundred-dollar red lacquer bowls" are small things which have much larger consequences. In the case of the particular bowl in question, it was a nice bowl costing oh, about 200 rubles (about $7.00), which resulted in us not making the flight to Paris. (Well, that and the utter insanity of Air France's Russian operations -- they would give anyone who showed up a boarding pass if they had a ticket, whether the ticket was for that day or a week from tomorrow. We arrived in plenty of time, and had reconfirmed out flights two days prior, only to discover that they had given away our seats. Since I was on a frequent flier ticket, they would not credit my ticket for one on the next day's flight, and charged us $400 to get a new ticket from St. Petersburg to Paris.)

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I had an entirely different image of the $400 red lacquer bowls. Primarily as something you two would never, ever consider buying. Like, my image was the two of you commenting on how dumb other tourists must be to purchase them.

[vokzal.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was wondering what "Barvaria" was!

And yes, very nice post. Having a travel partner is damn lucky.