Travel time!

The reasons are:

(1) I'm having recurring semi-lucid dreams in which I'm showing someone around my office and saying things like, "This is Thorn. She's a moronic, braying harridan. This is Little Thorn. His main function appears to involve licking Thorn's colon." And I wake up, and for a moment I'm really afraid I've actually said these things, and I know if I don't get out of town that it's only a matter of time until I do; (2) my birthday is coming up and don't particularly want to spend it in DC; (3) it's suddenly gotten cold and dreary and rotten here; and (4) mostly (1), really.

The finalists and their justifications are:

(1) Japan! Because it has a potentially really fascinating culture about which I know next to nothing; because I've always found Japanese men strangely compelling (and no, I'm not looking, but one can't help seeing, and, hey, it's my birthday); and because I've been enjoying some Japanese fiction lately and, oddly enough, don't seem to have learned my lesson after going down that line of reasoning with Indian novels.

(2) Sri Lanka! Because we saw a cool No Reservations rerun that visited there; because I'm hugely interested both in tea and in the aftereffects of European colonialism; and because I'm partial to Buddhist countries.

(3) Turkey! Because it contains a point of latitude and longitude equal in number to the birthday that's coming up; because my cat has been there but I haven't (long story); and because if I want to prove to K that I can too travel to a Muslim-majority country without incident, it's probably my best shot.

(4) Portugal! Because the entire country celebrates a holiday on my birthday that involves roasted chestnuts and indigenous liquor; because it's a part of my beloved Europe to which I've never been; and because we really liked a previous trip to Andalusia and would essentially want more of it without retracing where we've already visited.

(5) Costa Rica! Because they have interesting-looking vegetarian eco-lodges; because they offer activities like horseback riding through rain forests and out to volcanoes; and because it's really cheap to get to and play tourist in.

How it's panning out so far: It's really the wrong season to visit Japan, and, with the time available, we'd probably only get to do Tokyo, and I'd prefer to do it when we could also go to Mt. Fuji and make some countryside stops. Sri Lanka could be a difficult trip to set up in the limited time we have, and I sort of accidentally caused a diplomatic rift with it the other week at work -- no hyperbole. They don't know it was me, but, still -- I just don't really feel welcome there at the moment. When it comes to Turkey, I don't want to prove K right, and, if I ask myself honestly how it'd go, I don't like my odds. With Portugal, I was deeply disappointed to learn that their November chocolate festival has been moved to February, in an obvious Valentine's Day commercial sellout (me, reading the Portugal November events website last night: "Honey? They have a big festival: chestnuts! Oo, and exotic local booze. Some kind of horse show. And choco-- Honey? We're going to Portugal.") As to Costa Rica: I'll eventually get past it, I'm sure, but I'm still kind of iffy about the types of resorts in which Americans are rounded up, whisked in, and then herded through a series of prepackaged activities. And this may be unfair, but I fear the kind of situation in which when one does wander outside the grounds, one is beset by a hoard of bedraggled urchins who have learned to feed off tourists. Then, too, I'd just feel more comfortable if we were traveling there with a Spanish-speaker. I mean, we wouldn't have the language in any of the other places, either, but it just strikes me as a bigger deal in Costa Rica.

We'll probably end up going to Portugal. I'll still consider other suggested destinations (must be warm enough for us to walk around comfortably in November and not be somewhere I've been), but please: act fast.