Esquiver takes Manhattan
We are officially so boring. Perhaps it's fitting that this is the big middle-aged birthday.
The guidebooks for Costa Rica looked really nice. So did the ones for Belize. There was, frankly, no way to make a decision between them. So, much like when I spend ten minutes each reading the ad copy for Oatios and Toastios, I put them both back on the shelf and went for the Golden Grahams that, at this point, don't offer any surprises, but that I know I like.
Staying near an active volcano sounded really neat. But I did that, once, in Hawaii. Bet it's awfully similar. And waking to monkey calls sounded...um, probably a lot like waking to monkey calls in southern Thailand.
World-weariness? Yeah. We got that.
Ok, I know, I know, I've barely seen any of the world, really. And the monkey in Costa Rica are probably somehow nothing at all like their Siamese cousins. And reading guidebooks and carefully pre-imagining the experience is not the same as going.
Hey: I'm a bit surprised, myself. I think it's still leftover India-trauma, in which going anywhere in the country was almost inevitably not even close to being worth the extreme, unbelievable, unparalleled difficulty of getting there. In which case, the best way to get over it would just be to travel.
Next time.
I do think it's also some odd kind of localism, though, possibly inspired by my job. I've been a bit down on out-and-out tourism: how well can you really know a place in a week? And if you're just getting the packaged tourism experience, have you really added much more than you'd get by staying home and reading about it? I mean, minus the obligatory getting-ripped-off by the airport taxi, and car rental place, and substandard tourist-trap restaurants? I've been enjoying much more being a tourist in my own home: exploring the Chesapeake area and rural Virginia; getting a taste of "different" without having to adopt the whole tourist persona. The potential discoveries aren't perhaps quite as grand, but it seems to satisfy the wanderlust without incurring the same tedious problems. Ok, fine: I am getting middle-aged.
But this'll be good, I think. We'll take the money we would've spent on last-minute airfares and put it into theatre and opera (fine. I was born middle-aged) and the sorts of experiences that are close to but not identical to the ones I've had and liked. Plus, K and I met in New York, and have tended to reconcile there after each breakup. In our idiosyncratic little version of romantic, it's sort of our place.
The guidebooks for Costa Rica looked really nice. So did the ones for Belize. There was, frankly, no way to make a decision between them. So, much like when I spend ten minutes each reading the ad copy for Oatios and Toastios, I put them both back on the shelf and went for the Golden Grahams that, at this point, don't offer any surprises, but that I know I like.
Staying near an active volcano sounded really neat. But I did that, once, in Hawaii. Bet it's awfully similar. And waking to monkey calls sounded...um, probably a lot like waking to monkey calls in southern Thailand.
World-weariness? Yeah. We got that.
Ok, I know, I know, I've barely seen any of the world, really. And the monkey in Costa Rica are probably somehow nothing at all like their Siamese cousins. And reading guidebooks and carefully pre-imagining the experience is not the same as going.
Hey: I'm a bit surprised, myself. I think it's still leftover India-trauma, in which going anywhere in the country was almost inevitably not even close to being worth the extreme, unbelievable, unparalleled difficulty of getting there. In which case, the best way to get over it would just be to travel.
Next time.
I do think it's also some odd kind of localism, though, possibly inspired by my job. I've been a bit down on out-and-out tourism: how well can you really know a place in a week? And if you're just getting the packaged tourism experience, have you really added much more than you'd get by staying home and reading about it? I mean, minus the obligatory getting-ripped-off by the airport taxi, and car rental place, and substandard tourist-trap restaurants? I've been enjoying much more being a tourist in my own home: exploring the Chesapeake area and rural Virginia; getting a taste of "different" without having to adopt the whole tourist persona. The potential discoveries aren't perhaps quite as grand, but it seems to satisfy the wanderlust without incurring the same tedious problems. Ok, fine: I am getting middle-aged.
But this'll be good, I think. We'll take the money we would've spent on last-minute airfares and put it into theatre and opera (fine. I was born middle-aged) and the sorts of experiences that are close to but not identical to the ones I've had and liked. Plus, K and I met in New York, and have tended to reconcile there after each breakup. In our idiosyncratic little version of romantic, it's sort of our place.
2 Comments:
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Italophile said...
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- 4:43 PM
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Anonymous said...
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- 1:50 PM
Post a CommentYES! Such a great idea. We had a great time in NYC this past September. We ended up ditching plans to go to Montreal and added the four "liberated" days to a five-day trip to New York. It was really relaxing to be there for so long -- felt like I got back into the rhythm of that wonderful place. And the Italian & I would move to NYC in a heartbeat if we could just get this immigration issue sorted.
just got back from a Saturday shopping trip to Portland. It seemed as if I were walking through a tornado....the rain and wind were enormous.....but puny umbrella broke just minutes after stepping out of Union Station....bought new umbrella pronto.....walked and walked and walked....found some nice clothes.....was dying for a seat at the Powells coffee ship crammed with young-uns all focused on laptops or cell phones.....staggered back to Union Station in a downpour.....cursing my old age.....had the business class Amtrak "Cascade" car all to myself (thank you).....and finally, upon arriving at the station in Eugene, was--for the very first time--helped out of the car as I stepped down--multiple shopping bags in hand--by a young woman train personnel. I felt positively elderly.......
-h
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