So much out there!

I remember as a child sitting in class, it wasn’t as bad when I was younger, but only grew worse and worse, as I grew older. Teachers, I beg of you, for the students in your classes like me… take down your maps.  It took all of my concentration to focus on whatever the current subject matter was that they were trying to teach was, my mind was ready to escape into the world’s on the map. What lay out there that I had not discovered? What wonderful adventures, cultural rituals and beautiful places were waiting for me? I was fortunate as a child to travel around much of the US with my parent’s, it wasn’t until I was older that I realized what a blessing this was. In high school I came to London for the first time and fell in love with the enchantment that it offered. During college I ventured around Mexico a bit along with a host of various European countries and cities seeing the sites, exploring the back roads and little did I know at the time, meeting Alex during one of those adventures. Then again during college I came back to France, Italy and Monaco to continue in explorations. I continued to travel around the US but had an itch to see more, go more and do more. Now, now we live here. We live in London where we can go to so many places in such a short time, they are such a short distance and in most cases not too expensive to get to. I realized I am blessed to have gone where I have and done what I have, and I may sounds a bit like a brat saying it, but for me, it is simply not enough. I know that there is still a huge world out there waiting for me. I have had some opportunities to go to other places, but they were just never the right time or the right opportunity. My father begs me not to go to some locations until after he is no longer on this earth as he doesn’t think he will be able to handle the stress of having me there, in what he see’s as “dangerous locations” I have humored him to this point, but I am quite selfish, and I want my father to be here, and I want to explore the vast unknown (to me). I remember in college my friend Alise and I signed up for a class together, “History of modern Africa.” Yes, that was the title, I know it does not make heaps of sense, but when you took the course it began to unfold, the history of how and why Africa is where it is now, the bits leading up the current. I remember sitting in class and learning about the cultures, the rituals the beautiful landscape and then the war, the civil unrest and the pandemics that run ramped. I still remember leaving class one day, getting in my car and driving home and simply weeping, weeping uncontrollable tears at what I felt was the great unfairness of the beauty that was there, one thing in particular was Victoria falls, and the fear that I (selfishly) would possibly never be able to see it due to the unrest. What an unjust world that was in my mind. What an unfair horrible injustice.

While in Amsterdam our hotel had quotes all over the walls in the hallways to the rooms, the favorite one I saw in passing was by St. Augustine, “The World is a book, and those who do not travel only read one page.” What a true thought, how many people are missing out on the world, on the adventure that we are blessed with in our planet. I am still amazed when I meet someone whom has never flown at my age, or been out of his or her state, or even country for that matter. The percentage of people who are valid passports is shockingly low! Maybe to them, the national geographic weekly special feature is enough, or, hopefully not… but maybe they don’t think or care about the world outside their national borders. That my friends is the highest form of ignorance I believe to exist!