A Change of Perspective

On the way to Kenya, me, mom, Ted and the whole fam-damily met up in London for two days. We toured and took pictures and marveled and it was great fun. When you go to a new place, traveling to a different country or even just discovering a new road you’ve never gone down on a walk, there’s an air of mystery about it that makes it a little magical. And that’s the deal with traveling. I think that’s why so many people love to travel. There’s a lot of trouble involved. Here I am, in Paris, everything is in a different language. I can communicate fine but it takes a lot of energy to just go into the grocery store and not see anything youre used to, to ask for directions, getting lost and navigating around a new city, a new culture. And even still, walking around, although a lot is different, a lot is the same too. People go out to eat, people walk to the grocery store, and go to work and come home, and see movies. People live just like I live at home. But here, its magical! And its all so great and envious and beautiful. And one part of that is the unarguable fact that Paris is straight up beautiful. But what about London? It has great fish and chips and cheap Indian food, and I love the constant rain and the funny little phone booths are pretty cool I guess, but really it’s a huge, bustling metropolitan where no one talks to each other and everyone drives like they want to kill everyone else on the road and then themselves. And its only magical for me because Im on vacation and practicing Hedonism and, it turns out, Im really not that bad at it. Im waking up without an alarm and taking the time to stop at the little markets on the side of the street and walk through the parks. And turns out, when I do that in Boulder or LA, its really quite similar. I remember in London, stopping on a bridge to watch the sun set and reflect across the water and thinking, “Wow what a beautiful city” and then immediately afterwards I thought, “That was a stupid thing to say”. In Boulder, the morning after a snowstorm, there’s this incredible silence over the whole city and the sun warms it all up and makes the snow crispy and sparkling and it’s the prettiest damn thing in the world. And in Santa Monica, if you walk down to the beach on a Thursday night, there’s the best impromptu live music on the sand next to the pier and thousands of people picnicking, and the sun sets over the water and it’s always spectacular and it smells all salty and fresh. What’s better than that? The Parisians here, with their patisseries and delicious coffee and perfect baguette crust, They would be jealous.
I do have a point here but I dont know how to say it without it sounding like the moral after an Aesop's fable. So I just hope that it came through. My point is NOT "dont travel" because so far, its been one of the more valuable things Ive done in my life.