Mental Flask in my Pocket

As established, I did a bit of growing up on the old continent, in a country full of castles, festivals, old cities, cold cities, churches, lakes, mountains, ski resorts, lake resorts, charming farm houses, imposing walls, more castles, gates, monuments, plazas and various important festivals relating to beer and love. But I have never been to any of them. I made it to the capital at the ripe age of mid twenties hood, long after having lived on three other continents and having racked up most South American capitals with an urgency that bordered on manic. It's just not that interesting when it's close to home or worse yet, when it is home.

Home can be anywhere, but this attitude problem of "bored with what's on this side of the fence" plagues me always anew. Being a tourist means looking at intricate details, enjoying complex weirdnesses, observing unfamiliar habits of the locals, snapping pictures, behaving outside the norm of what it accepted and expected and getting away with it. Being a traveler is the same as above but with a non-chalant attitude and a bottle of booze in your backpack. Living somewhere tends to awake in me a tendency to fight the weird, get annoyed with the complex and disregard the detail.

Now that I am re-introducing the wanderlust into my life, more specifically now that the suitcases are being dusted and an eye is kept open for cheap airfare eastbound, do I finally look up when I walk and am I finally able to enjoy the interestingness of the things I don't understand. That is a rather stark contrast to the "head down, elbow out, rushing along with the crowd, fuck the fucking fuckers" attitude. Now that I see a departure date being written somewhere in 2008, do I put my mental flask into my purse, do I walk slower, take a swig before crossing major intersections and do I finally stop repeating my five hates (transport, weather, cost, taxes, food). Instead I love the fact that bankers, bums and yummy mommy's alike are stuck in a metall tube every morning that exhorts a price per mile higher than the Concord ever did in its flying days, chubby girls cheerfully wear off-the-shoulder t-shirts and belt-sized mini skirts in the freezing morning mist, happily chewing on stale sandwiches while shelling out their little life savings on glitzy accessories. Also, the beer is cheap, the glasses are big, the lunch crowd is hilarious and I am stuck in the middle of it. I mean what is there not to love? And why does it take an exit plan to enjoy the show?

I am superstitious to the nth degree, but it appears that stars are aligning and that we are Asia bound (knock on wood), a job in the bag and some adventures on the road. God, I hope I didn't say too much.

P.S. Spell check is broken and I need to tell you about FAT DUCK. Tomorrow.