getting there
J
is away
That's what I post on the fedi when J, my wife, is off on another trip. Sometimes it's a few days away in the UK for a craft fair, sometimes it's flying off somewhere for a city break, or week somewhere with C, her friend and regular travelling companion. This time it's Lisbon.
Where am I? At home here with the dog, pretty much living our normal pedestrian life. Going for walks, watching the natural world, and laying waste to some overgrown element of the garden again – weather permitting.
I have travelled, in the past. But, at some point, any pleasure in being somewhere else in the world apart from home was outweighed by my dislike of the actual process of getting to wherever 'there' was, and getting back home again.
Actually, now I think of it, the very best trips abroad, as far as I'm concerned, have been those where we travelled on land-based transport, getting across to continental Europe from the UK via the Eurotunnel train, or the cross channel ferries. Probably because once we got on the other side, we mainly travelled by bicycle. Even driving to Switzerland from Calais was part of an adventure (and we cycled a long way back towards it again, following the Rhine).
I know it was not just staying on land that appealed, it was more always having a connection to the travelling, a sense that you were moving and going through places. You could open a window, or just stop and take in a view, and you could see, hear, smell, and feel where you were, and enjoy the process.
Being processed in an airport and transported by plane is not a thing I enjoy at all.
Arrive half a day before your flight, walk, walk, walk, queue for this, do that, walk this way, file though this corridor, go though that lane, walk, take off your shoes here, yeah, anything metal mate, beep beep, feel like a criminal, then you walk, walk, walk, wait, wait, wait ... BOARD! wait wait ... FLY! ... LAND! queue here, present documents, feel like a criminal, wait, wait, wait, walk, walk, walk, this way, wait to see if your luggage has come with you, file though this corridor, feel like a criminal again, get out trying not to look suspicious, OK, we've finished with you. You're FREE to go at last.
You feel like cattle. I wonder if it's possible to fly without feeling like you're cattle? Only for the very privileged few I suspect.
And the flying itself is just an odd thing. I'm not afraid of it, I just don't connect with it at all. Get in the plane (eventually), whoosh, look at some clouds from above, pretty (for five minutes, three hours later the novelty has definitely worn off) arrive in another part of the world, get processed like cattle again. Leave airport, knowing you're coming back and will have to endure it all again to get home soon.
You have travelled. More like you have been transported. In a tube of other humans. Yeah, it's quick, but you're an exhausted zombie for at least two days into your trip. Then you have a couple of really good days, then it's back to the airport to do it all again to go home.
For me, there's no point in just being somewhere thousands of miles away without some enjoyable journey element to the thing, and I feel that is very unlikely to have been the case if there's an airport involved.
Half the time, popular places are fully touristed up beyond my comfort level of people anyway. Thousands of people in the same places, listening to the same tour guides and having the whole scripted and packaged experience.
"And here we have the Colosseum, can you see it over the heads of the few thousand other people here to see it too? Queue here for two hours for a peek inside. Why not buy something from the authentic souvenir shops selling all kinds of Chinese-made tat while you're waiting?"
It's too late to see these things without the attendant hand of commercialism slipping into your pocket to extract everything it possibly can.
Nah, I've made it known that I'll only do trips that are about travelling, not just going to locations. Rent a car – or better... bikes! – and do our own thing? Yep, up for that. Meander around, explore.
Fly? Nope. I'm honestly a lot happier staying at home and not going at all if there are flights involved.
But the main part I don't like really and I'm using the airports thing as the excuse? People. They're everywhere, like ants, crawling over everything and covering it under their sheer numbers. Noisy, smelly, loud people. Too many people, loads of them all over the place, ruining places that try to cope with their noise, and litter, and tat-buying, from airports to popular touristy and city destinations.
Can't stand it.
Anyway, J is away.
She'll be loving it without old curmudgeonly-guts here moaning about it all.
NB: There will be USians, Aussies, and others who live in properly huge countries that will laugh at this. "How would you expect to get about in our country without flying? Driving our distances isn't really possible/practical." Yep. Understood. But I'm only writing about me.
post link for sharing: https://skryblans.com/getting-there
If you got this far, you may as well click the star below on your way out.