One source I would use would be from Twain's piece "Roughing It." "I only proposed to stay in Nevada for three months. I had no thought of staying longer than that. I meant to see all I could that was new and strange, and then hurry home to business. I little thought that I would not see the end of that three-month pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years" (Pg.2). I want to go someplace different and plan to see a bunch of sites. I do want to see something that makes me want to stay longer than what I originally planned. I do not think that I would want to stay a place for seven years, but staying a month when I only planned for a couple weeks would be nice. I want to see all the English Premier League stadiums and that would take almost a month if I saw one every day. If I go there I feel like I would need to go to different places long the way as well. I would probably want to experience some night life around the town and go to different pubs and watch some games. I want to find something that I have never seen before that makes me want to stay in some place for longer than I had planned.
"Abroad is the place where we stay up late, follow impulse and find ourselves as wide open as when we are in love. We live without a past or future, for a moment at least, and are ourselves up for grabs and open to interpretation" (Iyer, pp. 13). I would want to stay up late knowing I would have to go to the next town to see another stadium, but the interest of the night life in England would keep me up. Maybe I will stay up late when I would go to the less interesting stadiums. I would have to plan my trip accordingly because I know the nights in Newcastle get pretty crazy and I do not want to miss that. Now my worry about being open is saying something about a soccer match to some Englishman and pushing the wrong buttons in a pub. All of England is really passionate about their soccer teams and I could be a little critical of their teams play sometimes. I do not play professional soccer and I know it is very hard, but some of the plays they make are just inexcusable. They often have you say "I could have made that play." I do want to get lost in all the history that happened at some of these stadiums and I would be very excited to see The Old Trafford.
I love this as a way to develop a trip - places that I stay longer than I had planned...
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteI think that Twain's naive perception of travel is perfectly summed up in the first quote you used. His initial idea that he will simply travel and return home after he has seen what he came to see is the mindset that I think we all have at the beginning of a journey. What is so great about Twain' experience is that he arrived at his destination only to realize that it was just another step of his journey, and so he stayed for six or so years. I find sometimes that I reach the end of a trip only to wish that I had more time there. I agree that perhaps a couple years might be excessive but staying a month longer would be ideal.