“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” - Samuel Johnson
I can remember sitting in French class my Freshman year of high school and staring at the picture of the Louvre that graced the cover of my textbook. I never though I'd actually get a chance to see it in person, but I could imagine it. I could so easily close my eyes and see the Roman ruins scattered about Italy and the beaches of Greece with the white and blue buildings speckled across the cliffs. And, even now, I can lay in my bed before I fall asleep and try to imagine all the places I'll see on my vacation that's so near.
Three weeks from today, my stint as an American waitress in London will be over and I'll have nearly four weeks to enjoy what Europe has to offer. Sure, it'll be with an organized tour of 20 year olds drinking their Euros away, but it's also seeing everything I studied in school come to life. How I'll react to seeing the canals of Venice for the first time or the coast of Kotor Bay in Croatia, I have no idea. I'm assuming I'll be either shocked and amazed or simply disappointed in a "this is it?" kind of way. But knowing me, the girl that leaped across border control in Spain after getting my passport stamped for the third time, I'm sure I'll be more than overwhelmed.
The past week, I've been annoying customers with my mere excitement just to leave on this trip. I've been telling them where I'm going, what I'm excited to see, and I even demonstrated how I want to pose when I see the Leaning Tower of Pisa (because I WILL get that picture!). The customers who are most fun to have these converstations with are the ones that have really great advice about Europe. Their the ones that write down what to see and what to skip while I'm touring. I talked to a man a few weeks ago that suggested I take an unadvised right turn at the entrance of St. Mark's Basillica and sneak through a door and up a flight of stairs, ending up on a balcony that over looks all of St. Mark's Square. He said nobody really knows about it, but it's the best view he found. I had another man tell me to go to the top of the Arc de Triumph, because everyone does the Eiffel Tower, but the Arc was just as impressive. And last night, I spoke with a table of people for nearly 20 minutes about how amazing Italy and Prague are. One of the older ladies at the table, just before they left, came up to me and said, "You can have a drunken weekend vacation anytime you want, but how often can you come to Europe and see all the history you read about while growing up?" Well, I actually think her British phrase was, "a weekend on the piss," but her point was taken and much appreciated. So, while everyone back home will be thinking I'm sitting on a beach drinking gin and tonics in the hot, Ionian sun, I'll really be seeing the history of civilations past and learning to appreciate the art and architecture of another continent. But I'm sure I can find spare time for gin and tonics....
talk to everyone again soon! love, jill
