Bad Romance

Anonymous I find the timing of this blog title to very interesting now in the wanning hours of our trip to Greece. I love travel. But when I travel, I always want more. I sit, writing this blog in the bar of our hotel, surrounded by a sparse mosaic of classmates and businessmen. The conversation seems to contrast that which I have experienced on my other travels. Usually, in my last few nights and days traveling, I try to place myself in public places; maybe in a last ditch attempt to absorb as many drops of culture as possible, maybe in a vain try to get lost in the activity around me and not have to return home. I am used to hearing the usual conversation of travelers chatting around me about where they are from and where they are going next. That conversation is absent here. While this trip has been amazing, unique, unforgeable, and an opportunity to make new and good friends, it is also very different from most of the traveling I have done in the past. Today, after the conclusion of our lobby class, everyone agreed that there was a thirst for more traveling. However, there seemed to be a division between those that wanted to fill a backpack, miss our flight back to the states, and instead hop on a train/boat/plane to Europe/Asia/Africa/South America and those that were ready to head home and recharge in the familiar before heading back out. When you're on the road for too long, the spark of newness fades, and travel can begin to feel long and pointless, a detour from your loved ones, from your life, from the familiar. Being on the road for too long can make you exhausted and jaded. However, what is too long is a matter of individual perspective. For those of you versed in physics, this time is gama, the relativity constant that changes your perceived time based on your speed. The more comfortable you are, the more easily you can adapt, the faster your soul moves through the experience and hungers for more, the less you perceive the time and the longer you want to stay moving. For me, I have not yet reached the extent of my period of comfort during travel. I want more. I want to be glutton and take more then my fair share, but in several days, I will hop on a plane and fly back to a world that I know. With my looming departure, I try and remind myself of why I travel in the first place: to learn and grow, to challenge myself, stretch and shatter my limits and foster an understanding, love and communion with world. But I also travel to eventually return home. Coming home puts your travels and your experiences in perspective. Here is a quote for those that say I use them frequently (Jessica), Lin Yutang writes "No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." So, while I may not be yet ready to return home, I must accept it because the potential for growth and change will not be complete without it. But I am ready to keep moving, hungry for the next experience.