Falling in Love

The other night at a party a woman was telling me about Germany.  She had “only” spent a month there and was planning another trip there this summer.  For lack of a better description, she seemed in love with Germany.  I understand because I’ve been in love with Spain for years and just last year I fell in love with Ireland too.  I have a strong affection for Senegal as well.

For some of us, travel is a powerful experience, too mysterious to explain.  One description is, it seems to break me and open me.  It breaks up a sense of this-is-how-it’s-done; this-is-how-the-world-looks-sounds-tastes.  Before world travel, I knew the United States and South Bend were not the only lenses from which to view the world.  Travel helps me feel that.  It bursts open the walls that house my perception of the world and allows me to reside in a bigger more expansive place.

Travel also reminds me that there is much going on that I don’t understand.  South Bend is pretty predictable.  Travel abroad reminds me that the world is full of surprises and that I don’t know as much as I sometimes think I do even about South Bend.

I look forward to hiking in Scotland next September.