One of my long time friends asked me a very interesting question yesterday. She asked "Do you ever travel out of the country for vacation?" As a I thought about I realized I've only intentionally for vacation to Nigeria. Well also when I was living in Central Asia, we were forced to take a vacation. We had a training conference in Spain each year, so I would just hang out there for two weeks before because I had to. I started thinking about it and realize I love traveling but I hate "going on vacation".
There are many reasons for this. One, I like finding out about new places and cultures but I hate spending money for anything. Vacation usually is a very expensive thing. You are completely out of your element and have to spend tons of money everyday for things like food, and accomodation. Since I'm not familiar with the area, I don't know where I can find the deals and the dollar menu. I remember the first time I went to Spain for vacation I was adamant that we avoid places like McDonalds and Starbucks and try the local cuisine. But you know what? After the first time we tried some local food for 15 euros, that was the nastiest food I have ever had, I ran to McDonald's for some cheap food for all my meals after that. Second, I do not like doing tourist things ever. Once again these things are usually expensive and not my idea of fun. The last time I went to Disneyland was when I was two. My last time going to Magic Mountain was in 1999, and my goal is to never go again (unless my kids absolutely beg me to). When friends come over to visit me in LA, they ask me the cool places to go and I have to stop and think because I just don't know. I don't enjoy Hollywood or Universal Studios or any of those kind of things. Third, I don't like waking up for say more than two days without something to do other than have fun. After two days of this, I start to feel like fun is more work, than my regular work. I've always been like this. I hated summer vacation because I missed school and I was bored. I was only absent from school once from kindergarten to 12th grade cuz I couldn't even imagine staying home, sick, tired or not. The one time I stayed home from school because I was sick, I almost cried because my dad wouldn't take me to school after he took me to the hospital.
However, my idea of fun is to spend lots of time with people and learning about cultures that are very different from mine. For this reason, I absolutely love traveling out of the country. Fortunately for me, Missions trip are usually about learning about other people and sharing about God. We usually do very few or no tourist things. I get disgruntled when they give us a day or some time to "see the sites". But if we get to go to somebody's house, or spend time in a village, I am incredibly happy. Another thing I really enjoy is learning other languages. It's pretty funny because I hated studying languages in high school and college. But now I realize I didn't enjoy it because grammar is extremely difficult for me to study. But when I learn by speaking with people, I'm very motivated to learn more so I can say more.
Yesterday I found a bike trail by the river. I am really excited about this because it means I can completely avoid cars and streets for about two miles. I've seen it multiple times but I couldn't figure out how to get down there from the street. Yesterday I bumped into someone on a bike and he said he found the info by typing bike trails into a search engine. Wala! I went to library and was able to put the info to use immediately because one of the entry points for the bike path is behind the library.
No comments:
Post a Comment