I can’t decide where to live next…and more
People more and more are travelling to different far away places. It’s no longer a train into the country side for 3 weeks of rain and cow-tipping. Now, we all fly!
But there are two distinct different ways to travel. Real Travel, and Imitation Travel.
Real travel, is what I do. I get stuck in. When I leave a country, the memories I bring with me, are rarely centered on the hotel. I never have a schedule, I just wake up and figure what I want to do, and the first places I go are never the huge shopping malls which look like they were accidentaly injected into the middle of the country. I go to the local markets, I eat at restuarants that can’t always be classed as restaurants. I’ve picked food of menu’s from pictures, not having a clue what I was ordering. I search out all of the hidden gems. My favourite memories are usually the things that go completely wrong… one I will never forget is when this guy tried to buy me off my mother in Tunisia for 60 camels…. She asked for 600.
Imitation travel, is what too many people do. They go of to holiday resorts, like in Lanzarote or ayia napa, and they stay ast their hotels, go to their swimming pools, get drunk at bars and maybe once in a whil they will go into the local city and walk around, then probably find a bar at some point and just hang out there. Yet, if anything goes wrong they all complain and get huffy, and suddenly justified in the greatness of their own country, and how much better off they are. Then they go home.
One of the stand up shows Billy Connolly did that I saw, he was asked ” Does travel narrow the mind, or broaden the mind”
He said it narrows the mind. He said the further away from home you get, the more you think about how much you miss your bed at home.
I think it depends on how you travel. To be honest, right now I think my mind is too broadened. I’m trying to figure out where I want to go to univeristy. When my friends were all deciding it was between Ireland and Great britain. Some considered going further into europe such as france or stockholm,, some went back to their home countries such as germany, some considered amsterdam or swtizerland.
Me, I’m considering the entire bloody world. And I can’t decide. I’m at the point where I am considering playing pin the donkey with a world map, and praying I don’t land on the sea. Or antartica… My brother wants to move to australia together. So, I’ve looked into it. He likes the idea of the gold coast. Except they don’t do any of the courses I want. So right now, in australia my only option is Perth (that I know of). Not to mention I want to stay close to singapore because my mother is there, and I’ve spent 7 months on the other side of the world from my nuclear family, and it’s weird. People I have travelled my whole life with, I no longer live with. I still ask myself why I moved out… haha
I was hoping if I wrote this out I’d figure out where to go…. ah well. We shall see. Not knowing is some times the whole fun of it, even when its frustrating. It’s that TCK thing I read in the book, where you can’t make huge life decisions until the last minute in case any other opportunities come up… I’m still waiting for my epiphany…
*Off the point, but I wanted to add it in anyway…*
There is this thing in Denmark called a ‘wild card’. Basically, this is a card that gives people between the ages of 18-25 a discount on all train tickets you may buy. I thought GREAT. Lets get one. So, I get the brochure, and reading with my newly aquired Danish skills, I read the first line:
”Do you travel by train more than once a year? Then Wild card is for you!”
Once a year!? Now I know, that in Denmark, it is never about how well travelled you are, in fact your average dane could not care less if you have ever set foot out of the country. Some even frown upon travelling. Thankfully, thats mostly my mothers generation (and being an ATCK, one of the reasons why she refuses to ever live in DK again).
Half Danish, Half Irish Lived in: Luxembourg, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Singapore Now I'm living in Denmark... Which in itself, though not very exotic is definetly an interesting experience. Not to mention all the pastries... Somebody save me from obesity, I just can't stop eating them!!
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6 Comments to “I can’t decide where to live next…and more”
July 30th, 2008 at 10:29 am
haha see, the way i choose where to go is to just go wherever summer school/voulunteer program is most convenient. Since I am still in high school, i need to go to summer school like all the time, i am pretty sure i will still need to even after i go to university… and the best thing about summer school travel is that it makes it long and deep enough to be counted as real travel rather than imitational travel, and it’s so much cheaper than just travelling. and I NEVER get the “the farther away I am from home the more i miss my bed and room”, i only get the “Omg i want to stay here forever and nobody is dragging me away!” aka i dunt get homesickness ever…i only get horrible reverse homesickness after I leave for the rest of my life… YAY!!!!!not… actually tat’s way worse than homesickness. lol. sigh i noe wt u mean by imitational travel is a joke, I refuse to go on imitational travel altogether cuz I hthink it’s a waste of money and a complete joke and it annoys me more than anything tat ppl come to such a cultural and ancient country like Mexico just to lie by the pool-_-. Sigh I am being so reverse homesick right now…and worst of all, unlike homesickness, tat’s sumthing I wud simply have to suck up and get over. It’s going to take a long time… again…like every other time. My mom is screaming at me and threatening to never let me travel again, just because i said I am going through reverse homesickness. She says it’s all my fault and i think too much and all tat. I just dont want to talk to parents about any of this at all. because we all noe how it’s like to be a TCK, despite how much travelling is going to hurt us, we have to do it anyways because staying in one place hurts even more.
IN short, I miss the entire bloody world. LOL
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July 30th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Lol. I liked that whole real/imitation travel idea… i never thought of it like that, but it is all very true.
That’s kind of what I loved about living in bangkok, the city is so huge there is so much to explore
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July 31st, 2008 at 12:32 am
hahaaha@ mmmmmmm I know what you mean about missing the whole bloody world!!! I mean, if I ever meet a genie, my first request, without a doubt, would not be love or any of that crap, no, it would be to give me the ability to teleport to whatever place in the world I wanted INSTANTLY!
Then the world would really be just one leviathan global village…
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July 31st, 2008 at 8:20 am
you noe wt wish I wud make when I see a genie? I wud wish that I can live in all of my friends’ memory forever because honestly, as a TCK my greatest fear is to not be remembered. I would wish that I have the ability to make lasting impressions, the ability to engrave myself into people’s memory, because the thing is, I know I will never forget anyone of them but will they? I can’t imagine how many people I love have forgotten me.
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July 31st, 2008 at 9:03 am
Yeah, for me the hardest thing, is people you would consider close, don’t always consider you as close, because you are not always there. I feel it the most at birthdays, or special occasions.
Always at the edge of the group, never in the middle. I rarely feel lonely, but often at these occasions I do. Because I want to be in the middle of the group, close to the centre. Never to be the centre of attention, but to just share that glow.
Recently, at my best friends 19th birthday, I got that opportunity. Every one was in a circle, and I was there in the middle, hugging my best friend and singing really badly into her ear as her boyfriend brought in the cake.
It was the first time in my life that I was actually involved in something like that so completely. Usually, I get an invite and I sing along in the middle of the group.
For me, that is the biggest thing us TCK’s miss out on, through no fault of our own.
If my best friend didn’t let me be there for all those things, I would be a very lonely person.
Some people just can’t hold friendships or relationships without prolongued proximity. And I have lost alot of people I cared about alot, because they just let things wane, or stopped making the effort.
It’s amazing to have wonderful friends all over the globe, but I agree I also have the same fear of being forgotten. Because they are what stop me from feeling completely isolated from the world, they are my connection to ‘normal’ for lack of a better term. They are my ‘roots’. Instead of having roots in a home, I have roots in people. Without my friends, I would be adrift.
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July 31st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
They are my ‘roots’. Instead of having roots in a home, I have roots in people. Without my friends, I would be adrift.
Couldn’t have said it better. I always say to myself, I have to live on in the hearts of people or I might as well be non-existant. I think it hurts more than anything when ppl think I care so much and remember so much about the past. I just think…um cuz unlike u, i realize that someday everything will be memories, if u don’t value memories you will be NOTHING by the time you are lying in your deathbed… Without memories we are nothing. and for TCKs especially, other ppl can just throw away a piece of memory in their life when they feel like it because it won’t make a huge difference anyways…but for a TCK, to throw away a memory is like throwing away my own identity! i mean i wud actually have to forget a whole country just to forget something small and stupid. am i reli going to do tat? I cant do tat…at all. and I hate it so much when non-tcks judge and say omg you are unable to leave the past behind you suck…i am like…why wud I WANT TO leave the past behind???
yah the thing abotu best friend is true. It’s like you either get a bunch of BEST FRDS or u are out of the league…you can’t even stay with just normal frds to hang with becaue TCKness will instantly be the core of your insecurity.
like when I went to mexico for summer school this july, me and my other TCK frd wud just always randomly walk out to the balcony all of a sudden using “smoking” as an excuse when every1 is inside partying or wtever. but we noe we do tat because every once in a while, the TCK bug gets so tired and sick of being in a group that it just doesn’t belong to.
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