The Trouble with Travel
May 6th, 2004 | Posted by Shannon
I remember, in the early days of my travelin’ years, I was oh so happy with Destinations like Las Vegas. I was in my early 20’s, and really, Vegas was a pretty cool destination in those days. In 1991 Vegas, the Sands was still there, they still had $4.99 prime rib and you could still envision Doris Day being thrown into the pool. The MGM Grand was the hip and happening new spot then, and now the MGM seems as has-been as the Riviera did then. Vegas was a different place in 1991, full of bad wigs and nickle slots, and I loved it.
Here we are fifteen years later, and my scope has broadened just a bit. First, lots of trips to Vermont and Chicago, both places I love enough to live in, and then finally, in 1998, my first trip to Italy.
Damn. (Swear word. Swear word.) I touched down on that tarmac in Rome and I was a goner. I mean, really gone, like a (swear word) slave. If I had thought weekend trips to Vegas were addicting, I was not prepared for what Italy would do to me.
For a few years, I was a slave to Italy. Then the pull was too great, and I pushed myself by sheer will into an apartment in Venice. There, I tired of my master and moved on to other lovers, by way of the St. Lucia Train Station. How I loved them all.
Amsterdam, Copenhagen. Budapest, where I spent a sick and twisted yet colorful summer month. Strasborg, Vienna… the blood of the nomad was in me, and Europe was the flying carpet on which I rode.
Now. I am in a place I love, an ocean community full of freaks. It is truly beautiful here, and very, very free. But I can’t calm myself, the thought of unseen cities makes me scratch the mosquito bite on my chest a bit too hard. I am a nomad of the 21st century – I can have it all, so why isn’t it here, now?
So I have been playing the lottery, and waiting, waiting. Thinking of writing to the Icelandic Tourist Board to see if they perhaps need someone to write a restaurant book. I don’t know. It’s the bleeping trouble with travel.
