Travel as a 'Possession'

[jackwilliambell]

I am using 'Possession' here in the sense of something you own.(Yes, it could be argued that the alternative meaning of something owning and controlling you is valid as well! But that's not where I am going.) Here I am talking about travel as a kind of 'stuff', in the George Carlin definition of something you need because it, somehow, completes you

Comments

[scarlettina]

This is very much a truth. Most excellent post, fellow traveler.

[criada]

I also think of it as a possession, but in the sense of spirit possession. I shift into a totally different state of mind, and feel like a different person when I'm on the road.

[jackwilliambell]

I call that being in 'Travel Mode'.

When in Travel Mode I am far more adventurous in what I eat than normal, among other things.

[paulliver]

When I told my friends I was going to Europe, they asked about photos and I keep telling them, no, no, I'm going to write poetry about whatever I see. Finally, one of my friends said, "Here's my camera! Bring back pictures!"

So I did, and I'm glad, because I'm a lousy poet and it's a great ice breaker with my Chinese friends. Funny thing is, I put the photos I took in Europe in an album made in China but bought in America, then moved to China for five going on six years and brought the album with me.

Aside from all the lovely architecture in Europe, my strongest emotional memory is taking the train. I had seen a movie "Spirited Away" and thought, that's a cool train sequence that is totally unnecessary but still cool, but why would anyone think a train ride is magical? Then I'm taking the train from Munich to Vienna and seeing these old buildings and small homes and it clicked. Taking the train through the Rockies is also better than driving through them.

[jackwilliambell]

I love traveling through the countryside in any place I go. I've both driven and rode the train through the Austrian Alps, and I agree there is something special about it. The occasional castle or tower. The little towns cascading down a hillside, like a scree of picturesque houses with boulders of a church and factory or two at the bottom. The scruff of pines growing between the meadows and their small population of cows or sheep.

Ah... Now I want to go back... Damn!

[paulliver]

I also liked how on the train from Italy to Innsbruck, Austria, you could see the vineyards stretching up to the mountains, and the locals had built their towns on the mountain side to leave more flat land for the fields.