Talking about Traveling

The end of September. Since the pain in my left arm ended, it is as if the beginning of October is also the beginning of a new phase in my life. I feel like New Year’s Eve and a time again to write about my travels.

With dialysis three days a week I can’t go anyplace anymore. My trips are limited to walking to the bookcase and looking at my scrapbooks. I call up memories and give programs to a half dozen old ladies who live with me in this retirement home. Some of them have never been out of Texas. I try to entertain them with tales of my adventures.

It’s difficult to describe places that are different from what people are accustomed to. I remember my mother’s surprise on a trip to Arkansas in October and seeing the hills covered with colorful fall foliage. In Texas the leaves don’t turn until November. No matter how much I’ve read or how many magazine pictures I’ve seen, or movies I’ve watched, when I go to a new place, it is always different from what I imagined.

It is also difficult to get to know ordinary people in a foreign country. On an organized tour it is impossible. The only time I felt I knew what it is to live in a foreign country was the summer John and I exchanged our house in Albuquerque for one in Ipswich, England. I also am fortunate in having friends in the Netherlands and Germany. My daughter was an exchange student in Norway, and I was able to visit her Norwegian family. Other than that, although I’ve been to Italy many times, most of what I know about how people live in Italy is from hearsay.

But I’m going to write about it. Are you ready? In October we are going to England.