Jay’s Travelogue

I was excited about the return trip through Austria because of the opportunity to actually make a visit to the city of Vienna. In fact, this was one of the things that drew the selfish part of me to the trip in the first place. The rest of the trip was about helping others, but this part was supposed to be about me. Some things never quite turn out the way you’d like them to…

Read the rest of this entry »

In June of this year I traveled to Moldova with a group of eleven others and had the opportunity to stop in Austria going over and coming back. On the way over we spent somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours in the Vienna airport, while on the way back we actually spent the night. All in all I’ve spent less than 24 hours in the country but thought I’d pass along my impressions anyway. This first post deals with the outbound layover.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, FINALLY, this blog returns to it’s original purpose, talking about travel. As a matter of fact, this post is a direct result of some friends telling me I’d been kind of lax in getting things posted to this site. So, on with “My Idea of Travel”…
—————–
Whenever someone finds out I’m heading off to or returning from a distant place they typically ask me what I did while there. More often than not they seem disappointed by my answers. Apparently I have quite a different agenda from a lot of people when I travel. While some are fond of visiting fabulous places listed in guidebooks or in making sure they hit all the important landmarks, that is not what interests or excites me about traveling. While I occasionally indulge in the same activities as anyone else, that is rarely my purpose. I am far more interested in the people and their way of life; their culture, language, food, these are the things that get me going.

Being a tourist is something I have no interest in. Though one can’t help being one when visiting a place that’s not your home, there is no need to fall into typical tourist ways. In fact avoiding doing the tourist thing usually yields a more fulfilling visit. I find that people are more forgiving of your being an outsider if you make an effort to understand them and the way they live. Showing up and requiring people to conform to your personal little world certainly doesn’t endear anyone to you, whether you’re traveling or staying home.

So if you ask me about a trip I was on and it sounds boring to you, bear in mind that I probably had a great time.

Pandora is playing One and Two from the album “Let It Come Down” by James Iha