Back to my original to-do list. I didn't quite check everything off, but I added a bunch of other experiences that I hadn't expected, so it worked out perfectly:
lie on a beach in Bali, although I might be convinced to move long enough to do a yoga class.
Shoot. First bullet point: no check. The Bali beach: the most crowded and chaotic I’ve ever seen; the beaches on Lembongan Island were either working beaches with boats, or rocky coves. All gorgeous- but i spent all my time walking the villages, or taking pictures, or lounging by the infinity pool.
take my Episcopalian self up to the top of Borabodur, to see what the valley looks like through the eyes of all of those Buddhas.
Check. And double check, and triple check. I don’t know how many times I actually went up there; on most of those trips I was surrounded by school groups and curious well-wishers and people who wanted to practice their English. But the couple of hours I spent up there at dawn were life-changing.
haggle in a bazaar in Istanbul. And see what makes the domes in Hagia Sofia stand up. And hear the calls to prayer five times a day.
Check. I am not good at haggling, but I learned that doing a sincere walk-away will probably drive the price down to a fraction of the original. More fun than haggling, though, is just talking to people at the bazaars. They are seriously entertaining (they do this for a living and they’re good at it.) Hagia Sofia: indescribably huge inside. I really miss the calls to prayer; exotic and hauntingly beautiful, and it keeps the culture in rhythm.
eat something that terrifies me
Check. Oxtail Soup in Yogyakarta. Baby squid in Malaga. Blind-faith frozen juices in Cairo. All of them: tasty.
climb the Acropolis and sit on the steps of the Erectheion, mainly because that was the topic of my first grad school paper.
Check. The Acropolis is impressive; the Parthenon is undergoing an incredible renovation; the Erectheion is exquisite. You can’t really sit on its steps- but I did sit close by and draw it. It’s the best sketch of my trip.
stand on a hill on a Grecian island and see the blue domes against the white walls and the blue sea, and maybe even get lost in the Labyrinth (they say the minotaur is gone.)
Check. Santorini was even more stunning, and more photogenic, than I had guessed. The scope of the volcano is something that is difficult to describe, let alone process mentally. I’m told that, despite the desolation during the winter, I’m unbelievably fortunate to have seen Santorini without a crush of tourists. And I saw snow flurries there- extraordinarily rare. It’s a breathtaking place. The labyrinth at Knossos? Meh. It was fun, but you need quite a bit of imagination.
embarrass myself in Italian. I’d like to learn a curse word in every country I visit.
Check. Embarrassed myself in every country, every day. After the first couple of times, it’s no big deal. The only people who were ever snarky about it were Belgian waiters, but most people are really kind.
stare down The Sphinx.
Check. It is magnificent, although it’s difficult to focus on that in the crazy crush of people standing on the platform to photograph it. (I’d also gotten strict instructions from my guide when I walked out on the platform: talk to nobody! Nobody, ok? Watch your bag! Don’t let anybody get close to you! (A little histrionic, perhaps, and a lot distracting.)
hear some crazy loud music in Zanzibar, and hang out with my old friends at a rooftop bar on a narrow windy street.
Check. I don’t know when I’ve had so much fun. Love the rooftop. Love the music festival. Love Zanzibar. Love my friends. Zanzibar in a power outage: magical. What a gift to see Stone Town by candlelight.
If I see a Maasai warrior silhouetted in a sunset somewhere along the way, I will be ecstatic. I want to fly past Kilimanjaro on the way back to Dar es Salaam, just so I can say that sentence aloud to somebody.
Mmm- no check. I wrote this when I had a plan to do a short safari; turns out the price of a safari for a single person is something like $500 a day. So no dice. However: I did see a fair number of Maasai in Dar and Zanzibar. They are beautiful and regal; I may be projecting this from Out of Africa, but I don’t think so. My friend Kate points out that even lions are afraid of the Maasai. They give pride a whole new name.
visit Italy as a grown-up, and slap my 21 year old self for having no idea whatsoever what architectural and cultural treasures she was half-appreciating as a backpacker.
Check. I saw Italy with completely different eyes, although my 21 year old self loved Italy too, and I have forgiven her for traipsing about blithely enjoying herself, as that is the whole point of Italy. Grown-up Katherine is slapping herself for failing to seize the opportunity to drink wine in a piazza with the Colin Firth look-alike.
pet the lions in the Court of the Lions, and have coffee in Parc Guell, and start dinner at 11 pm like the Spanish do.
Partial Check. I had a late dinner or two, and a great people-watching coffee in Parc Guell. I could still cry about the Lions though- it pains me to look at the picture I took of the empty box, where the lions should be. I’ll just have to go back after they’re restored.
see if I can love Paris (I don’t.)
No check. I adore my family, but they are not advance planners, so this part of the trip didn’t happen.
go back to London (which I do indeed love) and visit Primrose Hill, and Covent Garden, and Camden Town. And see what my sister’s been up to in Belgium, and drink a beer at Delirium Tremens with her exotic friends.
Partial check. I didn’t make it to London (see above,) but it was really fun to see my sister’s world. Her apartment is really cool, and her friends are cooler, and her boyfriend Axel is adorable, just adorable. I was not prepared for how good the food is, especially at the artisanal chocolate shop where Axel took us to a private tasting with his family. Delirium Tremens was kind of a tourist trap, and it wasn’t my favorite beer in Brussels.
secretly sketch people in airports (not in a creepy way) and stand on the deck of a ferry somewhere gorgeous, and ride some trains. I want to wear out some shoes.
Partial check. Actually, I did a lot less sketching than I’d planned. It’s too hard in public, particularly in a place where you’re already standing out. I did ride a couple of marvelous ferries (Bali and Zanzibar) and one dreadful one (Nile.) And I rode some Italian trains, and some Belgian trains. And I wore out 3 pairs of shoes. (I didn’t really wear out the chucks. But after they’d been in the ditch in Dar, I didn’t really want to look at them any more.)
appreciate getting warm, after a day spent in the windy cold. Or, appreciate a cold tropical beer after a day on the equator.
Oh, check check check. A travel joy. The list of things I appreciate right now, which I’d forgotten to appreciate before I left home, is staggering.
In short, I want to step entirely out of my life, my routine, and my comfort zone and see what the rest of the world has been doing while I’ve been sitting at a desk for 3 1/2 years. I need, quite literally, to lay my hands on some of the treasures I’ve studied in architecture school. The people who built these temples, monuments, marketplaces, duomos, cathedrals, hamams, and public places had something they wanted to say to future generations. Now seems like I great time to find out what it was, and then maybe I'll be better prepared to go build some of these things for myself. *
*or, at least think about lovely things while I'm waiting tables and job hunting.
Well. Huge check. I was looking for some big revelations about architecture. And I had some wonderful architectural appreciation experiences. But mainly what I got, by surprise, were revelations about everything else. Fundamental things, like reminders that people are inherently overwhelmingly good, the world is a safe place, and there is beauty in the most unexpected places.
