People keep asking me why I stayed at home this holiday season. To put it very mildly, there is absolutely nothing to do in the little Midwestern town where I live. So why didn't I travel anywhere during these winter holidays? Well, consider the following:
August 2003 - May 2007 - I travelled From New Haven, CT and Montreal, PQ and back by a Greyhound bus exactly 22 times. (That's a total of 44 Greyhound trips. 132 transfers.)
July 2007 - August 2008 - I travelled from Montreal, PQ to Lafayette, IN and back by a Greyhound bus exactly 8 times. That's a trip that lasts only 32 hours, if you are extremely lucky and don't get delayed anywhere. Which never happens. So it's a total of over 512 hours on a bus in just one year. These were not short trips. I would stay between 6 and 8 weeks every time, so I had to bring all of my stuff with me.
August 2008 - May 2009 - I travelled between Ithaca, NY and Lafayette, IN and Montreal PQ about once every six weeks. At least. Thankfully, at this point I was travelling by airplane. I was looking for a job, so I also had to travel for my job interviews.
May 2009 - December 2009 - I kept travelling between Baltimore, MD, Ithaca, NY, St, Louis, MO, and Montreal, PQ about once every three weeks. I was also on a job search, so I travelled to the MLA and the campus visits.
In those six years, I also moved between different states and different countries (which obviously included packing, moving and unpacking all of my stuff) 5 times. I have discovered that I'm reluctant to buy anything for my house here because whenever I see anything I might like to buy, I immediately imagine what a drag it would be to pack it.
Do you now see why I shudder at the sight of a suitcase after all that? I'm not saying travelling isn't fun, but staying put becomes very attractive after moving around as much as I have.
5 comments:
Wow, I thought I travel a lot! Nothing to compare with your recent activity. I'm spending the Christmas weekend in Budapest, and it's very nice. Not much travel time, either -- just four and half hours driving north from Belgrade. It's a beautiful white Christmas here, but also very cold and windy.
Happy Holidays to you and all your readers!
Yikes....I would never travel again! :)
Thank you, Tom! I always wanted to visit Budapest because everybody says it's extremely beautiful. Have fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTNPT1tb1kY
This was the story of my life from 2004 to 2009, and so was yours perhaps.
Ol.
Are you at the MLA? Or back from the MLA? Or about to go? Let me know!
I think I just created a little but ugly poem.
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