The Travel Thread! :)

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There is NOTHING that makes me happier than the idea that when I'm fully healed, I can go and travel more! I love traveling!!! But I haven't been everywhere I want to go yet

 

Some of us can't afford to travel (I'm basically one of you, but I'm sneaky about money and sock it away like no one's business). Other's have physical issues which make travel difficult.

 

So this thread is dedicated to either your trips and what you loved most about them OR where you would travel if you could push a button and be anywhere in the whole world.

 

I spend a huge amount of time on wikitravel in the morning when I wake up too early looking at places all over the world. I am fascinated by the nature, art, culture, history, people, and birds, plants, and animals of any place. I want to understand the "psyche" behind a place. I fantasize about going around the world! But the reality is that I'm just as happy staying in my county if I put on some boots, long pants, and a jacket, and go traipsing around through the underbrush to see what's there. This summer alone, I have seen tons of wildlife! Soon, I will be able to harvest wild fruit as well. I love travel that moves us back in time, where we meet people who will invite you to their children's wedding five minutes after knowing you, where there is sorrow which dwarfs anything I've ever experienced before. I love beautiful and unexpected and strange sites! I care little about comfort (sorry!). A place to lie down is all I ever need. Some people like really posh travel, which must be super cool too! I've done it once It was amazing.

 

So play with me! Either tell me a story about the greatest place you've ever been, or else, tell me about a fantasy you have of a place!

 

I'll start with a funny story.  I took an art history course at a community college in my teens, in the 80's, and we studied architecture. We were shown the Hagia Sofia building, and over the years, it became this "amazing place I wanted to go." I thought about it a lot. At one point, I had a boyfriend who was half-Turkish, who was always going to Istanbul but told me it wasn't safe for me as a woman! He also told me that the area around the Hagia Sofia was filled with wild, rabid dogs, so why would I want to go? I thought he was lying! Fast-forward about seven years and I'm married to a man who also loved traveling. We decided to go to Istanbul for ten days over the summer. It was as amazing as I thought it was going to be, and on the first night, we stayed in Sultanahmet, blocks from the Hagia Sophia. The muezzhin's call to prayer awoke us at 5 am. It was just getting light, so we thought maybe we could walk around before the heat and the crowds. I was dying to see the Hagia Sofia after all. We made our way up to the building, set back across a large promenade, and then suddenly in the dawn's light, a pack of six wild, shabby dogs emerged from the shrubbery and one stood up on my arms, scratching me. I was petrified with fear. "Do they have rabies?" I wondered, searching for anything to throw at them. By threes, they formed a phalanx next to me, three to a side, leaving my husband entirely alone. In my anxiety, I walked up the wrong street and took an extra mile walk to our hotel. Finally back at the hotel, after the dogs accompanied me all the while, tensely, one tried to come inside with us, causing the hotel owner to hit it on the head with his shoe before slamming the door. Exhausted, we went upstairs and fell back to sleep. At 8 or 9 am, we awoke and took showers, excited to see the Hagia Sofia more than ever. I was dressed and about to leave, so I slipped out the window sill of our second floor room ever so slightly... only to see... down below... outside the hotel door... six sleeping dogs... waiting for me for hours.

 

When I walked out, they accompanied me back to the Hagia Sofia, again three to a side. I was petrified because they really were wild dogs, howling and growling and barking; I'm not a dog person at all! Once we made it to the promenade, they disbanded and left me alone and we were finally able to go inside the Hagia Sofia. Until lunch, when sitting at a nearby cafe, the dogs showed up again only to be brained by the owner with cans of fava beans. After that, I never saw them again!

 

That's my story!

 

My next place I fantasize about going is to Morocco and the South of Spain (in one trip). I hope I'm well enough by next summer for that.

 

Your turn! Travel stories! These can, of course, be road trips too! Whatever you've got that left an impression on you or whatever you fantasize about

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Oh my blueorchidlady,

 

Let me please help support your next round of travels so we may be the lucky recipients of more stories like that. So richly descriptive, so funny. Your are a natural writer, I felt as if I could smell the dust, hear the dogs.  Here is some extra cash I had lying around the house, you see, I never learned how to tuck anything away! 

http://www.picgifs.com/graphics/m/money/graphics-money-691664.gif

 

In my mind, I've always dreamed of far away places in times gone by. I am a dreamer, always was. Now,  the thought of doing a walking tour of all the little homes cum antique shops in the outlying Twin Cities just gets me all choked up. Right now the only realistic plans I have for travel would be to my future new employers' door.

 

Love your new avatar, somehow, I know you look exactly like her.

 

Love,

 

M.

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Enjoyed your post BlueOrchidLady. i would love to go to Istanbul .Turkey is a "rite of passage for many Aussies & older people too to go to Gallipoli - a war memorial site for Australians where there is a  " dawn service" every year televised here & with the centenary in 2015.

Also my late Aussie friend's husband goes to Istanbul a lot on business from the U.K. My friends said she wasn't too keen to go as the men tended to leer at her, &  the door of the hotel was  opened for her husband but then shut in her face.

She said the resorts in the south of the country might be better .

A book to read I was told by her son is 'My Name Is Red ' by  O Pamuk. i am presently reading " In Turkey I Am Beautiful" by Brendan Shanahan an Australian journalist.

 

I would really love to see the Hagia Sophia as I did a unit of Byzantine history at university years ago. I hope to travel soon &  we are in the middle od selling 'stuff' off so we can do more travel.

In the book I am reading set in Istanbul the stray dogs ears are tagged to show that they have been vaccinated against rabies  Rabies has been a problem in Bali for a few years, but fortunately not when we went there in the nineties & my son got bitten by a monkey.

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In addition to travel travel, I read travel.  I have been to Istanbul via Orhan Pamuk's book "Istanbul."  I was mesmerized by his descriptions and pen and ink drawings.  Some day I will go with his book in hand as a travel guide.  Love your story about the dogs.  They would probably have gaurded your car if you had one.  Did you have to pay them something?

 

One of my current goals is to be really well by October when my husband and I are going on a river cruise from Austria to Holland.  We set this as a goal as reward for my recovery.  No matter what I will be going and will be 6 and 1/2 months by then.  Until then, we will do smaller, more local trips to get ready for the big one. 

 

Thanks for the opportunity to dream about the next chapter in my life.  Healed and have suitcase will travel.