The very act of putting yourself out there — whether it’s by tour bus, hitch hiking, or simply bumming around, like we are — changes your whole approach to life.
That is my thesis.
Our trip began with a bit of disappointment; a two hour delay in our flight. That turned out to be the only thing wrong with our day. How could things possibly be bad? We’re off to Europe, baby!
Plane boards and leaves around 8pm, arrives 1pm the next day in Amsterdam. Air Transat, no issues at all (after several long haul flights with them.) Very little sleep onboard (3 hours for me, maybe an hour for La Fille ™). Our plan had been to sleep on the plane and attack Amsterdam after a short rest. We attempted the short rest, but it did not go well; you simply cannot be in a new place and force yourself to sleep (as Alan Bean discovered on the Moon).
So by six PM we we were out and about, walking. Our first true destination (on our list as something to do) was The Heineken Experience. Sorta of a multi-media multi-sensory beer brewing tour through the old Heineken factory. It’s something I missed out on the last time I was here in 2004, and we were told that we should not miss it this time.
So we didn’t.
It gave us our second wind. Two and a half beers will do that to a person. And thus, this photo, our first true LPV photo.
LPV (for Le Petit Voyage) photos are a single photo for the day. It’s not meant to represent the day’s activity (although it might) or to make any specific point (although it might — see the pattern here?). Rather it’s a photo that leads a discussion for me. This one’s it.
Travel changes you. The world becomes not so large, and The Other, not so strange. Not so otherly. We have friends who said “screw it, we’re travelling for six months” (Hell Lee and Family) with ther two ten year old boys. No easy feat, but they did it. And my message to them upon their return was “good for you”.
This photo, above reminds me of how weird and foreign we sometimes feel when out of our comfort zone. Other worldly, in real and metaphorical terms. We weren’t precisely pumped to hit the Heineken Experience in the evening after a ten hour flight with little sleep, but we did it.
And we left refreshed. Our second wind.
This was us later in the day, after finding the last late night restaurant near our apartment. Quite contented.