How to Catch a Bug

 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

– Mark Twain

Seven years ago it happened.   A thought turned into an idea.  An idea turned into a booking.  A booking turned into a trip.  A trip turned into a revelation.  A revelation turned into a lifestyle.   It sounds so planned, but in reality it took me completely by surprise.  My husband and I had caught the travel bug.

But wait a minute.  Actually, if truth were to be told,  it happened a lot longer ago than that.  The first real seed was planted in 2001 - the year our first "daughters" came to live with us.  Dan Li and Quinhong Zhou arrived from China to live with us for one year.   These two beautiful young woman brought with them the realization that the world was much bigger than Canada and United States.  In reality, it was much bigger than all of North America.   There was a world out there full of people.  Strangers I had never met.  Cities I had never been too.  Countries I knew nothing about.   Languages I had never heard.  Yes, the seed of curiosity had been planted.  I didn't know it at the time but the simple act of opening our home to these two young women from China would change our lives forever.

Our curiosity about the world had begun.  Our first trip in 2005 was a simple one - to Los Angeles for a cruise to Mexico.  Two years later in 2007 we found ourselves travelling overseas for the first time - to Japan for three weeks - and a trip of a lifetime.  But that still wasn't enough so in the spring of 2008 we booked a trip to Peru, South America to spend two weeks with my brother and his wife.  That summer found us travelling to China for two weeks to attend the wedding of one of our first "daughters" - Dan Li (aka Denise) to her husband Smart.  Another trip of a lifetime.  Would that be enough?  Yah - not even close.  May 2009 found us in Europe for a month, and May of 2010 found us travelling around Europe for another month.  In 2011 we cruised in the Caribbean and travelled to Las Vegas.

In six years we had travelled to four of the seven continents in the world.  Not bad.

And that is how I find myself here today.  Our third trip to Europe is just a few days away and I wonder how this travel bug could have become such a large part of our lives.  How did we catch this bug??  Ah...I remember now.  It goes something like this.

“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.”

– Pat Conroy

Terry and I in the Cathedral Square,

Plaça de la Seu, in Barcelona Spain.