Write it down

I said yesterday that I want to live and experience this trip, rather than just, I don't know, going through the motions? But if I want to keep the things I experience, I have to record them. Write them down. The memory: it is not infallible.

So I guess that starts now. This minute, as I sit in terminal 2, waiting for my dad to get off his flight from Salt Lake, I'm noticing the difference between this terminal and the one where I just checked in, terminal 5, for international flights. First, I have to say, Americans are pretty happy people. I love that about them. There is more loud laughter and more smiles that come from Americans than almost anyone else. But I loved being in the international terminal. I loved hearing different languages, loved the conversation that I had with the woman in front of me in the check-in line. She was Italian, from Rome, and she offered up her home phone number and pointed out her neighborhood on my map (which is not far from our hotel) should I need a little insider info.

Oh hey, there is the cutest little old lady standing by me, talking on her cell-phone, I think to her grandson or something. She has to be about 70. I sort of love her. She's the only one, at the moment, and it makes me realize that for lots of people the travel bug just sort of . . . dies when they get older. I hope it doesn't die for me. I still want to see everything there is to see in the world. And hey, what better way to start than with Rome. It's the cradle of civilization or something. Or maybe that's Greece. Or Israel. Where I've been already, so hey, I'm almost doing this in order!

People watching is marvelous. I'm not a fan of the suit guys, who seem so serious and look like their lives have no fun in them. The travel-industry people are fun, and I wonder about them. Some of them are fresh, still in love with the idea of seeing the world and getting paid for it. Others look like they've been doing this entirely too long, like they've seen too much of the insides of airplanes and not anything like enough of the world. I don't think I'd be a very good flight attendant. In fact, short trips like this one aren't even my favorites. The trips I really love are the ones that last a while; where you get to stay—even live—for a while in a place, and really get a taste of the people who live there, of their culture, their food, their language, their kids (I love seeing how different cultures approach childhood). Planning this trip has made me hungry for a chance to travel to Italy with our whole family (yes, this is probably an unrealistic dream to have for people living on our salary, but I don't mind dreaming beyond my current circumstances—who knows what the future holds?). Not many of the people in this terminal have the flavor of having lived somewhere different for a while. But maybe it will be different when I get back to terminal 5. Okay, my dad should be here soon, so I'm going to post this.