Tim: Er.... to have fun?
Today I've been doing touristy things like standing in queues waiting for the last ferry to arrive, visiting monuments of state and walking around them in a circle for five minutes, taking photographs of various parts of their anatomy, staring at brick walls surrounding the public monuments, entering dirty Subway stations and catching the wrong train to odd parts of the city. This is travel, ladies and gentlemen. When I'm old and grey, I'll be able to say, 'I was there! I was there in the United States, where the queues are larger than anywhere else in the world, and the public monuments are the most extraordinarily ordinary public monuments that you'll find!'
Why do we travel? Why do we inflict this on ourselves? I don't know. I guess if we're going to contemplate the meaninglessness of existence, we might as well do it in unlikely destinations while eating bizarre foodstuffs.
Tomorrow, I will catch a morning train to Boston and sit in the park for five hours playing chess with a statue with George Washington. He can have white and with it, the advantage of the first move. It's the sort of thing that traveller's do.
By the way, the Americans have got the whole 'statue of Liberty' thing wrong:
Statue of' Liberty', indeed! She's signalling for a taxi! Show the poor girl some respect!
4 comments:
Seriously Tim: did you leave home without a comprehensive and coherent travel philosophy? Or even an abridged version (tucked in a corner of the suitcase under the rolled socks)?
Is 'that would be nice' a decent philosophy on travel? Or perhaps 'I will not come home with syphilis'..? Or even, 'I will not come with Ralph Fiennes'?
All excellent suggestions Nails, too difficult to pick a favorite.
Yeah, curse this lack of travel philosophy. I'm surprised they didn't let me in the States without one, I thought it was one of the standard entrance-application forms you had to fill out.
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