Thursday, April 2, 2015

well, these days I try and these days I tend to lie.

The year 2015 is one big vacation interefered with work. At least that's what it feels like.
There are so many trips I'm trying to somehow fit into this year and I really hope that it's all going to happen. I started my traveling year with a short trip to London at the end of January. Sadly I couldn't fit anything in February, but I went to Prague with my brother in March and in about 2,5 weeks I'm off to Rome.
It's by far not the end of my plans. Believe it or not, for all these trips I didn't have to use up a single vacation entitlement, so when I come back from Italy I still have 33 days left to go on vacation. Oh, the joys of a part-time employee with 60 overtime hours...

A couple days ago I was talking with one of my friends and I told him about all my trips and he was like "You gotta teach me how to plan trips. I'm having such a hard time doing it. I'm never going anywhere".
My reaction was to laugh and say something like "Oh, come on. It's not that difficult. Just book everything, pack your stuff and there you go. Enjoy!"
If you're reading this, my friend, I have to tell you something. I lied.
There's nothing, literally NOTHING, easy for me when it comes to planning a trip. It's a neverending nightmare.

Later that day I told Lena about this situation and I came up with my excellent pro tips on how I masterly achieve my travel goals:

  1. choose destination
  2. annoy your best friend 24/7
  3. cry and hate everything
  4. have an existential crisis
  5. book everything
  6. intense panic attacks and fear
  7. go on vacation

That's my secret. That's how I'm actually doing it.
I love traveling. I love exploring new places. It's the one thing that keeps me going.
That's basically the reason why I book one trip after the other like a mad person. As long as there's another vacation lined up that I can look forward to, my life is sort of safe. At my current state of life there's nothing worth living for, except for my best friend and traveling, but without traveling I'd probably lose it completely.
So why the drama?
Yes, it keeps me alive, but it means that I have to face some of my greatest fears. I'm scared of pretty much everything you can think of. Okay, not everything. I'm not scared of flying (I'm one of these weirdos who falls asleep during take-off, because it's so relaxing). Other than that I see disaster behind every corner. Train delays that will lead to missing my flight. Getting lost at the airport. Sharing a hostel room. Talking to strangers. Communicating in a country where I don't understand their official language. Going on buses without a WC. The list goes on.
I burst out in tears all the time while trying to figure out how to organize it all. And so far I can't say that it gets easier the more often I do it.

It's all about fighting the things that are actually killing me with things that only scare me to death (well, not litereally to death, obviously...otherwise it wouldn't be much of a livesaving thing).
It doesn't solve any of my problems. Not in the slightest. I'm done with forcing myself into useless therapy sessions. Maybe something happens, that will change my life and rescues me permanently, but for now it's all about wandering until I run out of money. And I couldn't care less.

That's why I travel so much. And that's also the reason why I'm the worst person to ask for travel advice.

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