There was a period of about 8 years, during my late teens and early twenties, when I seemed to be travelling around all the time. A gap year spent travelling 'around the world', university holidays backpacking round Italy, jet-setting adventures with friends when I was living in London, a long, working trip to America, and a rather gruelling solo-cycling trip through France, but since I started teaching full time, I haven't been able to manage travels in quite the same way. It's a sign of feeling more settled, which is wonderful, but it also has to do with having more financial obligations and ties, which is frankly a little dull.
I don't think I realised how much I missed it until last week, when I booked myself flights to Spain for a friend's wedding. I've decided to go a little early and spend some time in and around Madrid, and all of a sudden, I am remembering the joyous feeling of anticipation of a trip, and how wonderful it feels to be somewhere unusual and just a little warmer than here!
Madrid. Photo from www.laspalmas24.com
Being a creature of habit, I quite enjoy the rituals of being on a holiday. Days spent walking around exotic cities, long, lazy lunches in the sun followed (preferably) by a little siesta before heading out and about just that little bit later than you would at home, and feeling just a little more relaxed about what time you get in to bed. The smell of warmth, the taste of food that has felt the sun, the unfamiliarity of a local drink or delicacy. It is on these kinds of trips that memories are seared into our minds because the simplest things are so much more out of the ordinary for us.
Jardins du Luxembourg, Paris, 2009
We often try to recreate these rituals at home. Sometimes successfully, most often not. My coffee drinking habits are most certainly influenced by plenty of cafe noisettes in Paris, and I am increasingly able to settle to reading some trashy novel imagining that I am away from the ironing, the marking, the housework. But that feeling of holiday ritual is so special, so particular to being away that I don't really mind its elusiveness when I return home. Home is home; secure, familiar, day-to-day. Saving those unfamiliar rituals for unfamiliar climes helps to maintain their exoticness, and makes the anticipation of travel all the more thrilling.
Les Tuileries, Paris, 2009
Pastries, La Durée, Paris 2009
