![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Personal growth and all that
May. 30th, 2007 09:01 pmI mostly didn't put any negative stuff about my Italy trip on the postcards, because who wants to get a postcard full of complaints? ( There was some negative stuff, of course, though vastly outweighed by the positives. )
( A digression on Asian-ness. )
The point isn't to whine, anyway; I'm the kind of person who finds even minor unpleasantnesses interesting as long as they're novel and don't last very long. XD But the point of travelling is as much the bad - or at any rate the unexpected - as the good, maybe. Both planes to and from Rome were filled with aging couples on package vacations, and when I said I was travelling alone and had booked everything myself they always expressed admiration. I hadn't thought of it like that - I had no one to go with me and no one to stay with there so of course I had to arrange everything myself, and I wasn't intimidated or overwhelmed because I didn't let myself be intimidated or overwhelmed. XD; Getting older is helpful in this respect because you can just say to yourself, "Well, you're 26 and if you still can't [get around in a strange city / demand a refund in a loud voice / etc.], there's not much hope for you." And then you do it.
There was that birthday meme going around re: Things I have learnt by the age of..., and one of the major things I've learnt is that if you're going to wait until you feel like a grown-up in order to act like a grown-up you'll wait forever. Nobody feels like a grown-up, it's all acting.
...Speaking of getting around I helped other tourists find their way several times. RL people probably find this funny, but I think I have a leg up on most travellers in unfamiliar cities because I assume I'm lost by default and am unfazed by it as long as I have a map to consult. As Forrest Gump found, people will follow you as long as you look like you know where you're going. XD;
* One of Rome's better points. A lot of her fountains are just potable water founts, usually without any sign they're so apart from the people drinking from them, and one is grateful. ^^; Otherwise I filled a bottle with tap water every morning and refilled in washrooms along the way - it always tasted perfectly fine.
** Remember that controversy about the Filipino-Canadian kid who was punished for table manners at school, and the très pur-laine principal was like, who's ever heard of eating with a fork and spoon? I may have wept a little for humanity.
*** Though "Ciao, bella" from potentially any male between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five wasn't what got me, what got me was that "salve" is still a word. Seventh-grade Latin textbook flashbacks ahaha.
( A digression on Asian-ness. )
The point isn't to whine, anyway; I'm the kind of person who finds even minor unpleasantnesses interesting as long as they're novel and don't last very long. XD But the point of travelling is as much the bad - or at any rate the unexpected - as the good, maybe. Both planes to and from Rome were filled with aging couples on package vacations, and when I said I was travelling alone and had booked everything myself they always expressed admiration. I hadn't thought of it like that - I had no one to go with me and no one to stay with there so of course I had to arrange everything myself, and I wasn't intimidated or overwhelmed because I didn't let myself be intimidated or overwhelmed. XD; Getting older is helpful in this respect because you can just say to yourself, "Well, you're 26 and if you still can't [get around in a strange city / demand a refund in a loud voice / etc.], there's not much hope for you." And then you do it.
There was that birthday meme going around re: Things I have learnt by the age of..., and one of the major things I've learnt is that if you're going to wait until you feel like a grown-up in order to act like a grown-up you'll wait forever. Nobody feels like a grown-up, it's all acting.
...Speaking of getting around I helped other tourists find their way several times. RL people probably find this funny, but I think I have a leg up on most travellers in unfamiliar cities because I assume I'm lost by default and am unfazed by it as long as I have a map to consult. As Forrest Gump found, people will follow you as long as you look like you know where you're going. XD;
* One of Rome's better points. A lot of her fountains are just potable water founts, usually without any sign they're so apart from the people drinking from them, and one is grateful. ^^; Otherwise I filled a bottle with tap water every morning and refilled in washrooms along the way - it always tasted perfectly fine.
** Remember that controversy about the Filipino-Canadian kid who was punished for table manners at school, and the très pur-laine principal was like, who's ever heard of eating with a fork and spoon? I may have wept a little for humanity.
*** Though "Ciao, bella" from potentially any male between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five wasn't what got me, what got me was that "salve" is still a word. Seventh-grade Latin textbook flashbacks ahaha.
