Fictionus Interruptus

A year ago today I woke up in London and went to bed in Brussels. It was a wonderful day of adventure, of traveling to somewhere I had never been, of being mostly lost for a good amount of time. I had a different job then, one that had owned me for nearly a decade and provided me with ample vacation time for such adventures. Now, though, I have much less vacation available and must carefully allocate my days off throughout the year. The older I get, the more I would trade money for time off. With this in mind, it might be ironic that I traded both when I switched jobs....

I was lost for much of my time in Brussels, starting when I got on the correct local train after arriving by Eurostar but went in the wrong direction. When that local train stopped, everyone got off--I followed suit and found myself in a park dominated by a statue of Winston Churchill. Having no idea about where I was or where I should go, I simply loitered in the park until the sign sign on the same train changed to the name of the station I was looking for. I took that as a good omen, got back on the train, and 15 minutes later was at the stop near my hotel. Significant in this experience is a breakfast conversation I had with two women in London. They described a visit to Paris during which they were riding the metro when the train stopped at a station, the conductor announced something, and everyone got off the train. Speaking no French, the women decided that they should follow suit. They were not sure of where they were, but they eventually ended up where they were supposed to be. When I was on the right train in the wrong place in Brussels, I thought of their experience and simply did as they did.

I would return to England, given the chance. I would return today, in fact. I have brought this up in too many conversations with too many people, and the reaction I sometimes get is, "Why? You've been there twice--don't you want to see something new?" This is perfectly logical question, and perhaps it speaks to the truth that I perhaps I am not as adventurous as I'd like to believe. I suspect that my time in the navy plays a role in this: I traveled quite a bit, but drifted into assorted ports only every now and then, never staying longer than a few days. Age, too, has a role. With a good number of years on my back, new and completely different experiences are a bit harder to come by as I get softer and more settled in habit and responsibility. There is something very new about waking up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar city and thinking, How do I get breakfast here? How do I get the shower to work? How do I get to Brussels?