“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”

Summer officially ends tomorrow morning at 7:45 am in the cafeteria of the high school where I teach.  It is in that place that I will be reunited with some of the most amazing friends/family/co-workers I am privileged to call mine. We will begin a week of getting ready for the hundreds of young people we get to serve next year.  I'm truly excited.  However, this summer has been exceptional.  My daughter and I went on a magical journey to Europe together (neither of us had ever been), I traveled to Washington DC on my own for a once in a lifetime chance to learn at the US Holocaust Museum, and I just returned from a family vacation to Florida.

I kept a travel journal, and I loved every single thing about traveling, but as I was on the tour bus from Switzerland to the Cinque Terra in Italy, I kept a top ten list of important things I didn't want to forget.  Here are the most important things I  think a person should remember when traveling:
  1. It is okay to laugh aloud in a foreign country on public transport when words sound hilarious to your uncultured self-and if you are always taking the Piccadilly line to Cockfosters, it's always going to be funny.
  2. When you force yourself to walk miles to see everything in one day, you are required to take your shoes off in the middle of Paris and wait for the swelling to go down while you assure yourself you know where the next Metro stop is-no problem.  It is also imperative that you do this while looking cosmopolitan for all the Parisians.
  3. If you are stressed out about the difference in currency, get with other people on your tour group, pool the "coin" money and buy wine with it-as much as you can. It will lighten your pocketbook, and make you friends for life.
  4. If you are invited to do something or eat something you would not eat at home-DO THIS THING! This is where memories are created. I will NEVER forget Lord Ken and our medieval
    feast!
  5. If your hotel room turns into a swanky penthouse by accident, it is the law that you invite all your tour group over for BYOB snacks and wine and Swiss adventures. If you do this, when they all leave, there will be fireworks (I know because this happened to me).
  6. If you allow your tour bus drive to choose the music, he will choose Belgian jazz and it will be amazing and have lyrics like, "Music is my husband/ Rhythm is my lover"
  7. If you stop at a rest stop that has huge piles of snow in June, you must have a snowball fight in your shorts and t-shirts.
  8. Read great books and talk to people about them. Then, listen I mean really LISTEN to people talk about their stories-I will never forget that one of my tour mates had a father who was in Dresden with Kurt Vonnegut as I was reading Slaughterhouse Five-she simply leaned over to talk to me, and I am so incredibly thankful she shared her story with me.
  9. Hold hands and stroll with your teenage companion as often as she will let you. You will remember the feeling of holding her almost grown hand for the rest of your life.
  10. The historical/cultural/education things are important. But the experience is the most important. When you travel, magical things happen.  If you are so focused on checking off a list or rushing to make sure you see everything, you limit your magic. When we went to the Deportation Memorial in Paris, we had to wait a little bit. It was Paris and there is so much "important" stuff to see and do.  However, as we were waiting in line, we met a man who had served in MI6 during and after WWII rounding up war criminals.  He spoke to our group.  If we had abandoned that place or rushed because there were more important things, we would have missed an authentically moving experience.  When you sit with your daughter in a cafe in Italy, for hours, eating weird cheese and drinking wine/diet coke and making up stories for everyone that walks by-that is truly authentically the most important thing you can do.  When you are exhausted and jet lagged, but your daughter gets the giggles at 1 am and wants to talk about boys and school and clothes and tell jokes-you sit up and you giggle and you live as fully as you can right then. Travel is about the moment.


This summer will live in my soul, and I know it will make me a better teacher and mother and human being.  Mark Twain said "Travel is fatal to prejudice." It is also fatal to stagnation and lethargy and apathy.  I am so excited for the challenge of a new year, and I am so ready to travel into a brand new adventure.

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