Kindness of Strangers

I’m not going to wax poetic about turning 30, which I did on Thursday.  I don’t have any sage words about passing into the third decade of my life.  But I will say that the idea for this round-the-world trip germinated during a 30th birthday.  It just wasn’t mine. 

Maikael turned 30 last June, which was a bigger deal for me than it was for him.  I remember lying in bed one morning sometime around his birthday, staring at the ceiling, when an absurdly simple thought shot across my mind like a rocket:  the rest of my life is no longer ahead of me.  Of course I knew this on an intellectual level — life starts ticking by from the moment we’re born.  But until that moment in time I had always felt as if the world was full of limitless possibilities.  While I had accomplished a fair amount during my 20s, I didn’t feel as if I had tackled any of the personal goals that I had set for myself a decade earlier.  Indeed, the only thing I had truly wished to complete was to travel extensively and learn Spanish fluently.  In nine years I hadn’t done much to nudge myself toward either of those goals.  Now was the time to get busy living life. 

Fast-forward 11 months.  I am sitting in a very frou-frou chi-chi restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico, getting ready to order the first dinner of my 30s, which I am expecting to be sumptous.  I request the lamb sirloin, garnished with favas, morels, sunchokes, and shallots, in a demiglace with French feta salata atop.  The waiter asks me, “Would you like the mushrooms with that?”  I assume he is referring to the morels.  This is not insignificant.  Admittedly, I am not the biggest mushroom fan (nor is my friend, Nikki, a vegan blogger who writes eloquently about her dislike of mushrooms).  However, I have been trying to broaden my culinary horizons in preparation for this trip, so I respond, “Sure, why not.”  Thirty minutes later I am delivered, alongside my entree, a steaming plate of crescent-shape fungi, dusted with fresh parsley.  This is not an inconsequential amount of mushrooms.  It is a plate-full, fit for a true fungi fanatic. 

For a moment I consider digging into the mushrooms.  Has there been some sort of a mistake?  Did they extract the mushrooms from my entree and give them a place of honor on their own plate?  But no; I see the morels nestled amongst the favas, their jaunty caps a stark contrast to their more pedestrian-looking cousins on the next plate over.  I determine this is mushroom overkill, and realize that I have been upsold an additional side of mushrooms that I never intended to order.  These mushrooms are coming at a great cost. 

To appreciate my next move, you must know I dislike conflict with a passion.  I will usually do anything to avoid rocking the boat, but I’ve made conscious strides in the last year to overcome this.  Now was the time to test my mettle.  “I’m not paying for these extra mushrooms,” I tell Maikael.  I call the waiter over with an expectant eyebrow-raise.  “I’m a little confused,” I say, in the sweetest voice I can muster.  “I thought you were asking me if the existing mushrooms in the dish were okay, not if I wanted an entire side of mushrooms.”  The waiter and I share a look.  “It wasn’t clear to me.”  Pause.  “I would like to send these mushrooms back.”  The waiter screws up his face, in a look I can only describe as whiny.  He starts to say something and stops himself.  “I’m sorry about the confusion.  I’ll take care of that.”

This moment was, quite simply, exhilirating.  The 29-year-old Elizabeth wouldn’t have sent the mushrooms back.  Instead, she would have stewed about the mushrooms, talking incessantly about how she hates to be upsold, in effect ruining the meal.  It suddenly dawned on me that the Elizabeth of Her 20s would never have been prepared to take a trip of this magnitude.  The Elizabeth of Her 20s had some growing up to do. 

I am further elated when the check comes.  The waiter explains that he has comped the side of wild mushrooms.  When he leaves, I lean across the table and ask Maikael, “What did the mushrooms cost?”  “Fifteen dollars,” he says.  My mind quickly calculates what I’ve just saved us in WTER terms!  Nearly 1/3 of a plane ticket from Madrid to Lisbon!  About 1/2 of a room in our Lisbon hostel! 

My 30th year is bound to be memorable, inextricably linked with embarking on a round-the-world trip.  The iPod I received for my birthday from my mother-in-law was engraved with “Round the World Trip 2008.”  I got a lot of cool travel-related gifts:  custom-designed business cards for our trip from a friend who’s a graphic designer.  A metal spork (who knew they made these? – ingenious!).  But there’s no better gift I could ask for than to start living out a long-held dream.

People keep asking me, “How does it feel to be 30?”  I can honestly say that I never dreamed the chrystallizing moment of turning 30 would come in fungi form. 

A recent news article on MSN caught my eye:  “Stimulus Plans?  Gadgets Worth Blowing Your $600 On.”  The article, of course, was referring to the Economic Stimulus Act monies that Americans began receiving at the beginning of the month.  As a married couple who filed our taxes electronically, we received our $1,200 check a few weeks ago…and promptly deposited said check in The Trip Fund.  

You may recall me writing here last February that I was I feeling a little guilty about using our rebate check to stimulate foreign economies.  To assauge my guilt, we decided to put that money to good use by using it as fodder for the blog.  After reading that PC World is encouraging Americans to put their money towards such useful items as $1,200 Japanese toys, a space-age looking gadget called a “modular synthesizer,” and something that allows you to pretend to be a rock star (something I do in my head on a daily basis without the help of any electronic device, thank you very much!), any remaining tinge of guilt faded away.  (Only two of the fifteen PC World employees suggested that they might use their money for non-electronic-related purchases, like paying down existing debt.)

As I am fond of telling my career counseling clients and students, values aren’t good or bad:  they are simply a reflection of what’s important to us.  My mission is not to tell anyone what they should and shouldn’t spend their money on.  I have no doubt that there are readers out there who consider traveling around the world to be a foolish waste of money.  But I know myself well enough to know that I value experiences over things.  People frequently ask us, “How can you afford to take a trip like this?”  It’s certainly not because we’re independently wealthy (despite my best efforts to win the New Mexico state lottery).  Travel is simply the thing we value most, and where we choose to spend our money.  The editors at PC World would be disappointed in our spending habits:  we’ve never had the latest TV or cell phones, we own approximately 10 DVDs, and I’m just now joining the iPod age.   

As we promised a few months ago, we will be begin reporting how we spend that $1,200 — peso for peso — when the trip commences.  It’s a big job, but somebody’s got to do it.  In the meantime, if you had to spend your Economic Stimulus Act monies on travel, where would you go?  What would you do?  Or, would you spend it on something else entirely? 

With Indiana Jones mania reaching a fever pitch this week with the May 22 release of the new film, I wanted to share this article from MSNBC.com’s Travel section.  It discusses some of the different locations in which the four movies have been filmed, or are purported to have taken place.  Many of the sites mentioned, including Petra, Jordan, and northern India, are places we will be visiting on our travels.  “Indy” suddenly has a new meaning in the world of travel!

Figuring out accomodations is always an adventure in and of itself.  Doug Lansky, who wrote our round-the-world guide, is the person I want to be.  Through the travel philosophy espoused in the book, he comes across as breezy and fun, a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kinda guy who rolls with the punches and doesn’t let much get him down.  For example, here’s his system for choosing accomodations:  “If I’m tired out or staying a bit longer, I’ll pick a place further from the center.  If I’m just staying a day or two and feeling fresh, I’ll go for the best rated of the flea traps in the center.  If there are a few decent choices in these categories, I’ll typically go for the ones that are the easiest to get to.  But, whatever the case, I won’t spend more than five or ten minutes deciding.”  And he does this all on the bus ride into town.

I like this philosophy.  I really do.  It’s simple, pragmatic, and doesn’t waste a lot of time.  But living it is an entirely different matter.  As I’ve written here before in these pages, I am a planner who spends entirely too much time investigating my lodging options.  For the past week I’ve been tirelessly researching budget accomodations in Madrid, where we will spend all of 48 hours.  My system looks something like this:  cross-reference Trip Advisor with Lonely Planet with the hostel’s website.  Take the square root of the photos, multiplied by the top three most important features, then divide by the arc tangent of proximity to public transportation.  Double check with your gut. 

In the end I went with Hostal Alaska; the name seemed like a good omen for the start of the trip. 

Our week in Lisbon will be spent at one of five Hostelling International (HI) hostels scattered throughout the city.  For 38 Euros we will have a private room with bathroom, laundry facilities, WiFi access, and breakfast.  Neither of us has stayed at a hostel before.  We never did the backpack-through-Europe thing after college:  Maikael started graduate school and I went to work.  I feel like I’ve missed out on some pivotal cultural experience; that anyone staying in one of these places who’s over the age of 22 will be well-schooled in the ways of the hostel.  I’ve heard that hostels vary dramatically, even within a given city:  did I pick the “good one,” I ask myself?

After leaving Lisbon we’ll spend a week making our way north to Porto, where we’ll take our chances at finding accomodations as we go.  While I’m trying to channel the reassuring spirit of Doug Lansky, this plan makes me nervous.  I know we’ll find something — there’s always something.  But I hope not to repeat our experience in Sterling, Scotland, last March, where we spent what felt like hours driving over country roads looking for budget digs, while my stomach grumbled audibly (any of you who know my eating habits can imagine the scene that ensued).  When these moments happen — and I know they will — I hope Mr. Lansky whispers his infinite words of wisdom in my ear.

On Friday we called the Hotel Peninsular in Porto to reserve our room, which is where we’ll spend the last week of our time in Portugal and use it as a base to explore the northern region via day trips.  We had originally planned on staying at the hostel in town, which the Lonely Planet describes as “the crown jewel of Portugese hostels.”  Perched high on a cliff overlooking the water, this newer hostel boasts modern facilities and  sweeping vistas.  The only problem?  It’s a 4 km/30  minute bus ride from town.  In the end we booked something in the city center which, of course, I spent way too much time researching.  We didn’t have to pay in advance, though, which provides more flexibility should our plans change (the hostels have all required advanced payment thus far).  Iselda at Hotel Peninsular said we just had to call if plans changed.  We asked her if they had Internet access, something most hostels have.  “No.  But we will next week when it’s fixed.” 

Doug Lansky assures me that we will develop our own system for finding accomodations.  I know once we hit the road that we won’t have the time to thoroughly investigate options.  One of my goals for this trip has been to become a better, more flexible traveler.  I don’t think I’ll have much of a choice!

Last week my Little Sister asked me what car we would be taking around the world.  “What do you mean?” I asked.  “I mean, which of your two cars are you going to drive around the world?” she responded.  I explained that we would be leaving both of our cars parked at home, and that you couldn’t exactly drive around the world (unless, of course, you shipped your car).  “Well, then how are you going to get there?” she asked.  When I told her we were going to fly, she exclaimed, “You’re going to fly around the whole world?!” 

This, to me, didn’t seem to be any astonishing feat.  Planes have become the Greyhounds of the skies, shiny canisters that propel masses of people around the world on a daily basis.   I am, in fact, bummed that we are taking such a generic form of transportation for the majority of the trip.  Our round-the-world planning guide dedicates a whole chapter to promoting alternative forms of transportation, such as the taking a felucca down the Nile in Egypt.  When in Rome do as the Romans do, right? 

Our round-the-world tickets gets us from Albuquerque to Madrid, but so as to save one of our 20 legs, we are getting ourselves from Madrid to Portugal and back.  The question was, how would we do it?  I was eager to take the train from Madrid to Lisbon, the train being the ultimate European experience.  I imagined sipping sangria in my sleeper car, reading Don Quixote or some heady work of classic fiction, while the Spanish countryside streaked by in shades of ochre.  I would munch on churros y chocolate in the dining car, making fast friends with my fellow travelers and talking animatedly in Spanish with an unexpected degree of fluency.  This fantasy came to a grinding halt when I discovered that the train was an overnight route — common in Europe.  The landscape would be nothing but darkness, and we couldn’t afford the tickets that included meals.  A basic sleeper car without a shower would run us $170 per person. 

Next we investigated driving.  I could still have my vibrant countryside, only this time I could get out to admire Spanish hamlets and wave hello to the myriad olive farmers I would inevitably pass on the road.  The daily rental fee was only $20 — but the cost of taking a car over an international border on a one-way trip added an additional $600 to the fare. 

So, after staying two nights in Madrid, we will be on an Easy Jet flight to Lisbon on July 16 for the ridiculously low price of $50 per person.  The taxes cost more than the ticket itself.  While it’s not the romantic train experience I had always envisioned, I will be privy to another quintessential European experience:  bargain basement airfares.  There is incredible competition in this market, driving tickets prices down to nearly nothing.  Airlines such as Easy Jet and Ryan Air (whom we will fly from Porto to Madrid with) cater to the weekend traveler; as such, they gouge you on extravagent extras like checking one bag per person.  Seriously:  it will be more expensive to send our luggage than ourselves from Porto to Madrid. 

Not all trains are created equal.  After spending a week in Libson we will meander our way north up the coastline for two weeks, taking a series of inexpensive trains and busses that link most Portugese cities.  I may have my European rail experience yet. 

At least once a week someone mentions the falling dollar, rising gas prices, the tanking economy, the global food shortage, the housing crisis, or the persistent troubles with American Airlines (those mechanical problems just can’t seem to get themselves out of the news).  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t worry me.  “Could we have picked a worse time to go on this trip?” I moan, approximately once a day.  My greatest fear is that, despite our best efforts to be frugal, we’ll run out of money half way through our trip.  And then what will we do? 

I was shaken out of this doomsday thinking when a letter postmarked Anchorage, Alaska, arrived this Friday.  It was from my friend, Nikki, whom I’ve shared an 18-year correspondence with.  A fellow world traveler, she shares a lot of the same dreams that I do and always has a way of making me feel better.  She said these issues, rather than making her feel doubtful, remind her of the importance of getting out there and living life.  “These things are a reminder that our time here is precious and we should make the most of it:  sooner rather than later.”  Truer words were never spoke. 

I think of all the places I dreamed of going eight years ago, fresh out of college, when the dollar was soaring and my life had few encumberments.  What did I tell myself?  I don’t have enough money.  Europe will always be there.  There will be a better time to go in the future.  My point is, it’s always something, and most of us are very good at talking ourselves out of things.  There’s no perfect time to plan a trip like this.  If it’s not the falling dollar it’s a military coup or natural disaster somewhere.  Whenever I moan about our timing, Maikael sagely responds, “It may not be the best time for the economy, but it’s the best time for us.”  And he’s right:  I’m tired of observing life from the sidelines.  At some point each of us must take that leap into the unknown in the interest of something that matters intensely to us.  I was watching the Nicholas Cage film The Weather Man last night, a film that didn’t do terribly well at the box office, but which I found surprisingly engaging.  The main character’s father tells him, “Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy.”

And besides:  I heard that the dollar nudged upward last week.