Travel with Perspective

“You know what I’ve noticed….people in London are not very friendly. I mean I swore before they used to at least say hello.”

“Robyn no. If they say hello run the other way. If they say hello there’s a good chance you’ll end-up in their freezer.”

But I like to say hello. I like to be friendly and joke about the weather or the fact that I had to be up at 3 a.m. for my cab to the bus to the airport (yep the cheapest way to an airport). Maybe it’s the Bermudian in me. I’m going to be friendly despite myself.

And yet as I struggle to leave the Bermudian in me I am actually trying to escape Bermuda.

It’s not a myth. Love em and leave em. It’s the only way to stay sane. Swizzle in and Swaggle out. I’ve got Rock Fever. I’ve got island fever. I need to escape!

How many sayings do Bermudians have to escape our lovely little island. And it is lovely. Don’t get me wrong I love Bermuda. I can’t imagine living anywhere else (and I’ve tried).

But it’s small.

After a while things that should not matter start to matter too much. People who should not matter to you – do. Comments about your work start to build-up and bury you under scepticism.

So I boarded my plane. I was still surrounded by people I knew. Ok maybe not to invite to a party, but to say hello to on the street. Touchdown London.

Breathe you're in London

I escaped. Breathe. And I could. I could sit in a Starbucks and I didn’t know a single person. I could concentrate on the work I needed to do.

But escaping Bermuda, for me, is not just about being able to blend into a crowd. It’s comforting. It’s comforting to see a new world (even if I’ve been to London before).

It’s comforting to find people living their lives in lots of different ways. It’s comforting to find a 20 pound flight to Sweden and being able to visit a friend.

But that’s what traveling is truly about, isn’t it? Remembering that where you are from (i.e. Bermuda but it applies to everyone) is not the only world out there. It’s remembering that people are watching the world in a different way. They don’t all believe that they live and die by your words.

It calms. It calms me to know that there is a bigger universe out there that does not revolve around Bermuda. It puts my home in perspective. It makes problems at home, while important, not seem so overwhelmingly bad.

It’s refreshing. And it’s time to visit Stockholm…the first stop on my cheap European trip. I swear I will find cheap visits.