Can An Aunt Be Jealous?

Did I say that out loud?  I made the decision last year to take two years out of my travel plans in order to concentrate on my sustainable farm.  I have exciting things on the agenda but every day or so I get a tweet, a Facebook note or a hideously descriptive blog about my nephew’s travel adventures overseas.  I say hideously descriptive because I find myself living vicariously through his writings of exotic and colourful places.

For someone who is supposed to be teaching a high level curriculum at a high end school I jealously question “just how many days to you teach”?  It takes some time to get it through my head that so many “foreign” countries are a mere hop, skip and jump away from Dubai and so it is easy to take a long weekend in Beirut, Oman, Lebanon and even Italy.  Okay, I say sulkily, fine.  Have fun, begrudgingly.

In truth I am very happy that he has the opportunity to experience the sights and people of various nations since otherwise our exposure is far too Americanized.  There is no 2 ways about it, Canada is an extremely young country, particularly the west which is barely 100 years old.  To be confronted with 2,000 plus years of history right in-your-face is almost mind boggling.  Imagine seeing the architecture, sculpture and art of beloved Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.  Imagine walking along streets where the saints may have walked, where Greeks and Romans sang and drank and died.

Travel is an eye opener for anyone who really cares to look and wonder instead of just feeling in the moment (although there isn’t anything wrong with that either as there is almost nothing better than laying on a beach hearing the sound of warm water rippling in from the sea).  Hearing the stories of people from other countries is also very rewarding whether their perspective is biased or not, it is someone else’s.  Asking questions is a wonderful gift to have and our Junior has this in spades.  Then we get to live through his experiences via his travel blog.  It’s the next best thing to being there . . . I guess.