travel the world

This afternoon, our lab celebrated Christmas. We went to a posh restaurant for a nice lunch of Japanese-inspired French cuisine, colorful constructs of food artfully arranged on large plates. The boss paid for the wine. When all were full and happy, having entered the state of bliss that comes with good food and abundant alcohol, we started distributing the presents. In our lab, that's a serious affair.

Everyone brings something funky valued five pound, wraps it in neutral aluminum foil, and chucks it on a big heap. Then we start throwing dice. Whoever has a one or a six takes a gift. When the heap in the middle of the table has dwindled to nothing, the throwing of the dice continues, and it's still the six and the one that matter. If luck is with you and you get either of these numbers, you can lovingly steal someone else's gift. Whatever you have in front of you when time runs out, announced by a piercing lab timer, is yours. In contrast to the year before, I was left with a gift at the end and eagerly unwrapped it. It was a Tim Burton DVD.

The disk was not what made this a memorable evening for me. I hadn't come for the giving. After all, gifts with meaning aren't carelessly thrown on a pile right before a mad dash for possessions starts. Someone must put them in your hand, his or her eyes conveying a sense of significance, or they're just an acquisition, a thing.

Instead, what I really appreciated about this afternoon was the opportunity to hang out with colleagues in more informal ways that normally. After the restaurant, most of the lab went for drinks to a local pub, and it was there that we could catch up on all the conversation that we never hold when we go for lunch between experiments or for quick beers after work. The Christmas party offers more time, ten hours of hanging out.

I found myself talking to a colleague who had grown up near the border between Wales and England. Not much to talk about, you might think, but I remembered Bruce Chatwin's On The Black Hill, which I had read less than a year ago. This book describes inconsequential farm life in the rural void between Wales and England in the most vivid and captivating way possible. The English language is elevated to a divine means of communication. Each word chosen with the utmost care, the novel becomes a shrine to writing. There's hardly a plot and not much happens overall, but that which does is described most clearly and breathtakingly.

My friend didn't know Bruce Chatwin. This gave me the opportunity to pontificate on the virtues of the greatest travel writer ever, and laud his mastery of words and story lines. Halfway through my soliloquy, it occurred to me that I wasn't really the right person to do that. Never having read the ground-breaking and paradigm-shifting In Patagonia, On The Black Hill was my only reference. It's not even travel writing, but it was enough to get us started.

We started talking about traveling. It would seem that I have done well this year, seeing Syria, Paris, Ontario and Quebec. But traveling is not about seeing places. Traveling is about meeting people. Even in that regard, I haven't done too badly. Syria in particular was a blast.

However, Syria was also a point on my trajectory away from down-to-earth traveling. The dust and heat of the desert, inevitable in the Middle East, is liable to send even the lowest-key traveler on the search for luxurious accommodation. A day without water or shade is enough to drive even the hardiest individual into the interchangeable blandness of an air-conditioned five-star hotel. I nearly succumbed, and the thought alone made me sick because five-star luxury is not what I aspire to. I'm looking for conversations and interactions with locals in villages. I found that on my holiday, but not to the extent than I had hoped for.

My labmate outlined an alternative reality, closer to my dreams. He had gone to Morocco a few years ago, spending several months traveling around, moving from city to city and into the mountains, following obscure attractions and sudden inspirations. He had a pack on his back and desire burning hot in his heart. He stayed in hostels mentioned in guidebooks or in rooms offered by strangers. He met more friends he knew he had. He lost plenty a penny following professed friendliness that concealed fraud but collected priceless memories from encounters with locals that valued hospitality, a good conversation and mint tea on the porch. I envied his experience.

I also told him I'd do a similar thing this spring. When my marathon is done and over with and I'm not a slave to my goals anymore, I'll hop onto a flight down to Andalusia. Marrakesh will be my goal and a quick glance on the map my only preparation. There must be some buses down to the Straight of Gibraltar, there must be a ferry across, there must be trains to Casablanca and further to Marrakesh. I will take two weeks and the best travel companion of all and go on an adventure unlike any I've done in a good ten years. My notebook, a camera and a backpack full of essentials will be all that's needed to sustain me. I'm so excited. Bruce Chatwin once said that life is a journey that takes place on foot. It's time for me to reclaim that.