Almost exactly eight years ago I packed my bags and set foot on a plane for the first time I could remember. I traveled by plane once as a baby but that hardly counts since I couldn’t remember what it felt like to speed down a runway or that slight jolt in the pit of my stomach that happens the moment a plane becomes completely airborne.
All I knew then was that I was setting off for a great adventure. I had no idea what to expect and I didn’t care. For years I had been wondering what it would be like to travel by plane. But I had never imagined a time that I would get to find out. Going to a university less than two hours from home, I didn’t seem like the type to move across the country, much less the globe. These things made my decision to study abroad in Vienna, Austria for a semester that much more shocking to family and friends. But I was ready. Ready for something different. Ready to scratch the travel itch I got from seeing how much my dad loved traveling and from listening to Foreign Workers talk about their lives abroad. I had curiosities inside me about the world that I couldn’t begin to imagine back then. And I didn’t have much frame of reference to know what the world would be like if I were to see it. I just had lots of imagination – the kind where every day is beautiful and happy, where everyone gets along and where nothing is ever difficult. I joyfully reflected on these images without the slightest thought that I might actually live out my daydreams someday.
My view of traveling was naïve then. But thankfully it worked to my advantage. If I would have given a moments thought to worrying that I might not like the next three months of my life or that traveling might not be all glory and glam, I might not be writing this from my apartment in China right now. I might have never taken that first flight. And as impossible as it is to know what might have been, I know that those three months have greatly shaped the last eight years of my life.
In retrospect, all I remember from that time is being in awe. The memories all seem to point to a sense of wonder. And yet, even with mouth wide-open, eyes bigger than half dollars, and camera quickly snapping away in an effort to capture every bit of it to enjoy later, I barely even realized how lucky I was. Getting to weekend hop around Europe introduced me to an intense joy of learning about new cultures, the fun – and sometimes frustration – of exchange rates (I was there right before the Euro was) and only made my travel itch more prevalent.
The greatest thing I took away from those months, though, was the realization that traveling is possible. I hadn’t thought my daydreams would come true because international travel seemed out of my reach. But in the eight years since that fateful journey, I’ve come to learn not only how big our world is, but also how small it can feel when you can be living in America one day and two days later be living in China.
Now, when I think about boarding a plane and setting off for another corner of the world, I have plenty of hesitations. Eight years and almost 85 flights can really change one’s perception. In the beginning, getting to travel by plane was part of the adventure. Now it’s just something I tolerate to get me where I’m going. I do still enjoy moments of it, especially on short flights. But the thrill of speeding down the runway just means hours of flying ahead. I worry all too much that the feeling I get in the pit of my stomach as we become airborne and climb to new altitudes is going to make me sick. And I sometimes enjoy meeting new people but mostly don’t feel like bothering with it. After all, I’ve had enough seat buddies to know that some people won’t ever stop chatting if you give them an inch of encouragement. So, I most often find myself wishing I could sleep from wheels up to wheels down. And I don’t even have peanuts to look forward to anymore. I hate that I feel so pessimistic about it and wonder if there are people out there who maintain a love for it. But for me, the joy now rests almost entirely in getting to see more of the world and in meeting people from new cultures (once the plane has landed and I am over jet-lag of course). The price I pay for this is hour upon hour of high altitude, cramped, restlessness and the feeling of hundreds of people’s grossness all over me.
I have other hesitations these days as well. I know now that living abroad is never the 24-7 cheerfulness that my daydreams would have had me believe. I know that I’ll have bad days when nothing seems to go right and no one seems to understand. I know I’ll experience intense moments of culture shock and even moments when I kick myself and wonder why I chose to do this again. But that’s all part of the package, too. And so far it’s all been worth it – for eight travel happy years.
Views from plane heading to Los Angeles
Still one of my favorite parts of flying is seeing the world from such a different perspective!
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