A solitary, rolling stone

I met a young woman from Salzburg, Austria last night. We were bunkmates, actually, in our hostel in York. We discovered several things in common right off the bat: she is a teacher and has lots of time off that most of her friends don’t share. She was in Seattle just a few weeks ago, on a trip to Vancouver that she’d won in the lottery and Seattle was just a day trip.  She thought it was cool that I’d lived on a farm in the Alps a few years ago. She too is traveling solo through England, though her trip is only 17 days long.  We reflected for a moment on the idea of traveling alone versus with a companion.  She has recently been on two different big trips with her sister, after which they both decided they needed to part ways for a while. Her sister kept complaining that my bunkmate was moving too fast; she wanted to slow down.

 I reflected that traveling solo is easier, in some ways. I don’t have to deal with the communication challenges that traveling brings out. What do you want to do? Why are you frustrated with me? Was I snoring again last night? Solo travelers are also more approachable. I had a lovely chat with a Turkish man in his sandwich truck in York two days ago. It was raining and I was hungry, so I sought shelter under his canopy. He wanted to know what life in America was like. I wanted to know what parts of Turkey I should visit. He was grateful for the American invasion of Iraq in ’03 because, according to him, it enabled the Kurds to finally have some rights.

Traveling alone can indeed be lonely business at times, though. I enjoy getting a good meal in a restaurant, and slowly lingering over it while reading and people watching. But sometimes, I’d just like to have a conversation with someone I know well.  Or experiences seen through two sets of eyes just make more sense. I spent way too much money yesterday to get into the York Dungeons. I spent an hour in the queue to then go through a 70 minute-long gory experience that was intended more to frighten than to enlighten.  Having someone like my big brother, for example, to poke me in the ribs from time to time would have helped me feel like I’d gotten my money’s worth.  As an antidote to the York Dungeons, I saw “Legally Blond: the Musical” last night. It was entertaining and rather inane, but like any good chick flick, best seen with a girlfriend. 

Here’s what I believe: God has not made us to be alone. Rather, we’re created to live in community, and a life shared together is really far sweeter than life alone.  Just as a large, home-cooked meal tastes even better in the company of others, so does traveling.