Places I'm Going

Places I'm Going

Tonight, I board a jet plane and head to....Jacksonville, Florida.

That's right.  Jacksonville. Florida.  In mid-July.  I know you're jealous.  Friends are getting married on Saturday (trust me, nothing less than the wedding of good friends would get us to hot sticky schwül* Florida at this time of year), so off we go. 

*Schwül is the German word for humid, which we learned on our trip to Vienna, because, well, it was a little schwül while we were there.  We were cautioned, however, by several people to be very careful about our pronunciation.  That one little umlaut can change the whole meaning of one's sentence because schwül = humid, but schwul = gay/homosexual.

I've never been to Jacksonville, so I looked it up.

Jacksonville, Florida is home to the largest urban park system in the U.S., the 2nd largest annual Jazz Festival (I'm assuming New Orleans is the largest), the world's largest private collection of original manuscripts and documents (at the Karpeles Manuscript Library), the Jaguars (for football fans) and the New Jax City Rollers (if you're into roller derby).  I doubt I'll see any of these things, but I think it's nice to know.

I've got my tank tops, shorts, sundresses, bathing suit and flip flops packed and, of course, my workout clothes because "training doesn't take a vacation," according to my lovely coach/husband.  At least it'll be easier to negotiate a day pass at the gym here (in English) than it was in Vienna (in German).  Although, I must admit, I did pretty well at the gyms in Vienna and felt quite rewarded when I was understood!  Wie viel kostet ein Tagespass?

It's just a few days but it feels like a nice vacation and I have all the pre-vacation anticipation and lack of focus. Just have to make it through work today.

No computer until mid-next-week, so I wish you now a lovely few days.  Be Back Soon!

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Places I've Been

Places I've Been

2% - seems so sad!

One of the many reasons my husband and I want to move to Europe, and to Vienna, specifically, is that we see it as a launching pad of sorts. A home that provides close proximity and easy travel to so many other countries. A way for us to not only experience life in a new place, but life in many new places.

Vienna seems quite central, offering exploration opportunities East, West, North, and South by car, by train, by plane, at reasonable travel rates. All evidence I've seen in reading people's blogs and stories we've heard from people we've actually met indicate that people do actually take advantage of their location. I hear and read about travels to France and Spain, Kosovo and Sweden, Germany, Italy, Turkey!

This stirs in me such a sense of possibility and curiosity, which is, I admit, not an expected response from me. But it is there, nonetheless, surprising no one more than me. I am more of a homebody, not an adventurer. I like the familiar, the expected, the planned. So, is it wishful thinking that I'll experience the world from Vienna or does this curiosity indicate that I find the world as a whole, or even just Europe, more interesting than I find the United States?

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