Inaugural Flight

My saga begins at the tender age of 23, an age when you feel like you can conquer the world but are as yet untested.  As a recent college grad with no firm direction in life, the future was full of boundless opportunities.  I merely needed to walk through an open door and pursue a path of my choosing.  I had tested my wings and eagerly left the nest several years prior, but was still a fledgling who had never really ventured outside my home state to broaden my perspective.  That was soon all about to change...

A dear friend of mine was planning on visiting her relatives in merry old England, and as a passing thought, she invited me to come along.  I am a self-professed Anglophile, so this opportunity seemed like the chance of a lifetime for me.  A chance to experience many firsts -- my first time on an airplane, my first trip overseas, my first time in the country I had only dreamed about until that day.  I could hobnob with royalty while sipping on tea and scones!  I could revel in the sounds of the delicious English accent while perfecting my own impersonation!  I could travel throughout hundreds of years of history by visiting famous landmarks and archeological sites! So it should come as no surprise when I instantaneously gave her my unwavering response, "YES!!!"

While there was regrettably no teatime with the queen, England was undoubtedly everything I had ever imagined, and more.  Frolicking throughout London on a day trip with my friend's aunt and uncle as tourguides, we were able to meet the infamous Big Ben, step closer to God by exploring the echoing halls of Westminster Abbey, walk amongst the ghosts of kings and their traitorous murderers alike inside the Tower, and watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  The rest of the trip was spent as guests of her other family members in the countryside town of Mildenhall, where we languorously spent the afternoons at home drinking tea and biscuits the proper British way, whilst watching BBC programming.  We shopped in the local markets and went grocery shopping at Tesco.  We even reveled in a pub to the songs of a traveling troupe singing ABBA songs one night while drinking beer.  I became an honorary member of a new family much quirkier and outgoing than my own, having grown up as the solitary child of a quiet librarian and a stoic blue-collar father.  In fact, I was so eager to share the news of this trip with my parents, that I informed them about it the best way I knew how -- by mailing them a postcard to let them know that their only child, whom they supposed was enjoying a carefree day at home just 15 minutes away from them, was rather an entire ocean's distance away, having embarked on a voyage without their knowledge or permission.

The entire trip, which lasted a mere 5 days, felt like 5 minutes to me.  I kept craving more, and was unprepared for what changes were occurring inside me.  I would never be the same again after this trip, for I had been infected with an incurable disease.  A disease that festers inside your entire being, and can only be abated by one thing -- more travel.  Yes, I had a full-blown case of the travel bug, and I yearned to experience what else this wide world had to offer. And thus began my saga to explore the world, one adventurous mishap at a time.

London viewed from the Eye