Single in a city

A relaxed Saturday at home after ages. For once, I was not traveling or meeting anyone. This pushed me to do something—apart from traveling—that I have fallen in love with, of late: DIY craft. I started digging around in my craft supplies box to look for some inspiration. And there, among other things, I found a pine cone. I had put it there a few months ago and forgotten all about it. This discovery excited me in the same way finding money in the pocket of your clothes does, when you are least expecting it. The little pine cone brought back some great memories from a trip a few months ago to Valencia, Spain.

PC (Pine Cone, not Priyanka Chopra), as I will call it from now, is now spray painted in a nice matt gold shade and rests on an almond-shaped wooden tray, on my center table, in our living room.

I met PC during a long walk I was taking in Turia Park, humming Guns n Roses’ cold November Rain because it seemed so apt. It was a cold November afternoon and it had been raining all day.  When it stopped raining around 4:00 pm, I decided to take advantage of the glorious weather and take a long walk in this park that I had read and heard so much about (I will get to the details of the park in a bit). I was walking along gaping at the beauty around me, when I stepped on something and tripped.

Thankfully I didn’t fall and make a fool of myself in front of all those athletic people around (obviously the rain didn’t stop the dedicated fitness enthusiasts). When I looked down to see what tripped me up, I saw the beautiful PC. It was all wet and clean from the rain, expect the part I had stepped on. Since I have this habit of picking up odd bits from nature like pebbles, leaves, coral etc, from all my trips, as a souvenir, I took PC with me, cleaned it and brought it back home at the end of the trip, with the intention of showing it off at home.

And I forgot about it, until two days ago. Now that I have displayed it and refreshed my memory, I will get going on writing about that day in Turia Park.

Though I have been traveling for many years, I have never gone anywhere all by myself. Backpacking on my own had been on my list for a while. And in November last year, I got my chance. The Mister had to go to Spain on work and how could I not join him? So, we planned that I would leave after him, see Valencia on my own and then join him in Barcelona.

Every trip is exciting for me, but this one was super exciting, because I had to do the whole thing on my own—booking tickets, figuring out local transport schedules, taking different modes of transport to reach my destination and to top it all off, handle my backpack and not my comfortable 4-wheel suitcase that I am used to. But, I set off with a lot of confidence and enthusiasm.

And I did well for myself, thankfully.

I reached my Air BnB room in Valencia after close to 17 hours of travel (including a stopover in Dubai) and using 4 modes of transport: Flight, train, bus and walking. All these years, poor little me had either my dad or later The Mister would take care of all the logistics for me.

This was new. And, fun.

The next day, I took a map, got some directions from my host and set off to see the city, in the rain. You see, I am a travist after all, and I couldn’t go all the way and not do things. I did a mix of touristy stuff that day and finally ended up at Turia Park, armed with an umbrella.

Turia is a must see for anyone who visits Valencia. The 9 km stretch is actually an old river bed turned into a sunken park, after a catastrophic flood in 1957 devastated the city. The city authorities changed the course of the river after that and the largest urban park in Europe was created. The park connects the city center with the City of Arts and Science (I will write a separate post about things to do and see in Valencia sometime soon). You can walk or cycle or jog the entire path. My idea was to cycle, but the rain spoiled my plans unfortunately. So, I decided to take a nice walk, before heading back to my room.

Walking around in a new city and in a lovely park, on my own (something which I haven’t done in years), I had Gypsy thoughts. About being married. About the time I was single.

I had a fabulous time being single.

Doing my own thing, failing, succeeding, falling in love, falling out of love, making my decisions, partying, late night drives, basically living my life my way. I was independent. During my single girl phase, there were times I didn’t enjoy being alone. Then came a phase when I was getting used to being fiercely independent and loved it.

And then I met a man. Because I didn’t want to let go of my independence and individuality in any way (lessons from my past friendships and relationships), I treated the relationship with trepidation.  But, being married for almost 5 years today to that man I met that day, I can happily say that I am who I am and in fact gotten better in a lot of ways. I do what I want and when I want to without any obstruction.

But, I had forgotten how to be single. To do things on my own. Fend for myself. Plan for myself. Take care of myself. I had become quite dependent. Way too used to being mollycoddled by The Mister.

That trip to Valencia and somehow that walk in the park that evening, lost in my thoughts, made me realise that I was leading a single life again, even if it was just for 4 days. And it felt great. Liberating. I loved the fact that I could do what ONLY I wanted. Get up ONLY when I wanted. See ONLY what I wanted. And not think of balancing the ‘we’.

Don’t get me wrong. I love being married. I love traveling and doing things with The Mister. I love the ‘we’. I really do. But, I also realised that I need some ‘single girl days’ every now and then to do what ‘ONLY I’ want. And I promised myself that I would do a ‘me only’ vacation once a year at least.

And then return home happily to being ‘we’.

PC on the table will be a reminder of that promise I made to myself.

 

Hello, World!

                                                   Source: Nat Geo Traveller

 

Traveller: Day-dreaming. Staring into space. People -watching. Long conversations. Exploring the un-explored. Knowing different people. Understanding different things. Eating different things.
Tourist: Places to see. Things to tick off the list. Pictures. Souvenirs. Schedules. Comfort (home) food.

(These are my explanations, so please don't start giving me smart dictionary synonyms).
Strangely, I like being both. So, what does that make me? A travist? Hey, I just made that up and I like it. Right, so from now I will refer to myself as the Travist.

I have travelled a lot since I was little, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I realised that I had 'Gypsy feet' (not the sailor/infested one that Wikipedia refers to (I'm not making this up and I have nothing against sailors, please don't shoot me), but the pretty anklet clad ones that love to wander). For the past five years, I cant seem get my mind of traveling and am constantly looking up places to go to - - near, far, beyond nowhere. For holiday. For work (where after work hours are used to explore). And putting away money (from my not so hefty salary) to go there. All I can ever think of is, where can I go next and when.

Thankfully, I have a mister who reflects these thoughts. So, together, we are always planning trips and going broke. The instant we have some money saved, the laptop/ipad is commissioned, places (from our bucket list)that fit the budget  are shortlisted and bookings are made. Months in advance. And then the planning begins. The mister dutifully does all the bookings and reservations and steps back. Only because, he cannot keep up with my 'bouncing off the walls' eagerness to plan.
I love to plan - - it sort of goes with my OCD to have things in order and in control. I become quite mad during this phase. Pouring over blogs, articles, books and whatever else can give me information about the place we are visiting. My travel plans and schedules have changed dramatically over the years - - the traveller has taken over mostly. BUT, the childhood habits have not dulled much. And that's where the Tourist kicks in. And Viola, the Travist emerges. I resemble a Duracell bunny during this time. Mercifully, I have a patient mister, who left to him, would just be a pure traveller, but patiently puts up with my mad hatter travist side (I have a travist hat, which I will write about in a separate blog, soon).

I research like I am writing a thesis. I plan like I am planning a multi-billion dollar venture. I  drive the mister mad with questions and information. I talk about it when we are eating dinner (breakfast and lunch is spared since we are in office). I talk about it when watching TV. I talk about it when he is trying hard to sleep. All the talk, mercifully translates to action and we have been able to plan holidays where we do both traveller and touristy things in each city we have visited.
We come back from these holidays and I talk some more. About places we saw. The food we ate. People we met. Hideouts we discovered. Things we bought. Family and friends gamely listen and 'oooh' and 'aaaah' at the appropriate places. I get even more excited. They don't seem to be doing this out of politeness, but genuine interest (so I want to believe). Some have told me that I should start a travel business (if only that was still a well-paying business, so I could make enough to travel more). Some have told me that I should write a blog, to share my experiences (I think that was just a ploy to get me to shut the hell up at that time). Many call me when they have to travel and I am every ready and happy to give tips. 

After many such suggestions (to shut up) I thought that I should start penning down my experiences for a few reasons 1. To fulfil my desire to keep talking about travelling 2. To give my friends and family the relief of not having to listen to my constant babble (sadly the mitser cannot escape. When we married, he promised to stay together in silence and in chatter, though the former is a very rare phenomenon with me) and 3. To help (I hope) other people like me, who like to talk and travel.
With that, I start my blogging journey, after many, many months of  procrastination (more because I don't like typing as much as I like talking) and hope to write regularly about the trips we have taken so far and will take in the future.

I hope that atleast a few will find this useful. If you don't, too bad. You cannot ask me to shut up, because this is my blog! And some of you will be forced to read. So, gear up and be nice.
I will post soon about one of my trips. Until then.....Oh wait! I completely forgot to tell you what 'gypsy thoughts' meant. I promise to make this very quick. I mean if you have read this far, you may as well read a few more lines. When I travel to all these places, my mind travels too. Many thoughts, may revelations, many Eureka moments, many new lessons. I plan to capture those as well, in the hope that someone will identify with me and get stuck in the web of thoughts with me.