If you haven’t been paying attention on some of my other platforms, you wouldn’t have known that I got back from a two-week trip around northern Europe. But that’s OK if you haven’t, because I’ve been remiss in posting about it here, since Phaysis is my first love, my primary voice, my public face to you, my adoring (semi-robotic) followers.
London → Paris → Buc/Versailles → Zürich → Berlin → Köln → Aachen → Bruges → Calais → Dover → London
What a mindfuck of a trip. Europe, I love you, don’t turn vanilla. Your food is amazing, the quality of life is high, and your public transit functions like a wet dream. Anywhere, anytime, anyhow. You’re expensive, but you make it so anybody can live their life.
I want to tell you all more, so much more, but I’m still processing. This was my first trip to Europe ever, in my 47 years of life, and I’m angry at myself for not doing it sooner, when I had the health, strength, and fuck-it-all will to party late at night and then eat it for breakfast. When I first watched “Before Sunrise” (1995), I fell in love with the idea of European travel, but the yoke of college debt kept me from dreaming of it. So much wasted lifetime. So pissed at myself.
But now, I wish I had more time there. Two weeks, 11 cities; that’s clearly not enough time for anything. Best I could do was take a picture of the roses so I could smell them later. And that’s a sub-optimal condition. But now I have a high-level overview of the How to travel, and the What to expect, and the Where to go, and the Way to get there, that the next time I go, I can do it expertly and with style.
Europe is full of style.
And tourists.
I dream of my next trip.
Seriously. Go. Travel over an oceanic distance and fucking see some other place, meet the people, learn their history, share some perspective, learn an old way to do new things. Humans are a mess, and anything that takes you outside of your own grind is a good thing. Trust me.
It’s a small planet. But oh, so, so big.