On having some 'me' time

When is a little thinking time too much thinking time? When you think you’ve had enough time to think about it? Or when you know you’ve had enough time to think about it, analyse it, write a pros and cons list, and consider it as a possible phd topic? Funnily enough, this is something that, aptly, I’ve been thinking about lately. It’s one of the pleasures and the pains of travelling alone. On the plus side, you get to meet amazing, generous people willing to share a drink or a life story; on the down side those people can be few and far between, often leaving you with those who are all too willing to share the tales of their airline ‘pee-yuuwk’, complain about the heat (it’s Spain), and get you to read the map for them. That’s when the big guns, or at the very least, a big book, need to be pulled out in order to end all spurious, stultifying, or just plain stupid conversations.

I have done the long-term travelling alone thing before, and still recall those months upon months of having the same conversation -‘where have you been, where are you going, how long are you away for’ - with a bit of a shudder. I really didn’t want to do it again. This time, however, I’ve organised myself so that three weeks is all the time I have until I meet up with a friend. I know, I’m spoilt, but it’s still feeling a bit long.

I was very resistant to coming to Belgium in the first place, primarily because my Masters degree had been so incredibly isolating. I couldn’t imagine how topping two years of hardcore library time with a stint in a small village where I didn’t speak the language would improve my ability to make like a human, a skill I occasionally worry is getting rustier.

I’m not quite sure how, but over the last few years I seem, somehow, to have taken part in a pattern of ‘aloneness’. Not necessarily ‘loneliness’, although sometimes that follows; but somehow as I’ve got older, the things I enjoy doing (reading, writing, exercising, playing music) have all become things that one does alone [Stephanie Trigg has recently written on something similar here]. Furthermore, as I’m one of the few of my friends who doesn’t live with a partner nor have an all-consuming 9-5 (or 7-10) job, occasionally I’ve sensed that the line between time out and simply time passing is starting to blur.

I do wonder if this is just a part of my character type: a watcher rather than a doer, a thinker rather than a player, but I’m not entirely sure. I still remember on my year 12 school report, my English teacher wrote that I had ‘slyly never answered questions in class’ (yes, that was ‘slyly’, not ‘shyly’). I was gobsmacked, as I thought that I genuinely didn’t know the answers until I went away, thought about them, and wrote them down - very much a case of the old adage “how do I know what I think until I see what I say?”*.

I find that I need time away from things to understand them, shape them, and process them in a way that enables me and my world view to fit. Is this right though? Should I be down in the lobby of my hostel signing up for a bar crawl with all the eighteen year olds on gap years? I don’t think so, but I hope this doesn’t make me the human version of the cockroaches I just saw crawling all over the jambon in a window display: in prime position but still scuttling out of view.

At worst, at least I’ll have 400 million years to get it right.

* I should just point out here to those few people who read this blog who don’t know me – I am actually not as obnoxious as it, on occasion, makes me out to be. I swear.

Hola!

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

As I’m currently sporting bad skin, frizzy hair, and a crooked spine courtesy of my heavy pack, I don’t expect a panting squawk of “it’s you!” a lá Catherine Zeta Jones. I do, however, have one nice excuse for my heat related frumpery – I’m in Madrid and it’s hot hot hot. I now have five weeks to slough the mildew from my skin, replace it with a tan, and acclimatise myself for a later jaunt to the tropics.

However, I’ve just spent the last four days in London, staying with a very dear friend who was visiting on a research trip. We’d both never really been before, and funnily enough, had the same reaction. Blergh. I’ve never been in a city that seemed to be so entirely characterised by ‘busyness’. There are amazing things to see, of course (the Tate Modern is incredible, and all the museums are free – hurrah!), and I’m sure there are wonderful areas to live, but in between seemed to be such a blur of rushing greyness. We did, however, unlike so many people visiting the UK, have no complaints about the food. Perhaps I have a slight predilection for all things potato, but we had some great stodge that fortified us for the days spent battling the tube.

However, one particular aspect of staying with this friend was food related, as she has a severe nut allergy. I’d always known this, but had never really appreciated how difficult it was for her until now. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but absolutely everything contains traces of nuts, possible traces of nuts, maybe one atom of a nut, and if that’s the case, she just can’t eat it. Food labels were read, products sourced and some were even brought over from Australia – thanks, lack of UK customs.

It really got me thinking about the way in which I travel, as for me, food is an integral part of the experience. To the detriment of my tailoring, I do tend to treat travel like a global buffet, sampling bits and pieces as I make my way. Thus I’m pretty excited about the whole tapas experience that Spain has to offer. Having zero Spanish (I didn’t even know the word for ‘beer’ – devastating), it’s such a pot luck, pointing to the menu and waiting to see what turns up. Add to this a night owl culture, super friendly (and, er, hot) people, and sangria by the cask, and I think I may have just found my home away from home.