TTT: Your World View and Traveling

Life is ticking along. 

Very, very, very busy weekend with our out of town guests.  4 museums in depth, 7 restaurants, 2 parks, 1 trip to the stockyards, several bottles of wine and lots of other drinks, not enough sleep, and tons of walking.  But so much fun.  Hubby's best friend is a very interesting guy and they really love spending time together.  And his wife's perspective is so interesting (she's from Ukraine, and her family is still there), and I could spend hours talking to her.  The 4 days ended far too quickly. 

BTW, my calf still hurts but I think it's getting better.  I finally got it checked out and it's my lateral gastroc, as I suspected, and the RX was just rest and ice, as usual.  Ugh.  Glad I'm not running Boston in a few weeks. 

I finally returned to Bikram yoga Fri afternoon after something like a year (?? really??) off.  My past experience with Bikram was that it was a good way to resolve running-related injuries or soreness.  So I figured it might magically heal my gastrocnemius.  Sad how little it seems I can do compared to at the end of my last 30 day challenge.

So after that initial class on Friday, I decided to take a few days off yoga, and this morning I started a new 30 day challenge.  I figured as long as I'm not running this week, there's no work travel coming up this month (I hope, one trip to Philly on the books that I'm hoping will get cancelled), hubs is going to be out of town for about a week of the month, and I desperately want to drop some LBs, there would not be any better time to start. 

First class of the challenge already felt better than the class on Friday.  Hoping one month will make a big difference, but even after one day, I'm sitting up straighter I feel and pounding the water so far.

For years I think, I followed a post topic from a blog on Mondays, but that is on a hiatus for two months (hosted elsewhere, but I haven't had a chance to check it out).  So this is an ideal time for another blog I read to start a weekly post topic! 

And this one is about travel, which is perhaps my number one passion. 

Rules for TTT - please take a moment to answer this week’s questions on your own blog then add your link in the comments section for this post at Without a License so we can all see your answers! Please invite your readers to link back to their post on this post too so we can see everyone's answers and connect with other bloggers! (Remember to add the TTT graphic above and these rules to your post as well!)

TTT Topic: Your World View And Traveling

1) How has travel changed the way you look at things?
2) What type of new experiences do you look forward to when you travel?
3) Do you usually go out of your comfort zone when traveling or stick to what's comfortable and familiar? 
4) What part of the world intrigues you the most and why?
5) Is there a stereotype or common belief about your own culture/country others have that you don't agree with?

TTT Topic: Your World View And Traveling
 
1) How has travel changed the way you look at things?

This is a tough question -- how hasn't it?  I think primarily I notice how unwelcoming our country is to people who don't speak English and how many people seem to have little knowledge of (or interest in) the world around them.  I think I've written about this before, but one year on Where in the World is Matt Lauer on the Today Show, a viewer had the option of a free trip to any of Matt's destinations that year.  The choices were Namibia, Madrid, Kuala Lumpur, and a mountain in the Swiss Alps.  The viewer said he was going to pick the Alps (or maybe Madrid), but then Matt's final destination was revealed to be Barbados, and that's what he chose.  Somewhere nearby, not expensive to get to, not mind-blowingly different, and I just couldn't grasp how he could make that choice.  It was so the opposite of what I would have done, picking Namibia probably because it would be the most expensive (and since I've already been to KL).  But at the same time, travel has made me look at the similarities of people everywhere.  Appreciating the differences (the people rhythmically hitting themselves in the morning in China), and appreciating the similarities (how there's still a big line at a popular breakfast place before people hurry into the subway, away to the daily grind). 

2) What type of new experiences do you look forward to when you travel?

I am usually most excited about my "number one sight" (and taking our annual Christmas card picture there), followed by food.  But when I'm there, I always find that I also love the people we meet and the unexpected adventures we have. 

3) Do you usually go out of your comfort zone when traveling or stick to what's comfortable and familiar? 

It's a mix for me, but I tend to be outside my comfort zone.  My husband and I both hate any kind of organized group tour, even where it would be so much easier (like in China).  We love being a team and figuring things out together.  But I love my routine of running in the morning and when we're in a city for several days, I find I sometimes find a route that I like on the first day and run it repeatedly.  We also sometimes hit up the same restaurant or cafe multiple times.  When we were in Breckenridge in 2008, we found this pizza place called Eric's Downstairs, that was right by a crepe stand.  We ate at both of those at least three times in four days.  In Malta, we went to the same cafe for coffee every day.  When we were in New Mexico last week, we had a total of three dinners and three lunches -- two dinners were at this little restaurant called Luna Rossa associated with a vineyard that wasn't far from our hotel. 

4) What part of the world intrigues you the most and why?

Most intriguing would probably be Asia.  It strikes me as the most different from everything I'm used to.  Asia is so large and diverse, and just so different it's hard to explain.  So far, I've only been a few places in Asia -- China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand -- but this year hopefully we'll be adding India and maybe Nepal to the list. 

5) Is there a stereotype or common belief about your own culture/country others have that you don't agree with? 

Hmm, my gut reaction is to say not really.  The stereotype of Americans is loud, large, culturally insensitive, and mono-lingual.  And unfortunately, those are the ones that seem to stand out most.  I still shudder with a particular memory from Florence, Italy in 2007.  We were sitting outside at a restaurant.  Florence is a city full of tourists to be sure.  Particularly Americans, but really, plenty from everywhere.  But this restaurant was as off the beaten path as you can easily be in Florence.  Because we'd already been in Italy for a couple weeks and had spent much of that time with my husband's family, we were already deep in our Italian-speaking groove.  So at the restaurant, we were conversing in Italian.  There was a woman nearby -- not large, but loud and mono-lingual.  We'd seen her do things Italians wouldn't do (not ordering a complete meal, having a capuccino afterward, etc.).  But it wasn't anything particularly notable.  But then her check had come and she was shouting loudly at the waiter "you mean you don't take dollars???"  We were appalled.  She apparently had no euros and was demanding that he accept US dollars as payment.  He spoke English well enough to direct her to a bancomat, but she was refusing.  It was so horrible and pretty much exactly what I think of as typical American tourists.  Of course for every American tourist like that, there are probably dozens more that I didn't notice who defy the stereotypes.  And I think the American stereotype I have is most true in Europe.  In Africa and Asia, caucasian Americans stand out a bit physically, but they don't seem to meet the same stereotypes of being loud and culturally insensitive.  In Africa and Asia, I noticed that Americans were larger (not necessarily overweight), but it seems that is less and less pronounced as Asians particularly seem to also be getting larger.  And in Africa and Asia, Americans may still be mono-lingual (I think Chinese is very difficult, and I never made any effort to learn any local language in Africa, relying solely on English and French), but they don't seem to demand in the same way that others speak their language.