I’ve received so many comments about the Travel Blog and how everyone enjoyed it. So today I decided upon a new course of action…the UnTravel Blog.I’m not exactly sure where the UnTravel Blog is going, hopefully farther than I am right now which is nowhere. After seven weeks of roaming the Balkans and doing almost 1000 kilometers a week, this week I’ve done maybe 30 kilometers. So I guess I’m untraveling. Sure, some people might call it standard, regular old life. But I don’t like that, I guess I am either traveling or untraveling.
Technically, I don’t have a flat or a car or even a permanent location so some might classify me as traveling. Others might classify me as vagabond, homeless, transient and any number of other nice politically correct terms. Whatever I am, I’m doing fine thanks 🙂
Someone recently said I’m a just a kid in a man’s body. I beg to differ. Children can’t generally manage their own affairs. They don’t work and support themselves and are dependent on others. I work, I’m not really dependent on anyone else (though I am slightly in debt at present) and my affairs are mostly squared away (as much as any average adult I imagine). So I think I’ve proven I’m not a child.
The comment came because when asked what I was doing I stated I had been playing video games all day… it’s a hobby. Some people swim, hike, bike, jog (BLAH!) and some people play video games. I’m one of the latter.
So on to the Untravel. I arrived in Liberec on Monday and haven’t left it. Partly because I’ve really got nowhere to go and partly because I’ve got no money to go anywhere. So, what the heck. I’m semi-stationary. It was depressing at first. But I’m falling into the ‘everyone knows your name’ trap that often catches even the most steadfast traveler from time to time. I’m in a city where a lot of people, god forbid I ever live somewhere everyone knows my name, know who I am. It’s not bad.
There’s that old Doors song “People are Strange” and two lines in particular “when you’re a stranger, faces look ugly, when you’re alone” and “when you’re strange, no one remembers your name.” Well that’s true to a point. When you’re a stranger, people don’t know who you are, sure, that’s the definition of stranger. But faces look ugly? I don’t think it’s ugly so much as unfamiliar. I think what it really is, is that our fears take control of parts of us and try to manipulate us into isolation. For our own safety of course. Strangers are dangerous, but then again so are friends and family. I think it’s just a genetic disposition we have to keep strangers at arm’s length of further. The Czechs are brilliant at this and considering their history (Austrio-Hungary, Nazi Germany, CCCP) it’s no wonder really. Strangers have been nothing but danger for them for a very long time.
But as I am wont to do, I digress. Faces and people become ‘un-strange’ when you see them over and over again. That’s what breed familiarity and familiarity is what society tells us is good and right and what we should strive for. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that strange isn’t good and right, it’s just different. Unfortunately, over the centuries we’ve been taught by society to hate that which is different, fear change and generally attempt to live a static life.
I call bullshit. Life is nothing, if not change. Shit, the whole universe is change. If it weren’t there would be no life, no planets, no suns and certainly no humans. Change is the basis of our existence.
So, there’s a potential offer of ’employment’ in Belgrade, Serbia. A certain hostel has put forth the idea that if I were to work the night shift I would be compensated with a bed to sleep in. All of you who have a flat (apartment for you Yanks) know that it’s generally the single largest monthly outlay of cash (aside from perhaps a car or health insurance in the US). So if I could work several nights a week and get a place to sleep out of it, that’s a hell of a cool idea. Plus, I’d have days and evenings to do my writing both professional and personal. I would sort of be like a writer in residence… I could even be a tourist attraction:
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages…see the amazing sun-fearing, night living…WRITER! Watch in awe as he puts pen to paper and WRITES! Yes folks, for only two bits you can see this amazing and strange creature from beyond the edge of the world, the being who exists without sunlight, nay, who shuns the very rays that give us heat, light and life!!
Huh, there’s that word again…strange. Well, I think I cheated Serbia the last time I was there, maybe I need to return and spend some real amount of time there and see just exactly what it is I might have missed the first time round.
Days in the week: 7
Days of travel this week: 1 (Monday)
Distance Traveled: Not so much
Countries: 1 (technically 2 as I was in Austria Monday morning, but just passed through)
Welcome to the UnTravel Blog…