Kango Suz Travels

Sometimes I think that my travel bug is closely associated with my masochistic side. I have only truly ever thought that I was going to die when I was traveling. Not that that is a bad thing, if I don’t live to be 97 like my grandmother and die peacefully in bed one night, I hope I die while traveling.
Sitting at the top of some hill in San Francisco, behind the wheel of my brand new car, I truly thought that I would be dying in the next few minutes. My front wheels were a good 4 feet above my back wheels and I sat there, my hands and feet and heart griping every piece of the car that I thought would give me a better control over it, cursing my cocky self that thought it would be ‘fun’ to drive up to San Francisco for the night. It would have been, I suppose, if my new Mitsubuishi Lancer didn’t have a manual transmission. [read on]

I get of the train from Stratford on Avon and emerged into the dreary drizzle of late afternoon Bath. The week I had already spent on the British Island had left my Southern California native self feeling rather drenched. Back home we were in a drought year, having only received about 3 inches of rain in the previous 18 months. I was used to sunshine and warm weather and, being in a particularly bad mood after not being able to find anything to eat for breakfast on a Sunday morning in Stratford, I was well on my way to miserable.
After a week of solo travel and adventuring, I am getting lonely. I had heard and read tales of people making all sorts of friends on trains and in hostels and having a grand time. While I’m a friendly person, I’m not by nature an outgoing person when alone, and so I’d spent the last week traveling mostly in silence from the lack of conversation partners.
Glaring up into the sky, I growl under my breath at the drizzle and reached into the side pocket of my backpack to retrieve my umbrella. It wasn’t doing so well by this point; being from California too, it wasn’t used to this much rain any more than I was. I managed to wrest it free of the handy side pocket and open it up. After a few moments of struggling I get it open, with only one broken side dripping rain onto my pack. By now the drizzle has turned to full-fledged rain and I am ready to get to the hostel. I figure out which street I need to go to, turn towards it and am hit by a gust of wind.
My umbrella is lifted up from my hand, but I manage to keep a hold on it so that it doesn’t go bouncing down the street. This is however too much for my poor Californian rain gear. The gust of wind pulls at the ribs of the umbrella and in a Hollywood style umbrella death it flips compleately inside out.
Standing there, rain dripping down my hair and into my collar, I stare at my upturned umbrella. The poor thing, it tried it’s best. I start to laugh. I’ve been avoiding the rain like I was allergic to water. Stuffing the remains of my umbrella in a nearby trash can I vow to stop avoiding things that are unusual or uncomfortable to me and to start experiencing my trip. Pulling up my hood, I walk off in search of the hostel and some fun.