Hometown Vagabond

You are a World Traveler: Address Your Dependencies

// October 16th, 2011 // Uncategorized

This past weekend I went through caffeine withdrawal. It was a miserable experience: a full forty-eight hours of a throbbing headache and insurmountable fatigue. I spent most of two days in bed, popping Ibuprofen and lavishing attention on my very contented cat.
When I told a close friend I had done it in the name of travel, she launched a well-reasoned argument on the accessibility of caffeine throughout the world. Even the remote Pacific island of Kiribas, where she’d spent a year writing her master’s thesis, a daily caffeine habit was no obstacle.
Her point is valid: finding out the many different forms of coffee in different countries has been one of my favorite investigations. Prior to Friday, I had not gone a day without some form of caffeine in over ten years. And my addiction-fueled pursuit of caffeine has created some lasting memories. Drinking espresso at a sidewalk Paris café. That green, brown and white whipped minty confection at Kava Kava Kava in Prague. The bus station in Nuevo Laredo where they handed me a Styrofoam cup and pointed me in the direction of the microwave.
Looking back over my love affair with coffee, however, I’m forced to see the sheer amount of time, money and effort my obsession requires. Ordering anything in a country where you don’t speak the language is difficult, but summoning the skills before you can even open your eyes properly is another challenge altogether. Every morning would begin with a quest, sacrificing the dignity allowed by combing my hair and putting on proper pants so I could make it to the hostel breakfast room and take in the drug that allowed me to begin my day. Hydration, an all-important tenet of healthy travel, was neglected in my efforts to maintain a proper caffeine high. And let’s not forget my shameful forays into an unnamed American coffee chain to spend unconscionable amounts of money on a cup of joe I hoped would ease my homesickness.
I won’t say that I’m done with coffee or caffeine for good, however. There is dark Swiss chocolate out there waiting for me, that café in Paris beckons, and I would be remiss not to sit down for a traditional mug of yerba mate, should I be invited. Maybe in a year’s time, when I’m ready to take my trip, I will be ready to drink coffee responsibly. For now, however, it’s time to address those dependencies that may stand between me and vagabonding crutch-free. Maybe it’s internet, television, texting, nicotine, alcohol, chocolate. What do you find yourself incapable of living without today? And what are you going to do about it?