You Know You Are A Traveller When…
Found a great thread on a Bootsnall Forum so I picked out the ones I could relate to and added some of my own.
You know you are a traveller when:
you spell traveller with two l’s. (Every other English speaker in the world uses the British spelling.)
you know what a “gap year” is. (Year between uni (university) and career in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.)
you smile silly to strangers back home and want to know where they come from
you rehearse what to say before going into the post office at home, then realize that they speak English there
you actually don’t mind Nescafe coffee anymore
your friends email, and the opening line is, “Where are you now?”
you are home from Mexico long enough to remember you can put the toilet paper in the toilet…and then you go to Asia…
going into a McDonalds means a clean bathroom and a sit-down toilet
you carry toilet paper with you at all times no matter where you are.
you have “toilet money” in your pocket just in case.
You’ve mastered ‘the squat’ and the bucket of cold water in the bathroom
the idea of a bathroom in your own private room makes you feel like you’re in the lap of luxury.
you prefer to crash on somebody’s floor or stay in a Motel 6 even if you could stay in a 15 star hotel because that’s “just not you.”
you feel guilty about 3 quick showers a day in 95 percent humidity in Asia when all you hear on the TV is news about the lack of food and water all over the world
someone asks what your favorite country is and your mind goes blank.
your conversations with friends include “when i was in…” or “oh yeah, that happened to me in……” and then the veil comes down over the eyes.
You have to fight the urge to say ‘Sawadee Kap’, or ‘Gracias’ to store clerks when you’re back home.
your backpack never quite seems to make it back into the closet
you wake up in the morning and have to remember where you are
you think a packaged tour is not travelling!
processed cheese and crackers from 7-11 sounds like a great meal especially after two months in China
you feel at home everywhere… but you feel like an alien in your own town
you catch yourself flipping your underwear inside out because you have run out of clean clothes
you can’t figure out how much something really costs without thinking about the exchange rate
you can’t figure out which way to look when you cross the street
you walk in the street at home forgetting you don’t have to watch out for the cracks, holes, telephone poles, phone booths, hanging electric wires or motorcycles on the sidewalks
you are at a party where people are listing off their accomplishments and you’re mentally listing off viruses you’ve survived, cities you’ve gotten lost in, and families you’ve lived with
a hotel (or hostel) room over 20 dollars makes you wince
When you have over US$200 in four different currencies in your wallet and you can’t even buy a coke during a seven hour layover in London’s Luton airport.
you have been listening to non-native English speakers speak marginal English for so long that you start making the same sentence structure errors and then return home and can’t switch back…”what we do today?” or “where you go?”
going days at a time with out hearing English spoken and you begin to forget English words
you return home and remember your life is not on the line anymore in taxis, tuk tuks, sangtaews , trucks, minivans with crazy drivers.
but you return home and driving a car yourself seems terrifying
you won’t eat Uncle Ben’s rice because it doesn’t stick together.
You have more guidebooks than pairs of pants.
You go to a chain restaurant at home and you still feel like a sell-out for not finding a good local place to eat.
you tell someone where you are going next and their response is, “are you nuts?” And you take this as confirmation of a well-made destination choice.
you hear the word “visa” and you don’t even think about credit cards.
your “home” is occupied by people other than you and all your worldy possessions fit into your spare room
you hear people back home tell you that they just spent 45 dollars on getting their nails done and all you can think of is how many nights in a South American hostel that could get you
you find it normal to go out alone
you can’t understand why everybody isn’t travelling
TV news at home is frustrating because of the lack of global input.
you come home from a long journey and people ask “Were you able to find yourself?” And you say, “Yeah, and I think I left it there. I need to go back.”
you eschew shiny new luggage with wheels in favor of your ten-year-old pack which carries the scuffs and dirt of three continents and which you have lovingly repaired by hand.
You look at the clock and think, ‘In Kathmandu, it’s midnight’.
you can finally understand all other English accents…Oz, Kiwi, British, Singapore etc.
you stumble off your flight to the airport McDonalds, and the value meal is the most expensive meal you’ve had in weeks
buying a full-sized bottle of shampoo/toothpaste/etc feels like a “long-term investment.”
you forget you don’t have to brush your teeth using bottled water.
It no longer makes any difference to your body when you wake up or when you go to bed
you know what time is being referred to when the ticket reads “2330”
you spend X amount of money on something (like $550 to fix your air conditioner, let’s say) and think, “Aw man, that’s enough money for a plane ticket to ___________”
you use web sites like Bootsnall, couchsurfing and rideshare and when you explain these to friends they think you are completely nuts to be meeting up with, staying with and driving with complete strangers that you talk to over the internet.
half your backpack is full of your computer, plug-ins, converters, cameras and video tapes and you only have room for two pairs of pants, three t-shirts and your toothbrush.
you hear people talk about how hard and expensive it is to travel and you think “huh?”
you feel like having a T-shirt made that says in six languages “I didn’t vote for Bush”
If anyone can think of any others it would be great if you wrote them in the “comments” section.
‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings
Tags: International Travel, Reflections
Zoe
oh!!!!!!!!!!!!! how I releted to this blog! As I was reading along I felt as though I could have written several myself, thanks, it took me back and started to “stir” my thinking.
You are right…Denmark has not gone to the euro. Nor has Norway. A Norwegian explained to me the other day that their economy is so strong that going to the Euro would only hurt them. The twelve countries of the European Union that do not use the euro are: Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The next enlargement is expected to be Slovakia in 2009, according to wikipedia.
I’m going back to the states in June. Are you going to be around this summer and fall?
Those all ring true to me except for the computer though I will have to start lugging one around on my non-business trips I suppose. Lately I have been able to get by with just my blackberry.
I find that, in any country, the local tourist office will tell me “there are no rooms available” so I walk down the street and enquire and immediately find a room.
Apparently Denmark has not yet gone to the Euro.