“Then let’s look on the bright side: we’re having an adventure, Fezzik, and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are.”
Inigo Montoya: WIlliam Goldman, The Princess Bride
And so, as with all good things, the
2011 European Tour comes to an end. Damn, I should have sold t-shirts...
How was it? As with any experience in life, there were pros and cons. Three weeks is a long haul away from home, I had a period of intense discomfort due to extreme blisters caused by extensive walking in wet shoes, I was nervous about language issues for my entire stay in Paris, and it’s taken me over a week to get back in sync with west coast time.
However, as far as I'm concerned, those are minor inconveniences. For me, the perfect vacation is more about having a memorable, interesting adventure than being comfortable. Those three weeks of travel took me to nine cities in four countries, and let me see landscapes and locations that I'd only ever read about or seen on TV. Getting lost in the rain in London allowed me to find a fantastic graveyard that I returned to photograph after the
Doctor Who Experience. And I wouldn't have missed the view from the Eiffel Tower even if you'd told me there was going to be a pop quiz on verbs afterward. (Although I might have done some more studying in advance if that had been the case.)
And it's wasn't all just the standards of the Eiffel Tower, St. Paul's and the Colosseum, I was able to indulge my own unique interests as well, what with
graveyards, Doctor Who,
medieval armour, castles and towers,
men walking through walls,
alien architecture, and all the other little grace notes that surrounded my visits to the legends of European sightseeing.
When you think about it, it's not at all surprising that I'd enjoy a trip like this. Science fiction and fantasy fans are impelled by many of the same factors that motivate people to visit foreign countries when on vacation. There’s a shared desire to see exotic, unfamiliar locations, to experience new things*, to seek out new worlds and new civilizations,
TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE….
Oops, sorry about that, got a bit carried away. But, there we go, I’ve just cracked the code on
Star Trek – they’re really just tourists.
- Sid
* Sorry, Laurie, this is less applicable for those of you that just want to get on the spaceship, visit the zero-g spa, and spend some time in suspended animation, without any need to take the shuttlecraft down to Mars to see the canals.
