July 2003 Archives

Among other pieces of news that I'm woefully behind in conveying, I'm currently taking two photography classes -- neither for credit. One is a beginning photography class, which is very educational, but I become impatient with people who interrupt the instructor to ask him questions that only apply to them. The second one is a black and white photography and darkroom class. Last week, we developed our negatives, and this week, I made my first prints. (See 1 and 2.)

I can see this very quickly becoming a passion -- there's something very magical about watching a print develop from nothing. My first attempts were far from perfect, but I'm very pleased with them nonetheless. I might have to go back to the darkroom on Sunday to print a few others from my first roll, and I've almost finished taking a second roll that I can develop next week.

Lloyd has a great topic for discussion today: List the cities on planet Earth that you have seen, or been to. Comment on each, if you like.

No time to comment on each right this moment as I'm off to a black and white darkroom class in about 21 minutes, but here are some of the cities around the world that I've been to (in approximately chronological order by country):

U.S.:
Corpus Christi
Austin
Dallas
Houston
Washington, D.C.
New Orleans
Atlanta
Albuquerque
Phoenix
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle

Mexico:
Matamoros
Reynosa
Nuevo Laredo
Rancho Nuevo (not much of a city, but worth an entry of its own)

Canada:
Toronto
Banff
Jasper

Ireland:
Dublin
Cork
Galway

Britain:
London

Hungary:
Budapest

Austria:
Vienna

Romania:
Targu Mures
Brasov
Sinaia

I keep joking about it with everyone who asks where my pictures are, but travel really is exhausting. You go and go and go, walk everywhere, eat when you can't take it anymore, and sleep on uncomfortable beds. At least, that's how I travel. Maybe if I did it the cushy way, with hotel rooms and rental cars, it would be a bit less exhausting, but I contend that my way is more interesting, at the very least.

So I've been exhausted. This was a running joke with Claudia and me on our trip. We'd ponder why we felt so tired, and then we'd realize that it was because we'd been throwing bread to ducks for at least an hour, and that's exhausting. Or we'd been eating a huge, complicated meal that her mom cooked for us. That's exhausting, too. And seriously, going through the 349 pictures I took on my trip is exhausting. It's overwhelming, which is worse, and I've been having a hard time staying focused long enough to do anything about it. It doesn't help that they're on my work computer, since my iMac is in the shop, and that sometimes, my employer expects me to get actual work done.

So that's my excuse. Generally, when I tell people I've got 350 pictures to sort through, they ease up a bit, but the sheer number of people asking me where my pictures are have given me a bit of a guilt trip. Exhausting, I tell you.

People have been asking me if I'm glad to be home, and I've answered unequivocally, yes, I'm glad to be home, sleeping in my bed, driving my car, using my own shower, petting my cats, and with easy access to groceries and food I can pronounce.

My urge to travel has been temporarily sated, at least, which is just as well, as I need to start saving money for my next big adventure: home-buying. That's a couple of years off yet, but these things require planning, particularly of the financial sort, and I don't have enough income to be hoarding large amounts of it away for rainy days. Financing elaborate travel will be a bit tricky for the next couple of years if I stick with this plan, but there's a payoff in the end, right?

So yeah, this was meant to be a temporary travel hurrah before I start clamping down on the finances, paying off debts, and saving money. And it was all that -- it was a great vacation, and I came back exhausted, and it's all well and good.

Except...

I had this really random revelation last night. I don't know where it came from, since I haven't really been in a travelling frame of mind (except when watching The Amazing Race, which is both inspiring and daunting, because how exhausting must that be?), but I realized that I really want to travel to South America. I'm thinking Chile, maybe, since it's the southernmost country on that continent, and it's got the Andes, and Easter Island is down there. My Spanish is far from perfect, but I know enough to order food and find bathrooms, which is more than I know in German, Hungarian, or Romanian.

All this points to the indisputable fact that I'm slowly getting over my exhaustion, so that old tale isn't going to work much longer when people ask me about my pictures.

I'll start posting them today.

I'm back. Did I mention that? I have a lot to write, both here and in the wanderlog, and about a zillion pictures to sort through, but I'm still feeling a bit worn out. Maybe this evening.