Where do you go?

Iceland.
Rio de Janiero.
Dubai.
Cairo.

Any one of those four exotic locales will do.

 

Iceland?!? Do tell.

 

Iceland IS a nice place, but 3-4 days there is enough. If this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, there needs to be some dazzle.

 

I'm 41, single, no kids, nothing keeping me anchored to anything. When I was out of college, I didn't have the money or the wherewithal to go tromping all over the world. I didn't have the opportunity for a plethora of reasons.

Looking back has made me just go "d'oh!" on many an occasion for many a reason. But when you're essentially at the halftime of your life as I am, you don't want to look back in anger or feel sorry for yourself in a "coulda-woulda-shoulda" kind of way.

This summer/fall, I'm giving myself the opportunity.

I'm about to come into some cash, most of which I'll salt away. However, I'm gonna take a portion of that money, drop out of society and see the world with some money in my pocket and on my terms.

I dunno how long I'm gonna be gone. I have no timetable, and as it stands now, in the infancy of it all, no schedule. But I know I have to do some things first. For instance, planning, which I'm not very good at. I tend to be a seat-of-the-pants sort of person.

I have to learn a sustainable skill, one that's portable, one that'll let me earn under-the-table keep if I decide to stay somewhere for awhile. So I'm going to learn bartending. I dunno if I should become a part-time barback or go to bartending school, but I'll figure something out. Alcohol is a global language.

I have to learn to make myself portable, only getting by on the bare essentials. To be able to lug myself-and my stuff around. There are actually places in the world where your luggage on wheels is useless. Like the Marrakesh airport, for instance. Or a fair amount of Thailand.

I have to learn when cities are at their peak, weatherwise. Going from Moscow to Singapore is probably not a good idea in terms of what I pack.

There's more to it than that. Is this WCV's "into the wild?" Hard to say. But goddammit, I've fluked into a second chance, and I'm gonna take it while I still have my health, my brains and mobility.

Not everyone's this lucky. Believe me, I know. You gotta do it. If you want to see some excellent foreshadowing about looking back wistfully, go rent one of the best movies of this generation, ABOUT SCHMIDT.

 

Since I'm a soccer nut, I'm going to some of the dumps I've come to love.

FC St. Pauli in Hamburg, Germany - Fuck Amsterdam...hit this Red Light district here and sing punk rock songs in the terraces which overlook an old Nazi bunker.

Stoke City at Britannia Stadium in Stoke-on-Trent, England - A shithole if there ever was one, but this is the home of Sir Stanley Matthews and Gordon Banks. Plus Premiership football beckons!

Random game in Eastern Europe...perhaps something like the Belgrade derby - Partizan vs. Red Star. I want to see flares, violence, bad pitches and lots of tension.

Hellas Verona in Italy - Tim Parks' book A Season with Verona explains it all.

Random game in the Netherlands...preferably Ajax, but a lot of the old magic is long gone.

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If I'm going the touristy route, I want to hit Paris. Spend a few days there. Fly to the Middle East and do some Lawrence of Arabia-type shit.

 

I don't know how to explain it, exactly, except to use a Canadian analogy. Up here, there are what we call Newfie jokes -- jokes about Newfoundlanders that involve the usual set-ups (A priest, a juggler, and a Newfie walk into a bar...) but that always end with the poor Newfie as the punchline, usually with the dude being too stupid to live.

Tasmania is similiar to Newfoundland is a lot of ways -- an island, pretty hard to get to, with a different accent, a little behind the times, a little backwards -- and then there is the Australian version of the Newfie joke, which are about Tasmanians, and which are about 1,000 times meaner than the Canadian versions.

For instance:

Q: How does a Tasmanian girl know her mom's having her period?

A: The dog's dick tastes different.

I know that's not a good explanation, but that's all I've got.

On a happier note, I believe there's still a subsidized flight between Iceland and NYC for something like $99. I'd love to go there to watch Sigur Ros play on a glacier.

 

For you, Jones.

Oh, in America we have West Virginia.

Beautiful state, but some of the residents might be a little lacking.

 

I decided on three weeks in Europe, about 10 days in Spain during Running of the Bulls and the other 11 split quickly touring France and Italy.

Airfares are starting to get ridiculous, and the cheapest flight by far is on Aer Lingus, Ireland's airline. I don't want to drop $1500 on a flight only to have the airline fold in the next couple of months, so does anyone have any experience with the airline or have a good idea about how solid it is financially?

 

I haven't read through all the suggestions, but here's my three:

1. Alaska
2. Ireland
3. Buenos Aires

 

Aer Lingus has been around as long as I've been alive, it's partially owned by the Irish government, so I think you're going to be in good hands.

 

Has anyone told this youngster to get himself to Amsterdam?

 

Buenos Aires is one of the few civilized places outside North America where you can live like a king on the U.S. dollar. Awesome place.

I'm with westcoastvol. If you have a chance to do these things, to travel all over the place, do it. Do it now. Don't put it off until retirement. There's no guarantee you're going to make it that far.

Travel is an unbelievable experience.

I'd take an around-the-world airline ticket and use it for its intended purpose.