What I Learned From Travel

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I haven't done a huge amount of travel myself. I've traveled to and from city to city in Western Australia, but my first time on a plane was only in January, when we went to Melbourne and Canberra on our honeymoon. A few ideas went through my head about what I could write on the subject of travel, but it became obvious that the most I've learned has been through other people's travel, so I'm kind of twisting the whole topic a little this time around.

Last year my girlfriend Noelene was coming up to her long service leave at work. She had been planning a 3 month world trip for years. We've been friends a long time, and she's definitely got the travel bug. This was going to be her second big world trip. On her first she went alone, mostly in tour groups. This time she spent the first part of her holiday with her folks, and then the rest with Peta, a friend from work. It's funny. I never even met Peta until after the trip, but I had all these pictures of her in the mail and heard all of these stories about her that Noelene would tell me. When we did finally meet it was like I already kind of knew her. I think it was a bit that way for her too, with Noelene talking about me and that sort of thing. Anyway, that's for another post topic.

So, it's coming up to Noelene going on this trip and we both knew how bad we're going to miss each other and everything, but we knew she should go. It's all organized and it'll still be a blast. Thanks to the wonders of technology we spoke daily, at least once a day, in some form or other. Whether it was the hours long SMS and/or phone conversations we had, or the MSN time we clocked up, or the letters and emails sent, or the couple of way too brief times we got to see each other with webcams, we always knew what each other was doing and how we were going. I still missed Noelene like crazy while she was gone, but at the same time we weren't completely apart for 3 months. Communication was still at a very high level. Plus, when she got back I asked her to marry me and she said yes and we got married in January this year, so that was rosy.

One of my friends Matthew lives in the U.K. We used to hang out a lot when he was in W.A. and when he comes to visit it's great to see him again, but thanks to the wonders of email and telecommunications we still get to talk pretty much every week. That's more than I talk to some of my friends who live in the same state. Of course, it's not quite the same as seeing a person face to face, but I think it's a wonderful thing still.

So, by other people traveling, I have learned that communication technology can make the world a smaller place if you want it to. It's a beautiful thing.

jej