I Don't Like to Travel. I Like to Live in a Country.

People are surprised when I say that I don't like to travel because they think that I have traveled a lot and that I've enjoyed it.  What I've enjoyed is living in countries.  Feeling settled.  Feeling a part of the community.  Spending the least amount of time in transit.

I liked living in Tonga for two years, in Spain for one, in Algeria for two years.

Later, I felt I was living in Oaxaca for the month I was there because I was living in one home for the full time, and the same was true of Nicoya for the same period of time.

Even when I was with Annie and Jean Paul in Andresy and later in Brittany, I had the feeling of living, not just traveling through, and that's how I felt about the week Javier and I were in Bremen with Jutta and Andreas and the week we Anmiroti were at Rosa's in Barcelona last September.

I felt home in those places, and the excursions we took were from home.

In spite of my preference for living rather than in traveling through, I enjoyed the trips to Fiji, New Zealand, Iceland, Samoa  long ago, and the trips to Cuba, Chile, Alajuela, China, Ecuador,  Peru, Switzerland  more recently.

But I prefer living, and this trip that I am about to take makes me yearn for my return!

I've enjoyed the preliminary walks in San Francisco, but they were taken from the comfort of my home, where I was sustained by all the rituals and all the familiar "aids" that make up my day .

Travel:  The opportunity to get away from everything that brings me comfort.

(If I have time, I'll post another blog on the dopamine that comes from learning while living and (gulp) even while traveling.)