London Calling (and Paris, and Seoul, and ....) : One Gay Travel Guy's Thoughts

So, if there is one thing you could ever know about me - besides being a gay, funny, who loves to run but is also a breathtakingly smart, beautiful, and amazing best friend to all - is that I also LOVE to travel.

When I was born, I lived one street across from my dad's parents. You could literally hop a fence and be over at Grandma's and Grandpa's house. So, right from the beginning, I wasn't exactly sprouting wings.

When I was 2, my family made an "Oregon Trail" type of journey. (You only get this reference if you used computer in the 80s and frankly I feel sorry if anyone missed out on this game. Danny has yellow fever?! Again?! Up, Danny died now. Crap.)

This trek of epic proportions still kept us in the same town I was born in, but this time we were one suburb over. No one got yellow fever. Because, basically, it's less than a ten minute drive. It was arduous. And this time, instead of being 1 street away from grandparents, we were 6 streets over from my other set of grandparents.

In my 2 short years on Earth, the lesson I learned was: you can run, but you can't hide.

And that was true until I was 13. My Dad saved and saved and squirreled money and even robbed a bank (he didn't rob a bank), all so we could have the trip of a lifetime. We took a cruise to the Bahamas and then went to Disney World. It was amazing.

Who knew ocean water could be clear? We were from Massachusetts. The only ocean I had ever seen was at Cape Cod. And that stuff was cold and dark and I truly think seaweed monsters live in the tide and will eat you if given the chance. Seriously, so much seaweed. This water I could see my feet in. Let's swim forever!

The food! I can have HOW MUCH ice cream?

Above anything, I just remember feeling far away. We wrote postcards and really felt out of the country. At least I did. We were told about Bahamian culture and took a tour of the island and learned something. It just felt like my motley family and I were explorers. It was invigorating.

Later, when we did go to Disney, I was floored by Epcot. I understand to the non-American that the idea of Epcot with its bastardized versions of countries could seem trite. I challenge you on this, though. Where else can you get exposure for the first time to countries as diverse as Morocco when you are 13 and living in Springfield, Massachusetts. This was 1992, folks. This guy hadn't even tried sushi yet! That wouldn't come until the year 2000. Y2K indeed!

Where I grew up is perfectly lovely, but I wouldn't say it's the epicenter of culture and world wide diversity. It's not a London, a New York, or another major city where so many walks of life cross. It just isn't. And to be honest - there are only a handful of places in the world where you can get that true exposure to vast diversity. So, Springfield was no Epcot.

I treasured for years and years my silk fan with my name written in Chinese - from Epcot China. Though, I do remember being kinda tired by the time we got to China. It was literally around the world at Epcot - quite possibly the last country or second to last we saw that day. My feet and lack of passport was tired, but it sparked something within me. I knew right then and there that I would grow up and travel.

I kept a journal when I was in high school. (What's a journal you ask? Well, it's like an iPad, but you use a pen and paper and there's no internet yet. What's a pen you ask? Sigh.)

In my journal, I wrote a wish list for things I wanted to do when I grew up. I'm not yet grown up, so I still have time, but astonishingly - I did some of the things on that list. Of the list of 16 things, only one was travel related - but it was number one on the list.

"Go on a gondola in Italy."

/

Does this gondola make my butt look too big?

And I did - in March 2009.

And it was awesome.

I think we could buy a bottle of wine and drink it on the gondola. The gondoliers supplied the plastic cups. In this picture, it looks like I am double fisting. I am not. I am holding the cup so my friend Erin could take a picture of me. I did imbibe pretty nicely that last day in Venice, though.

It was magical, but in a sense, it was just so-so. I had blown it up in my head that riding a gondola would be this "Oregon Trail" style journey, but like all things, it was just something to do.

The earth did not stop. Mine did for a moment, but then it started spinning right back up again. Like all things do.

So, it only emboldened me to see more. Do more. And I have.

A year later, I visited Vancouver and Whistler, right after the Winter Olympics. And took a train down to Seattle because why not? When will I ever go to Seattle and I'm close by, right?

I started seeing more of our beautiful country after Seattle because we should see the 50 states we live in - even the ones that don't vote for gay rights. (Though, not to single anyone out here, but I'm not too fond of you, Arkansas.)

I explored Las Vegas, and the Hoover Dam. I'm a nerd. I like educational things - even on my vapid vacations. Pool time, drinks, and a museum? Check, check, check.

I went to Miami and drove - by myself - to Key West. Beautiful. Again - did 2 museums in Key West alone. Hello, President Truman and Mister Hemingway!

Glamour shot on the California coast line, near Malibu. Maybe. 

I took a Thelma and Louise style road trip with my good friend, Stephanie (the talent behind the amazing web site: http://stupideasypaleo.com/).  She bravely drove us up and down Southern California: San Diego, Palm Springs, Temecula, Santa Barbara (we call her "St. Babs) and then Los Angeles. 

And I saw the tar pits! (yes, you read that right. Not one star - but lots of tar for this guy in L.A.)

Back to being international, I've been to Bermuda this year. Since I've already seen the Bahamas, I'm probably just one more island away from my Beach Boys Island Club Membership.

It comes with a tee shirt!

(No, it doesn't.)

I have seen Seoul and Hong Kong twice this year for work. And while you're working away, you can still get a sense of the people and the culture, and it's really breathtaking in its own way. Just going to Asia, though, you feel like it isn't much different from home. Most cities just aren't. They still have subways. They have taxis. They have all the chain retail shops you know or have heard of. Restaurants are all basically the same.

So, it's with this hindsight of traveling, that I can say this: when you go to all these places and see what is exciting and different, it is also just so normal, too. The things you see are just there. They happen. Landmarks like the Space Needle or the Hollywood Walk of Fame are fantastic to see and experience, but then it becomes your past and it's a memory just like all your other memories. To travel is just as special as someone's amazing birthday party. In your heart, it's really no different.

It is also true you become a more enlightened person when you travel, but I am still that boy with a journal. I still have a list of things to do. It never goes away just because you saw this place or that.

Having said all that, I have an upcoming trip - a 12 day journey. This one really is like an Oregon Trail. Stephanie and I will be doing another Thelma and Louise style road trip, though, we will narrowly avoid any cliffs or canyons (I hope). I am making a one day stop over in Amsterdam (due to a long layover) and will enjoy a canal cruise and the Van Gogh Museum and lots of coffee - but probably from a Starbucks and not from any of the famous coffee shops.

From Amsterdam, I will fly and meet Stephanie in Glasglow, Scotland. After that, it is just days filled with seeing Scotland, London, Paris, and Versailles. I will have done 4 countries in 12 days. It blows my mind when I think of the scope of all I will see and too. I am beyond excited.

I have joy because I have come a long way since that baby across the street from Grandpa. I have seen literally the world in a sense, but yet, only a small part of it.

I encourage you to travel, even if it's just to a part of your state you've never seen. Or maybe even just Epcot. Who knows what it might spark?

Our Sunday Morning Chats

Every Sunday morning, I call my parents. It is our agreed upon time to talk once a week. They can call me during the week, but only if it's something serious. This rule was lovingly enacted to prevent my mother from calling me during the week to ask if I still used Degree deodorant - "because it's on sale this week." (This is just an example. Other examples include: "what was your friend's name who went to that school in Boston?" and "when do you come home again?")

I know. I'm cursed with terribly loving parents. Life is rough.

The Sunday chats, as they are known, have grown increasingly important over the years. Some weeks, I leave more concerned about my parents' fate than ever before. (They clearly need a babysitter over there.) Some weeks, I leave more refreshed and feel more loved than I ever have before.

The Sunday chats are what you could call a 'good with the bad' kind of thing. For example, it depends on how we all slept the night before. It could be real rough if one of us gets on the phone before he has his coffee (Ahem, me. Ahem, Dad.) It could also be less than fun if someone is sick, feels a sickness coming on, or saw someone at work sneeze. But, having said that, it can also be totally funny when the jokes get cracking. (This week's best joke: My mother was worried about me taking a sightseeing bike tour, saying I hadn't been on a bike in quite some time. I asked her is she had ever heard the saying, 'it's like riding a bicycle," much to my mother's quiet laugh. I know what you're thinking. The jokes get pretty wild!)

These chats started some time around when I had moved to the Washington D.C. area back in 2002. They would happen in frequently as I worked in retail and had a constantly changing work schedule. Eventually, in 2006, I found office work in New York and the chats found their regular home on Sunday mornings. This would be the time my parents where news would be shared, concerns over each other voiced, and always ending with the same question: "So, what are you doing today?"

After at least 7 years of steady chats, I started to reflect upon them. I wish I had recorded some of them. I wish I recorded all of them. It's a diary entry in the purest form: simple dialogue.

My parents are, in a sense, my friends. They know most things about me (mostly because I am a terrible liar.) They know my fears, they know my goals and they know my passions - all because I share them. Unabashedly.

Often, though, the calls digress into their petulant son pushing them to change. A few years back, I won the battle for one of them to get a debit card, which Mom now loves. ("It's saved me so much because I don't have to ordering new checks!," Mom recently said.) Granted, they only got the Debit card/ATM card because they were going to Ireland and I told them they wouldn't have to get traveler's checks. ATMs would give them cash at the daily exchange rate. And they wouldn't have to worry about losing any checks. My logic made sense, I guess. (Greg - 1. Parents - 8,954)

Sometimes, I feel like the chats have a reverse effect that way. The child parents the parent. Not in any real sense, but there have been times where I have definitely enlightened them. Dad will tell me about his dinner the night before and I will stress the importance of adding green vegetables to his plate. There's always a lot of soups and potatoes in these stories. (Dad loves to tell me about when he eats out for dinner. The man likes a restaurant and likes to talk about it. Is that so wrong?)

In a way, I am grateful to have this kind of relationship with the two folks who raised me. It's more conversational and easy. I feel I have truly gotten to know my parents as the people they are, rather than the people I think they are. Some of my friends don't have this kind of relationship with their parents and it makes me feel sad. To be my age and not have an open dialogue with my parents would feel like a missed opportunity.

I still regard them as my parents. I don't call up and say,"Hey Bruce, how's it hanging?" (Mostly because I will never use the expression "how's it hanging" ever in my life time.) Instead, these chats just show how natural they truly are. It always felt wrong to me when parents break down the difference between child and parent. There's a reason why someone is the adult. The "cool" parents when you are young weren't necessarily "good" parents. I don't remember ever really respecting those who let their kids drink "because they were going to do it any way."We had alcoholics in my family so I knew my parents were only trying to protect me. They were the adults in the situation.

Even though we are now all adults, there are things I still learn from them and will continue to do. And, like I said, it's reciprocal. What started as an obligation for a kid in his early 20s to call home and check in turned into a fun and weekly event. I still limit it to once a week. Why ruin a good thing? Besides, Mom now has email to ask me if I still use Degree deodorant.