Gallivanting dreams….

It’s a new feeling of excitement and wonder. The freedom to travel all around the world and discover new places, new wonders and sometimes even new foods is something I have longed for ever since I can remember. In my 26, almost 27 years of life, I have been fortunate enough to have visited a couple of places around the world, starting with my most favorite, London.

Though I have had a fascination for London since childhood, it was a very short trip to Scotland that blew me over. If given a chance, I’d go there every year for a short holiday! Apart from London, I’ve been to Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Shenzhen. To be very honest, Hong Kong downtown looked very much like the regular downtown here in New York or the Regent Street and Oxford Streets of London. My father once said if you have seen one, you have seen them all. I disagree. I believe each place has a charm of its own! Of course, the people in Hong Kong and Shenzhen were scary to communicate with because just no one understood what we wanted to say but overall the feel and thrill of being at a new place is different at each place!

My world escapades were limited to those countries and here, in the US, I have achieved a similar feat – New York (NY), Chicago (IL), Atlanta (GA), Orlando (FL), Washington D.C. (VA), College Park (MD), my very own West Lafayette (IN) and finally Dearborn/Detroit (MI). This thanksgiving, I will be touching another state, California. As excited as I am for these visits, it doesn’t satisfy my dreams of visiting places like Italy, France and Spain! I can’t wait to go see Rome, take a boat ride in Venice, pose in front of the Eiffel Tower, drive by the grass fields of Spain, see the museums at each of these places, try their local foods and buy local specialty souvenirs! These are just three places that I have seen in movies and places I’ve read about and studied about. There’s a lot more!

There’s Egypt for the pyramids, Turkey for handicrafts, Dubai for shopping, Croatia for the landscapes, Malaysia for the food, Bangkok and Thailand for the scenic beauty, Maldives for the beaches, Switzerland for the mountains, Africa for the jungles, Japan for everything and so much more to see and experience! Seeing my friends travel around places like these with their friends makes me feel anxious about when I would be able to do all this. My parents took me around a few places and most important of all, London. I am grateful that I got to see London with both my parents. But now it’s time for me to explore places on my own! Instead of my father taking me places, I want to make plans and take my father places. For that, I need to have been places. What surprises me, however, is how easily my peers make plans and trips to foreign lands and I’m stuck thinking about money issues! I am earning as well. How is it that I don’t have the money and they do? The minute I think of money, my spirits get lost somewhere.

I wish I had a job that allowed me to keep travelling places. At least then I would have been travelling on company expense! But that has a flip side too. The flip side is that we get too bored of it too quickly. For example, it’s been a fascination of mine to stay in fancy hotels and try their fancy breakfast buffets, at least whenever we went places within India. But when I looked at my father, for whom all this was pretty normal and regular, I would see how bored he was and that it didn’t excite him as much. Generally similar things excite us but having had to travel a lot he prefers staying at home whenever possible! There are two sides to every story! So maybe I’m not that badly off. But even then, the money aspect of things keeps puzzling me and I’m dying to find a solution! Every vacation I get, I want to go somewhere. I don’t want to stay at home, or even go home for that matter! I have that option as well. But I just want to go places I’ve never been to and that doesn’t include a new state in India. Honestly, there is one state in particular I would like to go to and that’s Rajasthan. I do want to see the palaces all over Rajasthan and buy their traditional souvenirs! There I go again! Every place I want to go, will need money and that’s what scares me! Do I have enough? When will I be able to fulfill my dreams? This is just not fair!