Visiting those friends from another trip

Malibu, Californie

It became a habit. You travel, you meet strangers and you share details.

Nothing new, you'll say. But one doesn't need to go far back in time to find the moment where mail adresses and telephone numbers would get lost. Six months, one year... that French friend you met in New York? No news at all!

Facebook revolution! Stay in touch without any effort. Or make a relationship stronger where there was nothing special at first. So give me a break with the theories about the social medias alienating people. When one knows how to use it, it's the opposite.

So there you go! The new friend sends you a request on Facebook. Tells you you'll always be welcomed in his house, Who-Knows-Where. But the truth is you will probably be too shy to visit that new friend.

Too bad!

Two years after meeting a girl from Hong Kong, in Germany, I visited her in her country. Not only reuniting felt natural, but it felt like we had just met the past week-end. We started talking exactly where we left the conversation before. That friend, she was very enthusiast to share her culture with me. She brought me places I would never have visited otherwise.

So for my last trip, I tried it again. Spent a whole week with friends in California. It is a different way to travel. Less museums, less major attractions, more small places and villages, well kept secrets. A slower pace too. But vacations are made for that. And learning to know a friend might be more rewarding that looking at beautiful landscapes.

True, there is a risk. A risk the first impression was totally wrong and you might have nothing in common. A risk to destroy precious souvenirs from a previous trip. But there is also a chance you'll discover even more common interests and that'll make the friendship stronger. Still, being right about the first impression is already something special.

And who knows. Once you have a place to stay somewhere, it might be easier to go back. Just have to believe they mean it when they say "Anytime you come close to my town, you can stay at my house."

The interest of traveling alone

I often get the same question : don't you get bored when you travel alone?

Or sometimes, some people praise me for my courage : I wouldn't be able to do that... I need to share my traveling experiences...

I won't talk about my life. Or maybe I will...

I started to travel alone in my second trip to Europe. About three years after getting on the old continent for the first time.

Truth is out : I was scared a little bit. Taking the plane alone. Arriving in the airport alone without anybody to help me if I got lost...

The thing is, in the plane, I met a perfect stranger who I chatted with. Interesting. In the next plane, which brought me to Warsaw, Poland, I met a French girl who spoke polish. She guided me to my hostel. Pushing back my fears to the next day.

I won't lie, that next days, with the street of Warsaw under my feet, with the signs all written in polish, I was scared. Wanted to sit down and wait for myself to disappear. But life doesn't work that way. Took a deep breath. Kicked myself where I needed to. And hop! I survived. For two weeks.

Three more years later, I left for six months, around the world, still by myself. And I don't regret it. I even met a great friend who describes the ideal woman as a partner who would let him travel by himself. It tells a lot.

Why? Because beyond the fear of loneliness lies a joy I can't ignore. The one to be alone with myself, to learn to have confidence in myself, the one that forces me to make choices. A joy to be 100 % myself, to be able to make mistakes without anybody blaming me for it, to have room to think.

Getting on the road alone, it's controling our schedule, our expenses, our activities. It's forcing ourselves to get sociable. Would you talk to a couple who is looking in each others eyes in a corner of your hostel? Would you want to meet the frat group of five strangers who talks loud and makes jokes between themselves?

When you travel alone, you live loneliness when you want to. You find friends when you want to. You make compromises when you want to. And the beauty of it all is that you don't need to spend time with boring people... unless it's your brother, your "best" friend or a colleague you accepted to bring with you.

I was sick while traveling. Strangers took care of me. I got lost. Strangers took care of me. I wanted discoveries. Strangers made me discover tons of things.

I'm not traveling to feel like home. Traveling in a group, for me, is sharing an experience with others. I like it... sometimes. Traveling alone, for me, is sharing the world. Point blank.

I'm not saying it is the only or the best way to travel. Only, one can only tell what it's worth after trying it.

New York to Philadelphia Therapy

On the World Trade Center site, the new Freedom Tower
is being built

Some would call it a therapy. Others would say it's a way to make things worst. Going on a first holiday trip outside the city, after a heartbreaking comeback to real life, is a double-edged knife. Like the risk you take to see friends you only knew for the couple of hours you spent together before.

I packed everything, Gilly included, and I threw myself on Highway 91, direction Mountainside, New Jersey. All my eggs in the same basket, I was leaving with the intention of spending the four days of me long Thanksgiving week-end away from home.


Four days between New Jersey, New York and... Philadelphia, where I couldn't care less about Grand Central's charm or the Liberty Bell. I was there, that's all.

What a joy to reunite with my traveling buddies. To escape from the daily life that was not part of my life for six months. To reunite with people who understand. Who allow themselves to dream with me.

What a deception to see time fly away so fast. Even when stealing time from time. Even when pushing away the sleep that would have cost us precious hours together. What a deception to snap my fingers on Friday to wake up on Monday, both hands on the steering wheel again, Highway 91, heading towards Quebec.

On my trip, I managed to see the 9/11 Memorial, going through all the security controls, took a return trip on the ferry to Staten Island, and tasted what is known to be the best cheese-steak sandwich in Phillie. To get it, you have to stand in line at Jim's Steak.

In the end, I still don't know if I won or if I lost going through that "therapy". All I know is my head makes me dizzy again.

A week-end outside of time

My philosophy of taking each day at a time is slowly growing on me, but the road I hit to come back is still bumpy, takes some time to get better.

To release a little bit of pressure, I'm going back on the road. Leaving for a better comeback.

I'm offering myself a week-end outside of time. Suspended time. Stretched time.

The remedy for the return is probably to give ourselves some time. But also to leave again, like a progressive travel withdrawal. It is to oppose the old-me against the new-me. To find out which one will prevail.

It's to step out of the four walls which erected themselves around us to trap us in the world of before. The walls we let get closer and closer. The ones which crush us a little bit making us believe the past is just the past, and that it will never be reality again. The walls which tame the big joys of that continent, tame the badlucks of that other continent, promote the vertues of the everyday life.

I'm leaving! I'm going to New York, after an invitation, to reunite with at least two exceptionnal friendships. Friendships I didn,t search for, but that I took a whole world tour to find. Friendships I don't want to let go anymore. Because they carry in themselves some little parts of happiness I don't want to lose.

That impatience is a strange feeling. The impatience of hugging so hard people I've seen once, maybe twice, in my life. Because hugging them that hard stops time.

Those are precious friends I want to stay friends with for all my life. I adopted them in a heartbeat. Told them  they were stuck with me. They answered they're not gonna complain about it. Friends for whom I would drive for seven hours, solo, without stopping, to snatch time... from time. And I'll need to force myself to leave them for seven more hours... solo again.

Those four days with the Empire State Building looming will last forever. They will stay suspended in time. I know it. Other's world will disappear. It'll be our world... My own world.

Without a doubt, I'll come back a little sad, not being able to grab more than just little pieces of this time running by. But at least, I won't have let it go in indifference. And I'll start planning other moments out of time.

Simple entertainment

Andreas is working hard to get that picture.

It was already established that a big share of traveling is about people we meet. In that way, the best memories are not always the one we make by visiting well known places.

Couple of days ago, I spent the evening with another backpacker who stayed in my hostel for one night only. No time to see Shanghai for him. So we took a walk to the Bund, the walkway along the Huangpu river. The beauty of going out at night with other people is to stop in unexpected places. It is to spend less time at your destination than everywhere else you stop on the way.

In this case, we had fun taking night pictures without a tripod. We needed to be smart, so we used a paper cup we found on the ground and a lighter to take a picture of... a bike. The Chinese walking by, after midnight, wondered what two white guys could find interesting about that old bike. The question marks in their eyes shed more light than the lampposts. They couldn't understand. But I will remember. I didn't count the number of attempts, but there was a lot. So like it or not, here is the result.