Everyone is travelling

I am beginning to experience the phenomenon of feeling like your life is sub-par via facebook. Usually this is true for people in their 20s, watching friends get married and start having kids. I just graduated high school last year, so we're not quite at that stage yet, but I do have a couple of friends (3 on facebook, to be exact) who keep travelling places all the time.

Okay seriously I need a nickname for one of these people, as I have been seeing her more and more. TIME TO USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE TO FIND A WORD AND THEN ALTER IT SO IT SOUNDS GOOD ENOUGH TO USE.

Hmm, it seems I can actually use the name "clara" which is close to one that I think kind of fits. It is odd to think of calling this person clara, but hey, I have a friend on here whom I refer to as "vince" and I have gotten used to that.

So there's a girl whom I knew very well in ninth grade who's spent a whole year in Europe. I think she already had some friends over there to visit, though, which does make travelling easier. But she's been there for the whole entire year and now she's there for the summer with another girl from high school and they look like they are having such a blast and I AM SO JELLY. But swegan! you cry. You just went to Ireland! That's true, I did, and it was awesome, just like it was last year, plus this time we knew what we were doing. I'd go back to Ireland again any day, as conflicted as I am about their stance on abortion and as confused as I am by how the separation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland works. All I know is that my parents told me to not wear orange while we were there, and I can't remember why, so I just didn't bring any orange clothing. Better to play it safe, I suppose, even if I might be totally wrong about this whole orange thing.

Anyway, there's another girl I sort of knew (well, I'm facebook friends with her, so I knew her well enough to add her) who's spent her entire year on a student exchange in Brazil. She hasn't posted quite as many photos, but she seems to be having the time of her life as well, and again, JELLY. SO JELLY. (Gah, I sound like ptarckas when I type WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME MAKE IT STOP).

And then there's Clara, who went on a trip I think in high school with a tour company, and I think she's been on one or two more since then. They're very short trips but she got to go to Switzerland and JUST I WANT TO GO TO SWITZERLAND SO BADLY OH MY GOD, so yes, JELLY.

I feel like it is almost expected of me at this age that at some point I will travel to find myself. Or just travel to see the world. I think I already have a pretty good idea of who I am, and I've already been lots of places (something for which I consider myself insanely lucky). I do actually have a trip I'd like to do, and it's one my parents took us on before to visit old friends in Oregon they'd gone to school with. We stopped somewhere in BC for a wedding on our way over to Vancouver, then Victoria Island where we visited some friends (that is where I first learned the magic of guacamole on a sandwich). Then we took a ferry down into the states and drove through I think Olympia on our way down the coast. I can't remember where we stopped and stayed once we got into the states, just that we went down the Oregon coast and oh my stars, it was gorgeous. Somewhere along there, I learned how good clam chowder was, too, and then we got to Portland, which actually seems like a really cool city (and now that I hear more about it, very hipster-y, which I'm not sure is entirely good or bad). On the way back up we didn't go by the coast again, but we went through Spokane and did back-to-school shopping, since, as always, there are stores in the US with way better selection and jeans that actually fit me at the time, and I think it was cheaper because we didn't pay taxes (and it wasn't a pain like not paying taxes in Europe, where you have to fill out forms and stick receipts in envelopes and show your purchases at customs which is a pain since then you can't pack them in your suitcase like srsly Europe what the butt).

I'd change a few things about this trip. Firstly, I'd like it to take more than three weeks- not that that was a short time period, but that in order to do the trip I want I would need more time. I'd go down the Oregon coast again, the same way (stopping in Okanagan valley, maybe heading over to Victoria Island, etc) but this time I would stay longer, do more hikes, take more pictures, explore more (and eat more clam chowder, for the love of god). I don't know if I would visit Portland again, maybe. Whenever I think of Portland I just think of the cupcake place and the used bookstores (where I got a couple of books I have reread many times). That is Portland to me. After Oregon, I'd head into California, because in all honesty I actually do want to visit California. I really want to see the redwoods, Big Sur and Yosemite. And San Francisco, because that actually seems like a very cool city. I don't know how much farther south I'd want to go, nor how we'd get back from such a long trip. You can't drive the same way again, that is boring, but I fear that going inwards means hitting a bunch of desert and I can barely stand driving through Saskatchewan sometimes, so I don't know how I'd handle the desert. At least Saskatchewan sometimes has hills (and even trees!) when we drive through to Regina and Saskatoon and sometimes Moose Jaw (and eventually, Indian Head- which I thought more people would know about as a kid since it was plainly obvious to me as we went through there every time we visited my grandparents). Anyway, my point is that it would probably scare me and I'd worry about the car breaking down in the middle of nowhere and just... yeah. I have no great desire to visit anywhere that is a desert (is that where the word "deserted" comes from? Or is it the other way around?).

On that note, Saskatchewan is actually really pretty, for as much as I complain about driving through it. Sometimes it just gets so desolate, and there's no civilization for hours and hours and hours and oh my god, the one time my dad let me drive in Saskatchewan was the worst. There was a grain elevator in the distance, and I could see it, but it never seemed to be getting closer, and the sun was hot and the road was hazy and painfully straight and I just kept almost dozing off... driving there is hard. Like really, really hard. But then I remember my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary and standing outside the old round barn just outside of Indian Head and watching the sun set, and let me tell you, there is nothing like a sunset in Saskatchewan. You can see everything. It's really beautiful.
My dad once said to me that he finds it sort of irritating the way people go on and on about the natural beauty of mountain wilderness and how it needs to be protected. "I think that they're right to protect it," he said, "but I happen to think the prairies are very beautiful and that they also need to be protected." (I'm paraphrasing, this was a long time ago). I've never forgotten that. My heart may be in the mountains, but my soul (if I have one, which is a discussion for another time) is on the prairies. I've always thought that that was the most succinct way of describing it.

anyway. I actually have a desire to travel now, which is really something. But for now, I'm just here, waiting for my lab job to begin (it was supposed to start Wednesday but then the lady who runs the lab (who is the one hiring me) is the only one who knows where she wants me to work and who I am working with and what I will be doing and she hasn't emailed me back. I don't know when to go in to start work. She did just get back from a trip, but that was (supposedly) on Tuesday night, and I've emailed her three times since then. Nothing. I don't want to just go in and sit around all day, but I really want to do something other than sit around and watch movies this summer. I'm starting to fear that this job will never materialize, that I will never hear back, not even if I go into the lab and sit there all day waiting for her to show up (which I really don't want to do but may have to resort to soon if I don't hear back). I feel very useless just sitting at home. I think if I don't hear from her by... well, probably by Monday or Tuesday, I'm going to have to just go sit in the lab all day. Bring a book or two, settle in, and wait. She has to show up eventually, and then I can find out if I still have this job or if something has come up and I'll be working in dad's office all summer). Sigh.

yer pal,
swegan