Short Cuts, March 1, 2015

Middle Atlas Camel Caravan
Er Rachidia, February 27, 1995

It's becoming abundantly clear to JourneyistheDestination that unlike twenty years ago in 1995, she HAS NO TIME FOR THIS BLOG.  She's got a job, 2 kids, a dog, a husband, laundry, reading to do and the like.  She's also working on her black belt and taking online courses in theoretical physics (kidding!). She realizes she's gotta clock in tomorrow around 9 am, before which time she will have gotten the kids fed, ready for school, lunches made, taken to school, commuted for an hour, including the critical pit stop to a Union Square bakery for her quotidien croissant, the best in the city. Unlike real writers who need to have another job to pay the rent and then work all night on their novels, critical essays, feature stories in the New Yorker beacuse they are in fact REALwriters who have a passion, a CALLING, a drive, JourneyistheDestination is not that person; she just can't sustain this schedule, unless she begins snorting coke. So, she will have to take some short cuts, by country.

1. Cast of Characters
2. Intinerary
3. Catalogue of Surreal Experiences

For each country I will be outlining these, that I can commit to, and then we'll go from there. Most of this will be entirely uninteresting to you, dear readers, except for the surreal experiences, but I need to stay true to the mission, which is to revisit this trip and reflect back on it. But to do it in a way that doesn't totally interfere with my life now. 


 

Were You Wearing Heels? Wardrobing for JourneyistheDestination, 1995

Wardrobing for JourneyistheDestination

Look #1

Some of you have expressed an interest in what I was wearing 20 years ago on my solo backpacking trip around the world. I have blocked the filthy rags from memory, having incinerated them upon my return, but I have pictures!!!!!!! 

 

Two things: 1. This was before Christian Louboutin came out with his red soled stilettos, which I surely would have preferred to the Paragons. 2. Despite the really pared down wardrobe, my rucksack was like 50 pounds.  Maybe 60. There was a lot of unnecessary crap in there. I don't have photo documentary on this, but I do have witnesses, such as my parents, boyfriend, and best friend, who shook their heads sadly when I tried to drag the beast out of the house to the airport.  My best friend ended up carrying 3/4 of the contents of this monstrosity back to the US from Bangkok five months later after meeting me for a few weeks to travel together in Thailand.  Now picture all that weight, on top of my own quite healthy, well fed weight, on those teeny  Louboutin spikes...actually no,...take that back...structural engineers have made tremendous strides since 1995, note the Manhattan skyline, so maybe now in 2015 it could be done but back then no, definitely not an option.  I had to do the Paragons, and the horror of those boots, my embarrassment, feelings of frumpiness and was my only complaint about the trip.  I mean, I lived in Seattle, during the grunge era for 5 years and I would not have been caught dead in Paragon Sports urban day hikers.

Look #2

The Essentials

Tops: 

Long sleeve tee shirt, 1 black (see model, left), 1 white

Short sleeve shirt, 1 black, 1 white (on model)

Bottoms:

Featured ankle length skirt in black and white (see model above)

super baggy lightweight black pants (see model, left and below)

jeans, baggy

Footwear:

Paragon Sports Day Hiker Boots in Green & Brown (on model)

black leather sandals, of the flat, sturdy, foot covering variety

Outerwear: Mens black Gortex hooded rain jacket in Medium (not sure why I felt I needed something that huge, it was pre-baby in the bjorn days...)

Unmentionables:

Well, let's leave it at that, but seriously, if you are traveling for longer and harder than your underthings can hold out, have someone in supersize me America send you new undies, along with your new guidebooks.  Mine gave out in Thailand and comparing my relative girth to your average man's I did have concerns when going to the market to procure replacements.  I hand gestured for the BIGGEST size panties ( all were prewrapped in plastic so you can't tell), and by golly were they about three sizes too small....it's all about the journey.

You Can Mix and Match




















 

A Scarf Provides Modesty for Visiting Mosques, Temples and Other Holy Places.
You Know What??? Just Wear the Damn Head Scarf

 

You Can Accessorize With a Scarf
 

 

 





 



A Colorful Bag Adds Personality to a Neutral Palate



 

Soul Searching

Market Mosque, Marrakesh

Once upon a time...

Twenty years ago, on February 13, 1995, I boarded a one-way swissair flight to Casablanca from JFK, my first stop on solo backpacking trip around the world that would take me from New York to Morocco to Egypt, Israel, India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and Hong Kong, where on September 1, 1995 I boarded an American flight to Boston, with stops in Narita, Tokyo and Seattle, Wa, which is in fact where this trip all began. Twenty years have passed, and since I am not so much in the habit of getting on one-way flights to anywhere but here, I have decided to revisit this journey. 
I am not sure what format this will take or how often I will post or even if I will maintain the momentum over the next seven months. The reality is that traveling on one’s own is often a dreary, frustrating experience, especially on a really tight budget. I’m not a travel writer, and I am not particularly adventurous (no war zones, war lords, heroin dens, solo camping in the desert, and the like). There’s a lot I just don’t remember about my trip- I look at some of my pictures (very few of which I labeled after the fact of course), and I think where the hell was that and why did I even bother to take that picture, it’s so bad.
I am not even exactly sure why I took the trip in the first place.  It was never like a girlhood dream, like working for an oil company (seriously, those of you who know me know that this is true) or on some kind of list of things to do before you die.  Wasn't a list girl, as you all also know. I met a woman in Seattle who had just come back from a similar venture: she was tall and blond and thin and vivacious and spiritually tuned-in; a result of being in India for a few months, and I thought, wow that sounds cool.  I want to be her, I want to do that. And the seed was planted; though clearly I knew I wouldn’t come back any taller, blonder, thinner or cooler as a person, I actually did think that I would come back spiritually enlightened, that I would get out of the fashion business, that I would get real about my future, that I would become zen and less angsty about life, that I would just become centered and know exactly what to do next. 

How Does It All Turn Out?
Essaouira, March 6, 1995

I would ultimately be disappointed, when upon my return, months after and even years after, it dawned on me that I was exactly the same:  kind of unmoored (some might generously call it a free spirit, but I am not that), totally unwilling to make a long term plan for my life and then follow through. I fell back into fashion and came up with a new plan: to enter the Peace Corps and go to Jordan, which is of course was not a real plan for me but an escape hatch from life. Not that it is not okay to be young and single and free, exploring the world and meeting people, as long as you can pay your own way, but there comes a point when you realize that that just isn't working anymore, and I think this trip was the first attempt to figure it all out.
So, here I am now, making a good faith effort to look back and process and I am really looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.