Globetrotter

I just noticed that my passport is due for its first renewal next year, which got me thinking about the dents I’ve put in it over the years:

1. England: I had to go for a last-minute work trip, so I took off for my first week out of the country. I spent that first trip in a snazzy little hotel in Knightsbridge, going to work in the day and zipping around at night on the back of my friend’s motorcycle (proving to myself that I wasn’t as terrified of motorcycles as I always thought I was). I’ve been back to London twice, and consider it one of the few cities besides New York I could see myself living. The last time I was there I finally managed to get up North to Lancaster, Blackpool, and Carlisle, much to the snickering of the Londoners I saw the rest of the time. I loved it all, though.
2. Japan: This was just a layover, but I still count it because I spent the night in a Japanese hotel on the way to and from…
3. China: Two-and-a-half weeks helping my friend take care of a tour group. While rain poured for most of the trip (ruining about half of the 32 rolls of film that I shot), we herded our group on and off buses, planes, trains, boats, and the Great Wall as we visited Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Guilin, Guangzhou, and pre-Handover Hong Kong. A-freaking-mazing, all of it.
4. Jamaica: The launching pad for another tour-group trip, but this time we didn’t have to do much more than get the group onto a cruise ship. The trip was more fun than I would have guessed, in part because of (rather than in spite of) it being so cheesy in so many ways. Still, it was a great way to score a free trip to…
5. Colombia: We spent a day wandering around the old part of Cartegena. I discovered that I retained much more high-school Spanish than I thought.
6. Costa Rica: We spent an incredible day hiking through a rain forest. I’m still very eager to go back and see more of the country.
7. Panama: After a totally cool trip into the Panama Canal and back out, we went swimming at a very Gilligan’s Island-esque archipelago off the coast. No screwball hijinks prevented us from getting off the island and back to the ship.
8. Iceland: I’ve been through Reykjavik on two different trips now, but I’ve still never left the airport, which has always reminded me of Moonbase Alpha. I’m still eager to see parts of Iceland that don’t look like the Moon.
9. Brazil: I spent almost a month in Rio with a friend, visiting her friends and family for Christmas and New Year’s. It is a sexy, sexy place, and to date the only place where I have appeared in public in a Speedo without thinking twice about it. This is also where I met my beloved friend João, when he and I picked each other up in a bar my last night in town and remained fast friends afterward.
10. Italy: My first trip to Italy was yet another trip with a tour group, this time to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast. I was smitten with the place. And after going back for another two weeks, I find that it’s hard to think of any other place I’d like better.
11. Belgium: A rainy cold, grey afternoon on the way back from Sorrento, trudging around to look at the Atomium and that kid taking a piss. I have no desire to go back for more.
12. France: The only time I led a tour group without help, so I was lucky that this was a trip where the group was left to wander on their own for a week, rather than be led anywhere by a local guide. It’s a magnificent city but my love for it is mitigated by my hatred of the sound of French.
13. Canada: I’ve been to both Montreal and Vancouver so far, but I’m pretty convinced that Canada is just as polite and pretty and liberal as I’d hoped. I think I could very happily live in Canada if I were forced to flee there to escape our own government.