Tourist Season

This weekend marks a notable difference in the traffic in our neighborhood- tourist season is here- with the season ushering in pleasant weather so it welcomes the backpackers. For weeks we've been visiting different cafe's when we need a change of scenery- we are regularly the only patrons in several of these places for hours on end, similarly we pass by the same places with some regularity only to wonder how they stay open with no patrons. They are able to stay open because tourist season is upon us- I only wonder how the wait-staff haven't all killed themselves out of boredom and lack of tip money. I enjoyed working in the restaurant industry as long as we were busy- it made your shift pass quickly and you went home with your pockets full, beyond that there is something to be said for going to work and feeling like you spent your time doing something... When I was in high school I answered phones for my grandfather's Toyota dealership- it was idle, dull, it made me want to die- imagine watching paint dry, and understand the boredom of waiting for the phone to ring. 

Today while Sylvain studied, I started wondering why anyone bothers traveling like this. I spent this hour watching tourist couples snap the same "scenic" photo and glance at the same menu outside a hotel restaurant. When Dave and I went to Istanbul a couple years ago- I found I was disappointed with the experience- I had had really high expectations for Istanbul- and spending time with Gokhan and the turkish bath were both amazing- but Istanbul and ticking our boxes felt empty. I decided then, that I wouldn't do anymore traveling that involved picking a city, rocking up and ticking boxes- because without Gokhan being there to make the experience human- it would have been a bust for me. I decided I wouldn't go anywhere anymore unless it meant visiting a good friend- or some sort of hiking i.e. Mt Kili. 

When I was growing up I suppose we didn't have tons of money- but we did have a cottage, so instead of long car trips to Disney World and Mt Rushmore I spent those long car trips driving up north for water skiing, fishing, and endless rainy days either beating the pants off my mom at double solitaire or trying to win quarters off my dad in cribbage. The cottage was my grandparents, and they brought me up with them a few days earlier than everyone else, and when my grandpa died my grandma and I went together- my grandma sped so we always got there first, she could cackle like a witch and she let me do her hair and put make-up on her. Some of the memories aren't great- but they aren't memories of standing in long lines at Disney World and having to pee- they're watching my grandpa suffer on the couch after painful chemo; a memory tied to a lot of pain, but one I'm not sorry I have. A year ago dad sold the cottage and with my blessing- I hadn't been in over ten years; but here's what I know now- I want my kids to have a cottage they spend their summer weekends at not a list of theme parks they've visited. I can't imagine ever being able to afford one, but I hope that we find a place every summer that we can spend a couple weeks at because I want them to find the same joy I had in simple things like bonfires, catching fire flies, trying to catch fish or watching them eat the pretzels you stuck in between your toes and beating my cousin at Old Maid for two days in a row until he figured out the Old Maid card had a red crayon mark on it... If my dad is reading this, I might mention that I don't miss going for long drives looking for brown deer in fields of brown grass, I don't miss that at all.