Now, I have to do it until the end: There are still 6️⃣ days until our trip around the world! To fuel a little anticipation until then, here's the daily email spam we all love so much. Today:
Challenges
Definition according to Wiktionary Germany (and then literally translated to English, oh lord auto-translate): "[1] a task or work that is very demanding, [2] challenging an opponent to a duel." Okay, even though Leah and I sometimes have differences of opinion, hopefully we're both only thinking of the first meaning of the word.
I once read the following in a book: One of the reasons for travelling is to artificially expose yourself to an unfamiliar environment with a different language or different customs and thus, so to speak, to a challenge from which you then have to emerge in one piece. Dealing with adversity allows you to expand your own boundaries. Particular challenges could be finding a good restaurant in a foreign country based on Google reviews, or discussing at the check-in desk why your 36kg luggage should still come with you at no extra charge. Or how to get away from an airport in the first place without public transport or local currency.
Of course, not everyone travels for that reason, sometimes you just want to chill out. But I can understand the idea very well when I think about the destinations I've had in mind recently - often it was all about finding a special adventure with a challenge that you couldn't have imagined before.
If I had to answer now, am I ready for the unbelievable chaos in northern India, the unspeakable heat in Colombia, all the poisonous critters in Australia, or driving through the Canadian prairies with smoking disgusting men in littered trucks? No way am I!
Nevertheless, it is precisely this incentive that entices us to test ourselves again and again, to broaden our horizons and get to know ourselves in the process. Maybe we'll learn to appreciate small comforts like a dry bed again, maybe I'll become a little less sensitive to heat, maybe we'll learn how great and fast and effective these snake anti-venoms work in Australia.
📖 Book recommendation: "The art of travelling" by Alain de Botton. It's about how to find and appreciate beauty when travelling. As parts of it are a little too highbrow, here's another book I want to read myself "Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe" by Bill Bryson..