The day is dreary. Rain is predicted for today and the next few days, but it is warmish, in the low 60’s. I have a concert this afternoon, but after that I will resume the sloth life at which I have become adept.

Today, my muse has deserted me. I keep writing then erasing when I hit a dead end. I guess this will have to be a stream of consciousness, scattered thoughts and ideas.

I remember sitting on a bus where a couple of women were facing each other at the front and chatting. One of them took took out a cigarette, lit it and absent mindedly put the wrong end in her mouth. She sputtered and spit.

I seldom sleep on planes, even long flights. I remember reading Gone with the Wind the entire flight to London. On my last trip to Accra, I read and played games on my iPad, all ten hours overnight.

My mother, sister and I went to Iceland. It was a cheap trip because it was winter. Our hotel was a short bus ride away from the center of Reykjavik. We had to wait outside for the bus. It was freezing, numbingly freezing. We wandered around the city where somehow we found an Irish pub. The Irish coffee warmed my mother.

Around the seventh or eighth week of Peace Corps training, a few of us, actually three of us, hitchhiked together to Accra for the weekend. We wandered the city getting to know it. I was carrying my pocketbook, a straw one with leather straps. It had a little bit of money, cedis, but nothing much else. I remember we were walking across a bridge when I felt a tug on my bag. A guy had grabbed one strap and was trying to steal it. I held on to the other and we both pulled in a tug of war. His strap gave and he ran off with the one strap. The two guys I was with just watched. They said I seemed to be doing just fine by myself and didn’t seem to need help.

In Finland I seldom knew what I was eating. The second language is Swedish which didn’t help. I pointed at pictures of food to order my meals. I was mostly lucky. It all tasted good. Besides, not knowing what I was eating was probably a good thing.

I backpacked through many European trips making me the typical young American traveler. Later, I used suitcases instead. I always figured that was adulthood.

I figured out long ago how to enjoy life. I still do every day.

This entry was posted on October 20, 2023 at 10:32 am and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.