T.I.A.

Let me start with an explanation of the rather corny title I've chosen for this blog. Every time I take a trip, my travel companions and I seem to come up with a word or phrase that becomes a theme for the journey. My first time in Thailand, Glynnis and I adopted the Thai Tourism Bureau's official slogan, which we had learned from commercials on CNN International. There were myriad reasons for one of us to say it: sipping a coconut shake by the beach - Amazing Thailand! Spotting a full rainbow over the Gulf of Thailand - Amazing Thailand! Taking in the shiny, gilded Grand Palace in Bangkok - Amazing Thailand! Being on vacation from teaching fun-but-sometimes-too-energetic Korean children - yep, Amazing Thailand!

In Australia and New Zealand with Kate, the phrase was "I love our life!" Diving on the Great Barrier Reef, seeing Uluru/Ayer's Rock at sunset, sharing Guinness and travel stories with Irish backpackers in a Kiwi Irish pub, boating through the stunning scenery of Milford Sound, learning about Aborigines and the Maori - what's not to love? Actually, I can think of a few things not to love about the traveling life, like trying to sleep on overnight bus rides and lugging around a massive, heavy backpack for months on end. But who's complaining?

When Katy and I were in Turkey and Greece, everything we saw and most everyone we met was "flash." I read that in one of my very sporadic journal entries the other day, but I can't for the life of me remember where that expression came from. Katy?

"Traveling is Awesome" comes from my trip to China's Yunnan Province with Eric and Bob last summer. I don't remember when I first said it; it might have been while trekking through Tiger Leaping Gorge, or maybe when we were chatting with a friendly German guy we met in ShangriLa, or perhaps as we were eating some tasty Tibetan steamed buns. Whatever the occasion was, it struck Eric as funny and it stuck. I thought the phrase would make a good blog title because a) the blog will chronicle my life overseas and b) cheesy as it sounds, I really do think traveling is awesome.

One of my favorite quotes about traveling is from Saint Augustine. It goes something like this: "The world is a book, and those who never travel read only the first page." Many of my relatives and friends have never left their native countries, and I don't mean to imply that they haven't really begun to understand the world - but I think Augustine was right. Traveling is like reading a great book: it challenges you to see the world from new perspectives, introduces you to fascinating characters, and gives you insight into the diversity of creation and culture - the various landscapes and people and languages and food and traditions that exist around the globe. Finishing one chapter in a good book makes you eager to move on to the next; traveling is like that too, I think. And traveling adventures, like great passages in a book, stay with you long after you finish reading them.

I've never been good at keeping a journal when I travel, and I keep thinking that some day I'll regret it. I'm better (a little better) with e-mail, but then I never know how many details people want to read; I don't want to clog anyone's in-box with unwanted lengthy messages. A blog seems to be the perfect way to kill those two birds with one stone: maybe I'll be motivated to keep up with this travel journal if I know that people out there might be reading it. Here's to writing and reading about travel - which, by the way, is awesome.