What is our Motivation?
Why do we travel? It is a good question, though almost impossible to answer. Think about it, every person travels for a different reason. When you get on the plane, you may be sitting next to a guy that is flying to a convention in Las Vegas. The person that is across the isle is flying to her weekly meeting in Chicago. Motivation is a funny thing.
Sadly, the majority of my travel has been with work recently. So my motivation for travel has been, well, lacking. My motivation for going somewhere has actually been just to get it over with. Isn’t that sad? A person that loves to travel, has that kind of motivation. Where I use to have mixed feelings about the end of a trip, happy to see family/friends and sad that the trip is over, now I am just overjoyed that the trip is over. When I am at the location, I try to take advantage of the situation. I go out to eat, take walks and read about the location that I am going to. Let’s be honest, it is not the same.
Though my motivation for fun (with the family and friends) travel has changed as well. I use to travel for the adventure of travel, that is not necessarily the case anymore. I can remember one of the first times I traveled to Europe. I was 18 years old and went there with one of my best friends. We had two weeks to “see” Europe (I do not want to get into a discussion about the merits of traveling in such a matter, at the time it was perfect. Today I would not travel in such a matter, back to the story) before we had to start working in Switzerland. We traveled all over the place. For the two weeks, I think that we stayed at a hostel/hotel only two nights. All the other nights we slept on trains or in train stations. It was part of the adventure of it all, besides, it makes some great stories that we still laugh about when we get together (like the Naples train station where my friend was terrified about the rats. We agreed that we would sleep in shifts, 1 hour each. After 40 minutes he would wake me up and let me know that his hour was up).
Today it is not the adventure, though it is still part of it. Even on business trips the adventure of it is part of it. Today it is more about escape. Not so much escape from life, though escape from the bear trap I call work is always nice. So I am not really sure what the escape is from. If I travel, I want to travel with my loved ones. So it is not an escape from that. What are we trying to escape then? Or is not really wanting to escape at all, but the pursuit of a goal, dream, what? I don’t know.
What I do know is that I love traveling. The thing that I love even more is the idea of travel. It sounds so glamorous, doesn’t it? The idea of going to Barcelona and strolling (because one only strolls when they are traveling or are newly in love) down La Rambla is a picturesque thought. Though in reality La Rambla is a haven of con artists and is is pouring down rain in Barcelona right now. Those details do not matter. The fact that it is probably going to rain does not really matter all that much in the planning. Instead you are thinking that you will be going to the Picasso museum and then go out to eat tapas.
Now I am just rambling on, again. Basically, I can honestly say that I do not know what motivates us to travel and see. Maybe it goes back to our primate days when we followed the food around. Whatever it is, I am glad that we do. Being a tourist in your own town can be great, but it is even better being a tourist someplace that you have never been before.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
Star Wars Weekend at Disney World
If there is one thing about my family that is a fact, it is that they are Disney freaks. That may sound a little a harsh, but it is true. Let me prove it to you. Our Christmas tree growing up had over 100 (probably closer to 200) Disney ornaments on it. In fact, instead of an angel on top of the tree, we had a Mickey Mouse. As a family, we have been to Disney World over a dozen times. That is as a family, my sister and parents have been there at least another 6 times. My sister and family live in California and have season passes to Disney Land. The list can go on and on, though I think that the point has been proven.
Any male that is between the ages of 25 and 35 that grew up in America have one thing in common, we all grew up playing with Star Wars toys. One of my favorite Christmas memories growing up was the year that I received an At-At for a Christmas present from Santa. Like all kids, I had other toys as well. I played with He-Man, GI Joe and Transformers; but is was Star Wars which was my favorite.
When I was little, Darth Vader was my favorite. One year (1983), I went as his for my Halloween costume. I liked him so much, that black was my favorite color (sounds pretty gothic, doesn’t it). Then when I got a little older it was Chewbacca. It is still Chewbacca.
M does not understand either fascination. It is something that has been ingrained into my being since I was a child. It is part of who I am, or at least what made me who I am. So I was surfing the net the other day when I came across something that was shocking to me (Before we go any further, it is important to note that my sister is an expert when it comes to Disney World. She knows the place better then most of the employees). They have what is called Star Wars Days at Disney World MGM Studios.
What this means is over three weekends in April/May the park is invaded by Star Wars characters. They have over 250 of them walking around the park at any given time. Now the majority of them are the Stormtroopers and stuff, but other characters walk around as well. For example Yoda is there, along with Darth Vader, the characters from the 3 newer films and of course Chewbacca. To say the least, I was in shock. How was I just learning about this.
The first thing that I did was call my sister. Like I said, she is the expert when it comes to Disney World. I was sure that she was going to be as amazed by the news as I was. After all, information like this would surely be shared if it was known. Boy was I wrong. The first thing she said was, “yea, I know. It is every spring!” If I was shocked by the event in general, this took shock to a new level. Not only had she known about it, but she had known about it for years. I am still in disbelief concerning it.
So there is where we are at. N has never visited a Disney Park, as of yet. She is not even 1 year old, so it is not too strange. We wanted to wait until she was old enough to enjoy it. At this very moment I am trying to convince M that this coming April (2008) would be the perfect time for N to enjoy the most magical place in the planet.
The Star Wars weekends for 2007 have not been published yet, but if you would like additional information about the events for the weekends. The following link is a good source of information.
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/parks/specialEvents?id=StarWarsWeekendsSpecialEventPage&bhcp=1
If there is one thing about my family that is a fact, it is that they are Disney freaks. That may sound a little a harsh, but it is true. Let me prove it to you. Our Christmas tree growing up had over 100 (probably closer to 200) Disney ornaments on it. In fact, instead of an angel on top of the tree, we had a Mickey Mouse. As a family, we have been to Disney World over a dozen times. That is as a family, my sister and parents have been there at least another 6 times. My sister and family live in California and have season passes to Disney Land. The list can go on and on, though I think that the point has been proven.
Any male that is between the ages of 25 and 35 that grew up in America have one thing in common, we all grew up playing with Star Wars toys. One of my favorite Christmas memories growing up was the year that I received an At-At for a Christmas present from Santa. Like all kids, I had other toys as well. I played with He-Man, GI Joe and Transformers; but is was Star Wars which was my favorite.
When I was little, Darth Vader was my favorite. One year (1983), I went as his for my Halloween costume. I liked him so much, that black was my favorite color (sounds pretty gothic, doesn’t it). Then when I got a little older it was Chewbacca. It is still Chewbacca.
M does not understand either fascination. It is something that has been ingrained into my being since I was a child. It is part of who I am, or at least what made me who I am. So I was surfing the net the other day when I came across something that was shocking to me (Before we go any further, it is important to note that my sister is an expert when it comes to Disney World. She knows the place better then most of the employees). They have what is called Star Wars Days at Disney World MGM Studios.
What this means is over three weekends in April/May the park is invaded by Star Wars characters. They have over 250 of them walking around the park at any given time. Now the majority of them are the Stormtroopers and stuff, but other characters walk around as well. For example Yoda is there, along with Darth Vader, the characters from the 3 newer films and of course Chewbacca. To say the least, I was in shock. How was I just learning about this.
The first thing that I did was call my sister. Like I said, she is the expert when it comes to Disney World. I was sure that she was going to be as amazed by the news as I was. After all, information like this would surely be shared if it was known. Boy was I wrong. The first thing she said was, “yea, I know. It is every spring!” If I was shocked by the event in general, this took shock to a new level. Not only had she known about it, but she had known about it for years. I am still in disbelief concerning it.
So there is where we are at. N has never visited a Disney Park, as of yet. She is not even 1 year old, so it is not too strange. We wanted to wait until she was old enough to enjoy it. At this very moment I am trying to convince M that this coming April (2008) would be the perfect time for N to enjoy the most magical place in the planet.
The Star Wars weekends for 2007 have not been published yet, but if you would like additional information about the events for the weekends. The following link is a good source of information.
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/parks/specialEvents?id=StarWarsWeekendsSpecialEventPage&bhcp=1
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Traveling with Kids II
I wrote a while ago about my niece and nephew who did not comprehend the idea of traveling. For them it was nothing more then hoping on a plane, and the plane was the same to them as a short car trip was to me when I was their age. Like I said before, I am not sure how that can be corrected. It is kind of like how my Grandmother (she is in her upper 90’s) can not get over when I call her in the states from Europe. She always says, “it sounds like you are next door!” It is always an exciting thing for her to get a call from me. Whereas I do not find it odd or really different from any other phone call. In fact, I would probably think that it is more odd to get a call from my neighbor then I would from a different continent.
The reason that I bring it up again is that my niece and nephew (along with their parents and grandmother) flew over last week. N had her baptism and my sister (their mother) was the godmother. Of course the kids love N and were so excited to see her.
The kids did really well. J (the 5 year old boy) was so excited about the trip that he could not sleep the night before the trip and A (the 8 year old girl) could sleep but did not stop talking about it the week before the trip. They did excellent on the flight, from what I was told. When they arrived in Sweden, everyone was exhausted…except for the kids.
So what did we do to try and make it special for the kids- so they understood that they were on a “real trip”. First I have to give A’s teachers a lot of create. A is in 2nd grade and had to skip school for a week in order to come. One of her assignments was to keep a journal for everyday that they were here. One of her teachers has a Swedish background, so the pressure was on! For the most part she did well with keeping up with the journal writing.
M and I knew that she was going to have to keep the journal and it was both of the kids birthday when they were here. So we played with that. For A’s birthday gift, we got her a Swedish/English dictionary and journal. For J, we got him a journal and some markers to draw and write what he experienced.
Here are a couple other ideas that we did:
- Bought a coloring book in Swedish and translated all the instructions to English. The kids are going to bring them home to share with their classes.
- Tried Swedish foods like Swedish meatballs with lingon berry jam
- Learned how to saw a few key Swedish words like hi, goodbye, thank you, and how to count to 10.
- Used a comparison of ages when explaining things (this University started in 1477, that is 18 years before Columbus set sail for America)
- Took the train and the ferry for transportation instead of driving, which was a big hit!
I am sure that we did more then just this, but though I still do not think that the kids understood totally that they were in a different country, they did to a certain extent. In the end, they had a good time and will have wonderful memories of the trip.
I wrote a while ago about my niece and nephew who did not comprehend the idea of traveling. For them it was nothing more then hoping on a plane, and the plane was the same to them as a short car trip was to me when I was their age. Like I said before, I am not sure how that can be corrected. It is kind of like how my Grandmother (she is in her upper 90’s) can not get over when I call her in the states from Europe. She always says, “it sounds like you are next door!” It is always an exciting thing for her to get a call from me. Whereas I do not find it odd or really different from any other phone call. In fact, I would probably think that it is more odd to get a call from my neighbor then I would from a different continent.
The reason that I bring it up again is that my niece and nephew (along with their parents and grandmother) flew over last week. N had her baptism and my sister (their mother) was the godmother. Of course the kids love N and were so excited to see her.
The kids did really well. J (the 5 year old boy) was so excited about the trip that he could not sleep the night before the trip and A (the 8 year old girl) could sleep but did not stop talking about it the week before the trip. They did excellent on the flight, from what I was told. When they arrived in Sweden, everyone was exhausted…except for the kids.
So what did we do to try and make it special for the kids- so they understood that they were on a “real trip”. First I have to give A’s teachers a lot of create. A is in 2nd grade and had to skip school for a week in order to come. One of her assignments was to keep a journal for everyday that they were here. One of her teachers has a Swedish background, so the pressure was on! For the most part she did well with keeping up with the journal writing.
M and I knew that she was going to have to keep the journal and it was both of the kids birthday when they were here. So we played with that. For A’s birthday gift, we got her a Swedish/English dictionary and journal. For J, we got him a journal and some markers to draw and write what he experienced.
Here are a couple other ideas that we did:
- Bought a coloring book in Swedish and translated all the instructions to English. The kids are going to bring them home to share with their classes.
- Tried Swedish foods like Swedish meatballs with lingon berry jam
- Learned how to saw a few key Swedish words like hi, goodbye, thank you, and how to count to 10.
- Used a comparison of ages when explaining things (this University started in 1477, that is 18 years before Columbus set sail for America)
- Took the train and the ferry for transportation instead of driving, which was a big hit!
I am sure that we did more then just this, but though I still do not think that the kids understood totally that they were in a different country, they did to a certain extent. In the end, they had a good time and will have wonderful memories of the trip.
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