Solo Traveller

I think it takes a great deal of courage to go and travel in the singular. It is something I have always wanted to conquer even when my European trip was just a twinkle in my eye back in Australia when I was still trying to find the best escape route from my cushy domestic flight attendant life in 2005. The most I had ever surmounted were single entry visits to the movies (which I quite enjoy funnily enough!). Next would be to defeat the lone visit to a bar, live band and then a single holiday which are still yet to be achieved on my invisible to do list. But the question I have is it necessary to have to overcome these things? And does it make you a weakling if you cannot?

Watching the movie Paris Je T’aime* in bed last night, one story really spoke to me and that was of the American woman who sat on the park bench in Paris eating her baguette alone, shedding a few tears of both joy & sadness. As she looked around the park she breathed in all the couples around her (including friends and pets). She had come to Paris to fulfill a dream to practise her French learnt at night class. She spoke about standing on the tallest sky scraper in Paris and looking at the view, and although she had wonderful friends and 2 loving dogs back home , she felt it was at a time like this she wished she could say to someone “check out this amazing view”.

This scene had even more significance to me right now as I am pretty much alone in a foreign city for a week, not by choice, but due to my work. Even when I do attempt to be courageous and head out the door, camera in tow, with no real clue as to where I am heading or what to go look for, I turn right back around within an hour or two, after struggling with trying to ask for directions off some local shop keepers, or just purchasing a simple pair of shoes and asking for them in my size. Hardly anyone speaks a decent amount of English here (rightly so I think as it is their country) but because of this, my normal confident self, even finds it difficult to go into Subway and ask if they speak English or point at the sandwich I want for lunch.

I know if I were with a friend or travel companion I WOULD have more guts to get out and venture further as I have done in the past trips to France, Mexico & Spain to name a few. However due to this being a 'work' trip a travel companion is not available. This just makes ‘my real holiday’ that starts on Tuesday (inclusive of like minded travel buddies), that bit more exciting for me.

See, I am not half as adventurous as you all think I am.

* a collection of short films about Stories of Love from the City of Love