Adventures Along the Way

At about 4:00 this morning my mother and sister embarked upon an adventure. With bleary eyes, carefully weighed suitcases, and a small ball of anxiety in their bellies, they got onto a plane headed for China.

Some friends of my mother's--friends that she and my father met on a trip to Spain in 1997--decided to go and invited her along. My sister, intrepid traveler that she has become, grabbed her cameras and jumped on board. This will be their second trip together, the first to Egypt a couple of years ago. There, the travel group toured with armed security to discourage any naughty kidnappy thoughts on the part of locals. I don't think this will be such a problem in Asia, thankfully. Sometimes these girls make me nervous.

After about 48 hours of travel, they will arrive in Beijing and spend several days there. Host to the 2008 Olympics, Beijing offers any number of cultural and historical experiences; Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China, and Kung Fu School are just a few of the places they'll be visiting. I'm very excited (and only a little insanely jealous) about their trip, so here's what I'm going to do: for the next three weeks, I'll track their progress trip on my blog. We'll see what they're doing that day, get a little education about the area, and maybe I'll poach a picture or two from a random website. If I'm not sure about something, I'll make it up just like I usually do. It will allow me a little vicarious enjoyment of their experience.

Since the girls are just traveling today, I'll fill you in a little on my mother's travel history. You should keep in mind that, left to her own devices, she would be perfectly satisfied to stay home and tend her garden. My father, though, had a yen for adventure (did you see how I got that Asian reference in? That's good stuff right there. Please ignore the fact that it's Japan's currency, not China's. Pesky details. ) and they started their international travel life in 1992 with a trip to Jerusalem. This was followed by a journey to Greece and Turkey, a trip on which they took me and where I started my own international adventures. Then on to Spain, Portugal and Morocco, another trip on which I went. We had great fun, which is a topic for another blog entirely. After that, my mother finally got to go to England, which is her heart's home.

The next trip they planned was to Egypt, but my father went and died after the trip was paid for but before they actually took it. This left my mother in the precarious positions of Having To Make A Decision. She could have stayed home and cried and said it was too hard, but she spit in the face of fate and decided to go anyway. This was an act of bravery despite overwhelming despair, especially since her travel partners had to cancel at the last minute. Fortunately, my sister had already planned to take my father's place, who in all likelihood was really pissed that he missed out on all the fun. Since then she and I have had the good fortune to experience Scotland together, a trip I'll never forget.

And now, China. Good Lord, will this woman ever slow down? I think she and my sister will be excited once they get there. Right now they're probably managing carry-ons, trying to get comfortable in the 3.2 feet of space they are afforded, and ignoring claustrophobic twinges. Soon they'll exchange their dollars for renmibi and and fall exhausted into bed. The thing about tours is that you are constantly on the go, seeing multiple sites every day and moving according to the group's needs, not your own. There is never enough time to get adequate sleep, yet you go on. By the end, you're just taking random pictures of things to help you remember where you've been because your brain is too full to pack any more in. I think they'll love it.

Meet me here tomorrow and we'll go on our first exploration of Beijing!