Going places

It's almost a year to the day of my previous post. Whoops. I don't know how that happened. And it doesn't seem like I have much to report on the past year, exactly. But my blog has never really been about chronicling my life. It's more about thoughts I want to share.

Lately my thoughts have been focused on traveling. I want to go to at least one foreign country per year. This year I went to Chile. It was my 4th time, and my shortest visit ever (just 10 days!). But this time I went to a part of Chile I've never visited before, because although it's a territory of Chile it's over 2,000 miles away from the continent in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (Easter Island or Isla de Pascua). I loved the breezes bringing their smells of broth and sun-soaked volcanic rock. I loved hearing the Pascuense language, witnessing the intensity of the song and dance we saw there, ogling the tattoos (I never thought that the upper thigh could be a good site for one), and imagining that the moai could talk and walk when you least expected it (I can reproduce their groan "...uufff").

For 2010 I'm thinking Japan in the fall. I picture steaming bowls of ramen, hot spring soaks, temples, haunting scenery, mind-boggling crowds, intense orderliness, and crazy Japanese-to-English translations. I'm always thinking about future trips!