I used to think traveling was simply seeing new places and time was spent counting the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.
But as a wise peer of mine, Kiana Froese, once asked, "Do you travel because of interest or to make yourself interesting?"
This got me thinking. Travel is more than just experiences and creating memories. Travel is interaction. It’s meeting new people. It’s learning and accepting others’ ways. It’s communicating, rather than coexisting. And isn’t that the true goal of TGS?
Time-travel does not necessarily mean having the ability to see the past or the future, because that may not be possible for another century, but it’s seeing the world and making time worth living.
Time was an idea made up by man by watching the sun.
Time is people, places, and things. To me, it’s no longer just a simple idea.
At TGS we measure time through the countries we travel to, rather than the months we visited there. We speak of not only of our adventures in the new cities, but of the people who joined us and things we collected are what made the experience memorable.
In New Zealand (in other words, in September 2014), the A-Team went on a weXplore to the Bay of Plenty. Of course I remember the beautiful glow coming from the ceiling, but I am able to recall the details of George, our guide telling us to stop, turn off our headlamps, and look up. It was a magical moment of staring at glowworm poop and eating something mysterious, a chocolate covered marshmallow shaped as a fish. Whenever I hear the song Hallelujah, I’ll always be reminded of George singing as we came to the end of the cave and began to literally see the light at the end of the tunnel. The next weXplore in October was to the Bay of Islands. Not many people can say they’ve heard a kiwi, but that night while kayaking in phosphorescent algae, we heard the call of a kiwi bird. We learned to make our own Maori symbol necklaces made of whale bone and on the walk back to the hotel, I found a Pau shell on the beach, which we just learned were used in inlays of many Maori crafts, especially to make the eyes of masks.
I was a member of KFC, or Kojo and the Flan Clan, in Costa Rica. We were the Alpha group, which despite overcoming many sickness, we were the happiest group, lead by Anja and Jammin’ Joe. I’ll never forget the day during our stay at Leave and Lizards when Kojo, Gillian, Kiana, Lindsay, and I went horseback riding to a waterfall. Lindsay kept laughing because she could feel the baby inside her soon to be a mother horse and after Kiana, Kojo, Lindsay, and I went swimming in our clothes. My phone will forever be thankful for my Lifeproof because I could record us being dragged by the water of the current, but the case still holds a scar to this day. Kojo almost died of starvation that day, too. Actually, we was so hungry that he bit into the wrong sandwich. Luckily it was the egg sandwich, which only had the cheese, mayonnaise, and yeast, which he was allergic to, rather than my peanut butter sandwich. The food at that hotel was so delicious. I also had my first jungle pee, as Lindsay called it, before heading back to the cabin. I remember she asked me how it was and my response was, “Well, I’m already wet.” and she just laughed at me and said that was something Hudson would say. It was pouring ran that day, but it didn’t matter because we were optimistically galloping with our horses, which is an unforgettable feeling of freedom.
One thing I noticed about Greece is that they know their food. One time Ayesha, Samaya, and I went out for waffles was after going to the Oracle of Delphi. Josh and Victor joined us. The five of us were cramped at a tiny table, which forced all of our plates to hang off the edge a little. I ordered a Nutella crepe, which was practically a jar of Nutella and Josh ordered a maple walnut waffle, which I think was the better choice because I kept eating his. At one point, Josh somehow flipped his plate making his entire meal fall onto his pants, whipped cream and all. It was a very funny moment, but such a waste of such a delicious waffle.
In the UK, Victor, Jonah, and I walked around Manchester for a day before going to the football game. We walked around for a while trying to find a nonexistent burger places and ended up going to another restaurant. Victor got a burger with a peanut butter and banana milkshake, I’m pretty sure Jonah ate a giant burger with bacon, and I had a delicious burger with peanut butter on it, which is something I never though about until I saw it on this menu. Then we met up with Oskar and Natascha at H&M and went to Starbucks to hang out until it was time to go to the stadium. We were all on Snapchat the entire time drawing on pictures of each other. We got on the bus, which pulled away just as the rest of the school got to the bus stop and I ate Skittles for dinner. It was a fun day filled with delicious, yet unhealthy food and experiencing the true British culture.
One night in Sweden, at the end of the term (early December 2015), Mayoya, Galek, Jonah, and I had planned to go ice skating. Of course it was already dark by 5, but as we were walking out it was raining a little. We weren’t quite sure if the outdoor skating rink in Kungstragardet would be open, so Jonah decided he would stay back. A minute later, when we were almost at the pendaltag station, we heard footsteps and it was Jonah, who decided going out was better than staying to play video games. It turned out, the rink was open and Galek, Jonah, and Mayoya, who had each only skated once or twice before were picking up nicely. I was the first to stop because I could’t really feel my toes, but we walked around for a bit trying to decide what to do for dinner, since we didn’t really want hotel food. We couldn’t find a cheap place that wasn’t a bar and something Mayoya could eat, so we went back and got sushi, if I’m remembering correctly. It was a fun spontaneous school night, and was worth suffering through the cold for.
My stargazing partner, Erica, and I have successfully gone star watching in each country. It all started on our first weXplore in New Zealand. We were cuddled on the trampoline with a couple other people watching the meteor shower above us. Yodsel taught us that karma mindu means shooting star in Dzongkha and we saw a ton that night in the clear sky of the Bay of Plenty. In Costa Rica we went up the tower at Las Cruces to see the stars and we went out while we were in Meteora, Greece, but sadly never saw any karma mindus. After stressing out about not being able to see any in Sweden, we were able to find a couple while lying on the skins on the lake of Camp Aurora and also were able to see the Northern Lights together.
I think traveling makes me interesting, but I travel because I’m curious. I have an urge to adventure and make new friends. Because how you choose to spend your time on this planet is what truly counts. Rather than just watching the sun rise and set, allowing the moon and stars to come out, I’ve decided to see this beauty of nature through travel. I’ve been lucky enough to see the sun rise in New York and set in New Zealand. I’ve seen the full moon of Greece, the Northern Lights of Sweden, and the shooting stars of Costa Rica. And to me, that’s the true meaning of time-travel.
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