Saturday, October 17, 2009

Travel is...

Travel is...

Exploring.

At least that's what my nine-year-old grandson thinks.

When I returned from Mexico earlier this week, he asked "grandma, what's an explorer?" I explained it was an adventuresome person who traveled in order to learn about other peoples, lands and cultures. I mentioned Amerigo Vespucci, Vasco de Gama and Lewis and Clark. I didn't go into colonization or seeking gold.

That was on Wednesday. On Thursday he had to write a paper on explorers.

"I wrote about you," he told me this morning. Then my grandson added. "my teacher asked if I could bring some of your souvenirs into class on Monday."

So I spent an hour or two packaging some of the souvenirs of 25 or 30 years of travel to over 65 countries for him to show and tell. The "riches" of my life include a piece of the Berlin wall, some rose water holders from Bulgaria, a souvenir packing crate from the Port of Osaka, a lacquered box from St. Petersburg, Russia and items from Israel, Portugal and Korea.

I packed them in a canvas bag, a souvenir from the wonderful German cruise ship Europa and tomorrow he will pick them up.

Whether his teacher will categorize his grandma along with Vespucci, de Gama and Lewis and Clark is another matter. But the fact that my wonderfully intelligent, intuitive and awesome grandson considers travel writing "exploring" is enough for me.

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