Why I Travel

Lately I have been thinking about why I travel. I just spoke with a friend last night who is an "adventure" traveler, you know the type. Hiking up Mayan ruins, camping in the Amazon, riding a zipline in Costa Rica. Some people prefer to spend their time in museums and "historical sights" learning about the past. I certainly am no where close to an adventure kind of gal(an adventure would be to have 2 % milk in my coffee)...and I enjoy learning about history.
Yet I tire easily when museums are visited daily in foreign countries.

I have figured out my identity as a traveler.
I thoroughly enjoy experiencing daily life in foreign countries.
I should have been an exchange student. In fact, if they offered something like and "exchange family" for a week or two I would sign up in a heartbeat. I want to spend a week living like a local in Madrid, Cuzco, Belfast. I want to go to the boulangerie every day for fresh bread. I want to visit the "late night pharmacy" in Edinburgh(which closes at 7).
I think I could be called a sociology traveler.
For instance...
I love to walk up and down the aisles in a grocery or drug store. I could spend an hour doing so(just ask my mother). I love to see the yogurts, cheese, potato chips(crisps in the UK)and shampoo they offer. Sometimes it's similar brands we have at home(yoplait, pringles, garnier fructis)sometimes not.
Years later I can still recall what kind of items were on the shelf in the Boots Pharmacy in Dublin.

I'm ready to go again.

Metamorphosis

I am turning into my grandmother. Not my mother. I'm skipping a generation and turning into the nonagenarian matriarch of the family.

I have been obsessed with asparagus recently and if you eat the stuff, you know you have to trim the bottom of the stalk. I take the 3" tough pieces and put them in a freezer bag and place them in the freezer next to the celery stalks that (in my mind)will one day be reunited in a pot pie or a soup. My mother doesn't do this, but grandma does.
I make lists on the back of envelopes, just like grandma. Why? It's a whole piece of blank paper(sure it has the folds and seams). This is the grandma trait I have done the longest.
I purposely use the term "Balls!" as an expletive as often as possible. I must say it's 3 times funnier to hear a little lady with pin curls use it, but I'm starting early.
I take great pride in handwashing bras and only wish I knew washing day songs to sing(or whistle)while I did the job.
I think it's important to have cookies in the cookie jar(but they don't always last so long when I'm around)
By far the niftiest trick I have learned from grandma is the ability to fold plastic bags(from the drug or grocery store). I know it sounds silly to fold plastic bags, but they take up less room.

Sometimes the old lady drives me nuts.
I need to realize she's rubbing off on me...in a good way.