I’m in Edinburgh.
It’s amazing.
When I told people I was heading up there they’d all say “it’s so beautiful” and you know, it really is. Not scattered spots of beauty mixed in with miles of chaos like you find in Barcelona or London, but a comprehensive all-around goodness that you can’t run from without finding yourself in the middle of even more. The hills and valleys give it fascinating character, with the awesome Salisbury Crags overlooking the city, and the view from shopping-central Princes Street across the narrow valley of Princes St gardens to the old town up on the facing hill, with the castle itself dominating everything from its high perch… amazing. Yeah.
I’m staying with Bradley, yet another friend who goes back to primary school days, at a comfy place a fifteen minute walk from Princes Street. The quickest route goes straight over South Bridge, which is closed as workers pick through the extensive damage from last week’s fire. The smell of burnt
wood carries through the cold.
It’s a good place and I’m going to stick around a while. It’s time to be still for a little bit.
In London one evening I met up with Joop Jagr, the guy Leon and I had met on the plane coming over. Surprisingly he’d been in London the whole time I’d been travelling; the number of stories he had about what he’d got up to here were still never less than hilarious and often a bit disturbing. He’s done a lot of travelling, and over a pint he asked me how I’d found it, ‘the whole travelling around business’. I tried to answer as best I could.
Here’s an attempt to retell what I came up with, using literary license to make it all sound a lot better than it would have that evening, and probably missing out some stuff and perhaps putting in some stuff too.
-Travelling is weird. It’s a whole bunch of things, all sort of bundled up together for no reason other than logistics. You do them all at once but they don’t really have anything in common. Like, you see things – monuments and icons and famous places and museums. And that’s cool, that’s reason enough to go travelling all by itself.
And also you meet people, all kinds of people from all kinds of places, and because of how it is on the road it’s so easy to make friends… I think it’s always easy to make friends but most of the time it seems harder, you know? On the road it seems as easy as it really is. And that’s cool, that’s reason enough by itself as well.
And then there’s the thing about being in new places, hearing a different language all around you, seeing people live a daily life that’s recognisable but unfamiliar, or even wildly strange. That’s invigorating and enlightening and it sort of puts you in your place culturally, gives you some perspective.
And it’s a test, as well. Can I handle myself? Can I avoid starving to death somewhere?
And then when you travel there’s that ‘go with the flow’ thing, where you can just find yourself riding a current and life starts making itself up for you as you go along and suddenly you’re in the middle of the most amazing new situation… [here Joop nodded sagely and made a comment like ‘I’ll drink to that’ – all of his travel tales stem from going with the flow, at least the ones I’ve heard]
And when you travel you learn stories and make stories. You sort of are stories, you’re hyper-aware of how you’re living in something that one day’s gonna be a narrative you’ll spin out for your friends.
And… I studied anthropology at University, so I get to see that in action, and it’s even more amazing because I know that the cultures I see all around me go so much deeper than I could understand without living amongst the people and learning their language and becoming part of their community.
And you see how place defines experience and how experience defines your reality. So I get to be Morgan in a new place, which is different to Morgan at home. You just skim over the surface of the world and your headspace changes. Everything changes. –
At this point Joop reminded me of something I’d said on the plane coming over, about how I had one real goal for travelling: to try and understand the size of the world.
And I said to him, – all the rest is a part of that, right?
I’ve travelled Europe for three months without a watch.
I now have a watch. It’s time to stay in one place for a little while.
Merry Christmas all! Don’t hold your breath for Christmas cards, I’ve kind of left it too late… there are plenty more tales to tell, and I’m sure Edinburgh will yield some of its own!
Sorry to the Londoners (and surroundings, hello Cambridge people!) who I missed yet again. Not many of you this time, thankfully. I’ll get to you, I’m gonna try and come back down early next year.
Peace and love (and, for the old-timers who appreciate old-time-references, antelopes)
morgue