Which is why years (and years!) of therapy have led me to be sure that my dream job would combine my passion (writing) and travel, which I have only done in fits and spurts and never outside the U.S. borders and I find that a complete travesty. I think I'd make a great traveler, and should be hired immediately as United States Official Travel Representative so I can reverse the damage done by all the douche bag American travelers who've given this great nation the global impression we're all a bunch of douche bags. We are not. We are not. (Maybe just the vast majority of Missississississississippi, because nobody can ever figure out how to spell that damn state and I'm certain that's why they're the fattest and 2nd-to-last least educated. Having to write one too many s's can just totally eff up your brain. I say. I mean, look at how hard it was just now for ME, and I have a master's degree.)
At any rate. Here's my travel writer idea:
One of my favorite books is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Eye roll all you want and say what you will about the self-indulgery of it all, but her worldview is en pointe and her writing is much like her--likable, sweet, and relatable. If you aren't familiar with this book (and movie--please please please promise me you'll just read the book and completely avoid the movie, even though Javier Bardem is in it and is very very magical...oh okay, fine. Please promise me you'll read the book first THEN watch the movie, but only for the Javier Bardem parts).
Where was I? Oh, right: If you aren't familiar with this book, the premise is that Elizabeth Gilbert, a writer, has made a humongous life change in an effort to be more authentic and true to herself. She sucks at living her life, and yet somehow convinces her publisher to just...give...her enough money to live on so she can travel to 3 different countries for 4 months a piece for 1 entire year. She lives in Italy for 4 months and eats her way out of a deep, spirally depression. She lives in India for 4 months and rediscovers her spiritual core. She lives in Bali for 4 months and sleeps with Javier Bardem. No, ha! Just kidding--she meets her (now) husband, a lovely, sensuous Brazilian man (all Brazilians are sensuous, by the way: Americans are fat, stupid, terrible travelers and Brazilians are lovely and seductive--I plan to register a formal complaint with the Nationality Stereotyping Commission about this). And then she wrote a really funny, relatable, irreverent travel memoir about her experiences abroad, finding herself.
That's basically my premise/idea for my dream job--if I could walk off my job tomorrow, this is the job I'd walk right into:
*Travel to anywhere in the world, but just one country at a time.
*Live and travel in that one country for 1-2 months.
*Write an irreverent, relatable travel book/memoir about it. There would be none of this: go to this restaurant, stay in this hotel, do this activity, a la Fodor's and whatnot. Each book would simply be a compilation of my experiences and stories about people I get to meet and know (as a really super NICE and POLITE American traveler) in that particular country.
*And because I sense somebody, somewhere, out there may read this at one point and get all snarky and roll their eyes and go "Yeah, uh, guess what? Lonely Planet already did that, Amy. BORE-ing!", let me just pitch that as an added incentive to my plan, I'm also thinking of trying to convince Javier Bardem to accompany me on all my travels. Has Lonely Planet done THAT? No! They have NOT.
So the first country I have picked out for this endeavor is England. Just England. Not Scotland, Ireland, or Wales; those will have to be different travel books. And the reason I've picked England as my first destination is simply because I already have a title (and also because: Clive Owen. Thank you, England!). Before I tell you my first travel book's title, I have to give you background scaffolding to it:
Background Scaffolding Exhibit A:
THIS VIDEO
People who can do that are magic. And really, really fun to have at parties, I bet.
Background Scaffolding Exhibit B:
Way back many moons ago, I met several UK ex-pats via a friend transplanted here via London, and I was introduced to the concept of what I like to call "accent magic (TM)." British people can tell not only which region someone is from in their country, but also socioeconomic level. It's a thing that's unique, apparently, to the English, and years after I met these UK ex-pats, I read an interview with one of my favorite British actors, Jason Isaacs, and he confirmed it.
Here's what they do: I was wowed and amazed one afternoon several years ago at a meetup.com get together for UK ex-pats. All the English people were standing around, talking to one another (with one eavesdropping American listening in, drinking in their exotic accents) and they just seemed to know instantly where someone was from without them ever having to say it. They all spoke some sort of weird, Tolkien-like shorthand with one another and I felt completely left out. So I thought the English people just all knew each other from previous meetups, but no! Turns out, almost everyone was new to everyone else at that little shindig, and they just all magically "know" each others backgrounds, like some kind of psychic, instinctive thing, totally based on speech patterns. Which in and of itself is mind blowing, but we probably do that here in America to some extent--I can tell if someone's from the South vs. the North vs. the Midwest and so forth. But what rocked my whole world and confirmed, yet again, that we are simply not using enough of our entire brains as a species, is that they could tell you sort of the exact area they were from in that geographic region and the socioeconomic level. Friends, that is one cool party trick! I walked out of that party going, "OMG. The British are MAGIC!"
And that is what I plan to title my first travel book of irreverent personal essays: The British are Magic.
Which is why I can only do England first. I don't know what I'll call Scotland's book (The Scottish Can Be Slightly Incoherent?). Or Ireland's (The Irish Are Often Irate I Hope They Don't Bomb Me For Saying That?) Or Wales (The Welsh Have a Weird Language?) (and nobody from Wales can get mad at me for that, because I can totally say that on account of being half Welsh).
And! The beauty of this whole job idea? IT NEVER ENDS. It just goes on and on, my friends. Once I've traveled the globe, I can come back to America and start in on each of the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In case you're wondering: I'll start with the U.S. Virgin Islands first. Idaho will be last. I'm not sure what's in Idaho, but I think that's where all the Ted Nugent loving, KKK, American terrorist militia are from. (I may go into hiding after titling that book.) (If I make it out of Idaho alive.)
The thing about British people is that we judge people within two syllables. When someone opens their mouth in England certainly, everybody can tell not just where they’re from geographically, but where they’re from socioeconomically and what kind of education they had and how they aspire to be perceived. You can hear all that and everybody is very precisely attuned to it. - See more at: http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2012/03/29/one-on-one-with-jason-isaacs/#sthash.EnnSomVy.dpuf
The
thing about British people is that we judge people within two
syllables. When someone opens their mouth in England certainly,
everybody can tell not just where they’re from geographically, but where
they’re from socioeconomically and what kind of education they had and
how they aspire to be perceived. You can hear all that and everybody is
very precisely attuned to it. - See more at:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2012/03/29/one-on-one-with-jason-isaacs/#sthash.EnnSomVy.dpuf
The
thing about British people is that we judge people within two
syllables. When someone opens their mouth in England certainly,
everybody can tell not just where they’re from geographically, but where
they’re from socioeconomically and what kind of education they had and
how they aspire to be perceived. You can hear all that and everybody is
very precisely attuned to it. - See more at:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2012/03/29/one-on-one-with-jason-isaacs/#sthash.EnnSomVy.dpuf
The
thing about British people is that we judge people within two
syllables. When someone opens their mouth in England certainly,
everybody can tell not just where they’re from geographically, but where
they’re from socioeconomically and what kind of education they had and
how they aspire to be perceived. You can hear all that and everybody is
very precisely attuned to it. - See more at:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2012/03/29/one-on-one-with-jason-isaacs/#sthash.EnnSomVy.dpuf
The
thing about British people is that we judge people within two
syllables. When someone opens their mouth in England certainly,
everybody can tell not just where they’re from geographically, but where
they’re from socioeconomically and what kind of education they had and
how they aspire to be perceived. You can hear all that and everybody is
very precisely attuned to it. - See more at:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2012/03/29/one-on-one-with-jason-isaacs/#sthash.EnnSomVy.dpu The thing about British people is we can judge people within two syllables
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