Romance and/or Travel: the journey or the destination?

Travel.  The word can bring forth thoughts, memories, feelings.  Yet, it is just a word.  A six-letter word.  Looking up definitions for such a word, I found many variations.  As a verb, travel was defined as early as the 1300’s:

travel  (v.)

c.1375, “to journey,” from travailen (1300) “to make a journey,” originally “to toil, labor” (see travail). The semantic development may have been via the notion of “go on a difficult journey,” but it may also reflect the difficulty of going anywhere in the Middle Ages. Replaced O.E. faran. Travels “accounts of journeys” is recorded from 1591. Traveled “experienced in travel” is from 1413. Traveling salesman is attested from 1885.

Etymonline Logo

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

 

Sometimes the romantic travel of our lives seems just like this definition – travail.  It seems even harder to find comfort in economy/coach class airline seats than it does to find a soul-mate.

TSA CheckpointThe good thing is that  airline travel is a temporary thing, whereas the saga of finding a soul-mate seems to last a lifetime.  Given  the difficult journey of finding someone to enjoy spending time with, maybe one would be better off standing in the TSA line for the rest of their lives.

Christmas in Victoria

Christmas TreeI seem to have a resistance to Christmas in December (I find that Christmas songs float through my head in July though). The one way to avoid the Christmas decorating, cooking and eating is to go somewhere else rather than be home for Christmas. One of our favorite places to spend Christmas is in Victoria, B.C. We have our favorite hotel, our favorite room in the hotel and our favorite eateries and shopping there.

Chateau Victoria is up the hill and sort of “behind” the grand dame, the Fairmont Empress. We love our room on the 16th floor.  And in 2017 they lived up to our expectation, yet again.  As we walked in, the Christmas tree was decorated, lighted and awaiting us in its usual corner.  As darkness descended, the Christmas lights came on all around us and the night was alight with holiday glow. Continue reading “Christmas in Victoria”