Traveling alone

After some weeks of being among beloved humans, I'm shifting back to solo mode, at least for a while.  And while I'll definitely miss the company of humans (especially the humans I'm lucky enough to know), I'm also not sorry to sing, with Whitesnake, "Here I go again on my ooown" [linking for hair, obv].  Don't get me wrong:  I'm not an antisocial jerk.  I love being with people!  I love talking into the night, and lingering over hot chocolates at Knoops*, and tucking into a fabulous meal together, and exploring the fens, and unpacking a play we've just seen together, and learning from my friends' local wisdom. 

(Kings College, Cambridge: freaking iconic as ever)

But I'm also very happy to be alone.  I generally don't get lonely when I'm traveling solo (any more than I get lonely at home):  there's so much to see and do, and my mind is filled with the cool things that I'm experiencing, so it doesn't feel isolating at all.  Solo travel has the added benefit of having only myself to worry about when things go pear-shaped.  Back when B and I were traveling in Turkey together, we had a lost luggage situation that kept us in an airport for several hours.  Although B is a full-grown man, I worried the whole time about him:  did he need water? food? was he getting tired?  He mocked me about my fussing, as he should have.  When a couple of months later I was stuck overnight in the New Delhi airport, I shrugged, put on my eye mask and stuck earplugs in my ears, and went to sleep on a bench.  No big deal.  Now I know that I'd have been fretting if my tiny little six-foot-tall baby had been there in that airport with me, even though he's extremely chill and totally nonstressing to travel with.  But being on my own, I hardly registered the whole disruption as a hiccup.  

(Speaking of B, here's a muntjac from Wicken Fen in his honor. A muntjac!--

brought to England during its imperialism era)

Beyond my response to disruption, I have to say that my response to adventure is also a little freer when I'm solo.  I can eat and sleep when I wish, and can pass my days doing only what I am interested in doing, without regard for someone else's tastes or hangry-ness or schedule.  If I'm in the mood to eat an apple and peanuts for dinner (as I did tonight), then I eat precisely that, without thinking about someone else's blood sugar levels.  If I want to spend 8 hours wandering around the streets of Cork with no aim at all and hitting no tourist destinations (as I did today), then I can do so without any consideration of someone else's stamina.  

And such instances of solo decision-making, which have certainly presented themselves here in the placid byways of the British Isles, are fairly minor next to my recent freedom to take off spontaneously on a multiday hike in some Central Asian country, where I was responsible not even a little for someone else's gear or food or layers of warm clothing.  I guess what I'm saying is that solo travel is nimble, and I'm happy for it. 

(Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork [back in Ireland again, woot!]--which I visited in late afternoon and then returned to for Evensong. Why? Because I love hanging out in churches and I also love choral singing, and because there's no one here with me to countervail my whims.)

* Yes, sure, do ask me about my absolute obsession with Knoops hot chocolateria.  Why do we not have them in the USA?