cakes, prose, woes -- the photos, food & thoughts of a french-speaking seattle-native in brazil

In the end, you're just happy you were there—with your eyes open—and lived to see it. -AB
In the end, you're just happy you were there—with your eyes open—and lived to see it.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Salty Traveling: A Sister In Copenhagen

we're all invited to DenmarkAnd she's off. She is the cute one, not the funny looking one who looks like she just did something wrong. She's off to travel. Salty wants to come too.

To travel does not mean to vacation. And if it does, in the end if it really does then we are a very lucky modern species to be gifted travel everyday. We here at the Salty Cod hold a sentimental outlook on the concept of travel; that it let's you see who you are. It changes you, changes. Change is like everything else in this funny human life, sometimes good and sometimes bad; a double edged sword. Have you learned the words yet? The good and the bad? If not get your head out of your ass. Oftentimes is the case when there is need to sacrifice one good in order to achieve another good. Whether it's leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar, trading the role of the classroom know-it-all to the stuttering fade-away foreigner in the corner, finding one family in place of another, swapping material and political comforts for the unknown, or leaving the center of the world for reality. In the end the sacrifice is not a sacrifice, it is a compromise; if we had it all without pain then we would never know what it is to want. This is traveling, whether for a day, for a few months, or forever. Learning how others do it, how others live, that's travel, that's when you learn that your way is not the only.

Traveling is an everyday event. We travel when we communicate with each other, when we care about what others see, do, feel, find--my adventures in the backyard are travels for a New york journalist whose walk in Central park is a travel for the dentist in Madrid, and his visit to the butcher is a travel for the architect in Argentina whose newest skyscraper has allowed the Japanese business tycoon's imagination to travel thousands of miles on streams of sparkling window panes. The Parisian baker makes her way into Australian ovens forming pastries steaming in kitchen windows in Arizona, and the story detailing the pies fall from the second story windowsill sends the lawyer in London into a fit of laughter. And your story at the office water cooler, at the family barbecue, at the new starbucks, your voice is travel for me. We cannot all travel, perhaps for some cross-oceanic voyages will not be possible in this lifetime, money, time, work, life is a fact but that's why there is more than one human on this planet. Television, internet, books, magazines, friends--just listen to others stories, read them, watch them, share them, talk about them, want them, open yourself to them and you can go anywhere, there's more than one way to travel, I circle the globe before nine each morning.

Is there a point to this--sometimes no, but this time yes! My younger sister is traveling to Copenhagen Denmark to fulfill a semester of Architectural study through her university. She will be there until Christmas and has invited the rest of us to join her through--gasp yes a blog! (whose making fun of who now) She is offering us a look at the Melancholy Prince's land, through the eyes of an artist, a Seattleite, a Salty Cod sister--Denmark! What the hell is in Denmark? Dunno let's find out. Ryan will take us. Who knows, perhaps she might even be able to string a few words together to form a sentence. Venez! Den Reisekammeraten.

Bon Voyage sister! What can I say, we're travelers. Well, welcome to blog world.

3 comments:

Christy said...

I think you should travel to Melbourne. In your own person sort of way. And bring your knee length toile skirt, pinwheel cake and grapefruit grass cake and we'll be set for a tea party!! Would certainly love to have you!

Cannelle Et Vanille said...

i love what you said about travel. we do indeed travel, communicate, touch, learn... everyday. i will certainly keep this in mind. maybe even write t on my hand so i don't forget.

bon voyage to ms. salty sister!

Helene said...

I travel from my chair everyday learning from other cultures, other people's foods and I love it. Can't think of staying in one place all my life! Can't wait to read more about your sister's adventures!! Bon Voyage Soeurette!