If I wasn't traveling, I'd like to be a travel writer.
Look, I love to travel, but not for the reasons most people do.
Anna and I recently celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary and pending 40th birthday in Greece.
What I love most about traveling abroad is being surrounded by people who don't speak English. Well, truth be told, most of them speak English, but it's just not their preferred method of communication.
I'm grateful for that.
I can't understand what people are saying so I can ignore their words. You can't do that in America. I've been a journalist too long. In fact, if you don't want me to listen to you, you should speak loud and clear directly to my face.
You'll never notice.
But if you were whispering in the corner, I'd probably pick up everything you said.
I don't understand why it works that way. That's exactly what it is. It can be very frustrating, especially when you're trying to listen to the person you're talking to.
For me, the solitude created by the language barrier is a liberating and stress-reducing state that cannot be replicated here in the United States.
The second thing I love about visiting a foreign country is that it allows me to physically distance myself from the people, places, and things that cause me stress on a daily basis.
With a 7-hour time difference and 5,000 miles of distance, it's very difficult for something like that to follow you, even with all the advances in communication technology.
Sure, my cell phone worked in Greece, but when I got back to the U.S. it only worked until 2am.
One of the good things about getting older is that I don't know as many people who are up at 2am.
And the third thing I love about traveling is waiting for my flight at the airport.
There, people can be seen yelling at airline employees trying to make sure their planes board on time, and others sprinting through the terminal. And you can see that they haven't run away anywhere for the past 20 years.
At times like these, I look at the current state of my life and am grateful that it is better than what they were experiencing.
And let's not forget about the family who disembarked from a 9-hour flight with two children under 10.
We didn't know where that plane came from, but the kids were definitely done with their travel experience, and judging by the interactions between their parents, their marriage might have been too.
It might not be a bad idea to travel for about a week using a commercial airline's system and experience customs before getting married. It's an easy way to find out if you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone.
As for my travel companions, I can't wait to do it again.
