“ Kate was never going to understand the extent to which men were stupid. ”
Travel wasn't fun if you didn't get to see or do what you wanted; it was merely a different type of work, in a different place.
~ Chris Pavone
It was impossible to understand how brief it is. It seemed like youth would last so long, it would last forever. But it's just a blink.
What is it we want out of travel? Is it to take snapshots of ourselves in front of famous monuments, surrounded by other tourists? To eat unfamiliar food chosen from unintelligible menus? To earn frequent-flier miles? No. It's to glimpse what life is like somewhere else.
I worked as a draftsman for the Department of Environmental Protection, and as a teacher, in N.Y.C.; at a big bank and a small ad agency, a tiny law firm and a few giant ones; as a cashier and a dishwasher; preparing deli sandwiches and stringing tennis racquets and pruning evergreens into conical Christmas-tree shapes.
