Not to Battle but to Glory

Travel, or escape (from my surroundings, but also in a futile attempt to escape from myself most of all), being what it is (and the many things that it isn't), one of the things that often pops into my head, and most especially with Other Half recently being desirous of material things, we have been shopping around for suitable pieces of luggage.  Alas, this is not as easy as it sounds, as the golden days of luggage making (and of travel, and of the world in general) seem to have quickly slipped away and continues to slip away.  The beloved luggage that informed my impressions, those bulky hard shelled cases that traveled around the world, have, like men wearing suits, quickly given way to the leisurely lightweight of the contemporary suitcase which seems (and is) flimsy and throwaway (again, like the culture itself).  So, with few possible options (the Globe Trotter brand being one of them, but today I realized upon lifting even the small carry on that, as the salesman told me, "does not have wheels" and that it is much too heavy, I was out of luck with that label, and I suspect the one or two others which I set my eye upon, even though I for the most part actually do find it fun to carry luggage (since I usually only have one or two small carry-ons, maximum, given a certain paranoia about checking anything in).  Well, to make a long story rather shortened, I found a hard shelled piece from Samsonite that when I opened it found to be made in Japan, thus validating its quality, and although the outer shell seems to have been on countless trips (possibly to war torn countries, given its abuse), it seems rather fun to me to have it.  Also, I realized a few hours later that it may recall the luggage of my old flatmate from that many years ago, a fact which I had utterly forgotten in my storage of trivia.

All that being said, I am off tomorrow to the Continent, and might I say, not a moment too soon.

a rather blurred picture, as if in between time and times

made in japan and yet with a french strap (it seems)