I Wonder I Wander

For a few days there (actually, a little less than two weeks), I was without passport as my old one had to be renewed.  Yes, ten years does go by so fast, with all the highlights and lowlights of that time.  Now, with new passport in hand, I am about ready (well, I often am, to be honest) to take off to somewhere exotic, exciting and extraordinary.

Yet I find myself as I have been over the last two years or so, rather troubled as to where I could possibly go.  There is of course France and England, those steady locations that always have wonderful things to be found, but as for the rest of the world, only some locales (Switzerland, Prague, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, and possibly Vietnam for a specific food reason) strike my fancy and yet I never seem to go there.  Like my friend who goes to the same dull places every year, I find I cannot fault him as I do the same myself- except, of course, I avoid the beach, anything that smacks of "rest and relaxation"and any place which to be perfectly honest has little of cultural value.

Perhaps I am stuck in a bit of a rut, mentally, emotionally, psychologically and all of the rest of it.  An appropriate vision may be the fellow on the cover (which I adore!) of the The Wanderer by Alain-Fournier, as depicted by Edward Gorey, who is alone and lost, but looking (trying to find, desperately) something/someone that he has seen before but knows not how or even if it is possible.