I left a pair of shoes in Dublin last week.
They weren’t anything amazing. Just a comfortable pair of brown shoes that I could wear with anything and on any occasion. But these were special shoes. They were on my feet as I spent the last couple weeks walking around London and Dublin.
And oh did I ever walk. Even my first day there, though exhausted and jet-lagged, I walked. I walked everywhere from Paddington Station to Trafalgar Square to Westminster and back.
Every day of my 11-day excursion was like that. I and my buddy DJ – a high school friend who lives in London – walked about everywhere. And when our friend Mike showed up a week after I did, we kept on walking.
We walked to the top of St. Pauls Cathedral and to the top of Tower Bridge. After leaving London, Mike and I spent 2 days walking through Dublin.
And those brown shoes kept up. I had other shoes with me, but those were the ones I preferred. But on my last night in Dublin, I noticed the soles starting to detach. I knew the walking had done them in.
The trip – my first overseas – would not have been the same had I not walked everywhere. You get a feel for a place by walking you cannot get from a car or train. You hear every sound and smell every scent. You control the pace. You control where you go.
And I realized this: I’ve lived in the Quad Cities nearly two years. But I don’t feel like I know it. I drive everywehere. I only go from Point A to Point B without ever detouring to Point C, D, or X. See, the Quad Cities are too easy to drive. We have no reason to walk. Gas is cheap – at least compared to Europe’s prices. The places we go have parking lots (or as they say in London, carparks) to accomodate everyone. So why bother walking, right?
It’s a different lifestyle over there; at once hectic and laid back. Cars are unnecessary and more hassle than they’re worth.
I’m not trying to make any grand point. But I know this much. I can replace those shoes that I left in the trash can of a hotel room in Dublin (and I have). But I had I not destroyed them walking from Point A to Point Z and everywhere in between, I wouldn’t have half the memories I do now.
1 Comment
August 20, 2009 at 6:07 am
Yeah, I had the same experience in Paris…I ate like a pig, but still lost 10 lbs. from walking 6 hrs./day.