your Travel Concierge

Nowadays, it is not enough for one to buy a ticket to a concert/play or even just to book a flight or make reservations at a hotel and/or restaurant.  Once you click that “Pay” button (or confirm the purchase with the person on the other side of the phone line), the opportunity for an “up-sell” arises and you are asked whether you would like to “increase the pleasure you derive” from watching/eating/whatever it is you just paid for, or to borrow their phrase, “Expand the Experience.”

Why expend money and effort for the opportunity to intensify a feeling, a sensation or just a moment?  Whatever you are doing, wherever you may be, and whomever you may well be with – BE TOTALLY THERE!  Enjoy that specific moment, let the ‘experience’ envelop your whole being, or just be ‘involved’ in the experience!  Be present in the moment!

That is why I was so blown away by my 18-year old niece, Bea, who is visiting the United States for the first time.  As I was dropping her off (with her parents & younger brother) at Universal Studios, she blurted out, “Fair warning! If I burst out in tears, please ignore me because I would need to express my extreme joy somehow.”

Wow!  The honesty of her words and the simplicity with how she expressed her feelings about visiting her most favorite place in the world are such a rarity nowadays!  She had been wanting to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction since it opened in Florida.  Now that there is the same attraction in Universal Studios Hollywood, coming to Los Angeles for her graduation gift fulfilled her most ardent wish!

Juxtaposed against those who are offering an “expanded experience,” I cannot help but wonder if our society has robbed this generation of something important – the ability to delight in simple things.  That not everything worth ‘knowing’ has to be spectacular, sensational nor singularly exclusive.  All it needs is –  to BE.

Rarely do I find articles – either sent to me by email, text or referenced – that I would share and be all gung-ho about it.  This “repost” which was sent to me by my sister-in-law embodies my frustration with today’s  predilection for the “black-and-white” – the lack of ‘insight’ into what should be read “between the lines.”  But, I digress, so let the article speak for itself.

To put it in perspective, this was published in The London Times and I googled it but could not find the actual obituary for it so I could not give credit to whoever wrote it.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

– Knowing when to come in out of the rain;

– Why the early bird gets the worm;

– Life isn’t always fair;

– And maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death,

-by his parents, Truth and Trust,

-by his wife, Discretion,

-by his daughter, Responsibility,

-and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 5 stepbrothers;

– I Know My Rights

– I Want It Now

– Someone Else Is To Blame

– I’m A Victim

– Pay me for Doing Nothing.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

Who doesn’t pick up seashells when they take a leisurely stroll along the beach – watching the waves lap up the sand you are walking on?

At an early age, I was hooked on stamp collecting when our neighbor showed me the beautiful stamps she had collected during her travels as well as those stamped envelops she received from her pen pals from different countries!  [Yes, Virginia, we used to have pen pals – and snail mail during the late 1960’s took almost a month to get from the Philippines to other parts of the world – on average!]

Although I did start a meager collection of stamps myself, I moved on to collecting books since I loved to read. My Dad started us off with his purchase of the Britannica Encyclopedia with Aesop’s Fables volumes offered at a discount. Then I latched on to the Nancy Drew series, the Hardy Boys, then graduated to my Dad’s collection of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason, Dannay & Lee’s Ellery Queen and Ian Fleming’s James Bond series (which I could not touch until I was ‘of age’).

 

 

The early 1980’s came and my family immigrated to the USA, the ‘habit’ continued and I started buying the teaspoons & pins from each state we visited.  Then, like a true-blue Californian,  my more serious collection of anything Mickey Mouse became an obsession!  Well, the Starbucks mugs were so appropriate for a coffee drinker while the ref magnets from each country/city visited are so much easier to carry when you want to tote only one luggage from one country to another.  Anyway, my collection went hand-in-hand with the stages in my life…and they became more creative.

Since I entered the exciting world of travel, I had built up voluminous amounts of maps, itineraries, postcards and personal photos which translated themselves into several scrapbooks….until I discovered a photo album service and I was hooked.  Scanned all of those materials and have “published” about a dozen of them so far!  The good thing about it is that I get to dispose heaps of  travel stuff and minimized the amount of documents and paperwork I had to keep. And so, I had come full circle – from collecting the books I read to compiling and publishing my very own photo books!

This reminds me of a statement my brother, Bing, made when he saw the number of photos and video footage my husband and I accumulated through just a few years of travel –  “Wouldn’t it be better if you enjoy everything around you, take snapshots with your eyes, and fill your being with the beauty of what’s out there?  You’re missing out when you see through the lenses of a camera!”  Those words stuck with me – and I continue to refer back to them whenever I get too busy recording important moments when I should be “in the moment”!

And that brings me into the why and wherefore of collecting per se.  I believe that it is normal for us humans to keep close anything we consider ‘important’.  Our desire to ‘have and hold’  is but an outward manifestation of what is really our motivation for collecting anything – in short, memories.

When everything else is said and done – and all else is just gone – the only thing that no one can take from us are our remembrances.  Each one of those collectibles can bring me back to that specific moment in time and would conjure up memory-slices that may give me either a smile or a frown…even a tear.

So, my advice?  Wherever you are – enjoy the moment and give thanks for being there!

 

 

 

Thanks for joining me!

It will be well worth your while…since you had taken the first step towards your destination the moment you opened your eyes.  Yes, the world is yours for the taking.  Nothing is beyond your grasp.  Only you can create the wall that would block the reach that your mind can achieve.  So let go and soar!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton