—Seeing the world through books, photos, letters, other eras, talking to real-live people.
Oh, I'd love traveling the world in actual physicality, but since that's not my reality, I'll travel by mind.
One of my favorite ways to mind travel is through old letters. Ah, the fascination of seeing places through someone else's eyes. A century ago, the twenties, the thirties, anytime.
And besides the places, oh, I love people. I really love people.
I've been reading through a cache of letters written by a girl named Eloise in the 50's. She's from the states —traveling, and going to school in Paris. Here she is—
"We ate lunch and dinner in two famous old restaurants—one, the Red Ox, a favorite of students. It had rough wooden tables, carved with initials, dark beamed ceilings. Walls covered with pictures of former students and old china and glass, and signs in several languages, obviously stolen by students and hung in the inn."
"That evening we went for a gondola ride with two gentlemen from New Orleans we had met on the plane— an attorney, who knew a man that Avery knows, and a younger man, a friend of his son. They are on a combination pleasure-business trip. The business is to buy a gorilla in Africa for the New Orleans zoo."
"The captain of our plane, a tall Norwegian, had a black mustache and beard and all the women wanted to take his picture when we landed."
Thanks, Eloise! It'd be grand to chat in person one day.
Until then, Au Revoir!
MIND TRAVEL—SIGNING OUT.
—For the next two-point-five seconds anyway.