Blog #1

Describe an experience in your own life where you seem to have touched something much deeper than your ordinary everyday experience.

Travel. There’s something magical, whether spontaneous or planned, about venturing out into the world and immersing yourself in the culture, history and surroundings of foreign lands.

As we are now facing a global pandemic, the option to travel has not been a reality. Until it is within our reach once more, we must hold onto the memories of previous adventures, unordinary experiences, and let that carry us through lockdowns and isolation. How?

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living”.

– Miriam Beard

For me, Egypt was one of these travel experiences that left a deep, permanent mark that ordinary, everyday experiences simply have not.

I was extremely excited to see the sights: pyramids, sphinx, museums, tombs and ancient temple ruins. These are mesmerising parts of history that captured my mind long ago. Whether it was landing my two feet on the grounds of an ancient temple ruin inhabited thousands and thousands of years ago or cruising along the Nile River, fascination was never lost. Fascination and curiosity were only unlocked through immersing myself in new experiences, new surroundings that have not been embedded in the cyclical routine of university and work.

However, as Miriam Beard stated, it is more than the seeing of sights. Yes, the sites were incredible, but visiting my family and spending time in the city where my parents grew up also touched something much deeper in me. It allowed me to view the world and society through their eyes. I truly felt the closeness of family, the connectedness of being surrounded with my grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins. In Australia, I couldn’t roam the streets with my family at 1 am in a city that never sleeps, walk to the local church my mother went to growing up, go on spontaneous road trips to Cairo with my cousins or watch as my grandmother lowered the basket from her balcony in Port Said to retrieve groceries from below. Moments like these have ingrained themselves in my memory so that when I am at home, yearning to return, I can recall these blissful moments and be comforted with the fascination of the world and the beauty of the closeness of family.

According to Miriam Beard, there is a correlation between travel and the idea of living. The changes are not superficial or exist for a moment and vanish the next, they are deep and permanent, even taking the form of memories. Who would we be without memories? If travel and living are interconnected, then I ask you, without it, are you even truly alive?