Trippin'

"So, I expect you'll have some stories to tell."
"Not really, I'm going to be too busy getting from one place to the next to do anything too interesting."
"Yeah, but you're the kind of person who would find something."
"What?"
"I can see you deciding to say 'Oh, what's down this path?' and go off the beaten track, or something."
"Oh.  Okay..."

I'm never quite sure how to take it when someone points out I have a reputation for being, well, chaotic.  I don't think I deserve it.

Okay, sure, there was that one time when I accidentally went for a two-hour bushwalk in a national park near a town I wasn't even intending to visit, and as a result I missed a party where I was supposed to be reciting "To A Haggis" to a haggis*...  But in my defence I had mixed up my dates, and the craft fair I went to see wasn't on that weekend, so I had to do something to make up for the fact that I had driven halfway across the state for nothing.

And, well, yes, maybe I have (on more than one occasion) climbed up some mountain just because I drove past a sign saying "Mountain Such-And-Such Turn off in 500m".  They were always little mountains and I always stayed on the well marked tracks.  And maybe I once decided to buy a $1000 print and have it shipped back home just because I visited a gallery on a runners' high**.  These things happen to everybody.

Or, at least, they should.  I don't regard myself as being particularly reckless or unpredictable.  I just see interesting things and go for a closer look.  What do other people do?  See interesting things and sit quietly?  What's the point of that?

I think I'm one step above boring.  I keep myself amused, that's all.  And yet, every now and then someone makes a comment that makes me think everyone must see me as the town eccentric, or something.  Like that time when someone introduced me to a visitor as "our local eccentric".

Anyway, I'm leaving the country this weekend.  My big European holiday is upon me, and I'll be spending a couple of Saturdays on a plane (travelling from Australia to Europe is weird, time wise),  and hitting Helsinki and Germany for a bit before taking a language course in Estonia.  Then there are a couple of bus tours through Switzerland and Italia before chilling out in The Eastern Empire*** for a few days.

Far too much movement to get into too much trouble.


*It's traditional to recite Burns' poem "To A Haggis" whenever serving haggis at parties.  I wonder if there are other foodstuffs that also require poetry.

**Yeah... don't do that.  Sure, I still love looking at the print ("Jam I" by Karen Wood), but I still regret spending that much money on something I wouldn't have bought if I'd gone to the gallery before going up the mountain rather than after.

***Austria.  The "real" name of the country is Österreich, which means "Eastern Empire" - which sounds totally cool, so I'm going to call it that from now on.