I've Been Bitten

When I was a little girl, I traveled often with my grandparents. I don't remember, but they say my first plane ride was at the age of 2. Grandma and Granddad didn't take me far, but they took me often. Every summer, I had some adventure to look forward to. Most summers we would visit family in nearby Youngstown, Ohio, where both sisters of my grandparent's lived, or, we'd drive a few hours to Rochester, New York to visit my grandmothers' niece and her family. Her children were many years older than I and in fact, two out of the three were well on their way to college by the time we started visiting, but I loved being the youngest or even the only child in the house. It made me feel special.

It was in Rochester that I saw my first deer, standing majestically outside of my cousins' kitchen window. It was in Rochester that I saw the movie, Aliens and ET. It was also just outside of Rochester, where I saw the late Luther Vandross perform in concert. Rochester held dear memories for me, but so did many other places, like Boston.

Boston is the place I enjoyed the most. I loved everything that Boston was and everything that it wasn't. Very unlike my hometown, Cleveland, Boston had diversity, or at least, it appeared that way to my naive eyes. Boston had culture, coupled with old money. It had trolly cars that rode down the middle of the street, with passengers who exited right outside the passenger door of your car. Back then, Boston had ten cent train rides, more seafood than a little girl like me could ever eat and Cape Cod, the place that we visited, which made me fall in love with quaint towns, antique shops and once again, old money.

Most times we would fly to Boston, but one summer, my grandmother and I drove instead. As we drove through China Town, I remember thinking just how amazing it was. There were dried pigs hanging from store windows, street signs written in unfamiliar chinese letters, tons of cars and of course, the obvious, lots of Chinese people! I was blown away by what I saw and I desired to see more. Not just more of Boston, but more of everything that Boston represented to my young eyes at the time; culture, diversity and influence.

Over the course of my childhood and teenage years, I visited over twenty states, as well as Canada. That's a big deal for a young girl who grew up on welfare on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, with a mother who's never stepped foot on a plane. I loved visiting new places and seeing what they had to offer. I would eventually move to New York City in 1996, fresh out of college and then to Chicago, Illinois in 2004. My love for travel and diversity is owed to my grandparents, who, unbeknownst to them, exposed me to a traveling bug and sent me on a life journey to explore the people, the places and the culture of those very much unlike me and so, as I write this, the next stop on my life map will be, Abu Dhabi to teach English abroad. I don't know what I'll find there, but I'm sure that whatever it is, will give me plenty to write home about.