A Todo el Mundo

It's interesting how travel - and the experiences we get out of it - is really just a state of mind. You see so many new things, but you are only aware that they are new and interesting because you have the travel mindset on. The other day we were at the Chinese grocery store here in Edmonton. There were so many incredible cultural things happening at once. Nathan remarked that if we had been in a different country we would be so impressed. It made me think about how sad it is that we can't have that seem deep impression in our own city as in another place.

And some of the things we take pictures of, and some of our best memories are just every day things. Sometimes I look at our photos and wonder how we must have looked to the locals as we snapped a shot of something they pass by every day. Something so ordinary to one person constitutes something to make a record of and write home about to someone else. We have this picture I took of an old man walking into town through a field of agaves in Mexico. He was probably just doing something he does all the time, but that picture symbolizes so much to me. Its a whole array of experiences, smells, tastes, and sounds that I had never had before. And he was just walking to town.

I wish that every day, even when I'm just going about a normal day, that I would see all the amazing things around me that make our world worth living in. I wish I would notice the amazing cultures that interact here in Edmonton on a daily basis. I wish that when I saw some old guy walking to work, I had that same profound experience.

~ K.