Travelling for travels sake

This July, Kierkegaard's land is where I'll be. Quite tempted to make a trip to Noma, 2011's best restaurant in the world, when I'm there but obviously they are booked out months in advance and getting a table for one person might not be too easy :/
Between discourses and research, I wonder if I'll have much time to go about. Most of my trips around the world had one academic purpose or another, so my traveling to those places isn't saying much. Take France in 2007, it was a month of language immersion in Montpellier. Avignon was a one day trip, Nimes was a detour and Paris was a three day blur.  Not complaining about a month of provençal food though. Hong Kong was the same, a comparative study field trip... we did however have plenty of time to go about and the professor who acted as our guide did his PhD there, so he knew the place like the back of his hand. Can't complain about that haha!

This is no whinge, I am genuinely pleased with the summer school opportunity and of course love that ANU is footing most of the bill. Copenhagen has generously given me a fellowship, so the only thing I really have to think about is finishing the papers I must write by the end of the course and doing good research of course. I just wish that I could travel for travels sake. Many friends used their undergrad days as an opportunity to travel. South East Asia is a favourite with students... cheap, beautiful, easy availability of weed/shrooms/psychedelics, beaches, temples, crazy-good food etc. Sometimes I regret not taking up the offers of friends to head to full moon parties at random Thai islands, to live on a boathouse in Vietnam or to trek to the Angkor Wat. Holidays had to have some kind of purpose and an immense sense of self-loathing developed as I appeared unable to travel without a reason but itself. Even now, I should be thinking of how to maximize my time and flight ticket. Perhaps pop into a Nordic country or two? Visit my great aunt in Germany? Meeting Anitha in Austria would be wonderful. Instead, I will prolly arrive in time to check into my accommodation (and hopefully switch my body clock around) before work begins, and will land up in Australia after school has begun.

Thank goodness for Nepal and Tibet after graduating. Those were trips that were made for no reason beyond my wanting to see gorgeous lands, beautiful sites and the kind of heights you can only scale at those altitudes. For now, every free moment I can manage is spent home with Nick because the distance really sucks. I have literally not gone around Australia (besides Canberra, I've spent a couple of days at Sydney, mostly because that's where my flights land... have not been anywhere else in the 11 or so months here canyoubelieveit?!) but out of choice, because I'd apparently pick him and Penang over my wanderlust.