Monday, October 05, 2009

A dangerous list.

I’ve been carrying around a dangerous list in my pocket. It’s a list of the world cities that Bordeaux and I are dreaming of including on an around-the-world tour. It follows, roughly in order:

1. Cape Town, South Africa
2. Vancouver, Canada
3. Bogotá, Colombia
4. Buenos Aires, Argentina
5. Istanbul, Turkey (pictured above)
6. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
7. Hanoi, Vietnam

Ideally, we’d semi-live in each spot, spending a few months there working and really getting to know the cities. In between, we’d hope to visit a few places as well: we’d spend some time in Pretoria and Limopo visiting Bordeaux’s family; some time in New Mexico visiting mine; hopefully we’d get to see a few US cities that Bordeaux hasn’t yet been to, like San Francisco and Seattle; we’d travel overland through South America, taking in Ecuador, Peru, and Chile; we’d visit London, maybe Amsterdam; and hopefully return to Bangkok and Taiwan.

Eesh, now that I look over this—how long would this trip take? And how feasible would this even be? English teaching jobs are kind of the standard traveller’s work, and I don’t really know if short-term teaching positions are that frequently available.

But these are the kinds of escapist thoughts in our heads lately…

And it’s probably a bad idea for me to ask this (as if I need more encouragement), but if you could live in any other world city for a period, where would you live?

9 comments:

Tim said...

YES! COME TO LONDON! I will fill you with ale till it spurts from your ears.

I would live in Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rome, Toronto, Morocco, Austin, Oslo, Salzburg, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Manila, Cape Town, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, Taipei, or Wellington.

Ange said...

dangerous is the word! but i'll play along... buenos aires, mexico city, guanajuato, marrakesh, istanbul, tokyo, hanoi, rome, madrid, glasgow, hong kong, paris, or amsterdam. i can dream, right??

Sherri said...

Your gypsy lifestyle is very appealing to me. :)

First I would love to live in New York, especially in the fall. Bogota scared me a little (so probably not there). Loved Quito. I thought about teaching English there years ago. My parents lived on a ranch (6hrs. north of Buenos Aires) in Argentina for a few years and that was an interesting place to visit.

I think to live anywhere else would be fun. To really get to know the culture would be amazing.

Yoli said...

Cuba.

Robyn said...

Istanbul, Turin, Palermo, Barcelona, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Ankara, Aleppo, Delhi, Cochin, Colombo, Sapporo, Seoul, Sydney, Auckland, Lima, Bogata, Chicago, Vancouver.

Is that too many? ;-)

(Pssst ... I think you'd find George Town more interesting, in the end, than KL.)

Thanks for that little mind-travel break, now back to work!

AngelaCorrias said...

I've been living in London for two years now and I have a strange feeling with the city: it makes me nervous when I'm there, I happen to miss it when I'm away, just to hate it again when I come back.
I'm taking a couple of months off and I'm in Italy now, and I'll be back in the UK in February. I think a stay in London is an experience worth a try, although it's not my ideal city.
I very much loved Istanbul and I wouldn't mind spending a year there, but my life destination is definitely Brasil, and I'd live in Rio or Fortaleza.

Buddha Bellies said...

Oh to dream, here's our list, in no particular order:
1. Sydney
2. Singapore
3. Saigon
4. Tokyo
5. New York
6. London

The list could be longer, but we've got to check those places out first!

Cheers!

Fei said...

hi!!!~ welcome to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in advance!!!~

Unknown said...

Los Angeles. or, Albuquerque at Christmas. it's your call. But you have to do one of them.