Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Intermission, Entry 2

It's a travel day. I woke up to the sun in Cala Major, got a bit to eat, adjusted my luggage (damn dress shoes . . . I hate packing shoes) and caught the bus to the ferry terminal. The red and white Acciona ferry is larger than I expected. They must do longer runs sometimes, because there is a pool and sauna that aren't open for today's seven and a half hour run to Barcelona. It's almost like a little cruise ship -- except that we cruise at 23 knots.

My roommate for the voyage is a German building materials inspector. He's driving back to Berlin with some of his stuff from Palma -- used to work there, but left because it's too hard to get a job. He inspects wood that's been treated for fire prevention at building material vendors . . . so he's paid to light things on fire. Sweet.

I've been thinking a lot about money today. I just reread "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." I can add another goal to my list -- financial independence. Kiyosaki (the author) defines wealth as "the ability to live X number of days in a certain lifestyle with no further work on your part." When X exceeds the number of days that you will live, you're wealthy. By that definition, I want to be wealthy. Another idea to plant and let stew in the back of my head.

How wonderful it feels to have no idea how my life is going to turn out! I'm standing at the edge of the ship's rail, twenty two years old, with everything I need in life packed into two suitcases, abroad in a foreign country a bit of money in my pocket and about a hundred words of Spanish. The sparkling Mediterranean sweeps past as we head to a city that I've only recently fallen in love with -- Barcelona. My head is full of ideas, but they're all still floating around, unformed, not quite ready for use. The only one blooming right now is the road to Santiago, and so that's the one I will follow. Chatwin talks about the recurring pattern of the hero's story, and so I think this portion is an intermission. 18 days vacation, a month on the Indepence of the Seas, and this intermission will give way to Act II. The Grandeur was Act I, my time in New Hampshire the Prologue.


Except this time, I do not have the resources of a huge global corporation behind me. All I have is my brain, body, guts, and the contents two suitcases and my bank account.

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