List Served #3 – Come Fly With Me

List Served is a weekly feature wherein I present you with an ordered grouping of (at least tangentially) related points. I love lists and the internet loves ephemeral minutiae. It's all good.

In honor of the fact that it seems as if I’ve been in transit since June (although the most recent Boston/Montreal doubleheader was worth it) and will continue to be for the foreseeable future (starting again Tuesday!), I humbly present you with an itemized list of my numerous travel quirks. I’m currently accepting applications for the ideal travel companion. “Ideal” will obviously be determined by the degree to which said companion is willing to accept/embrace the contents of the list below.

Photo by Bob AuBuchon

A More or Less Exhaustive Review of My Sundry Travel-related Idiosyncrasies

• I will make a comprehensively annotated itinerary, but then I will resent you for not pulling your own weight.
• I travel with my laptop and try to stay exclusively at hotels that offer free internet. Other than that, safety and cleanliness are really the only other must-haves.
• I will always have a map.  The map will be hand drawn on hotel stationery.
• I can carry (more like drag) my own luggage, but thanks for offering.
• My purse is always stocked with gum, paper, a pen and tissues. There will likely be bobby and safety pins, too.
• I have an impeccable sense of direction. You shouldn’t question it or I will strand you under the Eiffel Tower and not think twice about it.
• I will be awake and ready to go at the crack of dawn, even if attractions don’t open until 10:30 AM.
• I don’t understand sit-down breakfasts. That’s why God invented Lara bars and Starbucks.
• I will get dehydrated at some point, but I will vehemently deny it and refuse to drink anything.
• I will get a sunburn. Time of year, latitude and amount of sunscreen I slather on are irrelevant. The only question is as to severity.
• I will feel like a subpar tourist for sometimes needing an afternoon nap, but I will take one anyway.
• I hate souvenir shopping. I pretty much hate shopping in general.
• I take pictures of things that only make sense to me.  Photo subjects are decided largely on their caption-worthiness. It’s a long story.
• I like to walk. A lot. I also like local public transportation, mostly of the underground variety.
• No matter what type of shoes I bring, my feet will get blistered and probably start bleeding. I’ll just suck it up and make a band-aid tourniquet.
• I only like visiting museums when they’re quiet ghost towns. Crowds and people who narrate their viewing experience make me stabby.
• If it’s art, I will feign interest in the European masters, but I will secretly be impatient to get to the contemporary stuff (unless we’re talking portraiture. That, I also appreciate.). Try to hustle me past the abstract expressionism section at your own peril.
• If you’re not supposed to touch it, handle it, sit on it, wade in it or take pictures of it,  I will really, really want to do all of these things, especially if there is a sign telling me not to.  I will size you up as to whether you’re the type to try to lecture me about this behavior or be scandalized by it. If you are, I will decide whether it’s worth bringing you around to my way of thinking or just trading you in for better travel companion.
• I will always be impatient and melancholy on the trip home.