I gots the fever

Despite getting a flu shot this year, I've been hit with a fever.

TRAVEL FEVER that is.  I wanna go somewhere.

I'm happy I was able to travel a bit when I actually had paid time off.  I went around the U S of A a bit.  I adventured in Paris and Normandy and the Alps.  I voyaged to Londontown and Wales and the Lake District.

I also wandered this strange little place called Manchester.  I met a Mancunian man in a galaxy far, far away and he showed me around his hometown.  I came very close to MOVING there.  But life happened and things got in the way.  You know that whole c'est la vie thing and all that.

But I still reminisce about that grey little town.  There was a particular familiar feeling I had in that town, not really knowing what it quite was.  A sort of déjà vu perhaps.  Or was it a blending of arts and music painting a familiar imagery for me?   I really don't know, but maybe it's more than coincidence that much of my favorite music is from Manchester, UK.

I am reading Morrissey's autobiography right now, and just 50 pages into it, I feel a sense of familiarity as he describes a drab Dickensian landscape.   I can't quite put my finger on it or place the right set of words to explain those who connect with melancholia from time to time.  It's like it's a 'place' that one sometimes travels to naturally.  And sometimes you cross paths with another who has been to that peculiar dark place.....just like it's a random town in the world you've both stumbled upon by accident...

I would love to physically travel to more new towns where I can stumble upon a different, new landscape.  There's so much more world for me to see.