The Spoked Traveller | My Kids
Trails and advice cycling around the world as solo female cyclist and adventurer
mountain bike, adventure travel, cycling travel, bike tours, outdoor, solo travel, female mountain biking, badass female cycling, female travellers, women travel, adventurous
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My Kids

My Kids

After eating at an Ethiopian restaurant with my food writing students from Western University, it was our last class, I gave a student a drive home–she lived on the way to my place. It was her last day of her undergraduate life: she had graduated. “I feel surreal,” she says. “I am taking off a year, maybe two. I don’t know what I want to do.” This was so refreshing to hear for a few reasons. Great to those students who know what they want to do right away, you are rare, but for this girl who studied pop culture music (she also plays the fiddle on the weekends!) and writing, she wants those two years to explore, to learn, to wander.

Then I got to thinking about how we sometimes lose that as adults; sitting next to all these kids in their early 20s, teaching them every semester, I hear about these kinds of plans and it reaves me up. “What’s on your list of places to go,” one asked me. I gave her the run down of places such as Bhutan — a kingdom nestled between Indian and Nepal that requires a visa to visit and only lets in a certain amount of tourists a year–in attempt to preserve its culture. Austria. I want to go to Austria to hike the mountains and see the birthplace of Mozart. With every place I named, I got more excited. I began to feel like my 20 something student that just graduated.

With the last class of 2013, I want to thank you guys. You make me want to explore, wander and discover, and not just to places on the map.

 

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