All day today our conversations have taken the following path.

0800 Aly – “This time next week the limo will be arriving in 8 hours”.
1600 Diva – “This time next week we’ll be getting into the limo now”.
1800 Aly – “This time next week we’ll be at the airport”.
2000 Diva – “This time next week we’ll be drinking champagne in the lounge”.
2200 Aly – “This time next week we’ll be sitting on the plane”.
2215 Diva – “This time next week we’ll be taking off”.

I don’t think we’ve ever wished our life away so much before and I know that from 2215 on the 8th of August we will stop that ridiculousness and start to wish that time would stand still. I feel toey and restless like one often does when the unknown is ahead and your familiar routine is about to be swept from under you. Yet there is so much excitement at the prospect of new sights, smells, tastes and experiences just waiting to be had.

There is nothing like traveling to get you out of yourself, to see the world with your own eyes and realize that those grainy, dulled images in the news reports on TV of faraway places are in reality, as colorful, vibrant and real as the sights in your own country. For those who love to travel, there is something so magical about immersing yourself in different cultures where we are all so different and yet the same. I remember standing on the beach in Dubai near the Burj Al Arab hotel watching local families enjoy the beach. The women may have been wearing the abayah which to my eyes was different but the scene was the same the world over…mum, dad and children enjoying the lapping water, laughing and carefree in those moments. The sun was setting across the Persian Gulf that day and I felt a sense of peace in the thought that even thousands of miles from home, being an inhabitant of earth bonded me to these people.

U2’s “It’s a beautiful day” is a song that reminds me how beautiful this world is. Every time I hear it, I am transported by my memories to previous travels and the sights I have seen. When I sit in a plane and look down upon the land far below me, I am in awe that life is being played out in a tent, a suburban home, a ship, an oil rig, a mud hut or any number of dwellings.

It’s A Beautiful Day – U2

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyon broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light, and
See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out

I love the sunset from my veranda but in the coming weeks I’m going to enjoy a myriad of sunset’s across the world which will again remind me that we all see the same sun from the same planet.