To join my child in a new sense of wonder – Bryson

“But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” –Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

-Guest post by Joe Stanley

I travel a lot with my children, and find this quote to be wonderful. As an adult, with all the stresses of work, I find it at times to feel anything except nervousness that all our tasks are completed– i.e. diapers, food, hotel rooms. To join my child in a new sense of wonder is one of the true joys of going someplace new.  This is especially true in a foreign country.  Quotations like this remind me of these great joys and get me on the road again with the little one.