The long-awaited first day of class finally arrived. In anticipation, and not wanting to be late, I left the three-bedroom home in LA that I exchanged for my place with plenty of time for the LA traffic. After picking up a sandwich for lunch, I sat out on the patio in the 60 wonderful degree weather and continued to read The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner. The author traveled the world looking for the happiest place; so far, he has been to the Netherlands, where people tend to be happy, but he wonders after smoking some marijuana in the cafe, if a drugged induced stupor can be interpreted as happy. In Switzerland he learns that happiness is directly related to expections, and in Bhutan, where they have the gross national happiness quotient, he learns that happiness is something to be attained, something for which we can all reach, even if we are not particularly happy at the time. In relating his travels, he comments on the fact that the word travel comes from travail, or to work; travel used to be hard work, although he does mention that it was still a difficult feat in Bhutan. The author had just left Bhutan and was traveling to Qatar to see if money really can buy happiness when it was time to go to class.
I first met Laurence, currently unemployed, although only participating in the first week of the course because he is heading to Hawaii for a job prospect. He would love to give tours there. Bob, a retired middle school principal joined us, followed by Cassandra, who had driven up Chino Hills, about a 40 mile commute. Soon people were joining the group more quickl than we could introduce each other. There were about 22 of us there; everyone seemed excited to be there, and most seemed like people with whom I would want to be friends. We ranged in age from 21 to 70-something, with most of the group in their twenties and fifties; I guess is makes sense that people attempt to do this at the beginning of their careers or at or nearing retirement. I was amazed at the background of some of the people -- a doctoral student in linguistics, a pharmacist, immigration worker, DJ and singer. Although there are a lot of Californians, there are also people from Seattle to Connecticut, from Canada to Vienna, Austria. One woman actually came in from Vienna to take this course (Austria, not Virginia).
We spent most of the first part of the class learning about the instructors and each other; they used a popular strategy having us introduce each other, and we could see that they were taking notes about our presentation to give us possible feedback later on. Finally, when we got to the nitty-gritty -- what is a tour director and all the other people associated with travel -- the class really picked up. I loved it. I also enjoyed the introductions of the tour directors leading the class, including the founder of ITMI; they made me a little green with envy but also infused a sense of remarkable possibilities.
At one point Ted asked us if we knew the derivation of the word, travel. Talk about serendipity: I had just learned that a few minutes before class started, so I was able to answer the question. He pointed out that it was the job of the tour director to take the work out of travel.
The formal part of the day ended with a get-to-know-each-other reception; the highlight of that was that Ted gave us a little lesson on wine-tasting with wines from around the world. By the end of the lesson and some good wine and cheese, a large group of us went out for dinner. With the singing waiters and loud conversations, I was in sensory overload and after rescuing our youngest classmate from the throes of a horrible hostel in the middle of Hollywood Blvd., we made our way back to the quiet of our home away from home.
Perhaps this really is a possibility.
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