the toronto trip was nice. i went with a couple of colleagues, we stayed downtown, really enjoyed it. but the new york trip was incredible. i went with another person and we stayed in manhattan. each night after the conference, we'd wander for hours, pick a spot for supper. the best pizza of my life one night. a splashy swordfish supper the last. pasta at a hole in the wall in brooklyn. "where" didn't really matter: we had a decent per-diem and ate conference/hotel food the rest of the day, so supper was always very nice.
i'm thinking about this as the pandemic first torpedoed travel, then in some ways the desire to do so — think about a plane full of recirculated air and nobody wearing a mask. i've never had covid. i don't want to start. but as the years have passed and as we've collectively decided the pandemic's over (though it really isn't), i find myself missing travel of all sorts. the planned vacation, certainly, but also the business trip, where you try to squeeze in as much sightseeing as you can around your spoken-for eight hours, then come back to a little hotel room to try to sleep.
the new york trip was an experience. i think about it often. and in my new role i feel like i have a smaller chance of getting sent anywhere, though it's possible. quebec seems like the most exciting opportunity. i used to speak french, sort of: i took classes all through elementary school, continued that in high school, even took an undergraduate course. some of it's stuck, mostly around reading comprehension. use it or lose it, and having spent my life not-in-quebec it's fair to say i've lost it. i'd love the chance to use it again.
seeing quebec would be wonderful. travelling for work again would be a dream. i don't care if i stay in a shitty hotel and my room is a shoebox. that's just a place to crash at the end of the day. i want to be able to wander around a new place, to allow things to happen. i want to get out and see things again.