“Give most of humanity half an excuse, be it Halloween, a festival, a convention or a carnival, and we delve into playing dress up with rather impressive results.” – Old Sean
Memories of Restless Bloods
I once met a man in Turkey at an airport who told me I had restless blood, as opposed to just being young. I always wondered how he could tell that from an eight minute conversation at the outset of my first real trip overseas.
It was my first long term trip abroad, when I was barely 19 years old, visiting Europe with a pair friends.
I was just starting my trip, staggering through all the initial pitfalls of travel, failing spectacularily at planning and handling the consequences with an absolutely unjustified sense of cavalier confidence.
I was still in university at the time, and spending my money and summer vacation by placing myself in unsavory circumstance after adventure after wild oddity. I had lost the majority of my funds to a mugging in Hamburg. I made it to Amsterdam with a girl by hitchhiking and scrounged the remainder of our money to buy a bottle of vodka, which we poured out at a festival until some folks offered us a place to sleep.
During the same journey I bummed around Istanbul, spending odd, darkening hours with some homeless folks in Taksim Square, trading phrases back and forth in broken English like movie one-liners.
I had my flight home canceled and rescheduled for the next day when my funds truly abandoned me, making a steady, rationed meal out of crackers for seven lira until I was granted a seat where an airplane stewardess usually sat.
At another point, I had hopped, desperately, onto a departing train and floundered in Rotterdam looking for a friend without having the correct ticket.
Later on, I wandered college towns in Germany when they won the World Cup in 2014 and was hit by two jubilantly thrown flying beer mugs in the subsequent celebration.
There was also a time where I peddled a half-rusted bike up the steep hills of Sea of Marmara islands and lost control on the forest trails back down, nearly flinging myself into the sea below.
In that same sea, I used great, fine nets of green mesh to gently nudge ghostly jellyfish away from my feet while wading shallow water, stalking like a crane to my destination.
A Ode to Memories
There are images that are sharp, but also profound gaps in between that have been plastered in with memories of other journeys, places and mishaps.
This was prior to my career as a photographer and before I started writing down my journeys, so information in these blanks spots is sporadic and difficult to dredge up accurately. It’s easy to have confidence in memory when a person’s young. But in reality, a person’s mind fills up and overflows with everything else life offers.
At least, that’s what happens to a person with so-called restless blood. And it’s happening again. I know within a month, these experiences will be flashpoints. Only a scant, unpredictable few become foundational within my psyche.
I’ve headed abroad once more. But not before one final month mostly in Dallas.
To Scarborough
After returning from St. Louis, New York, the Carolinas and the Everglades, I got back to my Base of Operations in Dallas, snoozed for eleven hours, tossed on a suit and tie from my bygone days of working in retail and wandered off with my friend Danielle to another friend’s wedding. I got to eat their food, enjoyed the ceremony and offered my congratulations, all without being tugged onto the dance floor, which was a major victory on my part.
The next day, I joined my sister in Dallas for a quick tour of Scarborough, a yearly renaissance festival. It was an utter mud pit and slog through layers of slippery, well-trodden muck, but the appeal can’t be denied.
Despite a slight drizzle, people were dressed in flamboyant costumes, quickly skewing further and further away from the medieval fantasy format. In the beginning, there are people in peasant tunics, layers of armor or leathered, belted attire. These are the accurate locals and festival staff members. These are a tad more vibrant than much of history’s villages, but still centered around the correct era and area.
Then come the parades of pop-culture displayers, sporting Legend of Zelda paraphernalia, or high fantasy ball gowns, faire outfits and wreathes of crowns.
After this crowd, the truly odd, more dedicated towards having an excuse to dress up than anything else appear. The occasional furry, the super dedicated steampunk attire, the Jedi knight and pirates all appear on the fringes.
If one goes to Scarborough without the sidelong intention to people-watch, I question going at all.
Mediaeval Activities
My sister and I did a whole schlew of activities thorugh the day.
We watched a falconry show, nibbled at turn-of-the-century pastries and specially brewed tea. I tried my hand, failingly, at using a dipping quill to scribble out some scratches no archeologist would ever be able to discern. We fumbled-tried some fried ice cream, that most unappetizing of fair-foods.
There were shows with performing cats, harp players on small stages, a comedy sketch involving an unfired cannon, a staff shop, a knitting shop, a tapestry shop, a swords parlor, a beer garden, a pub under a moss-laden roof, a wall-less cabin of glass-blown goods, horses and a place selling finely polished drinking horns.
I got one, which means I’ll never have to drink my beer like a plebian in Dallas again. We wandered home after a full lap of the festival, with my sister needing to prep for work the next day and the mud becoming truly pervasive as we slid back to our vehicle.
That more or less ended my brief time recuperating in Dallas. Soon, I’d be heading to the East Coast once more to visit family.
Afterwards, I’m likely moving south to enjoy a tour of Central America.
So until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written May 25th 2021
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The GoPro Hero Black is my go to Action camera. I’m not comfortable bringing my cell phone to many wet and rugged locations, so the GoPro does most of my photographic heavy-lifting. The only things I bring in my GoPro kit are the camera, a spare battery and the forehead mount. I upgrade my GoPro once every two years. It was particularly excellent to have during my aquatic tour of Belize.
