camping for a living

As I come to my 30th year of service I sort of reflect on all the places W and I have lived in. It often feels like one extended camping trip. My idea of camping, as the joke goes, is if I can dial 3 for room service then I am for it.
Living in staff quarters, with the usual government issue furniture, same furniture from town to town, at least this is a constant. But it feels a little unreal, when our furniture now in storage comes out, we often forget what we had before we left.

We are camping in a way, moving from continent to continent, from country to country every 3 to 4 years. Once or twice I moved twice in one year, living in boxes and suitcases, eating in restaurants, living in anonymous hotel rooms. Little creature comforts like making a cup of tea or coffee, just having buttered toast, not possible until you land somewhere and even then it may take months before your personal items arrive on that cargo ship sailing your way. You have to become comfortable, you have to be flexible, make a home where none exist, make the best of every situation. Flexible means learning new languages, appreciating foods of various cultures and not expecting that you will have foods you are familiar with. Having a wardrobe which suits the climate and the mores of the country where you are. If a tourist on a 2 week vacation just brings along what he or she would wear back home, this option is not available to you. I find that what I wear abroad I would not wear back in Canada, often because it would not be suitable.

A bit like going on camping, you have to plan and think what will I need, what I will not need, what is practical. Years ago this meant buying food stuffs for 2 to 3 years supply and other necessities of everyday life, everything had to be planned for your next assignment, a camping trip really which lasted a few years.

This non-permanent state creates excitement and certainly there is little routine, constant change around you is the basic. Not only change in living arrangements but also at work.

So this has been my life, one long camping trip. How many times have I moved, I loose track, but I know it has been more than 35 times so far. All the birthdays, Christmases, New Years and other life events in different cities around the world, never at home with family or seldom. This is why I find it so odd when people wish to spend their holidays with family and go to their parents home every year. It is true that I do not like traditional camping in a tent with a bag pack, bugs and all the uncomfortable bits. But my form of camping around the world, I am so use to it now that I barely notice if there are some inconveniences. But at the same time when the day comes, when I retire and go back to my native land, will I be able to adjust? Will I not be bored silly with the conventional, maybe that is the fear I have of the future, of life being conventional, no surprises, just routine, nothing exotic.

Here I am tonite in Tirana, Albania, former Stalinist dictatorship, a country today transformed, sitting in my hotel room, listening to Angela Hewitt, this great Canadian pianist playing J.S.Bach, the English Suites, camping in a way.