Appreciation for the Underappreciated

Time for another reason that traveling is good for you!
I've found (repeatedly) that while traveling you just start to appreciate a lot of things that you either took for granted or just showed absolutely no interest in before. (And I'm not even going to mention the food I miss).

While I've been on the road, I've been washing my clothes by hand. After repeated hand washings during which I have to wring out the water, everything stretches. Do you have any idea how annoying it is when your shirt collars hang loose and your socks get too long for your feet? No bueno. Plus, you have to take longer showers because that's the best time to do your laundry. I really appreciate laundry machines and I'll be more than happy to do my laundry when I get home.

Another thing that I miss wholeheartedly is the standard American keyboard. In South America, it wasn't too bad but Europe has some weird keyboards. Germany had a few switched around keys (the Z and Y and some of the punctuation), but I got used to it by the time we left. Now we're in France and I'm so confused. The A and Q are switched; along with the M and W and every single punctuation mark. It takes me about a minute to type one sentence, so this post required a lot of work. And if you see some typos I overlooked, you know why. I miss you, Qwerty.

While I was a student back at the good 'ol US of A, I hated history. It was just so boring and not very applicable (or so I thought). Learning about dates and events that held little or no meaning to me just seemed pointless. My dad always complained that I had no appreciation for history and always tried to convince me it was awesome, but he never managed to get me interested. While in Peru, though, Machu Picchu sparked a bit of interest in history and I could actually find myself wondering about ancient civilizations and other stuff that I found so boring before. Once I saw the huge ruins, I had to wonder how people made such awesome stuff so long ago (how did they do it?!). Berlin got me even more interested, and seeing so much history during my stay there really makes me wonder how I could have been so ignorant. I walked along the Berlin Wall, stood under the last remaining sniper tower, walked by buildings with bullet holes from some of the big battles of World War II, stood above Hitler's bunker, and then went back in time and walked through the Ishtar Gates from Babylon in the Pergamon Museum. History overload. And now I appreciate it a lot more. In fact, I might even kinda sorta like it now. Just maybe.

Last but not least, I appreciate people. Not just people in general, but the ones I actually like. Lucky for me, Matty here keeps me from getting ronery (not a typo) but he is going home in mid-December. But even with a good travel companion, I really miss a lot of people. That, along with the many hours where I'm stuck in a train or plane or car, makes me think about my friends and family and value them so much more. I don't know what it is about traveling, but it makes me nostalgic and I miss everyone. Even my dog, and I hardly ever play with her (sorry Mimi).

I've started appreciating so many things that I underappreciated before, and this post doesn't even begin to cover it all. Also, I know that if someone else were to travel, they definitely wouldn't appreciate the same things I have learned to appreciate. It's probably different for everybody, and you don't know what you're underappreciating until you start appreciating it! So go travel!