You can never really travel alone.

Today at work I happened upon a book from the Luxembourg Museum of Art. And I was cataloging it and remembering meeting a touring choir from Luxembourg when I was 16 on a train trip through Western Canada. It was a multi-day train trip and they were very very nice. And we said our goodbyes and went on our merry ways. And then, at the end of the vacation, my family and I once again ran into the choir in the middle of a pier in Victoria, British Columbia. All of us just walking through at the same time and suddenly all going 'Hey! Hi! How is the trip going! Nice to see you again!' and it was like a meeting of travelers. And I always think about them when I hear about Luxembourg and I wonder how they're all doing. It was kind of an unusual experience. That's one of the awesome things about traveling by train: the people you meet. I've never gone on a train trip and not met someone fascinating. It's a great way to travel because you realize how many people are traveling at the same time. When you go on family vacations and you drive and it's really just you going someplace, you don't get the same feeling as you do on an extended travel excursion with other people like trains or cruises or tours, etc. Some people don't like to travel with strangers but, the thing is, those people aren't strangers at the end of the trip. It's worth the awkward getting-to-know-people phase, I think. And you never really travel alone, do you? I mean, you remember people that you meet along the way. And sometimes I wonder if anybody remembers me and my family from that train trip a decade ago? If they ever wonder where the little family from Missouri ended up?

Many years ago a friend of mine said something when we were traveling around Italy and it's stayed with me: Do you ever wonder how many strangers' photo albums you're in? I had never wondered it. I'd never even thought of it, but it's amazing to think about. How many touristy places have you been? How many pictures have you inadvertently ended up in from tourists all over the world? It's something to think about. You could be in a photo album in Prague. Or in Rome. Or in Mexico City. Or in Tokyo. You are in the albums of strangers who happened to be in the same spot as you for a moment in time:

[A picture of mine from Milan last summer.]