Scents - powerful travel tools

This morning I completed my morning walk - 30 minutes, with music in my ear. It is a wonderful habit, and makes me think a lot. Good music makes my thoughts soar, and I am uplifted.

Today, there was a couple of men working at a nearby park, and one of them was cutting some grass.
The smell of grass took me back to Osterøy, where I was born and raised on a farm. During the summer, I would help out in the work, whether or not I wanted to. The smell of freshly cut grass takes me back there, immediately. Those lonely, but music-filled hours in the silo, waiting for the tractor coming with the next load, the smell of acid, and keeping up the tempo, so I would be finished for the next load of grass. See, I travelled 30 years back in time, and I was transferred 500 km in a second.



Isn't that a powerful travel tool?

The first ever trip I took outisde Norway, was to Miami. I stayed at a reasonable hotel at Miami Beach, and the scents still makes me remember that trip. A week or so ago, I was at the movies with a couple of friends, and while walking up to the cashier to pay, I was right back at Miami Beach. The moist air, the smell of sugar and sweat sent me back to 1991. I even told the cashier, and she thought it was a nice sentiment.

The same goes for bad memories. I remember travelling from Miami to Orlando by bus, going to the Epcot Center and Disney World. The only vacant seat was right in front of the toilet, so I'll let you be the judge of the quiality of my memories from that trip.

Did you know that the French word "souvenir" means to remember or memory? It makes perfect sense, because that is why we buy souvenirs; to remember. Scents are powerful tools to make you travel, if only in your memories.

Make new memories!