A Little Gloom + Music + the Road = Good Times

I have always loved the rain.  Specially the ones that start just before dawn.  Days like these, you open your eyes to a dark and gloomy morning and automatically snuggle deeper into your bed covers.  I'd describe the feeling I'd get waking up to these mornings as the same feeling I'd have when I eat comfort food.

Today was one of those days.  Despite the flood alerts and the hassle of heavier traffic, I am in a good mood.  My preference has always leaned towards the gloomier seasons.  Maybe that's why I've always liked the rain and is absolutely in love with winter.  

I always travel during winter time and actually prefer it.  Not only do you need to pack a lot less clothing as you rarely sweat during this season, but airfares, room rates, food and all things that involve travel are essentially at "off-peak" prices.  I think my eclectic taste and extreme love for music naturally always accompanies my travels.  Allowing yourself to get lost as you brisk walk along unfamiliar streets with your collar up, back hunched, hands in your pockets and your earphones tucked under the ear flaps of your beanie is one of the few things I absolutely enjoy doing.

Folk, I find, has always accompanied cold winter road trips and walks perfectly more than any genre of music.  Here are some songs (not all folk) that I relate to a particular experience on the road (or in between countries) in my more recent travels:

Walking (The Dodos) - Walking the streets of a sleepy, rainy Rimini town looking for an open cafe, famished and jet-lagged .

Suite Judy Blue Eyes (CSN) - Foggy morning on a  bus from Rimini to Bologna

Hunter's Map (Fionn Regan) - Train to Florence looking out the window to see snow-capped mountains, my view disturbed every now and then by dark tunnels

Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (Fleet Foxes) - Waiting for the train to arrive in the c-c-cold Cercedilla Station en route to Segovia

River (Joni Mitchell) - Walking from Dam Square to Princengracht to meet a friend at the Anne Frank Haus

Driving Sideways (Aimee Mann) - Rainy bus ride from Sagada to Baguio

Subterranean Homesick Alien (Radiohead) - On a cramped bus to Vang Vieng

Soul One (Blind Melon) - Ride from Halong City to Hanoi (as I had left most of my stuff--includung my iPod--at the hostel for the junk boat trip, I was belting this out rather than listening to the song)

It's Natural To Be Afraid (Explosions in the Sky) - Lying on my top bunk on a sleeper train to Sapa

Are You a Hypnotist (Flaming Lips) - Cramped van to the train station from Sapa, a poor Vietnamese man was beside me looking pale and in the brink of throwing up.  I handed him a pill hoping it aided him to at least endure the ride until I got out of there

Foux Da Fafa (Flight of the Conchords) - Hung over and slumped down on the floor of the Madrid Airport waiting to board the free-seating Ryan Air flight to Belgium

Gideon (My Morning Jacket) - On a bus to Barcelona beside a Chilean woman watching two British couples excitedly discuss what they can do at the Barrio Gothic.

Ragged Wood (Fleet Foxes) - Coincidentally trying to discreetly take a photo of two guys at the Barcelona airport who had a striking resemblance to Jim James (of My Morning Jacket) and Robin Pecknold (of Fleet Foxes).

Dance Dance Dance (Lykke Li) - Walking home from a night out drinking with old and new friends in Madrid

Music and travel, more specifically road trips, have always been a very good combination.  Ever since the iPod, the experience of this little pleasure in life has been made even better.  The list above does not even skim the surface of all the songs that trigger small moments in my travels as my love for both are equally boundless and forever inter-twined, but it will have to do until I set out for the road again.