Travelling through books

Travelling was not a choice life gave me. But, as for compensation, I had parents that although almost illiterate guaranteed the best education for me. Since getting on the road for leisure was never an option, all I could do was to dream about discovering the world. A world, despite all this, I knew very well because I used to dive into books.
Reading fed my imagination, widened my perception of life and strengthened my convictions and courage. Through books I got to know the astonishing accomplishments of great civilizations so far away as well as the history of my own continent, the civilizations that once lived here and contributed so much to world development. Through books I read so many times I could cite the pages where a specific picture was I got to know how humans created different art, architecture, technology, habits. I got to know what humanity, outside the little Leopoldina, have been doing for over 5,000 years.
As books also gave me a career from which I could survive, I started travelling by myself. Getting to the places that had been for so many years a tittle in a page or a post of a blog marked as favorite in my computer were moments that brought the excitement of the trip, the happiness of achievements and the emotions of dreams coming true. Mona Lisa, the Tower Bridge, Machu Picchu, Titicaca Lake, Belem Tower, all these places turned from places I knew by heart to places now I know in my heart.
Nothing compares to the experience of being by yourself in a place, feel the air, noises and smells that surround it. No perspective can be the same over the view of different eyes. But this personal look is built with the looks of the others, including those we find in the books. The more perspectives you gather, the more complete your experience will be. That’s why I keep in mind that reading what other people think and feel can make me feel our world for the better. All I hope is to turn my experiences into bricks to other’s walls of knowledge.