A recent blog post by a friend of mine doing his Fulbright in the eastern part of Germany caused me to ponder some things and prompted me to write this post (he's also a BC grad- see, BC really did work its magic in making us very insightful and reflective citizens of the world!) Now, a caveat before I start writing- some of what I say may come across as really conceited and spoiled and even pretentious, but it is reeeeaalllyyy not my intention! As the saying goes, there is a method to the madness- I promise.
I think the book "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" must've come out a decade or even longer ago, and there's now a "1,001 Places to See Before You Die" and a journal and a calendar (I know this because I actually got the 2011 calendar for my mom one year for Christmas because one of the months was Germany- where her dear daughter would be spending half the year!), and a myriad of other books by a similar name written by globetrotters and travelers and writers somehow accredited in telling millions of citizens where they should travel and what they should see, where they should stay, what they should do, and what they should eat. That's all fine and dandy, but as my friend James alluded to in his blog, it had created this superficiality in traveling. Everything is a contest over who can check off the most things on their list.
I used to do this- after high school trips to visit Rome and Florence and Paris and Madrid and London and Dublin and Edinburgh and Barcelona and Athens, I would come home and open up one of our numerous travel books and start marking the places I had been and the things I had seen. And then summer vacations visiting Prague and Berlin and Copenhagen and Helsinki and Gdansk and Stockholm and St. Petersburg- I cam home and opened up those books. When I went abroad two years ago (it's now 2013 and I can actually say two years ago...wow that sounds weird!) I came home able to mark off even more places- Amsterdam, Vienna, Munich, Lisbon, Lyon, Istanbul, and Brussels. Right before I left for Germany in the summer this time around, I made one more list of places in Europe I still had left to see- on the list was Budapest, Vilnius (capital of Lithuania, where my mom's entire family is from), and Dresden.
Well, I just had an opportunity to travel to Budapest at the end of the month with a few other American Fulbrighters for a long weekend. When the event was first created last month, I was wicked excited at the thought of finally being able to see the famous city and then when it came time to book flights, I thought about the trip again and decided against it. I know that it is said to be a beautiful city situated in the heart of central-eastern Europe, a region to which I've never been, but I felt like I would be going for the wrong reasons. I felt like I would be going only to go home being able to check Budapest off my list and add a country to my list.
I've already discussed at lengths how being in Europe this time around is much different than my semester abroad and obviously much different than trips here, and with that difference comes a difference in my traveling mentality. I've been here four months now and have done a decent amount of traveling, but it's all just been to see people...(well, and Christmas Markets all over Nordrhein-Westfalen). I went up to Hamburg for a few days, where I had never been, but it was to see my friend Paul. I went to Ireland, where I have been, but it was to visit the neighbors from this summer. I went to England for a week, but it was to spend Christmas with Rae and her family. I went to Berlin for New Year's Eve, but we stayed in David's apartment the whole time except for actual midnight at the Brandenburg Gate and afterwards to go to a party.
Apologies again, because this is where I start to sound ungrateful and spoiled, but I was fortunate enough to be awarded myriad opportunities to travel when I was younger, and I am so grateful to have seen so much of the world that people decades older than me still dream of laying eyes on, but after all of this traveling and seeing of sights, I've realized that it's about the people with whom you're traveling and the people you meet that really make the experience.
I just skyped with Mollie for over an hour as we chattered away trying to figure out our breaks and what we'll do when we visit each other. We kept throwing out options, and honestly, it all came down to the fact that we didn't really care where we went, it was the fact that we would be traveling together and sharing the same experiences. The plan right now is that when she visits me in early March, we'll go to Munich for the weekend and then go to Paris the next weekend to see a band we really like, and of course to go to Paris. I've been to both Paris and Munich before, but Paris was when I was 13 on a school trip and Munich was with my mom two years ago- so these would be completely different experiences, going with one of my best friends of nearly a decade.
I guess in a way, this mentality is related to the feelings I discussed in my Christmastime post. The whole, it doesn't matter how many presents you get/give, but instead, who you're with and such. And this is similar- that it doesn't always matter where you go, but who you're sharing the experience with.
Don't get me wrong- there are some places that I think absolutely everyone should see, and are obviously in those aforementioned books for a reason. I remember the first time I stepped into St. Peter's Basilica in Rome when I was 14, and writing in my journal that everyone in the world should have the opportunity to observe and witness such beauty and magnificence. But my point is- don't travel somewhere just to say you did. Travel there because you want to.
My mom is a world traveler- having now traveled to every continent except Antarctica- most of these on cruise trips, and some visiting me during my own travels. However, I've never heard her talk so much or be as impacted as much as by her trip to India with her friend Carla just over a year ago. Carla's parents had spent many many years in India working as missionaries (or something similar) and wished for their ashes to be scattered in one of the rivers in the country, so my mom and another of Carla's friends traveled there to do just that. Mom saw some tourist attractions, such as the Taj Mahal, but she was also introduced to a culture, and one so different than our own, and as I said, she still has so much to say about that trip.
Honestly, I've kind of lost grasp of my focus of this post and I don't think I'm articulating well what's in my mind (a prime reason I could never succeed as a writer- I can never fully transfer from my head to the paper...or in this case, keyboard) But I guess my ultimate point is simple- travel somewhere because you really want to, not just to cross it off a list. Travel with someone or meet people on your journey with whom you can share your experience, because I've found that it can help you better understand your experience, and spend time in a place really becoming introduced to its culture and its pulse and its life. Go see the Coliseum in Rome, but don't get back on a bus afterwards. Instead, take a passegiatta through the busy streets, sit on the Spanish steps enjoying a gelato and just people watching, sit at a trattoria for hours, watching the sunset over the city. Go see the Eiffel Tower, but stop to enjoy a coffee and a tart and just listen to the language of the Parisians around you. Go see Big Ben and then enjoy a pub lunch and a pint at a quaint English pub. Exchange in some banter with some Brits. There's nothing wrong with wanting to see things on these travel lists- as an International Studies major, I would never ever condemn or chide someone for wanting to travel and see new things, but that travel must go a step further than remaining on a tour bus, snapping a photo, and getting back on the bus. Travelers must take the next step to understand the background of what they're seeing.
The experiences- that's really what travel is all about. Anyone can Google a picture of anything that you go see, but only you can return with your own personal experience to share with those who will listen.
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