When I visited San Francisco a few years ago, I paid $20 for someone's mix-tape. He was just one of many different flavors of hustler native to the Bay area--catch a tourist's eye, give them a sob story about your path as a starving artist, get them to hold your mix-tape, and then kindly let them know that a donation is expected. And I know all this now, but at the time I went for it hook, line, and sinker. At the end of the day, I paid him $20 not just for the mix-tape, but just to get him to let go of my hand and let me walk back to my car in peace.
The moral of this story? I am not great at saying no to people on the streets. I'm not great at ignoring people, refusing to make eye contact, etc. If someone says something to me, I'm bound to try and say something back. I know that cities are full of people inventing new ways to get into my wallet, and I know that I'm ridiculously susceptible. So I do my best to be mindful.
Today I failed at all that. And everything went fine, but it gave me some new perspectives on how I need to navigate the world.
I was walking around the Rabat kasbah--a massive fortress-settlement by the sea, a centuries-old community surrounded by walls. Strolling under the walls, I hear someone shout something; I look up at one of the many men sitting on top of the walls. He tells me the entrance is near the stairs. I thank him and head to the stairs, where I find him waiting for me.
"Where you from?" he asks.
"The United States."
"You like Trump or Obama?" (In case anyone is wondering how aware people are of American politics overseas.)
"I like Obama."
"You come stay in my country anytime." (In case anyone is wondering how American politics are currently being received in Muslim-majority countries.)
I walk to the edge of the wall, taking in the view. He follows, pointing out buildings, giving me tidbits about the history. He is friendly, outgoing, and knowledgeable. When I turn away from the sea, he beckons me to follow him.
This is the moment where I know what will happen--he will give me a few bits and pieces of info before asking me for some money. I've fallen for it before, and I'm sure I'll fall for it again. Now is the time to disengage--to thank him for his time and walk away.
"What's your name?" I ask.
"Tarek. I speak 5 languages and I live in kasbah all my life."
And so I follow. What, after all, is the worst that can happen?
Before we go any further, I want to end the suspense and say that nothing terrible happened to me. Tarek continued to be a wonderful tour guide; he took me all through the kasbah, showing me little nooks and crannies, showing me things the other tourists missed. How many saw for instance, that one of the cannons defending the main entrance had a portion of the Koran engraved into its side? How many other tourists had the scripts on the walls translated for them? How many were taken to a back room where bread was being baked in a massive earthen oven?
And how many were invited back to Tarek's house for tea made by his mother?
I acknowledge that what I did here was very stupid, and that I'm really lucky that nothing happened to me. Tarek continues to be a polite host--regaling me, of course, with a sob story explaining why he needed money. He shows me the ugly scars adorning his left arm and hand that he claims were left there by a father that abandoned his family, and how sometimes he sits on his roof smoking, so that he can try to forget.
It is in this moment I realize that he might not be telling the truth about his scars--or that he is, but he is possibly not all there. I'm not afraid--the view is beautiful, Tarek is kind, and I can hear his mother cooking downstairs. But I acknowledge, in a disjointed, distanced sort of way, that this could end very poorly for me. I casually mention to Tarek that I need to meet friends in my hostel soon. He says of course. I'm sure I'm not the first tourist who has said this after finding themselves on the roof with him.
After we drink the tea his mother has brought us, we head back into the city. I tell Tarek that I need to leave, but that I'd like to help him and his brother (the excuse he gave for needing money). He says that would be very nice. I avoid the fact that I need to pay him--I am very much alone in a city that belongs to him. And so does he. Only when I give him money does he apologize that I'm 'helping' him. He says that I'm nice, and I'm always welcome in his home. At first, I was somewhat touched by this, and moved to think that he wasn't a bad guy--maybe he was legitimately in need. But upon reflection, this is the only part of the adventure that scares me the most. He wasn't apologizing that he needed money: he was apologizing because we both knew if I didn't give him anything, the very friendly visit I'd been having could easily take a different direction. He is apologizing for what happens if I don't agree to help his brother.
Dilemma #1: should I be mad that he got my money this way? After all, I had an amazing experience (up until I casually realized I could be in danger)--I got to see the side of a city most tourists never do, I got to chat with a local in English, French, and Spanish about his hopes and dreams, I got some incredible, first-hand contact with a culture that I'm sure I'll remember long after I've forgotten after other parts of my trip. And because of the exchange rate here, it didn't even cost me too much. He got the equivalent of $30 for me--wouldn't I have been willing to pay this had I gone through an official tour guide? I paid as much in London just to go inside a cathedral. Surely an hour-long intimate tour of the kasbah was worth just as much. $30 is no massive sum for me, but Tarek can feed his family with it for a month. Exchange rates are funny that way.
Dilemma #2: isn't the money irrelevant when I very well could have been putting my life at risk? I know I was lucky--Tarek was a scammer, but an honest and caring one who legitimately wanted to share his city with me. I'm not even sure scammed is the right word--I unexpectedly paid for a fantastic experience.
But how very, very stupid am I to follow a stranger into his home? If this had been another man, or maybe another city, or another country, any number of things could have happened. I wouldn't have been sitting on a rooftop terrace, drinking tea and talking Moroccan politics in halting French.
Dilemma #3: I am ultimately who I am. If someone asks me a question on the street, it's difficult for me to brush by. I'm not good at walking past beggars. For what it's worth, I'm used to believing in the best in people. This will maybe be the most difficult aspect of my trip--recognizing that the people who offer to help me don't want to help. That I am seen as a resource--and I am exactly that--whose worth can be extracted by means either gentle or otherwise. I acknowledge that, for my safety, I need to learn to be hard.
But what kind of a way is this to travel the world? How can I meet people, experience other ideas and perspectives, encounter other cultures, if I treat every walk down the street like a battle, if I make sure to shut down every person who comes to speak with me? Until Tarek, everyone in Rabat has been exceedingly kind--many people have stopped to wish me good day, or welcome me to Morocco. Maybe I'd been lulled into a false sense of security by the beauty of the ocean and the openness of everyone I'd met thus far. So how should I have responded to an encounter that I assumed, at the time, was just like all the others I'd had thus far? When is the right time to start pretending that the people I meet on the street aren't people? Sure, I realize there are lines to be drawn--speak, be polite, but don't follow anyone, don't let them convince me of anything, etc. But where does that distinction begin? I know I should have brushed by Tarek on the stairs. I should have mumbled something in German about not understanding, and gone my merry way. This would have been safe and practical. But it also wouldn't be me.
So this is my first major dilemma of my trip. How do I guard myself against the people who want to exploit me or do me harm without doing so in a way that makes me feel as if I'm turning my back on the world?
I legitimately don't know.
So long story short: I listened to the man on the wall, was treated to an amazing tour, and gradually realized how potentially dangerous a situation I'd managed to find. And now I'm not sure which face I should wear when I walk out the door.
So there's that. Morocco continues to be a learning experience. And don't worry--I haven't let this ruin my day, or my trip--I still had a great day seeing breathtaking things, and I continue to look forward to all my adventures to come. In 5 years this is a story I'll tell and laugh about.
But for now color me puzzled. There are plenty of Tareks between me and my flight back to the USA, and I have to admit that I'm not looking forward to looking each of them in the eye and telling them I have no interest in speaking to them or learning their story. But I suppose I'll have to. It's safe and it's practical.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Monday, February 13, 2017
4 weeks down, 12 to go--some thoughts on the first quarter
So one quarter of my trip--29 of 113 days--is officially gone, which means I thought it best to take a moment to reflect on what's happened thus far. Although 84 days seems like a mammoth amount of time to continue living out of a backpack, I can tell already that it's going to slip by faster than I can even imagine--even the four weeks thus far have gone like the blink of an eye.
This is a doubly good time to take a step back, in that it's something of the end of a chapter in this trip. Until now, I've spent all of my time in Western Europe in countries in which I have at least some passing familiarity with the language. And while the UK, Germany, Austria, France, and Spain are all wonderful in their own individual ways, their worlds are not so far removed from the reality I normally inhabit, nor are they worlds that I'm incapable of navigating. This changes tomorrow as I set off on a two-day trip that ends with me standing, befuddled, on a train platform in Rabat, Morocco. Morocco is the first country I'll be in in which A) I don't at least somewhat speak the main language, B) is the first country I'll be in which doesn't use an alphabet I can read, and C) is the first country I'll be in whose culture completely diverges both from the one in which I was raised and the ones I've been touring up until now.
So it'll be an adventure. Until then, here are some brief impressions on what I've seen thus far.
-One thing that I absolutely can't capture in pictures is that each city speaks its own language--not just the people, but the buildings and the architecture. Everywhere I go is different in some subtle, ineffable way that doesn't show up in pictures, but is nevertheless present. It's the way that London is like a brownstone neighborhood of New York City if it had been sent back a few centuries in a time machine and then never washed again. Salzburg is the inside of an easter basket--all pastels and presents and chocolates, but then you look in a shop window and the Easter Bunny turns around and kicks you in the stomach. If the girl who was always at Hot Topic was given an unlimited supply of concrete and a children's primer on urban decay, Berlin is the city she'd have created--a defiantly ugly sprawling vivacious mess. Paris is like walking inside a miniature model of a city. And Barcelona is the sound a dress makes as it floats on the air, permanently outside of time. And this is to say nothing of the little towns I've been to, Fuessen (what the inside of Walt Disney's head probably looked like) or Rouen (if the Halloween and Valentine's Day sections of your local grocery store had a baby) or Lyon (a world in sepia). Pictures don't cut it, and I'm not sure words do either, but it's a heck of a thing to stand in it.
-Translators have one of the world's most important jobs. I eating dinner with a friend, her sister, and said sister's boyfriend, and we all did our best to communicate, but one thing led to another and the three of us ended up looking to my friend--the only one at the table who spoke both English and French very well. And without her, we couldn't have communicated the way we did--we'd have stumbled along, and stared manically into each other's faces, but it wouldn't have come to as much. Translating is an act of construction, and it's a vital one.
-that being said--good grief has everyone been patient with my language skills. No one tried to speak English with me in Germany, and they were just as patient in France; the only time someone switched to English (in a conversation that started in French) was after I said "I'm so sorry, my French is terrible." Even my atrocious high school Spanish has managed here and there. So people *are* willing to do their best to communicate if you can meet them somewhere along the way.
-it's too early to be sick of hostels, but hey, here we are. Hostels are fine, but I am so happy when I stay with a friend and I don't have to do everything in the dark, surrounded by nine strangers.
-speaking of friends: I probably need to come up with two different categories--'favorite city visited alone' and 'favorite city with a guide. I can get plenty out of a city on my own, but it pales in comparison to what I get to see and do with someone who knows their way around. SO massive, massive thanks to all the people strewn across Western Europe who've helped me along thus far.
A few stats:
I have visited:
-6 countries (UK, Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Spain)
-heard 7 languages commonly used (Icelandic [during my layover in Reykjavik], English, Flemish, German, French, Spanish, and Catalan) (not to say anything of the smattering of other languages I've heard spoken by other tourists or locals--I think I've heard just about every language by now, but most common are Chinese and Arabic)
-used two different currencies (the pound and the euro). I'm finally starting to figure out the euro coins, which of course means that I'll be switching currencies in two days.
-number of cathedrals/basilicas/churches seen: 18 (two in London, one in Winkel, two in Salzburg, two in Berlin, two in Paris, two in Rouen, one in Chartres, one in Voiron, two in Lyon, and three in Barcelona). I'm probably forgetting a few. I've seen a lot of cathedrals. Points to Westminster Abbey in London for being the most historically interesting, points to Salzburger Dom for having the most intricate interiors, points to the Rouen cathedral for the best facade, and points to the Sagrada Familia for being the first time just looking at something pretty has made me cry.
-number of museums seen: 10 (the British Museum and the Tate Modern in London, the Austrian military history museum in Salzburg, the Topographie des Terrors in Berlin, the Louvre in Paris, the Joan of Arc museum in Rouen, the movie props and miniatures museum and the museum of fine arts in Lyon, and the Museum of Barcelona History and the Maritime Museum in Barcelona). The Louvre wins all of these contests in a walk.
-Favorite city thus far: easily Barcelona. Far and away Barcelona. I decided Barcelona was my favorite city about two hours after getting here, and nothing I've seen in the past 4 days has changed my mind.
-favorite moments: walking along the Thames as the sun went down in London, spending 8 hours strolling the Louvre, happening on Roman ruins in Lyon and getting them all to myself, and seeing the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona
-best meal: Again, Barcelona (sorry Elise)--I have a bunch of options here, but I think I've got to go with the tapas we got the first night I was here--a huge variety of food, the names of which I've generally forgotten, but the octopus was a standout.
So that's that--tomorrow I leave for Morocco, which means that by Wednesday I will have left the relative familiarity of Western Europe in favor of something new. And I can't wait. ...but I should probably figure out how to say "please help me, I have no idea what's going on" in Moroccan Arabic.
This is a doubly good time to take a step back, in that it's something of the end of a chapter in this trip. Until now, I've spent all of my time in Western Europe in countries in which I have at least some passing familiarity with the language. And while the UK, Germany, Austria, France, and Spain are all wonderful in their own individual ways, their worlds are not so far removed from the reality I normally inhabit, nor are they worlds that I'm incapable of navigating. This changes tomorrow as I set off on a two-day trip that ends with me standing, befuddled, on a train platform in Rabat, Morocco. Morocco is the first country I'll be in in which A) I don't at least somewhat speak the main language, B) is the first country I'll be in which doesn't use an alphabet I can read, and C) is the first country I'll be in whose culture completely diverges both from the one in which I was raised and the ones I've been touring up until now.
So it'll be an adventure. Until then, here are some brief impressions on what I've seen thus far.
-One thing that I absolutely can't capture in pictures is that each city speaks its own language--not just the people, but the buildings and the architecture. Everywhere I go is different in some subtle, ineffable way that doesn't show up in pictures, but is nevertheless present. It's the way that London is like a brownstone neighborhood of New York City if it had been sent back a few centuries in a time machine and then never washed again. Salzburg is the inside of an easter basket--all pastels and presents and chocolates, but then you look in a shop window and the Easter Bunny turns around and kicks you in the stomach. If the girl who was always at Hot Topic was given an unlimited supply of concrete and a children's primer on urban decay, Berlin is the city she'd have created--a defiantly ugly sprawling vivacious mess. Paris is like walking inside a miniature model of a city. And Barcelona is the sound a dress makes as it floats on the air, permanently outside of time. And this is to say nothing of the little towns I've been to, Fuessen (what the inside of Walt Disney's head probably looked like) or Rouen (if the Halloween and Valentine's Day sections of your local grocery store had a baby) or Lyon (a world in sepia). Pictures don't cut it, and I'm not sure words do either, but it's a heck of a thing to stand in it.
-Translators have one of the world's most important jobs. I eating dinner with a friend, her sister, and said sister's boyfriend, and we all did our best to communicate, but one thing led to another and the three of us ended up looking to my friend--the only one at the table who spoke both English and French very well. And without her, we couldn't have communicated the way we did--we'd have stumbled along, and stared manically into each other's faces, but it wouldn't have come to as much. Translating is an act of construction, and it's a vital one.
-that being said--good grief has everyone been patient with my language skills. No one tried to speak English with me in Germany, and they were just as patient in France; the only time someone switched to English (in a conversation that started in French) was after I said "I'm so sorry, my French is terrible." Even my atrocious high school Spanish has managed here and there. So people *are* willing to do their best to communicate if you can meet them somewhere along the way.
-it's too early to be sick of hostels, but hey, here we are. Hostels are fine, but I am so happy when I stay with a friend and I don't have to do everything in the dark, surrounded by nine strangers.
-speaking of friends: I probably need to come up with two different categories--'favorite city visited alone' and 'favorite city with a guide. I can get plenty out of a city on my own, but it pales in comparison to what I get to see and do with someone who knows their way around. SO massive, massive thanks to all the people strewn across Western Europe who've helped me along thus far.
A few stats:
I have visited:
-6 countries (UK, Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Spain)
-heard 7 languages commonly used (Icelandic [during my layover in Reykjavik], English, Flemish, German, French, Spanish, and Catalan) (not to say anything of the smattering of other languages I've heard spoken by other tourists or locals--I think I've heard just about every language by now, but most common are Chinese and Arabic)
-used two different currencies (the pound and the euro). I'm finally starting to figure out the euro coins, which of course means that I'll be switching currencies in two days.
-number of cathedrals/basilicas/churches seen: 18 (two in London, one in Winkel, two in Salzburg, two in Berlin, two in Paris, two in Rouen, one in Chartres, one in Voiron, two in Lyon, and three in Barcelona). I'm probably forgetting a few. I've seen a lot of cathedrals. Points to Westminster Abbey in London for being the most historically interesting, points to Salzburger Dom for having the most intricate interiors, points to the Rouen cathedral for the best facade, and points to the Sagrada Familia for being the first time just looking at something pretty has made me cry.
-number of museums seen: 10 (the British Museum and the Tate Modern in London, the Austrian military history museum in Salzburg, the Topographie des Terrors in Berlin, the Louvre in Paris, the Joan of Arc museum in Rouen, the movie props and miniatures museum and the museum of fine arts in Lyon, and the Museum of Barcelona History and the Maritime Museum in Barcelona). The Louvre wins all of these contests in a walk.
-Favorite city thus far: easily Barcelona. Far and away Barcelona. I decided Barcelona was my favorite city about two hours after getting here, and nothing I've seen in the past 4 days has changed my mind.
-favorite moments: walking along the Thames as the sun went down in London, spending 8 hours strolling the Louvre, happening on Roman ruins in Lyon and getting them all to myself, and seeing the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona
-best meal: Again, Barcelona (sorry Elise)--I have a bunch of options here, but I think I've got to go with the tapas we got the first night I was here--a huge variety of food, the names of which I've generally forgotten, but the octopus was a standout.
So that's that--tomorrow I leave for Morocco, which means that by Wednesday I will have left the relative familiarity of Western Europe in favor of something new. And I can't wait. ...but I should probably figure out how to say "please help me, I have no idea what's going on" in Moroccan Arabic.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
On Little Things and Books
Here's the thing about culture shock thus far--and I admit that it my be different for me, in that A) thus far I've been (relatively) fluent in the language of every country in which I've spent time and B) I'm picking up and moving every few days like a particularly capricious and whimsical tornado tromping its way through a trailer park: it's not necessarily what I expected. Speaking a different language? Not a problem (although the day where I traveled from London to Mainz with a stopover in Belgium and got 4 different languages in one day was more than a little exhausting and made my brain feel like lukewarm spaghetti). Different cultures? Groovy! What a great chance to learn! Restaurants that do things in a slightly different order than what I want? Kill me now.
It's the little things that are exhausting--the minutiae that govern every day, the rules you don't think about that are subtly, almost imperceptibly different that trip you up and make you feel like a crazy person. So, just for fun, here are a few of the little things that are perplexing in their differences because seriously why would these be different anywhere it's so eeeeaaaasssssyyy *screaming noises*:
-I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: neither bathrooms nor water are for free I can't get over this, and refuse to on general principle. And so I spend every day a dehydrated mess with a bladder teetering on the edge of a catastrophic, Old-Faithful-esque explosion.
-There's no standardization in restaurant protocol--when to sit down, when to pay, how to pay, where to pay. This doesn't seem to bug anyone else, but every time I eat out it's an exercise in floaty-dancing.
-Americans are spoiled rotten with street signs, in that we actually have them. Stop taking this for granted. Alternately, apparently Europeans have the kind of honed and preternatural senses of direction about which we can only dream.
-Rules of the road (or lack thereof): I have yet to fully understand traffic laws anywhere I go, and am convinced that it will be this lack of understanding, and not a pack of wild Russian dogs or an exotic illness or anything like that which will be the death of me out here. In London no one pays attention to the walk/don't walk signs except when they do, and every time I thought I figured out the pattern I'd casually almost get run over by a Vespa. In Germany people obey the walk/don't walk signs with wild-eyed dedication except when they don't and I could never quite get the rhythm down for that either. Point is, if you go overseas you'll probably get run over. Act accordingly.
-Cussing is taboo in the US, but just a fact of life here--just today I've seen at least two different billboards/ads that would make a Sunday school teacher scarping off into the hills.
-On that note--tragically, I never got a picture of the Dildo King billboards in Berlin, but they were everywhere. This is a city that is incredibly passionate about selling dildos (dildoes? What's the grammatically correct way to pluralize dildo? Dildae? Dils-do?).
-personal space. Again, Americans are spoiled rotten, in that over here it's *not* generally assumed that everyone will stay at least an armslength away. If you get a foot then today is a good day for you.
-Post offices--German bureaucracy is maddening and confusing, but German postal workers (at least from my limited sample of one office in Prenzlauer Berg) are delightful human beings. It may have taken me 40 minutes, but I got my package sent and the woman who helped me didn't even make e feel like an idiot while doing it.
I'm sure there are other examples--and they'll bug me the second I step out the door--but the point is this: it's not the big cultural differences that make you do a double take; it's the everyday occurrences that you suddenly can't negotiate, and everyone around you can't comprehend why you don't know what's going on because who doesn't know that? It's wacky?
Parting note: I've decided during my trip to try and only read books that take place in or capture the spirit of the countries I'm visiting. I cheated a bit at the beginning and read At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill, which is very much about Dublin, but is also very much about Ireland's relationship with the UK, so I allowed it. Why I decided to start with a 600 page historical epic is anyone's guess, but it meant I had to skip my Germany book. But now I'm in France--I read Perfume: Story of a Murderer on the train here, and, in a fit of woeful optimism, will start A Tale of Two Cities tonight. If I somehow plow through that, I've got The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer to tide me over (or, if it comes to it, to work as my Hungary book). And once I hit Italy am morally and legally obligated to read Andre Aciman's Call me by Your Name, which is arguably my favorite book and takes place in Italy. What I want/need, however, are suggestions for all the other countries. So, if you have a favorite book that takes places in or evokes (deep breath) Spain, Morocco, the Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Mongolia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Thailand, please do let me know! Save me time googling so I can spend more time doing what I really love--getting lost on European trains and then pretending I know exactly where I'm going.
It's the little things that are exhausting--the minutiae that govern every day, the rules you don't think about that are subtly, almost imperceptibly different that trip you up and make you feel like a crazy person. So, just for fun, here are a few of the little things that are perplexing in their differences because seriously why would these be different anywhere it's so eeeeaaaasssssyyy *screaming noises*:
-I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: neither bathrooms nor water are for free I can't get over this, and refuse to on general principle. And so I spend every day a dehydrated mess with a bladder teetering on the edge of a catastrophic, Old-Faithful-esque explosion.
-There's no standardization in restaurant protocol--when to sit down, when to pay, how to pay, where to pay. This doesn't seem to bug anyone else, but every time I eat out it's an exercise in floaty-dancing.
-Americans are spoiled rotten with street signs, in that we actually have them. Stop taking this for granted. Alternately, apparently Europeans have the kind of honed and preternatural senses of direction about which we can only dream.
-Rules of the road (or lack thereof): I have yet to fully understand traffic laws anywhere I go, and am convinced that it will be this lack of understanding, and not a pack of wild Russian dogs or an exotic illness or anything like that which will be the death of me out here. In London no one pays attention to the walk/don't walk signs except when they do, and every time I thought I figured out the pattern I'd casually almost get run over by a Vespa. In Germany people obey the walk/don't walk signs with wild-eyed dedication except when they don't and I could never quite get the rhythm down for that either. Point is, if you go overseas you'll probably get run over. Act accordingly.
-Cussing is taboo in the US, but just a fact of life here--just today I've seen at least two different billboards/ads that would make a Sunday school teacher scarping off into the hills.
-On that note--tragically, I never got a picture of the Dildo King billboards in Berlin, but they were everywhere. This is a city that is incredibly passionate about selling dildos (dildoes? What's the grammatically correct way to pluralize dildo? Dildae? Dils-do?).
-personal space. Again, Americans are spoiled rotten, in that over here it's *not* generally assumed that everyone will stay at least an armslength away. If you get a foot then today is a good day for you.
-Post offices--German bureaucracy is maddening and confusing, but German postal workers (at least from my limited sample of one office in Prenzlauer Berg) are delightful human beings. It may have taken me 40 minutes, but I got my package sent and the woman who helped me didn't even make e feel like an idiot while doing it.
I'm sure there are other examples--and they'll bug me the second I step out the door--but the point is this: it's not the big cultural differences that make you do a double take; it's the everyday occurrences that you suddenly can't negotiate, and everyone around you can't comprehend why you don't know what's going on because who doesn't know that? It's wacky?
Parting note: I've decided during my trip to try and only read books that take place in or capture the spirit of the countries I'm visiting. I cheated a bit at the beginning and read At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill, which is very much about Dublin, but is also very much about Ireland's relationship with the UK, so I allowed it. Why I decided to start with a 600 page historical epic is anyone's guess, but it meant I had to skip my Germany book. But now I'm in France--I read Perfume: Story of a Murderer on the train here, and, in a fit of woeful optimism, will start A Tale of Two Cities tonight. If I somehow plow through that, I've got The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer to tide me over (or, if it comes to it, to work as my Hungary book). And once I hit Italy am morally and legally obligated to read Andre Aciman's Call me by Your Name, which is arguably my favorite book and takes place in Italy. What I want/need, however, are suggestions for all the other countries. So, if you have a favorite book that takes places in or evokes (deep breath) Spain, Morocco, the Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Mongolia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Thailand, please do let me know! Save me time googling so I can spend more time doing what I really love--getting lost on European trains and then pretending I know exactly where I'm going.
Saturday, January 21, 2017
And Now, an Illustrative Parable about Trains
Apparently, trains are harder than I thought.
And I'm not just talking about the security checks on iternational trains (which, I know I should have been surprised that they happen, but you try figuring out security when you're not expecting it, you don't know the rules, and it's happening in French), I'm talking about the deceptively straightfoward process of getting on and off trains.
Problem the first: The doors on German trains do not always open. There's a little button to push if, for whatever reason, you want to escape die deutsche Bahn. This is a helpful little tidbit to file away if ever you find yourself mournfully watching your stop drifting away from you as the doors remain resolutely, malevolently closed.
Problem the second: not all train stations are created equal. So if you're expecting a platform or a building, and all you're greeted with is the side of the road, don't run up and down the train in a panic looking for the station until your stop slowly drifts away from you and the doors remain resolutely, malevolently closed.
The obvious subtext here--I missed my stop. For many reasons (at least two!) The good news: I'm perfecting the art of getting lost in Europe--I managed to get off at the next stop (I picked someone who looked like they were getting out and I followed them and did exactly what they did. They probably thought I was stalking them by the end), and then decided to walk back to my original destination (only a few KM). So I missed my stop, but I got to stroll along the Rhine for an hour, which was lovely.
But this isn't the end of the story.
Problem the third: many of the train stations I'm encountering don't have people who sell tickets; just kiosks. It's 2017. I get this. I can use a kiosk like a grown up and smile while doing it.
Problem the fourth (or maybe Problem the third, subparagraph 1): these delightful machines do not take 20 Euro bills. Nor do they take cards. Would anyone like to guess what I had in my wallet while trying to buy a return ticket?
Problem the fifth: not necessarily a train-related problem. Oestrich-Winkel, the lovely, picturesque village I was visiting, is profoundly uninterested in selling anything other than wine. So if, hypothetically, one wants to buy something quickly to get smaller bills and doesn't want to buy 40 euros worth of authentic Rhine valley wine, one may or may not be hypothetically out of luck.
Obvious subtext #2: after hours of walking and touring in the cold--a really wonderful experience--I was looking forward to getting on the train (yay heaters! yay sitting!), only to be confronted with a horrible Catch-22: in order to get on the train, I needed smaller bills, and in order to get smaller bills, I kind of needed to get on the train.
In all of my time in Oestrich-Winkel (roughly 5 hours), I encountered exactly one business that was open and selling things that wouldn't break my bank: a bakery.
This bakery had no menu. No signs on its products. Just various pastries and one very taciturn baker.
My German isn't bad--in fact, it's rather good. I've had no trouble communicating, negotiating, etc. But I've apparently drawn the line at learning words for pastries, the names of which I wouldn't know in English either.
Here follows a transcript of my transaction:
Me: I would like... ...one of those things.
Baker: ...you mean the (insert unintelligble German here. It had something to do with nuts.)
Me: ....yes. Exactly.
Baker: (glares)
The good news, part 2: whatever I bought was delicious.
The part that proves I'm an idiot, part 1: I remembered on my way back to the station, having missed a few trains during my bakery quest, that you can buy tickets on the traIn, and can use a card.
The part that proves I'm an idiot, part 2: there was a man behind an info desk not 10 feet from the kiosk in the station the whole time. I hope he enjoyed watching my panic enfold in real time.
The moral: trains are hard.
And I'm not just talking about the security checks on iternational trains (which, I know I should have been surprised that they happen, but you try figuring out security when you're not expecting it, you don't know the rules, and it's happening in French), I'm talking about the deceptively straightfoward process of getting on and off trains.
Problem the first: The doors on German trains do not always open. There's a little button to push if, for whatever reason, you want to escape die deutsche Bahn. This is a helpful little tidbit to file away if ever you find yourself mournfully watching your stop drifting away from you as the doors remain resolutely, malevolently closed.
Problem the second: not all train stations are created equal. So if you're expecting a platform or a building, and all you're greeted with is the side of the road, don't run up and down the train in a panic looking for the station until your stop slowly drifts away from you and the doors remain resolutely, malevolently closed.
The obvious subtext here--I missed my stop. For many reasons (at least two!) The good news: I'm perfecting the art of getting lost in Europe--I managed to get off at the next stop (I picked someone who looked like they were getting out and I followed them and did exactly what they did. They probably thought I was stalking them by the end), and then decided to walk back to my original destination (only a few KM). So I missed my stop, but I got to stroll along the Rhine for an hour, which was lovely.
But this isn't the end of the story.
Problem the third: many of the train stations I'm encountering don't have people who sell tickets; just kiosks. It's 2017. I get this. I can use a kiosk like a grown up and smile while doing it.
Problem the fourth (or maybe Problem the third, subparagraph 1): these delightful machines do not take 20 Euro bills. Nor do they take cards. Would anyone like to guess what I had in my wallet while trying to buy a return ticket?
Problem the fifth: not necessarily a train-related problem. Oestrich-Winkel, the lovely, picturesque village I was visiting, is profoundly uninterested in selling anything other than wine. So if, hypothetically, one wants to buy something quickly to get smaller bills and doesn't want to buy 40 euros worth of authentic Rhine valley wine, one may or may not be hypothetically out of luck.
Obvious subtext #2: after hours of walking and touring in the cold--a really wonderful experience--I was looking forward to getting on the train (yay heaters! yay sitting!), only to be confronted with a horrible Catch-22: in order to get on the train, I needed smaller bills, and in order to get smaller bills, I kind of needed to get on the train.
In all of my time in Oestrich-Winkel (roughly 5 hours), I encountered exactly one business that was open and selling things that wouldn't break my bank: a bakery.
This bakery had no menu. No signs on its products. Just various pastries and one very taciturn baker.
My German isn't bad--in fact, it's rather good. I've had no trouble communicating, negotiating, etc. But I've apparently drawn the line at learning words for pastries, the names of which I wouldn't know in English either.
Here follows a transcript of my transaction:
Me: I would like... ...one of those things.
Baker: ...you mean the (insert unintelligble German here. It had something to do with nuts.)
Me: ....yes. Exactly.
Baker: (glares)
The good news, part 2: whatever I bought was delicious.
The part that proves I'm an idiot, part 1: I remembered on my way back to the station, having missed a few trains during my bakery quest, that you can buy tickets on the traIn, and can use a card.
The part that proves I'm an idiot, part 2: there was a man behind an info desk not 10 feet from the kiosk in the station the whole time. I hope he enjoyed watching my panic enfold in real time.
The moral: trains are hard.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Some (not so brief) thoughts on London
Quite by accident, London is kind of the perfect opening destination for my trip, in that it's giving me something of a framing device for everything I'm about to see. I was at the British Museum (or, as one of my professors described it, a monument to Imperialism, and she's certainly not wrong, but man am I glad I went), looking at various artifacts and curiosities from the world over, and I found myself wondering what the difference might be between how the UK was representing these countries and how they would represent themselves--and I get to spend the next 4 months figuring out exactly that. What a cool thing. I don't think it'll be controversial to call the UK's involvement with the rest of the world ... problematic (very generally said: Imperialism-generally not a super thing), but you can see the fingerprints of that history everywhere, as well as London's continually developing role as an international city: I've heard far more in the way of other languages spoken on the subway than I've heard English.
So what about London itself?
London is, for lack of a better word, fast.
Strike that--London is manic. It's agressive. A city perpetually stuck in a state of giddy breathlessness. I tend to walk fast--I get my blinders on, smell the blood in the proverbial water, and go for my goal it's the only one left on the shelf--but I'm finding myself constantly in the slow lane here. And it's kind of fantastic.
London is overwhelming, in every sense of the word, but positively so. I can't help but thinking of a pair of quotes while I'm here: Samuel L. Johnson's (relatively) famous "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life"--I get the sentiment, and there's certainly enough to keep anyone occupied for ten lifetimes, but perhaps a more accurate sentiment might have been "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of literally everyone on the street treating every waking moment like it's the Indy 500 and just wants to sit down"--as well as the openings of Mrs. Dalloway, in which we all get to fall in love life, London, this moment in June. There's a reason London is a city consistently romanticized and lionized in pop culture--it's a city that begs for romance and oozes it from every pore. And I find myself totally woozy and intoxicated and smitten by the whole things--I've got stars in my eyes and they look like Big Bens and Millenium Bridges.
Also, fun fact--there's a reason that Virginia Woolf quote doesn't read 'life, London, this moment in January'--because it's cold. Listen, I'm from Leadville: in the 10 days before I left, it snowed over four feeet. It got under -10 most nights, and didn't get much above 0 during the days. I figured I'd be coming to Europe to escape winter. I took a rainjacket and I lauged in the face of piddly little London winter.
I know now that I'm wrong.
There are two types of cold: the Leadville cold, the quick and merciless cold, the kind of cold that freezes your hands to metal and can turn snow into ice in a hot second, the cold that takes your skin and laughs while doing that. And then there's the London cold--a damp, creeping thing that crawls under your skin and dies there. These two colds were not created equal. Now I'm wearing underarmor and two different sweaters and I still wish someone would light me on fire. Here's hoping as I move south there's less fog and more blizzards. Because I can handle blizzards--but give me this London stuff and I'm lost.
Finally: one random thought, one random act of kindness, and one thing I learned--because all three of these categories are important, and I want to end all of these blogs on a positive note.
Random thought: Language is a currency. And like any currency, some travel farther than others. Let's all take a moment how unbelievably privileged we are that we can speak our native language in most corners of the world and have at least some (justified) expectation of being understood. My hostel roommates have been from Poland, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia, and not yet has any one even considered the possibility of speaking a language other than English. And the fact that I get to use my native language is great--but how great (and important) is it/would it be if these people could use theirs as readily as I do mine? In case you need another reason why teaching/learning foreign languages is important, than here you are: make someone else's currency travel a bit more.
Random act of kindness: I know they're literally getting paid to be nice to me, but good grief are the people paid to help you in London wonderful. I was struggling to buy a train ticket on the kiosk-y thing, and a woman came up to me, did the whole process for me, showed me how to do it for next time, and made jokes the whole way through. If this had been in New York, chances are someone would have straight broken my legs had I asked for help.
One thing I learned: free water is apparently a profoundly American concept. In my infinite optimism, I just brought an empty water bottle and assumed I'd fill up as I go. I've seen approximately 2 drinking fountains since I've gotten here, and both were clearly designed for children (adults, I assumed, having long since given up the habit of drinking water). So I'm spending most of my days casually being on the verge of death by dehydration.
Long story short: London is groovy. Go see London. I'm a bit bummed to be moving on already--a small part of me already wonders if the trip has peaked as it began (I'm not so far into the trip that I'm used to the act of traveling yet, so every time I turn a street corner it feels like Christmas: 'where am I? Wow! Old buildings! Accents! Red buses! Oh happy day!"), and that everything I'll see from here might pale just a bit in comparison, but what a silly thought--I don't have to worry about comparisons because there won't be any--what's the point of comparing London with the national parks in Vietnam I hope to visit in a few months? DIfferent worlds--and as lovely as this one has been, I'm sure I'll find other lovely ones along the way.
Also, quick note about pictures: You may have noticed that this post is conspicuously lacking in pictures. Reason for that is all my pictures are on my phone, and I'm writing this on a different device, and have yet to figure out a way to quickly and/or conventiently get them over here or share them to this blog. So if you're friends with me on Facebook or are following me on Instagram (jkuster191), you're getting the full, uninturrupted stream, but if this your only resource, I'll have to work a bit to get those pictures here.
So what about London itself?
London is, for lack of a better word, fast.
Strike that--London is manic. It's agressive. A city perpetually stuck in a state of giddy breathlessness. I tend to walk fast--I get my blinders on, smell the blood in the proverbial water, and go for my goal it's the only one left on the shelf--but I'm finding myself constantly in the slow lane here. And it's kind of fantastic.
London is overwhelming, in every sense of the word, but positively so. I can't help but thinking of a pair of quotes while I'm here: Samuel L. Johnson's (relatively) famous "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life"--I get the sentiment, and there's certainly enough to keep anyone occupied for ten lifetimes, but perhaps a more accurate sentiment might have been "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of literally everyone on the street treating every waking moment like it's the Indy 500 and just wants to sit down"--as well as the openings of Mrs. Dalloway, in which we all get to fall in love life, London, this moment in June. There's a reason London is a city consistently romanticized and lionized in pop culture--it's a city that begs for romance and oozes it from every pore. And I find myself totally woozy and intoxicated and smitten by the whole things--I've got stars in my eyes and they look like Big Bens and Millenium Bridges.
Also, fun fact--there's a reason that Virginia Woolf quote doesn't read 'life, London, this moment in January'--because it's cold. Listen, I'm from Leadville: in the 10 days before I left, it snowed over four feeet. It got under -10 most nights, and didn't get much above 0 during the days. I figured I'd be coming to Europe to escape winter. I took a rainjacket and I lauged in the face of piddly little London winter.
I know now that I'm wrong.
There are two types of cold: the Leadville cold, the quick and merciless cold, the kind of cold that freezes your hands to metal and can turn snow into ice in a hot second, the cold that takes your skin and laughs while doing that. And then there's the London cold--a damp, creeping thing that crawls under your skin and dies there. These two colds were not created equal. Now I'm wearing underarmor and two different sweaters and I still wish someone would light me on fire. Here's hoping as I move south there's less fog and more blizzards. Because I can handle blizzards--but give me this London stuff and I'm lost.
Finally: one random thought, one random act of kindness, and one thing I learned--because all three of these categories are important, and I want to end all of these blogs on a positive note.
Random thought: Language is a currency. And like any currency, some travel farther than others. Let's all take a moment how unbelievably privileged we are that we can speak our native language in most corners of the world and have at least some (justified) expectation of being understood. My hostel roommates have been from Poland, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia, and not yet has any one even considered the possibility of speaking a language other than English. And the fact that I get to use my native language is great--but how great (and important) is it/would it be if these people could use theirs as readily as I do mine? In case you need another reason why teaching/learning foreign languages is important, than here you are: make someone else's currency travel a bit more.
Random act of kindness: I know they're literally getting paid to be nice to me, but good grief are the people paid to help you in London wonderful. I was struggling to buy a train ticket on the kiosk-y thing, and a woman came up to me, did the whole process for me, showed me how to do it for next time, and made jokes the whole way through. If this had been in New York, chances are someone would have straight broken my legs had I asked for help.
One thing I learned: free water is apparently a profoundly American concept. In my infinite optimism, I just brought an empty water bottle and assumed I'd fill up as I go. I've seen approximately 2 drinking fountains since I've gotten here, and both were clearly designed for children (adults, I assumed, having long since given up the habit of drinking water). So I'm spending most of my days casually being on the verge of death by dehydration.
Long story short: London is groovy. Go see London. I'm a bit bummed to be moving on already--a small part of me already wonders if the trip has peaked as it began (I'm not so far into the trip that I'm used to the act of traveling yet, so every time I turn a street corner it feels like Christmas: 'where am I? Wow! Old buildings! Accents! Red buses! Oh happy day!"), and that everything I'll see from here might pale just a bit in comparison, but what a silly thought--I don't have to worry about comparisons because there won't be any--what's the point of comparing London with the national parks in Vietnam I hope to visit in a few months? DIfferent worlds--and as lovely as this one has been, I'm sure I'll find other lovely ones along the way.
Also, quick note about pictures: You may have noticed that this post is conspicuously lacking in pictures. Reason for that is all my pictures are on my phone, and I'm writing this on a different device, and have yet to figure out a way to quickly and/or conventiently get them over here or share them to this blog. So if you're friends with me on Facebook or are following me on Instagram (jkuster191), you're getting the full, uninturrupted stream, but if this your only resource, I'll have to work a bit to get those pictures here.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Day 1: Sometimes a Great Notion...
Hello all!
I'm going to need to come up with a different kind of greeting. I'm sitting in the airport with another hour to burn before I get on the plane, so I thought I'd try my hand at this whole travel blogging thing. I have to admit--I've never wrote about myself in a public context, and as of now it feels at best bizarre and at worst profoundly egotistic. But here we are. I'll do my best to be pithy, entertaining, and interesting, but I'm not sure I'll be able to promise any more than whatever strange, travel-addled thought is crawling its way through my brain at any given moment. So this could be an adventure.
To that end, I've been thinking about how to approach the next four months--it's such an alien experience to me that I'm lacking any kind of frame of reference or structure with which I can try to figure out my behavior--so maybe I'll end up living under a bridge in Prague for four months. Or maybe I'll add 30 more countries to my roster and see if I can break the record for most consecutive poor decisions in 50 countries straight. Who knows?
But in hopes of getting a little bit of clarity for the next months, I've decided to come up with a list of rules (guidelines?) (suggestions?) for what to do while I'm getting lost across the world.
1. And this is the most important one, the one designed to keep me a little bit sane--I am not allowed to punish myself or feel bad for not seeing every corner of the world. Here's the thing with traveling--despite the fact that I'll be dancing around in exotic locales and drifting from port to port, I will still (tragically) be a human being, which means this will, in a sense, be like any other four-month period in my life. Some days I will be grumpy. Some days I will want nothing more than to close the door and get some sleep. And this is ok--forcing myself to enjoy every second or else is a great recipe to hating it all. So if I need a break, I'll take a break, and I'm not allowed to beat myself up about it.
2. Say yes--within reason. This is an obvious one. It's tough to have adventures if I turn down everything that comes down my way. So if someone asks if I want to go surfing, or if I want to go to a concert in some back-alley pub, and it doesn't seem like I'm going to wake up in a bathtub with my kidneys harvested, then I ought to do it.
3. Don't get my kidneys harvested. Also an obvious one. Don't be stupid--a breahtakingly unrealistic goal, I know, but it's important to have dreams.
4. Don't panic--I have my visas, and I have a bank account. Everything else is negotiable. I have one million and one plans right now--and just about all of them are bound to go wrong. And this is also ok. I'm going to make mistakes, miss things, change [plans on the spur of the moment, etc.--and these will be the best parts of the trip, probably. So I need to let go of my inner control freak and roll with it.
So that's that--not sure this is a particularly interesting inaugural post, but I imagine it's going to take me a bit to find my feet, blog-wise. Until then, you'll have to bear with me--I'll do my best to post pretty pictures and things in the meantime, in hopes of tiding you over until I figure out something interesting to say.
I'm going to need to come up with a different kind of greeting. I'm sitting in the airport with another hour to burn before I get on the plane, so I thought I'd try my hand at this whole travel blogging thing. I have to admit--I've never wrote about myself in a public context, and as of now it feels at best bizarre and at worst profoundly egotistic. But here we are. I'll do my best to be pithy, entertaining, and interesting, but I'm not sure I'll be able to promise any more than whatever strange, travel-addled thought is crawling its way through my brain at any given moment. So this could be an adventure.
To that end, I've been thinking about how to approach the next four months--it's such an alien experience to me that I'm lacking any kind of frame of reference or structure with which I can try to figure out my behavior--so maybe I'll end up living under a bridge in Prague for four months. Or maybe I'll add 30 more countries to my roster and see if I can break the record for most consecutive poor decisions in 50 countries straight. Who knows?
But in hopes of getting a little bit of clarity for the next months, I've decided to come up with a list of rules (guidelines?) (suggestions?) for what to do while I'm getting lost across the world.
1. And this is the most important one, the one designed to keep me a little bit sane--I am not allowed to punish myself or feel bad for not seeing every corner of the world. Here's the thing with traveling--despite the fact that I'll be dancing around in exotic locales and drifting from port to port, I will still (tragically) be a human being, which means this will, in a sense, be like any other four-month period in my life. Some days I will be grumpy. Some days I will want nothing more than to close the door and get some sleep. And this is ok--forcing myself to enjoy every second or else is a great recipe to hating it all. So if I need a break, I'll take a break, and I'm not allowed to beat myself up about it.
2. Say yes--within reason. This is an obvious one. It's tough to have adventures if I turn down everything that comes down my way. So if someone asks if I want to go surfing, or if I want to go to a concert in some back-alley pub, and it doesn't seem like I'm going to wake up in a bathtub with my kidneys harvested, then I ought to do it.
3. Don't get my kidneys harvested. Also an obvious one. Don't be stupid--a breahtakingly unrealistic goal, I know, but it's important to have dreams.
4. Don't panic--I have my visas, and I have a bank account. Everything else is negotiable. I have one million and one plans right now--and just about all of them are bound to go wrong. And this is also ok. I'm going to make mistakes, miss things, change [plans on the spur of the moment, etc.--and these will be the best parts of the trip, probably. So I need to let go of my inner control freak and roll with it.
So that's that--not sure this is a particularly interesting inaugural post, but I imagine it's going to take me a bit to find my feet, blog-wise. Until then, you'll have to bear with me--I'll do my best to post pretty pictures and things in the meantime, in hopes of tiding you over until I figure out something interesting to say.
Friday, August 5, 2016
4 Months, 3 Continents, and No Idea What I'm Doing
I have sometimes been known to make massive, impulsive decisions. On the surface, it may seem like I'm a bit of a fickle bitch who changes his life on a whim (and that's probably a totally fair accusation), but in retrospect, all of the monumental, life-altering things I've decided to do on a moment's notice were things that I had, in fact, thought about for ages--deciding to do them was more of a process of admitting to myself that I already knew what I was going to do.
So when, last September, one of my jumbled, half-realized shower thoughts was "hey, I wonder what it would be like to travel on the Trans-Siberian railroad?", I probably ought to have known what was coming--something large and perhaps very silly.
And this is how it started--I hopped out of the shower, searched 'Trans-Siberian Railroad' on google images, and got this:
So when, last September, one of my jumbled, half-realized shower thoughts was "hey, I wonder what it would be like to travel on the Trans-Siberian railroad?", I probably ought to have known what was coming--something large and perhaps very silly.
And this is how it started--I hopped out of the shower, searched 'Trans-Siberian Railroad' on google images, and got this:
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| Image: The Man in Seat 61 Check this site out if you want to lose literal hours from your day. |
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