Full Circle

I wrote the first post of this blog from the exact couch I am sitting on now. Despite what I may have thought four months ago, I guess things have come full circle.

I think everyone of us who went on study abroad programs expected some experience that would noticeably change our lives. The thing is that didn’t quite happen. It was a fantastic four months and I certainly feel like I can live anywhere after conquering London. But any change that this semester has had on my character is beyond me at the moment. I am sure it had an impact. It was just subtle. Subtly different like the difference between Brits and Americans.

The truth is, the more I traveled in Westernized countries the more I realized that things aren’t so different throughout the world. Big cities are all generally the same. They all have Starbucks and McDonalds. The only difference is that they have unique tourist destinations. (Paris has the Eiffel Tower, London has Big Ben, etc.)

Sure there are some cultural differences and, for example, people in Britain have habits that Americans would find strange. But ultimately those cultural differences aren’t what define us. Does the size of a standard beer really tell much about the individuals of a culture?

We are all people. As a kid that I met in a hostel in Madrid said: “You realize people are all generally friendly and generally nice.” (It’s true: In Vienna a random man helped Joe and I locate our hostel just because he knew we were lost).

Funnily enough, this sameness struck me while listening to conversations in foreign tongues. I used to tune out conversations in other languages thinking the people were speaking about something that had no relation to me. But then I heard a group of girls talking on the metro in Paris. I repeatedly heard the word Facebook. I guess there is no separate French translation for such new terminology. They were having a conversation about nothing all-too different from something I could hear in the States.

Language was supposed to be our biggest divide. But if even words can be broken down then maybe we are closer to a global community than ever before. I am probably just ignorant, but that idea never really struck me until this semester.

I started this whole thing by saying that I wanted to discover just how big the world is. Well I did discover that: in so many ways it is a small world.

Still, maybe that isn’t fair. After all, I only saw one separate continent. On top of that, I only explored the western side of it. I am sure if I went to Africa or somewhere else I would have discovered huge differences. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t have.

It will take some time before I really know how I grew as a person while living abroad. But in the meantime, as I sit in the house that I have spent my whole life growing up in, I realize how this whole experience has reaffirmed my faith in my country, my state, my city and my home. (I don’t mean that in any political or economic manner).

It’s just America has so much to offer. Our cities are just as magical, our countryside is just as beautiful. From a night train I watched the sun set over the French hills and realized I could witness a sight as equally amazing from the New York State Thruway. The more museums I visited, the more I realized how impressive the New York State museum really is.

I am not saying I didn’t appreciate these four months and the experiences they brought, because I did. But I am saying I never realized how much I was taking for granted the places I have already been.

As always:

Comments Welcome,

Andrew

Tough Travels

This post is coming from Florence and please dont mind any spelling or grammatical errors because these keyboards are a little bit funky.
The trip is about halfway through at this point and my favorite location so far I think is Madrid. We still have Venice, Vienna and Berlin to go.
Traveling has not been as seemless as it could have been. Joe and I have had at least one small difficulty in each location. In Lisbon it was the trains. We went to the train station at around 10 am looking to catch an overnight train 12 hours later that would put us in Madrid. The guy at the station told us the train was booked. We were stuck in a sense and spent an extra night at the Lisbon hostel, which fortunately was very nice. It meant less time in Madrid, however.
Madrid was fairly smoothe and we met some cool American guys in our hostel. We also met up with a kid named Carlos (who reminded me of Zafir for those who know him) that we had met in our Lisbon hostel. Such is the nature of travel. People generally have similar routes. The train from Madrid to Paris was ungodly expensive (70 euros).We were hoping everything would be around 25 considering our rail pass. The biggest problem with Madrid was that we wanted to go out on a pub crawl (a guided thing that shows you the good night life). But when we got to the meeting point it was just me, Joe and this little Australian woman who was the guide. She awkwardly showed us around but bailed after about 15 minutes.
Paris was a great city as to be expected. We walked to the Eifel Tower at night. That was our problem. We got a little off track. We could see the tower up above but could not see a path to get there. We eneded up in a back alley. Not a good idea. It was well guarded by a local gangish group -- who were quite ammusd when we hurridely walked away.
In Florence Joe lost his camera. Oh yea and in Paris I almost lost my wallet. I left it in this Chinese restaraunt that we stopped in for 15 minutes to grab a quick bite. It was a frantic 5 minutes when I thought it was gone.
Traveling sure aint easy. We will be lucky to get home alive at this point.
Photos to come obviously.
Comments Welcome,
Andrew