2. Departure-Arrival Story

It is interesting to note that seldom do we find ourselves truly alone. As I was departing from New York, I remember the constant anxiety of checking in with so many different members of my family along the way. It's like I wasn't even traveling alone, it's like I was taking a train for the first time and everyone I knew was checking in to make sure I was arriving at every destination safely. Safely. Parents always want to know if you're 'safe.' Like if shrapnel was being blown in every which direction and your angel-soft skin made it through unscathed, unharmed, graced by the luxury of cloth handkerchiefs and newly-washed button-down shirts. Safe.

It was really only when I got to Brussels that I was basically separated from the outside world. I dared not use my phone to contact anyone out of fear of the $1.00-a-minute/text price tag, so my contact with reality was limited to my immediate personal experience. As a result of being completely on my own, I spent nearly half an hour staring at an LED exchange-rate ticker trying to understand the jumble of abbreviations and numbers. "BUY FOR." "SELL FOR." Buy what for? The dollars or the euros? Who's doing the buying? Am I selling dollars? How much is a euro? Can I use my debit card? Why can't I use Google? Is the attendant out to lunch? Do they even take lunch? Where are my pants!?

Especially at this point in our lives when we're so young and virile, we are not alone. It seems to me like we have too many factors to baby us around: phone calls, texts, emails, websites, etc. They all provide a sort of safe-haven from being in a state of long-term desperation. We've been given the option to essentially tag-out of life, for a moment. By texting a friend or reading up on your friends' hourly updates, you remove yourself from the immediacy of the moment and instead find solace in the social sphere. An example:

You live in a dormatory, and right outside your room all your suitemates are sitting on couches and chairs, feet kicked up, sipping wine and talking about the irony between nature's beauty and it's violence, etc etc. You and your girlfriend are alone in your room, awkwardly in your own respective worlds doing homework or whatever people do to pass the time when they're not in love. And then she tells you that she wants to break up with you because you're lazy, pathetic, how your father was a dead-beat who didn't teach you proper morals, and how she feels used during sex because "we don't make love, you just fuck me." Wow. Deep stuff. Who wants to stay for that, right?

You have the option to walk out the door, at which point your existence (which until this point has consisted of only you and her) expands to include the dilettante youngins and all their high-falutin' wish-wash. By leaving your girlfriend in the dust, your problems and conflicts become absolved into the greater social ring. But if those people aren't outside your door, the option of running away from your problems and dissolving them is not such a viable choice in our psyche.

If you're playing a video game and there's a button on the controller right next to your thumb that resets the level immediately from the beginning, I guarantee you that people will be using that button much more than they would normally go to the start screen, exit the game, and start over manually.

By supplying ourselves with so many ways out, it seems like we're reducing our experience to a commodity, an item that is traded and dealt amongst travelers. You go to see the Florence duomo not to be stirred as Dante was, but just to see it because it's there. You go to Switzerland not to visit a beautiful and physically stunning part of our Earth, but just "to go to Switzerland because it's beautiful and we can do things like handglide." Handgliding should be a HUGE thing! People just throw it off so nonchalantly: "Yehiwenthandglidingonce. 'Was awesome." But….what was it LIKE? If Dante went handgliding, you bet there would be a whole new canto in Paradiso about that experience that would be marked down in the annals of history. Instead, we get, "Was awesome."
Great.

By consorting with friends and constantly relaying information to others, you dilute your experiences until they become meaningless: you watch Life is Beautiful and you start crying, but as soon as tears arrive you want everyone to see you being emotional because you love the attention, so you force more sadness. From that moment forth, whenever you want to cry from Life is Beautiful, a little part in your brain will remember the contrivance you put on for those others. You've ruined the moment that originally made you cry.

It is critical--not just important--to keep moments in your life for yourself. Keep things for your own growth.

Note how I did not say to yourself, but for yourself. It's always good to share relevant information...but only when it's relevant to your experience. Visit a museum and learn about a certain art piece inside and out, and then tell no one about it. Let it come out sometime in conversation. Let your knowledge come out of you, don't force it out. That way, when someone really meaningful comes along in your life and sincerely asks you "how was it," you can reply with an honest answer. "It was the most detailed sculpture I'd ever seen at the time--but that was before I was really intimate with Renaissance sculpture… Really makes you think about your own body, how you take care of it." And so on. Honest responses truly beat those like: "Oh my god, it was like I was in a jell-o factory."
Great.

It's been about three times now that my girlfriend and I have come across a student abroad that, when asked about their recent travels, immediately begin to vomit facts about exactly what happened, as if we're both standing there taking notes and sketching scenes like courtroom recorders. For some reason, people don't usually interpret or comprehend their own experiences when they force it out to others. They just try and recreate the picture for you: what they did and where they went and what they saw and what colors were there and what the weather was like and what guy passed out from drinking absinthe and this one girl that got roofied and that one friend that started crying before bunjee-jumping off a dam and the guy in the chicken suit with the straps and the bratwurst and the blah blah blah! Jesus Christ! Write a book, maybe some bored New York playwright will write another Euro-travel flick based on your blurged escapades. When I ask you how something was, I just want to know what you took away from it. Why are we so eager to just spew as much information as we can? Is it attention? Most likely. But because that's a cool topic to write about later, I'll save it to sap up another one of my assignments.

People shouldn't speak unless they need to, unless they want to convey something.

I bring the discussion back to the point with an apt metaphor: you have a hot dog that you would like to enjoy with mustard. But you only have a small dollop of mustard, and this foot-long frankfurter that you've got to get in ur stmch cz it looks rly gd. So in your attempts to sweeten every single bite, you end up spreading the mustard too thin. What are you left with? A hot dog with too-thinly-spread mustard. No good.

The moral? Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

My experience at the Brussels airport was dominated by my desire to reconvey information. I was primed to take in everything I saw so I could regurgitate it to my girlfriend once I was reunited with her. I remember feeling the constant anxiety of having to document my experiences for future reference. I was controlling my intake, which is essentially the opposite of what the luster of travel provides.

Travel is a indicator of how you are treating yourself. Are you controlling too many of your experiences? Are you lying to yourself about what you feel about a certain impression? Truly traveling, without the easy-exit button of texts and twits, gives you the chance to reset yourself at your core. That must be why people are only truly 'changed' after returning from a long trip abroad.

And just as a note, the image is of a woman using a blow-dryer to fire up the coals to roast keilbasa at an international festival. Just like using a microwave to incubate quail eggs: doesn't sound like it should work, but I'm sure someone's made it happen.

I was one of the first people to stumble off the bus the morning of our arrival. Still feeling the effects of being forced awake after dozing off for a good 30 minutes or so during the hour-plus bus ride, my legs felt like jello and my eyes had to adjust to the bright, glaring sun that shone over the residential buildings of the neighborhood we had just stopped in. Having no idea where we were or how far we had been driven, I looked around anxiously trying to figure out which was the building I would be residing in for the next 4 months.
 
The seemingly normal building had no tell-tale signs that it was an NYU dorm aside from a small, barely visible plaque placed next to the door declaring “New York University London” (I didn’t realize until weeks later that the name of the street was spelled wrong on the shiny sign, not just once but twice). There wasn’t the usual purple and white flag I had grown accustomed to back in New York that designated certain buildings in the skyline as NYU property. But there it was across the street, home sweet home, or as NYU likes to call it, Guilford House. Seeing our bus, some of the staff came out to greet us and provide us with some guidance regarding the check-in process and moving in.
 
As soon as my luggage was unloaded, I threw my duffel over my shoulder, lifted my wheeling suitcase to its upright position, and clutched my purse in my free hand as I made my way to the curb. I instinctively looked left first, only to remember the sides of the road are switched here in the United Kingdom; cars go from right to left on the side closest to you and the opposite way on the other side. British cars also feature steering wheels on the right side of the vehicle rather than the left as we are accustomed to back in the States. Everything about driving here is a little off to me, which is perfectly fine as I don’t plan on driving at any point during my stay. And thank goodness that each street corner is usually clearly marked with instructions about which way to look before crossing the street. These were just things I was going to have to get used to in the coming months.
 
After signing all the forms and completing the other required check-in formalities, I was finally admitted into my room. Holding my white key card up to the scanner, I saw the light change from red to green and I heard a click signaling my cue to turn the knob. Walking into the flat (I’m still tempted to say “apartment” on the occasion, but I always get chastised and yelled at for not sticking to the proper English lingo), I was greeted by the sight of appliances that felt familiar but foreign at the same time. In my head, I kept thinking, “This is a British stove. This is a British refrigerator. This is British sink. This is a British door.” Of course, none of it was actually different from what I had left; I had merely convinced myself that I needed to think of everything in a different light now that I was in a new place, new city, new country.
 
Entering my room for the first time and plopping my luggage on the ground, I dumped the contents of my duffel onto the bed and set about unpacking. I was determined to make this place feel as much like home as possible for fear the world outside of Guilford Street Residence was not as welcoming or receptive as the purple and beige walls of my room or the fluffy duvet spread out on my bed. I organized as many of my belongings as I could before heading out for a tour of the neighborhood. Shutting the door behind us, I told my roommates, “I can’t wait to come home tonight and finish settling in.” A tiny smile crept over my face to think I had just called this lovely, new place “home”.

"We carry our homes within us which enables us to fly." (John Cage)

Upon arriving in Paris, the landscape was surreally familiar. I was a vagabond, but such a feeling was not new—I had spent my summer shipping back and forth between Boston and New York. Yet something in Paris launched me out of such familiarity, despite my summer long (unintentional) preparation for such homelessness.

New York this summer meant a weekly trek, a weekly dream— where I’d sweat along with all it’s surfaces, gliding back and forth from Penn to Brooklyn with a found black leather bag strapped to my aching back. It meant trudging west on N6th through that thick hell beating sun to relieve myself of my bag at my practice space on Metropolitan, wondering who I was going to burden with my presence that night. Voluntary part time homelessness is how I spent my summer—therefore, being awkwardly displaced with a giant suitcase and backpack upon my arrival in yet another city didn’t feel too new or shocking. My mind just snapped back to its steady vagabond mode of trusting my directional instincts and putting one foot after another as if I had a place to be. No loss or confusion, no worries about what direction I was going—just wandering. Just wandering within a bizarre type of limbo. That limbo manifested itself after I departed Charles de Gaulle—and it was the same sort of limbo feeling I would get after stepping off a five-hour bus ride from Boston to New York.
    
Hurling into such a limbo became a common happenstance all summer—I’d spend five hours absorbed in my thoughts, staring at the vast sameness of Connecticut. Then all of the sudden we’d be driving down Amsterdam and I’d sort of feel as if I were waking up at dawn and I’d target my eyes through the thick Megabus windows, towards shirtless pedestrians to survey the amount of sweat on their foreheads and chest in order to gauge the outside temperature. Each store we passed became a different paralyzed cell in my brain. We’d stop at 28th & 7th, they’d let us off, and I’d step even further into a surreal daydream. I’d completely forget I had a body during the course of the bus ride, so I’d spend the next few blocks composing new impressions of myself from passing glimpses of reflections in distorted city windowpanes.  I came back to this dream every week all summer, my excuse was that I had band practice on Thursdays and Fridays, but I believe it was also some sort of other unnamable attraction.
    
Paris, however, is a bit more charming than Brooklyn, and I am here for more than band practice. The sights—oh the sights, how cliché—but the sights propel me out of that limbo, out of that stable vagabond mode. They make my heart race and tranquilize it at the same time. They are too much for my eyes, but I keep gaping; they do more for me than a shower and coffee ever will. But it’s not just what I see here, of course, it’s the harmony of what I see and my reaction to it, "With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions... the perception of beauty is a moral test.” A moral test, perhaps—or perhaps too, a reading of our optimism and wakefulness?
    
There are the historically loaded, shocking sights—le Sacre Coeur, le Bastille, Le Pont des Arts, la Tour Eiffel, Le Pont de Bir-Hakim—and then there are the simple street scenes that are just as shocking, but in perhaps a more subtle, intimate, changing way. Upon exiting the Voltaire stop after one of my first days of classes, and admittedly quite sleep deprived (not uncommon), I became a little lost on my way back to my new apartment. For a half hour I wandered around—snapping back into that limbo state, absorbing stranger’s glances and the energy from passing school children. After much floating, I finally stumbled upon my street with luck—Trousseau. I had never seen the simple intersection of Trousseau and Chardonne before. There’s a brightly colored café, and at an outside table, an isolated, haunting stranger was sitting, smoking, drinking espresso. Some sort of desperate hope seeped out of his movements, his broken eyes, his guitar, that lightly grasped cigarette—an empty, crusted espresso cup. I looked ownwards. That same beating sun I had felt crushed by all summer in Brooklyn was now energizing me. A pounding, oddly joyful headache blurred the shooting light. My shoes rooted like mushrooms through the concrete sidewalk, towards home. Out of the corner of my eye, foliage appeared—somehow I had never noticed the bright green garden on my street, diagonal to my building. My thoughts expanded away from my head and I stood in awe, gaping at the sign. I was suddenly transported back to the East Village in May—standing in La Plaza Cultural.
    
Exams over, new romance begun, a month ahead of me until my sublet was up—no responsibilities until June—I had stood in La Plaza Cultural with the same expanding sensation. Sipping iced coffee, noticing the sun, empty mind. The expanding feeling of possibility— a step above the average everyday mental condition—all fog had departed from my mind, and the plants were infinitely patterned.

After eons, two delicately aged women inside the Parisian community garden called out to me. “Montez – vous?” I racked my brain; I stepped out of my mesmerized state. “Ouais,” I began with my soft, accented French, timidly stepping inside, “Ça, c’est un jardin pour cette quatier? Ah, bon! Je viens à New York—oui, oui, il y en a beaucoup de jardins. Je aime cette jardin, c’est très charmant et rappelle moi de l'east village.” The shack in the corner of the garden held endless possibilities—filled with used garden tools and photos of past times and infinite particles of soil and decaying leaves and flowers and the carcasses of dried fruit. I delayed, waiting for the intensity of my previous state to return. It had completely faded. Upon exiting the garden, I recognized that my desire to return to that state would perhaps quickly be pushed to the back of my consciousness but would always linger. I knew I’d long for it again—not necessarily the same scene of stumbling upon the garden, just that mood: as if a screen had been lifted from my mind’s vision, a calm intensity. I strolled half a block towards my apartment feeling woozy from sleep deprivation and excess walking and my newfound solidarity with wide eyed school children—confident I’d experience similar instances in the next months as long as I continued to wander the Parisian streets dangerously, unknowingly, unpredictably, instinctually—and with absolute openness and lack of fear.

(photo taken by me)

“Prego, Prego, “ I hear as the woman standing opposite motions for me to proceed first, bearing my heavy bag. Prego? I thought this meant you’re welcome. Having no idea what to make of her words, I was thankful for the wispy hand motions to proceed by which they were accompanied. Regardless, as this stranger relived me of the weight of my bag I expressed my gratefulness in the form of a smile and a quick nod as I proceeded down the stairs into the warm sun enveloping the platform of Stazione Santa Maria Novella.
 
As Pico Iyer points out, it is the mystery and unknowingness created by traveling that allows us to revert back to our, “More child like self.” As I rolled by luggage down the platform I became grateful of my ability to recall this childhood instinct to invoke communication in its simplest form. My primal understanding of a couple Italian words (one of which had just thrown me for a loop) was not going to get me very far. I was now, “Concerned not with expressing myself, but simply making sense,” as I communicated with ticket office employees and cab drivers in order to complete my journey.
 
Without the ability to communicate and express ideas, I was left to admire. Surrounded by the station’s rush hour bustle, I was alone. In Italy, my language handicap can be my greatest blessing as I adventure. When communication is not an option, I am forced to consume myself with observation. Perhaps this childhood instinct to observe or, when need be, communicate in the most, “simple and polite,” ways is what lures me to solo travel. There are no distractions, freeing me to take everything in. I am sure it is this phenomenon, which Iyer aptly describes, that produced the constant beam on my face as I headed for campus my first day in Florence.

I have been in Ghana for one month already. The time has flown by; already a quarter of the semester gone. It’s hard to remember what was going through my mind a month ago before I arrived in Ghana, before I became accustomed to daily fruit juices and FanIce, open gutters lining every street, the smell of burning garbage, and friendly interactions with everyone I pass.

I’ve always been very focused on the present. My life before Ghana is almost insignificant, and I can’t even begin to think about the future. Right now is all I have. Perhaps this is one quality that contributes to my newly discovered adaptability skills. Some people on the program have been feeling homesick in the past few weeks. They’re showing all the signs of culture shock, but somehow it just hasn’t hit me yet. Maybe it never will. Sure, Ghana has thrown me many curveballs, but I seem to be able to dodge them pretty well; and even when they hit me, it just doesn’t hurt that bad.

For instance: This past weekend we participated in homestays. Everyone was put, either by themselves or with a friend, into a host family’s home for the weekend. My weekend was odd indeed, full of uncomfortable conversations about religion, marriage, and cultural differences between Ghana and the US. I loved it. That’s precisely why I was so shocked to find out that almost everyone else had a “terrible time” on their homestays. After talking to everybody about their weekends I heard a lot of patterns in their stories. “They kept asking me why I don’t believe in god.” “The host dad kept saying that he could set me up with his friend.” “They kept insisting that we should get married younger.” Instead of realizing that these kinds of questions are simply part of Ghanaian life, and that it is a wonderful opportunity to engage in meaningful discussion, many of the NYU students were simply offended, as if this isn’t part of the core reason we all came here – to discover new points of view.

Unless a situation is life or limb threatening, I believe it should only be viewed as a learning experience. Instead of appreciating the conversations they could have had, or learning what it feels like to live like a Ghanaian, without running water or a solid roof (another one of the many complaints that people had), my fellow students ran home to their comfortable American thought and shut everything else out. I was disappointed, to say the least. Of course I appreciate my creature comforts as well, but I can certainly live without them for one short weekend.

Although I don’t know if it has completely settled in yet that I am actually in Africa, the first time I had the slightest realization was about a week after I had physically arrived here in Ghana. For the entire first week, the whole NYU in Ghana group was carted around together, in a group of 43 students. Everything from bus tours of the city to eating lunch (trying to order and pay the bill in a Ghanaian restaurant as   a group of 43+ is not nearly as simple as it may sound) This drove me crazy for the duration of orientation. I was so happy when the weekend rolled around and every minute of my life would no longer be meticulously planned out on an itinerary.

I decided to begin my day of freedom by walking to Osu, the more metropolitan area of Accra. We had been there before as a group for dinner and various shopping excursions, and I thought I did a good job of mapping out the route from the house I’m staying in to the main drag.

Well, the fun thing I quickly discovered about Accra is that unlike New York, which is built on a grid system, most roads will never connect. I thought I could just walk in the general direction of Osu and figure it out from there. However, in order to get to one road, you often have to walk really far in the opposite direction before you can cross over to another. About 40 minutes and two obscure neighborhoods later, I arrived at my destination. But my journey had only just begun.

I had a mental list of all the places I needed to go, but they all seemed much more accessible through the bus window now. Simple tasks, like looking for the enormous phone store I had already been to with my peers seemed impossible amiss the sweltering heat and local street vendors calling “Obruni! Obruni!” (white person) and pushing their goods in my face. 

Pico Iyer, in his article, “Why we travel” notes a line in which Oliver Cromwell states, “A man never goes so far as when he doesn’t know where he is going”. In the literal sense, I physically walked much farther than I would have if I had actually known that I was only a 15-20 minute walk away from Osu. More deeply, this line spoke to my belief that I have become a far more tolerant person since my arrival in Ghana. Without even noticing, I began to go the extra mile (literally and metaphorically). Back in New York, I would have jumped on the train or in a taxi as soon as I discovered I was lost. Back in New York, I would have put my head down and walked right passed the vendors holding up their merchandise. But instead I stopped, as if their little string bracelets really intrigued me, maybe asked them how they made it, asked them about themselves and introduced myself to them. It was this shift that made it clear to me that my mind had finally caught up with the rest of me, and arrived in Ghana.

A mad rush was keeping me afloat in my last weeks before leaving for London. The feeling was that if I stopped moving, for even a minute, I wouldn’t be able to start again, so like Nemo sang to himself, I sang as if I were in an unknown dark place, “just keep swimming, just keep swimming”. I worked full time as a book rover at Bobst- A.K.A. doing manual labor for minimum wage. I babysat whenever the opportunity arose and got a visa very last minute. When I’d get home, I’d cook myself dinner and lunch for the next day, leaving no time to realize I was wearing myself so thin.

Just as one might suspect, the first thing that happened to me when I finally did breath, which wasn’t until I put my suitcases down in London, was to get sick with a nasty cold. I didn’t feel like I knew anyone well enough yet to ask for a favor like a vitamin c packet or a box of tissues. In the two weeks that have gone by since then, I think things have changed in an interesting way.

Today, for instance, I began to get cabin flew as I’d been in for more than twenty fours hours studying electron behavior, and instead of feeling bad for myself, I called my roommate, Casey. Lovely enough, she was out in an area of town I hadn’t had the chance to explore yet. I got to roam around with her, get a few errands done, have a 99 pence cup of coffee and see the British museum!

Casey told me how just before I called she’d been on the river, where a nice old man, say seventy or so, approached her. Albert, was his name, and he gave her a funny run. He said when he’d been younger he’d gotten mixed up with the wrong folk and got away with stealing three things from this store until he’d been caught. He felt bad to this day, Albert told my roommate. He never stole again, apparently because the last time he did, he could have been thrown in jail; he wasn’t because his pops was friends with the store keeper, which he hadn’t known, until then. At this point she paused the story to say, “I had no idea where he was going, before he said, everyone steals though. I’m stealing your time right now and I’m sorry”. I thought it was funny and Casey seemed to be moved.

I can busy if I want to, but the only thing I feel like I have to do is my work. I met an old man last night and he showed me his double decker party bus. I didn’t feel especially connected to him, but the bus was awesome! I’ve never seen anything like it.

Palermo (Viejo, Soho, & Hollywood), Recoleta, San Telmo, Las Canitas, Puerto Madero, La Boca, Barrio Norte, and Belgrano were just names in the Lonely Planet "Encounter" Guidebook three weeks ago. Now each has a distinct image and memory attached- La Boca for its villera houses made of cardboard and technicolor paint or San Telmo for its weekend bohemian outdoor antiques market, Recoleta where both NYU and I reside, and Palermo the barrio that has been converted into Buenos Aires's combination of the Meat Packing district and Lower East Side.
 
The guidebooks, blogs, travel writing, pamphlets, leaflets, and podcasts, of "what to do" while in Buenos Aires are driving me manic. I find myself obsessing over the different articles and recommendations  from fellow tourists and travelers alike- why I trust their judgment is unknown to me but I crave their baptism as much as any other scene hunting junkie. I need to do go there; I need to see that; there’s this going on there- things to see over here- and pretty soon I've wasted an hour not getting lost in the streets, but getting lost in recesses of the glossy pages.
 
I have found, however, that the best travel tips you can find are the ones that come by word of mouth. In the past three weeks I have become adept at overhearing conversations on the shit covered streets of Buenos Aires (I mean they are really covered with shit. Apparently, there is some unwritten/unspoken law that under no circumstances should owners pick up after their dogs).  For instance the first week here I overheard an Argentine couple talking about this theatre/ opera house turned book palace called The Ateneo on one of the main drags that run parallel through the city. The converted theatre, although not hidden by any means, would take a trained eye to spot it from the street. It was one of those treasures that you find abroad-  much like if you were to walk into a deserted, decrepid building only to find a massive party in the back with lights, live music, and people drunk off cheap booze. Except at the Ateneo, which has seen the likes of a younger, performing Carlos Gardel, I found books AND most importantly travel books.
 
I remember standing on the left side of the fresco covered dome ceiling, thinking of how proud Michelango would be, when I saw it……. My little black book…… Crisp pages filled with pictures of debaucherous bars and late night Argentine revelers with pink trimmed text boxex and a title to rival its aesthetic prowess “The Hedonist’s Guide to Buenos Aires”. I dropped all pretenses that day and swore to become a devouted hedonist, living on red wine, Argentine night-life, asado, amor, y los gauchos. 

I’ve recently gotten into the habit of referring to my existence outside of London as “real life.” As in, “ in real life I don’t go out on Tuesdays” or “ in real life I don’t eat fast food five times a week” or “ in real life I don’t smoke cigarettes every time I’m drinking.” For the last two weeks, my excuse for blatantly hedonistic behavior has been “I’m in London! This isn’t real life, its study abroad.”

Well, I’m going to be in London for the year. And unless I want to die of a heart attack, it’s high time I realize it. This trip, although as fun and exciting as I imagined it would be, is not an extended vacation.

As Iyer explains in “Why We Travel,” “travel spins us round in two ways at once: It shows us the sights and values and issues that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty. For in traveling to a truly foreign place, we inevitably travel to moods and states of mind and hidden inward passages that we'd otherwise seldom have cause to visit.” True enough, but apparently these “hidden inward passages” of mine are pretty self-destructive in the long term. I might be an enthusiastic traveler, but this doesn’t mean I can ignore my health and responsibilities for the sake of it.

Some changes are in order. First of all, I’m going food shopping as soon as possible. I need fruits, vegetables, and calcium to function properly, not to mention avoid scurvy. Hopefully this will also prevent me from grossly overspending at the rate I have been thus far, so I actually have the money to travel around Europe as much as I plan. Secondly, no more cigarettes. Ever. I drink way too much here for the “I only smoke when I’m drinking” philosophy to make any sense at all (if it ever did, which is definitely questionable.)

This isn’t to say that I expect my life here to be the same as it is in New York- I just need to keep in mind that I’m not only a traveler, I’m a human being that can’t survive on hard cider and fish n’ chips. “I’m in London!” will no doubt continue to justify decisions like approaching the cute guy at the bar or letting Pride and Prejudice wait to check out the Thames River Festival with my friends. But as much as I want to immerse myself in this experience, this isn’t some sort of parallel universe- it may be another continent, but it’s very much the real world.

I’m joking, of course. When I left, I knew that I would be thrown out of my comfort zone. That was definitely a big part of the draw. I am dealing with a new language that I didn’t and still don’t know (buongiorno?), and a different system of measurement (didn’t realize I would have to learn to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius just to heat up a slice of pizza), to begin with. There is also the vast and not-so-expected, and so far largely untapped, collection of cultural differences, from having to pay extra for ketchup at McDonalds (so says my roommate… so don’t judge me too hard for going to a McDonalds in what is arguably the good-eats capital of the world) to asking for a screwdriver at a bar and receiving a glass of vodka with a splash of orange juice.
 
So when I read this article, it really resonated with me. “I like the stress on a holiday that's ‘moral’ since we fall into our ethical habits as easily as into our beds at night.” The author draws the parallel between “travel” and “travail.” We have to put ourselves in a strange environment, take what that environment gives us, and process it as it relates to our core beings. This is definitely easier said than done. But I believe that is why travel is SO necessary; not just because of perspective, but simple exposure. By allowing yourself to be permeated by new ideas, new places, new ways of doing and seeing things, you can begin to see and do things differently yourself. I see myself and my abroad environment as both teacher and student, and I believe that was a topic touched on in the essay too. Travelers keep the world from becoming stagnant – there must be that flow. That is why the traveler is not only a student, but a teacher as well. This is such a beautiful relationship, and I look forward to not only letting myself go and having fun during this time (the main draw of travelling), but also putting in the work. Allowing myself to be uncomfortable, annoyed, lost, and terrified.
 
When the girls on my floor and I are all sitting together in the common room after a long day of classes, I notice that travelling is hard work for everyone (mostly by way of their complaints). “Don’t they make just regular coffee here?” from my roommate who tried to order a latte at a café and instead got warm milk. “I miss (insert any American food here. Most frequent answers: peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, chicken, etc.),” and of course daily horror stories about the Italian men (always). Don’t get me wrong, for the past couple of days I would have pledged my firstborn child to the nearest stranger for a big juicy American hamburger. But ditching the familiar is what this experience is all about. So now that we are all “undimmed by familiarity,” let the real work begin! Yay, work!

Walking from the metro stop to NYU's academic buildings during our first week here, I noticed farmer's market stands in one of the squares. An RA explained that there's always an open air market there, but that I would find cheaper produce at the other end of the square because those stalls are farther from the tourist spots. I make a mental note of the landmarks, since the Czech street names were still too foreign to stick in my brain, and said a prayer that I would remember how to wind my way back.

After the day's lectures had ended, I set off along the cobblestone streets and somehow found my way back to the market. As I headed to the stalls at the far end, I glanced over the wares of the different merchants and farmers. There were cut flowers, replicas of the astronomical clock, marionettes, leather bags, leather hair pieces, cheap jewellery, watercolor paintings...and finally I found fruit.

14 kc for some fresh figs; 19 kc for some berries. Both of those transactions were fairly painless, because the vendor silently weighed everything and showed me the total on his calculator. I was able to manage a shaky "Dobry den" and "Dekuji" and then step back into the crowd.

Later in the week, I would learn the Czech words that would be most useful when grocery shopping. I would learn to ask "where" and "how much." I would learn to say "I would like..." and "I don't speak Czech. Do you speak English?" I even learned how to order cheese at the deli counter at Tesco! Essentially, the NYU intensive language class would teach me how to be polite, but it hadn't really started yet so linguistically I was isolated much of the time.

A crate of plums caught my eye, and I went over to check them out. As a older Czech man came up beside me to do the same thing, the farmer stepped out from her stall. She began speaking to us rapidly in Czech, gesturing and glowing with pride. Obviously she was eager for us to enjoy her produce. I smiled nervously as the old man nodded, and the woman kept speaking. Then, she reached down and picked up one of the plums we had been looking at. In the same motion, she split it in two and offered us each a half. She nodded and beamed as we bit into the juicy and slightly tart fruit that she had grown with her own hands.

She retreated back inside the stall; I dropped a few plums into a bag and brought it up to the counter for her to weigh. "Dobry. Dekuji. Dekuji." She started asking me questions and making small talk--I think about the weather--and I could feel my face flush as I cut her off in English. "Prosim," I started, "Excuse me" and I gestured vaguely toward my mouth as if that would help. "Anglicky. Sorry."

She sighed with either disappointment or frustration before holding up the calculator so I could read my total off it. 17 kc. Less than a dollar. As she handed me my change back, I noticed that her skin was wrinkled like the bark of a tree. Maybe a linden. Maybe a plum tree. I wished that I had the words to reassure her that my thanks had been sincere and I appreciate her work. But being without language is like being without a voice.

As I wandered off to find the metro station, I bit into one of my plums. It was delicious.

It seemed like a really good deal, almost too good to be true. As an American, I'm used to paying at least $150 to fly to any destination. So when I found a flight for $78 from Paris to Prague, I was floored. What a deal! I double-checked and re-read the website a thousand times to make sure that the prices I was seeing were real. Knowing I would have an extra bag, I made sure to check the excess baggage fees. Oddly, there were two prices listed for extra bags: one for eight euros, one for forty. The maximum weight was 32 kgs... easy! I figured forty euros for a bag is a bit much, but at least I'd be paying $250 less than the competing prices. When I got to Charles de Gaulle at six in the morning, bleary-eyed from the all-day concert I had attended the day before, I waited patiently for the ticket-counter to open.

As I was checking-in, the airline representative said "Deux cent huit euros," and I did a double-take. I thought I had heard her wrong. 208 euros for a fucking bag?! Was she nuts? Instantly, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. Way to start my time in Prague, already I was falling apart at the seams over something as "trivial" as money. But it wasn't so trivial, a lot of the rhetoric my parents had been hammering into me was "be sensible, money doesn't grow on trees," and in this instance, I completely miscalculated. In this instance, I got fucked over by the French. I was directed to a second ticket-counter to pay my ridiculous fee. I shuffled there angrily, hoping that my displeasure with this airline would permeate through the floor, through the air, through the stupid airline representative... Four failed credit-card attempts later, I was about to break down in front of another employee before the fifth try worked. She compassionately explained to me that the fee was forty euro as the base price and eight euro for each kilogram that the luggage weighed. So much for budget airline travel.

Upon exiting the airport, I asked my cab driver to go to Adalbertstraße, in the neighborhood of Mitte.  He heard "Mitte" and tried to clarify by asking about two streets I had never heard of before, to which I replied "vielleicht": maybe.  That should have been my first clue that something was off. 
 
He took me on an extensive tour of the city, and I became gradually more excited with every passing thoroughfare.  When we arrived at our destination, however, we were stuck in a very tight intersection with no apartment buildings in sight.  I repeated the address and he finally heard me: "AdalBERTstraße!  In KREUZBERG!"  Apparently the NYU e-mails had it wrong, and I was asking for the wrong neighborhood.  I protested that Mitte and Kreuzberg are right next to each other, to which he agreed, but still yelled at me and swore occasionally as he made a 9-point turn in the middle of traffic and we made our way back across town.  I'm pretty sure he called me "komisch," something along the lines of "weird."  This was my welcome to Berlin.
 
From that point on, I have been able to relate to Pico Iyer’s article in so many ways, especially to what he says about how traveling simplifies us.  I certainly am living more simply: I have whatever belongings I could fit into a checked suitcase and one carry-on, and I haven’t even set up a cell phone plan yet.  No American TV either.  I’m not going to see Glee again until December… ugh I don’t want to talk about it.
 
As Iyer points out, our thoughts and communication become simpler abroad too.  “Even when I’m not speaking pidgin English in Hanoi,” he says, “I’m simplified in a positive way, and concerned not with expressing myself, but simply making sense.”  I had enough difficulty telling the cab driver where to go; there was no way we were going to exchange life stories.  When you’re focused only on understanding and being understood, it keeps your attention on your words and the current moment. The disorientation, the stress, the anticipation, and then the sense of accomplishment when you walk away from an encounter like ordering coffee… it makes ordinary experiences so much more exciting!  This is part of why traveling is so enjoyable: when the little things become more difficult, we get to feel prouder of ourselves for doing them.  Taking a cab from the airport feels like a victory as long as you reach your destination, so even the insults are remembered in a sparkling light.  Life is simpler, yes, maybe humbling, but in the end, more satisfying and encouraging at the same time.

This weekend I took a boat trip down the Thames to Greenwich, a historic town just outside of Central London. A Blue Badge tour guide and my Seeing London’s Architecture professor led the class around historic buildings, including the Queen’s House, the National Maritime Museum, and the Royal Observatory.
 
The picture was taken within the first 10 minutes of stepping into Greenwich. The dome on the left was built for the king and the one on the right was built for his queen in the 1600s.  Between the two domes you can see the modern day skyscrapers. The royal great halls and the skyscrapers (including the Citi Bank headquarters) were built over two centuries apart. I loved this view because it was one of those jaw-dropping moments when you’re taken completely by surprise and all you can do is stand in awe.
 
That’s happened to me quite a few times while in London. In Pico Lyer’s essay, “Why We Travel,” he describes, “Abroad is the place where we stay up late, follow impulse and find ourselves as wide open as when we are in love. We live without a past or future, for a moment at least, and are ourselves up for grabs and open to interpretation.” I couldn’t agree more. This essay put my feelings down in words, meaningful words that I relate to more than I usually do with any old assignment for a class. His essay also challenged me to think of asking questions for where I find myself. For me, this reminded me of an experience I had with British accents a few days ago.
 
A young British girl was walking down the street talking on her “mobile.” And when we passed each other, she enunciated loudly, “OCT-TOEEEEEE-BURR” to whomever she was talking to on the phone. I remember thinking, “Hello, it’s pronounced ‘October’.” Why do I think what I’m used to is right or should be considered normal for everyone else? I’m in Britain. Of course I’m going to hear British accents. I’m the one with the accent here.
 
Although this little experience was a minor thought, I definitely need to take traveling as a self-reflection and opportunity to see things in a different light, as Lyer describes. Beautiful sites and buildings in Greenwich aren’t the only part of an entire nation and culture that deserve to be subject to this kind of admiration and appreciation. Afterall, “we travel, in essence, to become young fools again -- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” And that's exactly what I intend to do.