3. Traveling places

 
It must be said that Botton writes with seemingly unnecessarily verbose language. It’s incredibly easy to determine why most people find foreign places exotic, and Botton doesn’t really hit the point. I’ve spoken of this before—the “allure of the unknown.” What we do not know, what we do not understand, we are attracted to, because our minds fill in all the blank spaces with imaginative wonders that we become compelled to find out for ourselves what the reality of it all is. It’s very simple. Egypt? Exotic? Perhaps—but what does exotic mean to a human? I’m as intelligent as anyone, and I don’t know a concrete definition for ‘exotic.’ Let’s find something else. Mysterious? Indeed. That’s something I can put my finger on.
 
Egypt is mysterious because it is touted as being mysterious. We know very little of its ancient civilizations, and it is proclaimed as being one of the greatest civilizations of its age, incredibly advanced and superior in the region. The Pyramids are as enigmatic as anything on the planet, having a relatively unknown function and being mere remnants of their past, glorious selves. These are just a few of the reasons why anyone in our civilized society would perceive Egypt as being mysterious, and that reason, attractive, and for that reason, desirable, and for that reason, imaginative, and for that reason, exotic.
 
The exoticism of camels? What the hell is this? Camels are not exotic to their native human cohabitants. The only reason Flaubert speaks of them reverently is for his own perception. Flaubert is no authority to anyone, his opionion on camels is just as good as my half-brained lackey, Wajeeb. It’s just an opinion of perception, it has no objective weight.
 
Travel-talk is usually crammed with this self-indulgent descriptiveness that really does not benefit the reader. As a reader, I will never be able to experience what the writer has experienced, so he might as well not try to give me a surge of sensuality based on nothing but indifferent writing. From my experience reading travel writing, I am compelled when a writer is telling me about how his world-view has been changed upon learning or seeing something new, about how he is having trouble assimilating new aspects of the world with the old. That compels me the most because it relates to me as a human being—I may go through the same conflict of perception. Writing is good when it deserves to be read.
 

“A momentuous but until then overlooked fact was making itself apparent: I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.” (19)

De Botton’s first few chapters of the Art of Travel generally revolve around the vaguely existential, and thoroughly human theme of the self—and of wanting to get away from oneself. He explored loneliness, and one’s mindset in relation to different physical environments—and how places familiar and unfamiliar affect the mind or how we view ourselves, or our thoughts, and our moods. In reading these chapters, I identified with just about everything he discussed (so this response reflects only a fraction of what I’d like to say on this subject), and when he was giving personal examples of his trips and moments and memories abroad and at home, I was imagining similar parallels of experiences I’ve had here in Paris and at “home” in New York. His discussion of how places and instances seem more pure “in the remembered and … anticipated versions of them” really rung true with me. (22) I’m often conflicted and stuck on memories of past events, and have over-contemplated such memories—while reprimanding myself for doing so. I’m so often trying to “live in the present,” but can’t help shake the feeling that, often, my memories of past events seem more real, more “pure,” than when such events were occurring themselves. I find that a lot of my cherished memories begin growing their own realities. It’s partially these false realities that I find myself running away from when I voyage to a new place—I too subconsciously hope that I will not bring myself with me when I voyage to a new place. I want to wipe the slate clean in order to live in the present, and illogically fool myself into believing that a new place will do just that, will erase my memory so I can live in the eternal present in a wonderful, new, idealized place. What kind of hope is that, though? A hope that can never be fulfilled, and so I find myself continuously disappointed when I scrape against the boundaries and limits and realities of new situations, new places, new people.

“We learn that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own either underwrite our joy or condemn us to misery.” (25) So then, why, why, why are we all so stuck on this notion that a change of scenery will change our state of mind? De Botton admits that “the key ingredients of happiness could not be material or aesthetic but must always be stubbornly psychological.” (25) He explores the question of why we so often naively hope and believe that a new place will bring about a new self, when we truly know—or have experienced in the past—that a change in setting does not guarantee anything, that the most beautiful view in the world can look ugly if we are stuck in an ugly mood. What is our obsession trying to fool ourselves into thinking a new season will bring about a new start? So—sure, our mind determines our happiness, rather than our environment—we all know the story of Sisyphus. Then, why does spring in New York bring about an exodus of picnicking people in the parks, what is this effect that new places and seasons have on us? It’s our allowing ourselves to be happy—it’s our fooling ourselves into thinking a new place will bring about a new life—a new place is a catalyst for change if we allow it to be. It has nothing to do with the place itself, it just has to do with the our mind allowing the place to be it’s excuse for happiness, it’s excuse for letting go of those old, festering memories.

Paris, of course, was a catalyst for such a change in mindset for all who came here to study abroad. The first few weeks here consisted of my NYU friends and I going out to lunch and dinner in Paris together, throwing parties at our new Parisian apartments, going to new museums, to new bars—all with each other, all American outings, all spending more money than we’d ever spend in New York. After a week or so of this, it began to feel as if our indulgences in such things were to serve the purpose of distracting ourselves from the reality that although all the food and places were different and, in some ways, better than New York—it was still kind of the same. We’d go to each other’s apartments and lodge ourselves onto any available balcony in order to keep our eyes glued to the Parisian skyline while smoking too many cigarettes—it was as if we were looking for some sort of hidden rupture in the sky that would suck us back to New York City. Did our past follow us here? It sure feels like it, but there are no decaying, towering metal buildings here. Just faded ghost buildings, sprouted from our future memories, made of creamy stone and juxtaposed against that raw star filled sky. Why does everything look different, if we still feel the same as we did a month ago? we’d subconsciously wonder, while at the same time feigning conversations about how perfect and lovely Paris is.

Forgetting memories and our old selves and attitudes and habits always turns out to be a more difficult task than expected—a new place on its own only allows for a temporary forgetting. Eventually the veil falls away; one by one those habits and memories seep back, and we again find ourselves in that “fallen world,” in that self we’re fated to spend our lives in. “It was the fate of poets… to live in a fallen world while refusing to surrender their vision of an alternative, less compromised realm.” (32) That “fallen world”—seems to just be any world that is not our imagined world. We keep searching for ways to catapult ourselves into that alternative realm—and occasionally we feel as if we are living in it for brief moments—moments that we continue to revisit in our mind until we stumble upon the next temporary gateway to that realm. New places are gateways to such imagined realms—if we allow them to be—but once we’ve stepped through such a gateway, we fall back into another version of our old world without warning. Occasionally, we keep ourselves transfixed on our exotic balconies in order to distract ourselves from noticing that fall.

Today, I realized the weather is already too cold to do what I came to Paris to do: to just sit outside a café at a small table while drinking espresso, and allowing my mind to wander, and to write, to philosophize, to think. To watch Parisians sweep past me with their mysterious air, surreal language, and sense of purpose. I just want to sit outside and watch them, and fantasize about what wonderful lives they could be leading—I just want “inspiring glimpses into private domains” in order to continue focusing on the present, to keep from stagnation, to stay in some sort of transient world that allows for me to escape “the everyday” of my life through the marvelous “everyday” lives of others. (56) But today it was cold and raining and I was shivering, so I sat inside the café and attempted to stare at them through a tinted window smeared with fingerprints. I gazed at each passing stranger, and tried to let my mind wander—hoping “the tumultuous sea of human heads [would] fill me… with a delicious novelty of emotion”—but instead I slowly realized that almost every passing pedestrian was dressed in work attire because they were all headed to the metro across the street. (Poe) They all looked as if they were rushing to typical bourgeois- type jobs that Flaubert would find so terribly “monotonous, sensible, [and] stupid.” (73) Oh how mundane! So I paid for my double express, stumbled awkwardly out of the café, and joined the sea of heads. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll drift into a more strategically located café-- ah yes, I can already imagine it.

(photo by me of a cafe in the marais)

During the first three chapters of The Art of Travel, De Botton encapsulates a meaning separate from what most people associate with traveling.  When reading, it is very obvious that Botton is focused on the emotions and experiences associated with travelling rather than the physical aspect of going to a new place and seeing new sights.
 
The first three chapters best embodied what I mean when I tell friends that, more important to me when travelling is hanging out and participating in daily life, rather than seeing all of the sights.  When asked by a classmate what things in Europe I had yet to see but, really wanted to I told him, “I threw away my checklist a long time ago.” I can gain as much from a few days around the apartment in Florence as I can on a weekend trip to Germany. Both are awesome adventures.
 
With this mindset even mundane things become exotic while travelling. My evening jog turns into a time for me to explore new neighborhoods, observe the locals in their routines and most importantly, be lured by the feeling of exoticism that comes with seeing the unknown. For the same reason I make it a point to wander. On the way home from school I will always delve into a new path or, when time is no issue, attempt to become lost. Ramble through the streets of Florence, turning toward whatever strikes me as interesting until eventually I find myself in a new place, without a sense of direction.
 
Adventure is certainly a fuel of the exoticism we seek when travelling. Sometimes it is the result of being lost on tiny cobblestone streets in Florence, other times it comes from the cultural shock caused by the look of disgust from the barista when you ordered milk in your coffee after breakfast time. Experiencing the unknown in anyway is a form of exploration. Exploration that makes us intrinsically happy as we discover for ourselves.
 
-Picture taken en-route to adventure on random Florentine street
 
 
 
 

I am hiding in Florence.
 
I don’t talk to people—neither Italians nor NYU students. I don’t have any real friends yet—the only person I’ve actually hung out with more than once is twenty-seven years my senior and has told me that I’m very exciting (in Italian this means sexually exciting…I don’t know if this friendship is going to work out). At home, when I’m not sleeping, I stay in a study room where no one else works. I go on long walks and to bars alone.
 
People don’t remember me. I was talking to a guy who was in my Italian class for two weeks this semester, but then transferred out. During the conversation he asked me what Italian class I was in. He didn’t remember that we had shared a class. He said, “Oh, well, I guess you’re quiet.”
 
I’m making myself sound like a sociopath here. I mean…I am, a little. But like Botton I’m also just falling into a certain loneliness, the sort you can lose yourself in when in a foreign place. It’s almost peaceful, being ignored and invisible.
 
But Florence isn’t really the ideal place for this kind of hiding. I feel a bit like Waldo here. Even though you might not see me at first, I’m still wearing a bright red and white striped shirt and a matching hat. I’m pretty obvious.
 
One: Half of the people here aren’t Italian. Florence is full of tourists. Everywhere. I live in the middle of the historical city center; it’s swarming with Americans and Germans and Japanese. It’s hard to hide when everyone suspects you of being an intruder. I look pretty Irish. I don’t speak Italian very well. I don’t belong. They know.
 
Two: It’s also rather difficult to conceal myself when everyone in this country stares. Not just a quick flit of the eyes, but like…full on staring. Looking you up and down and with their mouths hanging open (seriously, I’ve seen this quite a few times). I encountered this in Spain, too. There are no qualms here about flat-out gawking at a person. I was sick for a while and constantly had to blow my nose. There is no privacy on the streets of Florence—you’d think Florentines had never seen someone blowing his or her nose before. They are astonished, amazed, curious, disgusted. Why can’t I be invisible when I am at my least attractive?
 
Anyhow. I might stop hiding soon. I think I’m being found out.
 
So much for that peace. 

De Botton’s writing in The Art of Travel was enjoyable to read. I anticipated that it would be more objective and textbook-like because the index showed what looked like a rigidly organized narrative. I found the content to be more philosophical or psychological than anything with its emphasis on creative thinking.

I was particularly interested in the way Botton describes anticipation and memory as functioning to the same end, an end which is purer and simpler than would be the case if the two cognitive workings were absent. How can memory be like forgetting? De Botton says that artistic imaginations, “cut away the periods of boredom and direct our attention to critical moments, and thus, without either lying or embellishing, they lend to life a vividness and a coherence that it may lack in the distracting woolliness of the present” (15). The actual time we spend remembering or anticipating a moment serves not to itself but to solidify and strengthen the moment we are living- in our heads.

With that said, there would be nothing to remember if those moments when we are fully in the present weren’t there. Part of the beauty, to me at least, of traveling is how crucial being in the moment is to the experience. Last weekend I took a train to Victoria Station,  a bus to Edinburgh, a train to Leuchars, and a bus to St. Andrews to see an old friend and did it again on my way back. I also fell behind on my third blog, that’s another story entirely. My point is though, that while I had moments in between where staring out a train window to think about either what the trip would be like or how it ended up being, most of the 24 hours I was trekking there and back were spent talking to ticket service people, watching t.v. screens for train times, making sure my wallet was accessible, texting my friend what time I was arriving etc. Part of having to be in the present and part of having to be aware of your surroundings functions as an escape from our memories too.

When we travel, often our experiences are richer which makes our memories and anticipations of it more creative and more imaginative. This works the other way around too. While there is no formula exactly, its an interesting shared experience.

Alain de Botton argues in the first chapter of his book, The Art of Travel, that anticipation is the most exciting and pleasant element of a journey, because “the reality of travel is not what we anticipate” and a trip rarely ever has the potential to live up to the barrage of images you have seen in travel guides or brochures while doing your research (11). He himself is unable to let go of the burdens and concerns of the “real world” he attempts to escape. While I agree that anticipation can be quite thrilling, there is almost always a mix of nerves and jitters for me as well. Nothing beats the rollercoaster of picking a new destination, making the necessary travel arrangements, mapping out a route of attack, picking out all the key hotspots to hit up, and counting down the days as they dwindle down to zero. Sometimes this whole process is more hectic and worrisome than the adventure itself, which is why I disagree de Botton's opinion of pure bliss during the anticipation phase.
 
It almost feels like the opposite experience for me when I compare my own feelings to those of de Botton; he writes: “unlike the continuous, enduring contentment that we anticipate, our actual happiness with, and in, a place must be a brief and… haphazard phenomenon… The condition rarely endures for longer than ten minutes” (21). I almost always feel more comfortable and carefree while traveling than during the weeks leading up to it. The things that would normally bother me in an everyday situation seem to have less of an impact while I'm vacationing.

In anticipation of my journey to London I was a nervous wreck; just ask anyone who saw me within the last month prior to my departure. I recall packing and unpacking my suitcases at least 4 times in the last week alone. I was running around New York City before and after work to see as many friends as I could physically visit and say my good-byes one last time. I was buying anything and everything I was worried about the Brits not having. I was looking at maps to see which countries could be visited during a free weekend and which ones I would have to save for fall break. I was assembling all the necessary documents to ensure my proper entry and stay in the country. Things were overwhelming and I was running out of time to get everything done. Every week I would make a to-do list in an attempt to organize my thoughts, but somehow, each successive week, they would get longer with additional items tacked on at the bottom.
 
With all the anxiety building up, the only thing keeping me going was the sheer excitement associated with the prospect of living somewhere else for an entire semester. That’s the force that kept me going during all the mania of the last couple of weeks. I find the same turbulent emotions true even now when I’m planning my weekend getaways; for each trip, there is a rush of joy and adrenaline in the days following up to the departure but pure hectic anxiety coincides with those positive emotions until I’m on the plane or train or bus.
 

My airport nostalgia is quite different than Botton’s. While he stares out the window, watching planes move in a constant rhythm of departures and arrivals, my attention is more on the people inside those planes. A scene from one of my favorite movies, Love Actually, comes to mind. Emotions are flying as people say goodbye at the security gate and welcome others home at baggage claim or after customs.

I might say that place plays a very small role in my entire world view. All of the world’s travel destinations are simply backdrops, locals for action to take place. Botton said that “it is easy for us to forget ourselves when we contemplate pictorial and verbal descriptions of places.” For me, it’s not so easy. Unlike Botton, I would never pick up a brochure for Barbados and be attracted to it based on the images alone, because it is not the place that attracts me. I go places for the culture. And If I ever go somewhere for the solitude, it is because I want to know how the location will change my own thoughts and perception of the world. In order for travel to mean anything to me, I must deliberately bring myself along to observe and react. Without observation and reaction, a place is just a place – just a picture in a brochure and nothing more.

I can agree with Botton on one point, however. “There is a purity both in the remembered and in the anticipated versions of a place.” I like to call my current state as being “in the thick of it.” As Botton describes, one never just “Journey’s through an afternoon.” So much happens in a day, and hour, a minute that is trivial and will soon be forgotten, but in the moment itself it’s hard to ignore those minor details of life. Before leaving the US I had an idea of what this country would be like, and I can already tell what the memory of this semester will feel like when it is long gone. But right now? Right now I am experiencing and doing like never before. Thank god I brought myself along on this trip to give it some meaning and turn that static image into an expressive memory.

“However absurd the intense reactions provoked by small (and mute) foreign elements may seem, the path is at least familiar to our personal lives. There, too, we may find ourselves anchoring emotions of love on a way a person butters his or her bread…”

Before I came to London, I thought my main criticism of the city would be that it’s too closely similar to New York. We travel to experience something different, something that makes us feel out of place, and from time to time I still find myself wondering whether I should have chosen a more “exotic” or “foreign” location; somewhere I don’t speak the language, where I’ve never been, where the customs are nothing at all like my own. And yet somehow, in a city that’s by all standards very much like where I’m from, I've found myself chasing after what seems like the only cab in East London screaming at the driver to please take my money, thinking about how much I miss New York.

I’ve spent the greater part of my life genuinely believing that Europe had it all over America. Never once did I think that the things I detested about the states- huge department store/ corporations, a money-driven mentality, the fast paced daily grind- would be what I found myself complaining about the lack of in London.

Yes, I feel a bit like a petulant child complaining about such petty things. And there are plenty of “small (and mute) foreign elements” of London I find myself falling in love with every day. But the experience of actually living abroad- not just visiting for a week- has shown me that perhaps I’m more a creature of comfort than I’d like to think. As much as I’d like to will myself to love every cultural difference, I just can’t. I don’t find anything quaint about having to do back-to-school shopping at six different stores, all scattered throughout various areas of the city. It doesn’t seem so interesting that the tube station closes at midnight and the cabs refuse to stop for you when you’re freezing and drunk and tired and just want to crawl into your bed, which is located about an hours walk away.

I found a 24 hour deli about a week ago, the first I’d seen since I’ve arrived in London. How glorious it was to buy and Orangina and a Kit-Kat at four in the morning! I actually gave the guy behind the counter a handshake and told him he should be proud to work at such a fine establishment.

The truth of the matter is, London’s not New York. And I don’t want it to be- if I did, why would I study abroad in the first place? But perhaps living abroad is as much about learning what you love about home as it is learning what you love about where you happen to be.

     My black travel bag. I remember looking at it from the window of Paco store on a side street of  the Raval in Barcelona. A vintage black English fishing bag, not intended for travel usage, but its shape says different. It sits at the bottom of the stairs full of what I have deemed essentials. At once the exotic and familiar, like Pavlov’s dogs I salvate every time I see it. It’s one of those poetic transient objects that gives meaning to my art of traveling.

     De Botton reminded me of a question I keep meaning to answer, “why do I travel?” I feel my answer varies from year to year, changing as I begin to grow up. I have a million answers and none at the same time to this seemingly simple question. That feeling of anticipation that he talks about, like rushing to pack that extra bathing suit in preparation for my trip to Sao Paolo or the check to make sure I changed enough dollars into pesos- that anticipation is and as you anticipate you begin to remember what it was like to be in Ibiza dancing, in the middle of the bush in Sierra Leone watching a village celebrate the building of a new classroom, or sitting on one of the many trains in Italy contemplating the countryside ( I employed De Botton’s “train dreaming” regularly), imagining Tuscany in sunflowers and olive oil.

            Years ago, I used to travel to run away. From what? Monotony. Family. Myself…It happened again in sophomore year when I ran away to Florence after my dramatic break up with my highschool sweetheart. Like De Botton, I began to realize the “momentous but until then overlooked fact” that made itself apparent, that “I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.” Isn’t that the worst? When you think that you have found the thousand mile solution to running across borders and through countries and all you find on the other side is yourself? I got over it eventually, having to live with myself was a reality I couldn’t escape from.

             Now I believe I’m running to something instead of away from. Running to Argentina, to mate, to tango, to polo, to milongas, to parillas, to the “sh” sound, to all night parties, to ensalada mixta, to gauchos, to Spanish, to well- to travel. I dreamed and imagined an Argentina, aided by Borges I conjured up fascinations of a place I had never been. I however disagree with the statement, “the imagination could provide a more than adequate substitute for the vulgar reality of actual experience”. What could be farther from the truth? How can one imagine the smell of grilled meat as it wafts through the green doors of the Candelaria estancia, the same smell that mixes with the aromatic tones of the Malbec grapes yet to be ripened, how can one anticipate forming judgements about the practices of culture experienced in the tangible realm of everyday life? No-one can imagine that from the comfort of their own bed.

            I, for one, am happy to withdraw to the parts of myself that are more portena (a name for the people of Buenos Aires). For now this means waking up early, staying out late, drinking mate, speaking Spanish with the “sh” which I with my Spanish accent am still getting accustomed to, or drinking ten coffees and smoking what seems like a billion cigarettes a day. 

There was poetry in this forsaken service station perched on the ridge of the motorway, far from all habitation. Its appeal made me think of certain other equally and unexpectedly poetic travelling places--airport terminals, harbours, train stations and motels--and the work of a nineteenth-century writer and a twentieth-century painter he inspired, who were, in their different ways, unusually alive to the power of the liminal travelling place (de Botton 30)

My first introduction to the concept of liminal space involved reading a Victor Turner excerpt during a seminar freshman year. Empowered by language, I have since been able to admit that many of my adventures come about as a result of a personal search to regain liminality, if only for a moment. De Button also talks about the paradox of "childlike idealism and cynicism" present in the mind of the traveler, and I can confess to both of those as well. I often tell friends that life in New York follows the Gatsby Party Rule: the bigger the party, the more anonymous one can be. The more easily one can lose ones self for an afternoon and become a liminal being. That said, both the study abroad experience and this article have proven to me that one can achieve the same effect without as many millions of strangers if other factors are comparatively strange.

On the flight to Prague, I was with a group of NYU students. Our tickets had been purchased all together, so we sat in a huge group. Some of the music students knew each other. Some of them I recognized. Overwhelmingly, though, we were all strangers alone in an in-between space, and our solitude magnified our commonalities. Each safely tucked into the space of our individual seat, we read, slept, ate, and watched movies. We talked a bit, hoping that these strangers would soon become friends and companions who would share the morning commute to class. When we changed planes, we walked in a group. When we landed in Prague, we were split up by dorm but stayed close to the faces that had become familiar over the past 8 hours. Even sitting with these new friends on the bus from the airport to the dorm, the experience was still one of being out of place. By that point, the people were no longer so strange but the roads were winding and the street signs pointed assuredly in all directions without being helpful at all.
 
When beginning any program involving a student group and an adjustment to the program’s culture, I find that there is a fairly finite window of time in which people reach out to make friends before settling into relationships. When most of the students involved are strangers at the start of the program, this friend-searching phase seems to have a desperate intensity that helps it last longer than it otherwise would. What I observed with this program was that being in a city without gridded streets and other English speakers also helped to keep that time window open longer. In fact, people still introduce themselves if meeting someone new, though they certainly have friends at this point and even have vague patterns formed in their social lives.
 
As the streets of our neighborhood have become familiar, finding ways to lose myself has become slightly more difficult. On one of the NYU weekend trips, we spent two hours on a bus winding through the Czech countryside. Even as part of a fairly large ‘we,’ I was able to swim through the ideal and cynical thoughts that belong to transitional spaces. This was because, I think, we were each individuals on the bus. We knew the name of our destination but not how we were getting there. We watched through the window as the city that has become home over these past three weeks faded into the distance and was replaced with small towns and hill-side farms. It was a refreshing trip hours before we arrived anywhere.
 
I am inclined to wonder if the power of transportation vehicles to transport our thoughts applies to public transportation taken on a regular basis as it does to transportation taken on particular trips. If I know the tram and the metro—know their names, know their routes—and they become familiar, can they still help me in my search to get lost? So far, they have to an extent when I am travelling alone. I think this is because the metro and tram are both silent spaces in this city, and my inability to read Czech leaves me able to decipher only the route map out of all the posters on the walls. As a result, I have about 80 minutes a day to experience the displacement of traveling. Hopefully my commute retains its journey-like quality. And hopefully the thoughts I encounter in that time help me to grow and change. Such is the point of liminality, after all, to end up somewhere and someone different from where and who one was at the beginning.

One of the themes that I connected most with upon reading these chapters was the dissonance De Botton expresses between the reality of a place and the anticipation that precedes it. Before we travel, we can only imagine the place we will eventually be – and when we do, we don’t picture the gas stations, abandoned fenced-in lots adjacent to the airport, and dirty buses that block our views of whatever interchangeably historic and beautiful site is behind it (much like when what you are looking for on google maps has a Fed Ex truck parked in front of it. Great…). I mean, when I was preparing to come to Florence, I thought about the sun setting behind the Ponte Vecchio, the dirt roads that wind through the Tuscan countryside in countless movies, and the David in all its glory. Not the extremely American-ized “Italian” restaurants and fake Louis Vuitton handbags laid out on sheets in the cobblestone streets. These are things that I thought I had left back in New York, so I can identify with the frustration felt by Flaubert and the other writers and artists De Botton describes in this book.
 
For me, my “promised gems were blended in a stew of ordinary images” (18). When it came time for actual experience in Florence, “What we come to see is always diluted in what we could see anywhere” (26). Ahh, another challenge presented by travelling. We must find a way to block out (or learn to coexist with) what dilutes a place for us. I find a parallel between this dilution and the one he describes within himself when he travels to Barbados. De Botton says, “I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island” (19). He was unable to appreciate his surroundings because his mind was constantly wandering, concerned with mundane things that did not pertain to his setting. When looking at a photograph of a vacation destination, not only are we not confronted with the everyday that is also in the place, but we “are not faced with the additional challenge of having to be there.” Like De Botton in Barbados, I have let Florence become a backdrop to a life that I already live. It is hard to do otherwise when you’re in the middle of a semester and still have to go to class every day, with the trappings and stresses of NYU always at hand.
 
So now, we are not only given the privilege to let ourselves go when we travel, but it is a necessity to literally let yourself go. Leave your body and mind at home, as they prove “temperamental accomplices in the mission of appreciating [your] destination” (21). Of course, this is easier said than done. Although it is sometimes difficult for me to see my adoptive home as new when it is diluted by the familiar, I am inspired to find a way to circumvent this phenomenon by De Botton’s assertion that there is a correlation between what is before our eyes and what we are able to have in our heads: new places breed new thoughts (54). And we can always use new thoughts, right?

I really connected with Alain de Botton’s section “On Anticipation.” I’d been to London before I decided to come here for study abroad, and yet; I still only had a few moments replaying in my head of what it was like. Initially, upon choosing this location, I kept picturing The Eye and walking along the Thames River looking at all the local merchants’ goods. Hype Park was another place I found myself mentally wandering. I think I forgot that life doesn’t really involve either of these things on a daily basis – especially since they are both quite far from where I am staying (which I knew but decided not to factor in to my mindless dreaming).  But, nonetheless, before I fell into the haze of last minute departure plans, I couldn’t really form a complete picture of London.
 
After this stage though, I had sort of the opposite process as Botton. Whereas when he pictured himself in Barbados he completely forgot about the actually getting there, for weeks before I left, the Is to be dotted and Ts to be crossed were all I could think about. I worried about my visa and all the documents you need to enter the country. I got bank statements, letters of recommendation, health insurance cards; the list seemed to never end. Not to mention the hours of packing, carefully weighing the pros and cons of each potential article of clothing to bring. I also really despise flying, so that was a constant worry in the back of my mind as well. In fact, when it actually came time to leave, I was only thinking as far as getting past customs – which I was sure would not happen as everything was bound to go awry.
 
Then, when I finally arrived, I once again experienced something quite different than Botton describes. I felt at home. Certainly there were minor adjustments to be made, but London seemed like an old home I’d been away from for a long time. I think this is most likely due to the fact that I have been here before because I distinctly remember being very disappointed when I first came here in the 8th grade. I kept thinking; this is just like America. Now however, I see it for all the reasons it is beautifully different from America. Botton says that, “we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides what we anticipate,” and in my case, I had forgotten the things I love most about England. I only had dusty memories of a glittering and grand city, but once here, it was the people and the culture that really gained my love. 

I agree that the reality of traveling is never as glamorous as our projections would have it, but I don’t know that that should be a source of disappointment.  Postcards and rumors get us excited about new places, but after putting up so much effort and money, I think that the tangible experience should be more valuable than our imaginings, rather than a reason to stay home. 
 
I have had my share of disillusionment in Berlin.  The unsavory history of Germany was what attracted me to this city in the first place, but in real life, Berlin doesn’t look like it does in the textbooks.  It’s much more colorful, for one thing; the black and white photographs are immediately forgotten when one spots the graffiti covering any wall not protected by the state.  I know they had colors in East Germany, obviously, but when I look at former DDR buildings, I want to see beige, and communism!  I want to go to Alexanderplatz and see Stasi officers keeping tabs on their neighbors.  Instead, there are shopping malls and umbrella ads for Coca-Cola.  Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of square concrete in Alexanderplatz to invoke the Deutsche Demokratische Republik; the Fernsehturm itself reflects Sputnik-era Soviet influence.  But Berliners have moved on.  The city is full of memorials and museums, but they live in the modern world.
 
Like Duc des Esseintes’s experience in Holland, many aspects of Germany work to support my historical fantasies.  The Berlin Wall is preserved as the East Side Gallery, which stands a ten-minute walk from my apartment.  There are brass plaques in the cobblestones marking the homes of Berliners who were deported to concentration camps during World War II.  These traces of history make it easy to imagine life during such an extraordinary time period, but then the illusion passes and you remember that you’re standing in front of a Starbucks.
 
Des Esseintes’s Dutch fantasies were diluted by the restaurants and offices he saw surrounding his ideal images, but I prefer to see reality as filling in the blanks.  “He traveled through the afternoon” is not an adventure without some tangible memories to color the event, and your understanding of Germany is incomplete if it stops in 1989.  My experiences coming to and living in Berlin are showing me what it is to live somewhere other than the United States, and it takes every gritty detail to make that happen.  With any luck, my memories will gloss over the grittiest moments and return to images simple and glamorous like my expectations, although grounded now with more substance.

Many of my friends who have already spent a semester abroad revealed to me the four stages of culture shock that occur during study abroad- honeymoon, hostility, humor and home. After being here for over a month now, I must say that I have felt all of these emotions already-some occurring at the same time.

There are times when I am in utter disbelief that I can walk outside my house and get a fresh coconut for less than .40 cents (still pains me to think that I actually shelled out $5 for one at my favorite yuppy juice bar back in New York). However, the constant honking of taxis that pull up next to me and ask where I need a ride to, even after I explain that I live here and am simply walking one block to buy a coconut, shatters this feeling of complete bliss. Earlier that same day, I may find myself laughing about the fact that it has been three weeks since we have had any gas in our stove, and therefore cannot boil any drinking water so I suppose I must subsist only on coconut water, which is cheaper than bottled water here any way.  There is both comfort and discomfort to these changes I make everyday.

I mean, before I even arrived in Ghana, I knew that I wouldn’t just be able to fill my steel water bottle up in the kitchen sink, or that there wouldn’t be consistent internet or even water to shower with. As Alain de Botton so perfectly stated in The Art of Travel “it seems we may best be able to inhabit a place when we are not faced with the additional challenge of having to be there.”(p. 23)

All of these expectations were far easier to digest from a guide book, read in my centrally-air-conditioned room back in New York, before they became realities. Some of the things I anticipated didn’t even seem like they would ever become a part of my life (like perpetual thirst, for example).

I experience culture shock everyday, from the second I wake up and see bright blue skies and palm trees outside my window, until the moment I return to my house to make dinner in the evening, only to find that the electricity has shut off, and all of my groceries in the refrigerator have spoiled. I find that I am constantly reminding myself that I knew these things would come. No matter where I am in the world, there will be good and bad, comforts and discomforts, and the best thing I can do is simply detach myself from my own preconceptions of Africa, and just laugh in the moment. 

On Anticipation
Yesterday, I took about a two hour bus ride outside of London to Stonehenge. Before signing up for this day trip (organized by NYU), I thought of all the facts I learned on this UNESCO World Heritage sight, which actually doesn't have many facts to begin with because nobody knows of its origins for sure. Classes like Introduction to Tourism, Tourism Destinations and Cultures and Art History have made Stonehenge one of the top places I'd like to see. From the immense size of the stones, to the wonderment of how they were transported hundreds of miles from Wales and the importance behind it for the people who created this site. It's all very interesting and mysterious to me. The anticipation I felt from the thought of finally seeing what I've studied in textbooks made me extremely excited. I tried to ignore some of the people who said "it's just a pile of rocks," but I couldn't keep the thought of disappointment far from my mind. Upon arrival, the stones were barely visible in the distance and one of the NYU in London staff announced, "Time to wake up. We've arrived. Yes, this is it. No, it doesn't get any better." Laughter followed this comment, as there was a unspoken and unanimous decision that Stonehenge was not worth getting up early on a Sunday for. 
De Botton expresses the finest aspect of travel is its anticipation. This is because the imagination can come up with something far better than what is experienced in reality. Sounds about right considering our imagination comes directly from our minds and what we truly desire most. I have to admit, my anticipation for this visit was heightened, but I can't say I was disappointed, as many who accompanied me on this trip were. We had an hour to do what we wanted at the Stonehenge site. I circled the rocks on the designated path and contributed to the beaten grass bent one way from all the tourists. I remember accepting the fact that we might never know what this place really stands for. But we need that mystery. Otherwise, what would be left for us to imagine? What would be left for us to anticipate?

On Travelling Places
If (according to de Botton) trains are the best aid to thought, then buses must be the next best thing. On the way to Stonehenge, I left behind the high rise apartments (or "flats" I should say) and transitioned into two-story houses with small lawns and old stone gates. As we drove further from the city and suburbs, we entered rolling green hills with sheep, horses, cows and pigs on designated patches. Being on ground level, I was able to catch those "brief, inspiring glimpses into private domains" as de Botton described. While passing neighbors chatting, farmers tending to the cows, and bales of hay distributed evenly amongst the fields, I couldn't help but think "Damn, this is pretty, but God, I'm glad I don't live here." It's interesting to peer into other people's lives for an instant and see what they call home and how different it is from what you call home. (Given, a quick passing on a bus isn't enough to judge a person's entire lifestyle, but it's definitely enough for me to experience that cultural difference.) That same difference is what I craved before I left my own home. 
Apart from what is seen while traveling (whether it be on a train, bus or airplane), there's that feeling of going someplace, which keeps you from thinking of where you are at that moment. In a sense, in the process of gaining a sense of place, you also lose a sense of place. In the midst of traveling to Stonehenge, I didn't have any sense of where I was other than some kind of livestock farm. I was also busy imagining the lives of the people I passed. Maybe buses should also be considered one of the best modes of transport as an aid to thought. 

On the Exotic
While traveling, I am always on the lookout for that "symbol of being abroad." On Sunday's trip to Stonehenge, it was this a view from the side of the road. I was at the top of a hill with a one-way road winding all the way down the valley. Opposite my hill, was another, covered with green trees ready to turn orange and scattered across a bright green lawn (one you'd expect to see in Ireland covered in mist). Since I was on top of a hill, I could see the grey clouds above me and then sunlight in the distance over a lucky area where the overcast ended. There were also puffy white sheep grazing on the side of the hill. For me, this classifies as exotic. De Botton defines exotic as the charm of a foreign places that comes from the simple idea of novelty and change. Looking at that view of the countryside, I remember thinking, "this is England." (No relation to the movie.) 
"However absurd the intense reactions provoked by such small and mute foreign elements may seem, the pattern is at least familiar from our personal lives" (de Botton 75). I definitely don't see beautiful rolling hills or that kind of vastness in Anaheim Hills, CA. (We have different kinds of hills, the ones that are covered in identical houses built for a middle class family of four or more.) What one person considers exotic is different from his or her neighbor and everyone else in the world. I'd like to see someone living in the hills of England come to California and have the same reaction as I did to that person's home.