A Conclusion to this Chance to See Beyond Oneself
The End of Europe and the Beginning of America
07.10.2007
20 °C
A Conclusion
The Story
I will keep the story details concise because I wish to save my words for concluding travel reflections.
From Switzerland I took a train to Innsbruck in Austria to visit my aunt and second cousin who I didn't get a chance to see the first time I was there. I visited a beautiful small village, Hallstatt, that was set on a lake surrounded by mountains. After some nice walks through the forest and around the little village I took a train the next day to Vienna to visit the girl I had spent time with there on my prior trip to Austria. We went to a small town an hour south of Vienna to watch a families kids while their parents were in the Netherlands. We then returned to Vienna where we spent a few days enjoying the city, reading in the parks, and cooking good food. I then went north to visit my friend Lukas in the south of Germany near Lindau and the Lake of Constance. We had traveled together in New Zealand, Australia, and Cambodia and would now continue some traveling together. After hanging out with him in his town for a few days we took a road trip to Prague with his girl friend, who lives north in Nurnberg, and with a friend of his and her Australian boy friend who just flew over for some traveling in Europe. Prague is a beautiful city, old buildings, a large castle overlooking the river that splits the city in half, good cheap beer and tasty food. My only regret was that we didn't have more time to visit other cities in the Czech Republic. Lukas girlfriend had to get back to work and the other couple had a plane flight to Amsterdam. On our way back, we stopped in Nurnberg for a few days for Lukas and I to see the sites and for him to enjoy some more time with his girl friend who he lives about 2 1/2 hours away from.
Lukas and I returned to his small village in Bavaria and were trying to decide our next step. After talking to his father who he works for, he was able to get some more time off work to travel. So now the question was where did we want to go? I had seen most of the best spots within driving distance and surprisingly we couldn't figure out where to go. We had contemplated: trying to get a cheap last minute plain ticket to an island in spain but it would be to expensive, driving to Croatia but it was too long of a drive, flying to Moscow but definitely too expensive, hitchhiking and seeing where we end up but we didn't have enough time to really get much out of it. And then the genius plan hit us - a road trip to Luxembourg (because no one really takes a road trip just to see Luxembourg, which really makes it so great!). Its a small country in between Germany and Belgium just about 1000 square miles with a population under a half million; they have three official languages: French, German, and Luxembourgish. We had a few extra days that we didn't know what to do with but we decided we would figure out our next step while on the road. The capital city is called Luxembourg and is very modern, filled with business men and women dressed in suits, lots of nice cars, clean streets, good public art sculptures - in short, the perfect little city.
After Luxembourg we decided to head north to his some of Lukas friends in the north of Holland. What I didn't realize was how far away it was and that the plans would pretty much involve drinking all night. It being my last few days in Europe, I was not very interested in just drinking away the last few days; I was far more interested in seeing all I could of Europe before not knowing when I would return again. So after a long conversation, my friend was very understanding and willing to turn back to go exploring other avenues. We decided to go back to Nurnburg again because there were still things I did not get to see there and it gave the three of us one last chance to hang out. It turned out to be a splendid experience.
After returning to the south of Germany where Lukas lived, I took my last train ride of this trip to Munich where I would be flying out of in a few days. I stayed with a girl I met in Australia and also get to spend some time with her friend who I also met in Australia. Two days of site seeing around the beautiful city: enjoyed lots of art, serene parks, and the last of European architecture.
On July 4th I returned to the homeland, USA. I fly to New York to spend several days with a friend from college and see the city that never sleeps. Everything about New York is enormous, it is filled with so much energy with all of the people bustling about. Beyond enjoying the sites, it was a weird experience to be back in the States (I will expound later). From New York I flew to Maui where I saw my family for the first time in 9 1/2 months and went to a friend's wedding who I have known since I was a wee little one. (Daniel Bedingfield, a famous UK signer/song writer was at the wedding). I am still in Maui and will be returning to life in California on July 12. Its nice to be able to spend a few days here relaxing before getting back to responsibility.
And thus the story is finished. Yet it lives on every day in my memories and the endless ways I have been changed forever.
The Reflection
Was it all a dream? I have only been back about a week and my travels seem so far away. It is an odd feeling to think back to Oct 2, 2006 when I flew to New Zealand; uncertain about what the future would I embarked on this journey alone to come away with so many new friends and so many life changing experiences. Talking to my friend Charlene in New York made me realize the ways I have changed. She was really the first person I spent time with who knew me well before this trip and was able to see the resulting changes in me. Talking so some friends that are here in Maui for my friends wedding, I am beginning to realize how it is hard to understand how impacting traveling alone can be. All of the habits one has formed while around friends, all of the formation one has built their identity around, everything one has felt certain about are all subject to change. The social codes of behavior that one is restricted to in order to maintain their formed relationships are all open to be modified. One is forced to spend time with people they often wouldn't choose to be around in their daily lives and it opens your eyes to the many perspectives people have and what experiences led them to there.
Coming back to America was a bit of a culture shock. First of all it was very weird to hear only American accents around me. Remember this was the first time I was predominantly around Americans for the past 9 1/2 months. Every time I asked someone on the street a question or inquired with a store owner in New York, I would speak slowly and clearly because of the habit I obtained of never expecting the person I interact with to speak English well, if not at all. It was odd to have the person respond completely understanding what I said and to speak in an accent I could easily understand. For several days anytime I talked to a stranger, there was aways a slight feeling of hesitation that would arise when I would initiate the conversation from being so used to being surrounded by foreigners. I realized what a luxury it was to be able to read all the items in a grocery store or on a restaurant menu. I could easily read road signs and public transportation signs. I could order free tap water in a restaurant! I had to tip again :-(. I compared everything I saw in America with Europe, Europe felt familiar, American felt distant. I remember when I first arrived in Europe, I compared everything with Asia. I was using dollars again and I could have such a clear sense of value now using the same currency which is in my bank account.
I will miss it though. The adventure of never knowing who you will meet and what will happen the next day. Habits erased and the unexpected embraced. There was something fun about being the foreigner while traveling. It made you stand out, it made you special, it made people automatically interested in you. For example when I was in Nurnburg Germany, I met a guy who wouldn't give me the time of day at first. But once he found out I was in California, he wanted to be my best friend. California was his dream and he wanted to know everything to California slang to what the beaches are like in the OC. Now I am just another American Joe...but I suppose thats reality...I think. As I was a little relieved to be finally coming back to a settled life on a plane flight back from Germany, I was reading a travel magazine and realized that I had been to many of the places they pictured or discussed. I suddenly got the travel bug again. I wanted to go on adventures in new places I had never been, to see the mysterious, to learn about new cultures, try new food, and talk to strangers who I would befriend and never see again.
Living out of a backpack for 9 1/2 months sleeping on peoples couches, staying in hostels and cheap hotels in 24 countries on several continents traveling west from New Zealand to the USA - over 40,000 kilometers: This has been my life. Everything will change now. I will start graduate school in san diego in the fall. I will be busy. I will plan things and create schedules. I will stay up late writing papers and experience work related stress. I will no longer be able to go where I please when I please. Responsibility. Regardless, though, of the differences my new life will have from traveling it will still be an adventure. It will always be an adventure. I want to choose to make it an adventure. I will see the world with new eyes and choose to not let habit or expectations control my dispositions. It is our choice. We can choose to be bored or ecstatic with life: we can spend our days sending text messages, checking our myspace pages, and watching reality tv shows. Or we can choose talking to a stranger, going places in our own city backyards we have never been before, looking around the corner that we have never seen, walking instead of driving, talking in person instead of on the phone, stopping to listen and look, doing something alone we would usually do with someone else, doing something with someone we would normally do alone, try new foods, go into a store we would never set foot in, do things for the sake of experiencing them, and constantly considering how we could see things differently. This is change. This is life. I saw a great tshirt someone was wearing while in Europe, it said: "The Only Saint is Change." A quote a professor of mine always has at the end of her emails from Proust goes: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes." Let us choose to accept our lives as a voyage and an adventure and be present to every experience that comes our way so we may see truth and better come to know ourselves and others.
Bless you
Thank you
I miss you
and I look forward to seeing you
Karl Smerecnik
THE END
Posted by lost again 09:53 Archived in USA Comments (0)
