Scattered Reflections on Travel

My unspoken rule for the summer was that I wanted to go to the places that singing and/or study would most likely not take me in the future. Hence, I followed through on going to Brussels, even though many people told me that Bruges had much better things to do. I purposefully did the same thing in the Netherlands, embarking on short larks into Amsterdam for museums and returning to Utrecht to get to know the glint off the local salt. I’ve gone to Geneva and York for much the same reason.

I’ve come to know this summer that my interests in other cultures and countries (indeed, they are two separate entities) are very different from my previous perception of how one goes off to “see the world”. I love packing in as many museums as I can, eating local food, seeing monuments, and taking in the scenery. It’s awesome. No question about it. If that’s all I did, I’d still be totally psyched about my summer experience. Nevertheless, my desires for the summer–both conscious and unconscious-have evoked multi-dimensional perceptions of culture, and if I hadn’t taken my time to get under the touristy skin of these places I don’t know that I would have been satisfied with my travels. A few, err… many examples: I came to know that Dutch views on food imports may have may have more to do with religion than economics. I caught a small glimpse of the way African communities in Brussels, mostly Senegalese, navigate poverty, economic disparity, exile, tradition, optimism, and activism within a bustling city-scape; and around the dinner table I learned how gay men in Germany feel the terms Activ/Passiv define, confine and refine them. Even with American friends, I’ve found a deeper understanding of the culture and my friends as a result of the traits they complement (or don’t) in each other. In York I found that archeologists, chemists and composers can share a common bond in Vikings and that the people here still experience the effects of Medieval diseases because of the plethora of burial grounds that are still being exhumed. In Geneva I found a group of people from Kosovo that tried to wait hand and foot on me purely because of America’s relationship to their country. These are things that I wouldn’t have experienced if I only made my rounds of “things to do”. In fact, most of these things were learned just going for a walk or sitting on a couch shooting the shit.

I once read a bit piece once about a person who said, “I’m attracted to every person I see.” However laughable that statement, the writer made an interesting point. (If I remembered where I read it, I’d link to it, but I don’t remember.) The problem isn’t in the word “every” its in the word “see”. What happens when we only see what’s attractive? Or when we only see what the world has designated for us to see? What goes on outside of tourist attractions that we don’t see? There’s no comprehensive answer to those questions, but it’s impossible to catch glimpses of a larger picture when our gaze limits itself to only that which rests on the laurels of “attraction”. 

At the beginning of this summer, I didn’t have words for what I wanted to accomplish. I knew there was a wide world of splendor to see, but I knew also that a world pulses beneath palaces, fountains, men on horses, mountain tops and gilded picture frames that looks astonishingly different. It was waiting to be seen as well as the mountaintops that jut between the worlds. That’s what I wanted to find. In truth, I probably only peered through the doors between the touristy world and the worlds of each culture, but it’s enough. Any more would have been intruding on something that wasn’t mine, and I owe my intense gratitude to the people who welcomed me into their homes, their lives, and their communities. My life will be forever richer for it.