Why did I do such a thing?

I started last year in the summer to plan to try to fly again. I had realized that I was tired of being afraid of planes and started with a 2 hour flight to Greece and scheduled a train ride home. Then I met Ali and the impetus to fly became much greater. The primary reason to do the aforementioned trip was to get married to the most wonderful woman I have ever met. She has written more about our love story at her site.

Love conquers fear. I had been working slowly on flying again before I met Ali, but I would have not attempted such flights without her support. I did the two transatlantic flights alone as well as one of the short flights, but she flew with me for the rest.

Airport Bars Know Their Clientielle

In order to get on a plane and manage the fear I had been prescribed low dose Valium by my German doctor. It seems to help keep the panic from hitting. I don’t actually feel that much different mentally but that ability to relax and ride through the fear is stronger than the urge to panic and freak out.

I did however decide to try a flight without it. The last short flight from Raleigh NC (my hometown area) back to Atlanta was only 50 minutes long and Ali was with me. So I decided to skip the pill and go with just a beer and see how I could do.

So we get through security with 35 minutes to spare before the flight. Walking down the concourse we look for one of the many bars in the airport. Sitting down we only have to wait a few seconds before a guy comes to take our order. I order a beer and she a rum and coke. Then we get questions from the waiter that make me realize how well they know the clientele.

“20 ounce or 14 ounce beer?” he asks me. Ok, a pint is standard and 16ounces. So they are service nearly a pint or a pint and a quarter. The questions on the mixed drink are even more interesting. He offers to make it a double for a few bucks and then asks short or tall. I haven’t been drinking in the US for a long time and never mixed drinks, but it struck me that people in airports may well just be interested in getting drunk faster. Maybe I am not the only one with flight anxiety, I just deal with it differently.

Perhaps the reasons for the bigger sizes and stronger drinks are purely economic, but I am heartened by the idea that there are plenty of people out there that have a time flying. Many people that I talk to about having a fear of flying talk about drinking to help cope. I have even heard of one who drank in addition to the Valium doses. I haven’t tried that yet, but I will likely get more opportunities.

Airport beer tastes better

Ups and Downs of Flight

“How were the flights?” is the most common question I have gotten after “How was the wedding?” The wedding was perfect. The flights however left some to be desired. The seat back TVs are a godsend for me. Being able to watch anything even bad late-night comedy shows helps ignore the little bumps. That I could watch a movie all the way to the ground on landing helped so much on the longer flights. I am so sensitive to the changes in the plane that at landing time i get freaked more easily.

Coming home we hit a thunderstorm over the Atlantic. 45 minutes of bouncing made me again happy for the TVs. It was early enough in the flight that the Valium helped keep me calm enough to just hold and (and pray) without freaking too badly. Though I was so surprised to see people amidst this still get up for the bathroom. Here are a few other things that I learned in my flights:

• MD-88s are too small to fly lower like the tiny commuter flights and not big enough to be really stable.
• For me seeing the ground helps. If it is only a layer of clouds far below me or no window whatsoever(why would you even put seats there?), I get more freaked out.
• I am really sensitive to the tiniest up and down of the airplane. Sinus infections make this worse.

Obligatory TSA Mention

There is FAR more security and barriers and such in the US than in Germany. There isn’t even a form to fill out coming back to Germany and yet I didn’t feel unsafe.The prohibition against fresh fruit makes some sense in the airport, but on the land border with Canada it seems silly.

I once got picked for the full body scanner in the trips and decided we had enough time to spare so I opted out. I was a bit freaked out about the flight and the idea of a machine like that made me more nervous, so I decided to get patted down. In the end, it wasn’t an awful experience. The TSA guy explained everything both before and as he was doing it. I didn’t feel violated. The patdown was in public at the end of the security counter, but he offered right away if I wanted it to be private. I was happier to be in view of both my wife and my stuff. It felt somehow more safe than if there were no witnesses. So not really something I will choose as fun, but not the horror stories of the news.

The Future?

Well I still hate flight and will continue to take the Valium pills. Even when I was flying regularly before I started having panic attacks, I never liked it. I will however continue to face the fear and take flights when necessary. I will likely go down to New Zealand at Christmastime to be with Ali as a part of her travel in southeast Asia. This would mean 24 hours in flight in two jumps of roughly 12 hours each. So I may get my chance to try a beer along with my lowdose pills.

Facing the Flights Again is a feed post from Grounded Traveler.

This gives some interesting translations of animal names when you go directly into English. Here are a few basic ones that make some sense in English, but are still cool.

Actually a Red Panda, but they are related to raccoons (the plaque told me so)

• Wash-bear /Waschbär – Raccoon. It is a small bear-like thing that washes itself.
• Spiked-pig / Stachelschwein – Porcupine. I’ve never really looked at the face of a porcupine, but I guess it could be somewhat porcine. Definitely is spiky.
• Stink-animal / Stinktier – Skunk. Simple and explanatory.
• Shielded-toad /Schildkrote – Turtle. Again a straight forward explanation in the word.
• Belted-animal /Gürteltier – Armadillo.
• River-horse /Flusspferd – Hippopotamus. This ends up being just a translation of the Greek meaning of hippopotamus.
• Nose-horn /Nashorn – Rhinoceros. Like the hippo is a translation from the Greek yet somehow more descriptive. According to the translation site I use to double check spelling, the “white” and “black” rhino species in English are called the pointed-mouth-nose-horn and wide-mouth-nose-horn in German.

Animal or Baked Good

Not so tasty in this form.

Ok, let’s play a round of Animal or Baked Good… <applause & flashing lights>

The word for squirrel that I learned is Eichkätzchen which would translated to something like “little oaken cat”, but this is apparently only said in the far north. Around these parts they call it an Eichhörnchen, which would mean “little oaken horn”. I guess the shape of the tail reminded someone of a curved horn. That word though makes me think of something you get in a bakery. The pastry is a Nusshörnchen, a curved thing filled with nut paste and covered in almonds. So without too much misspeaking you could order 2 pastries and squirrel. I don’t think you would get the squirrel though, they don’t fit in the bags so well.

Ok, a snail is Schnecke. It just means snail as far as I know, but it gets used to describe a lot of things that are spirals. My favorite breakfast pastry is a Nussschnecke (nut snail) which looks a lot like a cinnamon roll. There are Mohnschnecke (poppy snail) as well. The pastries are spiral tastiness. As a final parting shot in Animal or Baked Good, a slug is a “naked snail” (Nacktschnecke).

A Few Rodents Among Friends

First off, rodents are called “nibbling animals” (Nagetier).

Guinea pig as an animal is a Meerschweinchen, which means “little ocean pig”. No clue on the why. It is certainly an interesting name, but not so descriptive. However a guinea pig as a test subject is a Versuchskaninchen or “testing bunny”. A Gerbil is a Wüstenrennmaus or a “desert running mouse”. Umm ok, maybe someone knows the why?

The Final Reversal

Most good stories have a reversal right at the end. Here is this one. A snake is called  Schlange. So far so normal, but a line of people waiting for something is also a type of snake. It is a waiting snake, “Warteschlange.” So the German language not only uses descriptive words for the animals, uses the animal names to describe the world.

Fun with Translation: Animals Edition is a feed post from Grounded Traveler.

A bit frosty for a walk

Sealed Buildings Mean Stale Air

If I take my own apartment as an example, German buildings are vastly different from the ones that I grew up with in the US. First off the walls are a foot thick and made of block or concrete not 5 inches of wood frame stuffed with fiberglass. I haven’t seen my walls open, but I know from peeking at construction sites that they are solid, meaning no drafts through the walls. The mortared block acts as great insulation and keeps the air from outside from seeping in. My windows as well are well sealed. When they are closed, I couldn’t feel even a chill through them during the coldest night we had in December. All of this means that the inside air of buildings can certainly become stale.

Heaters here are radiant not hot air. I have radiators that fill with centrally heated water to warm the room. This is the only kind of heater that I have seen in Germany. No forced air or heater vents in the floor, like our cat used to sit near when I was a kid to suck up the warmth from the air being blown out. Forced air means both more air circulation and air filters. Again two things that I have not seen here and mean air gets “used” and stale faster.

Open Windows in the Winter?

Ok, I get that building construction methods reduce drafts and a lack of air filters means that the air in a building doesn’t exchange so often. Yes, I understand that this is not really the healthiest thing to breath stale air. But really does this mean that every few hours we need to open ALL the windows for 10 minutes? Seriously? It is mid-February and 40 degrees F outside and the wind is blowing. Still every day at work someone opens several of our large windows in the open plan office that I work in.

In the US, the office buildings that I worked in all had sealed windows. The entire building was closed and kept climate controlled. You couldn’t open the windows even if you wanted to. But I imagine that if anyone had tried to open windows in the winter there, they would have been quite clearly yelled at. I can even hear the stereotypical mother voice from some TV series saying “Sheesh, close the window, we are not paying to heat the neighborhood”. Here though one or two people may squirm and reach to put on their jacket, but the need for having windows open even in the winter is somehow accepted.

A Cultural Obsession for Fresh Air

A nice day in the forest

“Germans need fresh air. Americans need air fresheners,” was the wonderfully pithy response from a colleague when I mentioned the open windows in the dead of winter. It does seem true at a culture wide level though.

A friend came to visit last winter. We spent a while in Freiburg going back and forth in town and talking English to each other. This drew a number people to talk to us. Two of which in the span of several days bemoaned the bad air quality of Freiburg. They mention how the valley holds the bad air and there is too much smoke. They both would rather live elsewhere, one out on the flat where the wind blows and one up in the hills out of the valley. They talk as if the air is so thick that you can’t see through it. From my perspective this is some of the cleanest air I have ever been in. Freiburg has very little industry, has trees all over the place and is next to the forest. So few people use cars here compared to the city that I remember driving 45 minutes with thousands of my closest friends to work every morning. I can’t imagine a city full of people having better air. The valley by the way always has wind going through it, so I have no clue what that one lady was talking about. But all of this makes me think about the cultural interest in clean air.

I remember reading somewhere that the German obsession with separating trash, recycling and organics didn’t arise until it was made clear that industry and trash were killing the forests. The German obsession with fresh air may be related to their kinship with the trees. Living where I do on the edge of the forest, every Sunday there are trains (clean electric ones) full of people heading up into the forested hills to hike and take in the air. Freiburg is well loved for this reason among others.

Nature or Nuture

I do notice that my house does need to get aired out every so often even in the winter, but I open the bathroom window where the gusts don’t get to me. In the summer, I leave most of the windows open all the time. There are very few bugs and without air conditioning when it gets hot, there isn’t another choice. So at that level I do have a different relationship with fresh air here due to the buildings and climate. Though I do wonder if it is a part of the cultural inheritance, a good expat friend of mine who has been here 18 years tells me that she opens a window in the dead of winter for fresh air despite a family that complains. So maybe we as expats do start to absorb the cultural habits of our hosts. Even still I think it is crazy and am looking forward to a warm spring where the wind in the office will be pleasant, because there is no way to stop the windows from being opened.

German Obsession with Fresh Air is a feed post from Grounded Traveler.

Bread Backed with Lye

Assorted Laugen Breads

What Americans see as pretzel bread is called Laugen, this is the bread type. In English the word Laugen is Lye, which is a very basic solution (as opposed to acid) often used in soap. The classic “pretzel” look of brown and smooth on the outside and soft and white on the inside comes from coating the bread in lye before baking. A more in depth description is here at wikipedia. They mention that baking soda is basic enough to work as well. I actually even remember making pretzels with a baking soda solution in high school as I was beginning to learn German. Unless they are stale, laugen breads from the bakery are soft not crispy.

A quick word about words:

• Laugen – Pronounced “Lau – gen” where the ‘Lau’ rhymes with house and the g is hard like in grape.
• Bretzel – This is the German word for pretzel and pronounced almost identically. The plural form is Bretzeln.

So laugen is the bread and pretzel is a shape. This shape is well known with the rounded bottom and crossed tailed laid back over it and the most common form of laugen bread that I have seen in my German travels. Laugen breads come in other very common shapes as well. Laugen shape are most often covered with grains of salt although sesame seeds and poppy seeds are common as well. In the fall come the pretzels covered from head to tail in pumpkin seeds.

In Many Forms

Laugen Stange (Rod)

Laugen Zopf (Braid)

Laugen Knot

Laugen Roll

Other Things To Do With Pretzels

Butter Pretzel Separated

Given that laugen breads are so common, there are also many variations. The pretzel shape is as a filled version is most often cut in half and covered in butter. In perfect German language form this is called a “butter pretzel” (Butterbretzel, yup all one word). There is one bakery in town that does cremecheese instead of butter which is nice. The other shapes will also get split open and filled, but usually with salami or cheese and a slice of lettuce as a sandwich. These “belegte Brötchen” are available in every bakery and make good snacks for day trips. Like most sandwiches in Germany, they are also likely to have a layer of butter between the bread and the fillings, even if the filling is cheese.

I have seen Laugenstange (the rod shapes) with butter, though rarely. Another option for expansions upon a theme is having a piece of cheese (sometimes with a slice of ham underneath) baked over a pretzel. The snack is cooled and also available in bakeries.

Because pretzel is a shape not a bread, you get other types of pretzels too. There are sweet pretzels made of flaky pastry covered in glaze (called Rapunzel as I have seen)  or pudding pretzels with the spaces filled with vanilla goo. I even saw a “Berliner Pretzel” at the bakery which was a donut made in that shape.

Pretzels and Mustard

Soft pretzels are something I remember from baseball games in the US, usually served with mustard. Germans do not put mustard on pretzels or really on bread at all. When asked I got the clear answer that mustard goes with the sausage (Wurst) not the pretzel. They may commonly be eaten together, especially sweet mustard with Weisswurst in Bavaria, but the mustard goes with the meat not the bread. So another odd food combination that came into the US. It must have all come together and due to whatever reason the sausage part of the trio dropped away.

What in the US are sold as pretzel sticks are here called Salzstange (salt sticks). Of course the snack food versions of pretzels and sticks are here as well. These are the more classically known small pretzels sold in bags next to the chips. These too are a form of laugen, but must be baked differently to be crispy. As mentioned above the pretzels from the bakery shouldn’t be crispy. I take that as a sign of them being stale.

Cheap Snacks For On The Go

Classic Pretzel

Because the laugen breads are local and so popular, they are also cheap. I expect to pay 60 cents or so for a simple roll or pretzel and maybe 80 cents for a Zopf. A butter pretzel shouldn’t be more than 1.20 Euro. Every bakery in the south of Germany should have a range of these and given their popularity should have a good turnover. Buy salami or cheese and make your own sandwiches along the way.

More pictures can be found on the Grounded Traveler Facebook fanpage.

Submitted to My Expat Germany’s Food Friday on the Käse Spätzle Week.

Ode to the Pretzel is a feed post from Grounded Traveler.

“My plan is to move to Italy,” I tell my new Italian friend over coffee in Milan. He looks back at me blankly and for a moment I wonder if I’ve used the wrong verb tens, e or accidentally said something about his mother. It’s not until he replies that the blank look becomes clear and I get a strong sense of déjà vu.

“But – why would you want to do that?” he asks. And I sigh. Again.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had this conversation with an Italian. I can’t say that I blame them, either, for their inability to understand why I want to live in their country – especially when they’ve seen so many expat wannabes like myself come and go, not to mention all the Italians who are trying to get out.

“It is not a good idea,” continues my friend. “Italy is a good place to visit – yes, you should come here on holiday, it’s wonderful – but to live here? No, this is not a good idea at all.”

This distinction between traveling in Italy and living in Italy is made every time I have this conversation, and it is, I think, critical to consider when contemplating becoming an expat. Fundamentally, however, it’s even more basic than that – it’s entirely about expectations.

We don’t think about the difference between traveling somewhere vs. living there when we’re on vacation, and there’s a good reason for that. We are on vacation – we are actively trying to not think. Americans especially work so hard to have fun during our two-weeks-if-we’re-lucky that we don’t have time for thinking. We’re far too busy ticking off all the sights on our must-see lists or gorging ourselves on all of those fantastic foods we’ve been told typify the region.

In the midst of all of this list-checking, however, there’s almost always a moment when the traveler pauses – perhaps it’s a sunset that’s caught the eye, or a morning stroll to the corner for coffee and a pastry that just feels right – and says, “Y’know, I think I could live here.”

For most people, this moment is fleeting. It’s usually gone by the time the sun has actually set or the coffee’s been ordered. But for some, the moment lingers – and that’s dangerous. For some, the “I could live here” idea becomes a gnat hovering by the ear at odd hours. It prompts the purchase of books with titles like “How to Be an Expat” that lie on the nightstand and barely get thumbed through. It spurs the rental of movies about strangers in strange lands (but only the ones that don’t end in tears). Naturally, as more time stretches between you and that first “I could live here” moment, the memories of the place you fell in love with get the same gauzy camera treatment Barbara Walters always gets, making them appear more perfect than they were and smudging out all the harsh edges.

By this point, of course, we’re back home in our non-vacation world – going to work, doing the shopping, paying the bills, cleaning the toilet, shoveling the driveway, picking up after the dog, mopping the floor… You get the idea. Anything, it stands to reason, seems more interesting than this.

What that gauzy treatment doesn’t let us see, however, is that living in another country is absolutely nothing like vacationing there. It’s obvious if we stop to think about it, but for some reason it shocks some people who make the jump to expat-hood. It may be astounding, but even if you move to the place where you had such a lovely time on holiday you will still be going to work, doing the shopping, paying the bills, cleaning the toilet, shoveling the driveway, picking up after the dog, mopping the floor, etc. – you’ll just be doing it in a different place. What’s more, you’ll probably be doing it in another language, in a system that’s inexplicable to the locals (let alone the foreigners), surrounded by people who have completely different cultural reference points.

We haven’t even started talking about the potential difficulties of finding work or the legal and tax issues around being an expat, either.

I’m sure by this point I sound like I’m either making a huge mistake by trying to move to another country or I’m trying to keep anyone else from following in my footsteps. There’s no way to know yet whether the former is true, but the latter definitely is not. I honestly believe that living in another country for a little while – whether it’s a few months or a few years – is something everyone with the means to do so should consider. There’s no better way, after all, to examine and understand your own culture than to live outside of it. My goal, then, isn’t to discourage you from wanting an expat experience – it’s to make sure your expectations are realistic.

Setting expectations properly is key to success in anything, and this is no exception. In fact, if you don’t have your expectations set properly for a vacation in the first place, you’ll never get as far as wanting to live there because you’ll have a dreadful time and (likely) blame the destination. I see this constantly when people plan trips to Italy – they schedule a day trip to Venice and then come home grumbling about how long it took to get there, the long lines to get into the main attractions, the confusing directional signs, not having enough time to see everything, and the high prices for food and trinkets. Venice isn’t easy to love, I’ll grant you that, but with a little preparation and knowledge of what to expect, you can mitigate many potential grumble-worthy moments.

The same is true for setting expectations when becoming an expat. Expecting life in a foreign country to be the same as life in your home country is ludicrous – we would never say that’s what we’re doing – but many of the complaints that expats make come down to “we do it differently back home,” where “differently” inherently implies “better.”

This is not to say that some countries aren’t in dire need of reorganization, and in some cases a thorough house-cleaning (I’m lookin’ at you, Italy), but there’s an enormous difference between thinking a country’s system is screwy and expecting it to be more organized. It’s akin to the cries of a child whose brother is picking on her. “He shouldn’t do that!” might be a valid opinion for her to have, but she can no more control his actions than I can control the Italian government. In the end, the things we can control are the things that give us power, and in this case what we can control are our expectations.

My Italian friends mean well when they try to discourage me from moving to their country, and until I actually make the move there’s no way to know how I’ll fare. In truth, I’m not even sure they’re thinking about how vastly different traveling in a country and living in that country are when they make the distinction in that conversation I keep having, but somehow they’re keenly aware that having a dream of being an expat and actually being one are worlds apart.

About the Author: Jessica Spiegel is the Italophile at BootsnAll, the independent travel resource, and she writes BootsnAll’s Italy travel guide, WhyGo Italy. She’s just as content dishing out tips on train travel in Italy as she is discussing her favorite Italian gelato flavors, although she’s more likely to salivate over the latter topic. You can find her on WhyGo Italy’s Facebook page and as @italylogue on Twitter.

Traveling vs. Living as an Expat is a feed post from Grounded Traveler.

As with all my Phototours, there is a gallery at the bottom with even more pictures. If you want the story behind the pictures, read on.

Kalampaka

The site is actually pretty easy to reach from Athens by bus. The trip takes about 4 hours. The town of Kalampaka sits below the towering rock faces which have monasteries on top of them. This was my base to explore the area, but also my favorite town in mainland Greece by far. It was peaceful and yet had tourist infrastructure, so didn’t feel like the back end of nowhere. I had the best pita of my trip for only 1.50 Euro here. Expect another post on Kalampaka itself shortly.

To get up to the ridge where the monasteries are you can either walk up paths or take a bus. I had heard about the bus and figured it rain every 20 minutes or so. No, it runs once in the morning at 9am, conveniently 5 minutes before I walked into the station, and once at 1pm. I ended up taking a cab up, which was kind of neat as I got to chat with the cabby. Apparently there used to be 26 monasteries in the rocks, but only 6 remain used and visitable.

I was given a helpful map by my hotel with all the paths listed along with the opening hours. They all are open different days and some close for lunch. I decided my best bet was to start at one end and walk to the other, taking a marked path back down into town. The weather was warm, but foggy. At first a little disappointed at the fog, but it lent atmosphere to the pictures.

Tip: check the bus schedule the night before.

Dress Code and the Lending Pants

The monasteries are still active places of worship and enforce a standard church dress code. So cover up ladies and gentlemen (no shorts for men). Though if you forget, they have loose pants and skirts to lend to tourists caught unawares. Bright gaudily patterned thing, that I can only imagine are done like that to avoid people stealing them.

Holy Monastery of the Great Meteoron

The largest monastery and my first stop was Great Meteoron. It was crawling with tourists.

My favorite part of the place was a large mural painted over and around a door. It had Jesus above and rows of men to either side, each with a scroll. Reading the plaque, one row were indeed biblical prophets. But amazingly cool to me, the other line were Greek Philosophers. On their scrolls were quotes they said about God. Some predate Christ by centuries and echo the prophets. In others just the Greek obsession with math and science still allows them to muse about the Almighty. I found it truly cool to read, unfortunately I couldn’t find any book or card that had the English of the scrolls.

Holy Monastery of Varlaam

I walked around to this monastery second. It was smaller but equally as interesting in places. They were actually repairing the roof here; so these places are still in fairly good repair.

Upon leaving the place walking down, I talked to a guy that I had seen on the bus coming into town the night before. He was from Japan and we talked for a while about all kinds of stuff. Itto was on a 22 month round-the-world. We ended up making plans to hang out at dinner and he went to take a different path down, as I went walking along the ridge.

Holy Monastery of Rousanou & Holy Monastery of St. Nicholas Anapausas

Rousanou was the one that was closed on the day that I was there. Nicholas Anapausas was where my new friend Itto had hiked off toward. It was not on the main road so I decided in order to be able to get to see the others, I would skip it. I did get some nice background pictures though. Great thanks to the kind girl who took a really great picture of me.

Holy Monastery of St. Stephan

This monastery is at the other end of the rock formation from the Great Meteoron. It is run by nuns as opposed to monks. Again swarming with tourists, perhaps due to the easy bridge entry opposed to large amounts of steps. This one was closed at lunch, so I was glad to get in and see it before the several hour lunchtime. I quite liked the atmosphere in this one. It felt secure and peaceful without so much the isolation of some of the others.

Monastery of the Holy Trinity

This was my last stop and the smallest of the places. Also the most trying to get to. In order to reach it by foot, you walk down into a valley across to the pillar and then in a stairway cut into the side of the rock very much up to get to it. It was also under construction, so nice to see that they are being kept up.

Path back to Kalampaka

As suggested by my hotelier, I took a marked path at the base of the Holy Trinity pillar back into town. It was fairly well marked but rugged forest path. It had rained the night before, so was wet in places. Thankfully I only fell once.  The most frightening part was meeting the goats. Um, goats on TV and in pictures don’t look fierce. This band of goats however seemed much more frightening in person. Some nearly up to my shoulder tall and with horns. I did finally make it through and back down into town.

Thoughts and Gallery

I have seen some of Itto’s pictures from the next day when it was sunny and it would have been amazing to see. Though I was sweating even in the cloud cover, so full sun may have been too hot for me. Being able to walk through such amazing places built on pillars in precarious places by dedicated monks was very moving. Despite the hassle to get here and home, I think it was well worth it. There are bus tours from Athens (I saw enough tourists and dodged enough buses), but I would still recommend coming on your own for a few days.

Here are more pictures

[portfolio_slideshow]

Meteora Phototour – Monks above the sky is a feed post from Grounded Traveler.

I searched after the greener grass, many times. I tended to move every time I saw some brown patches in my life.. err lawn. I actually think there is a benefit to this. If you move around looking for greener grass, if nothing else you become a better judge of grass.

One of the prime things that I say about the move was that I learned very clearly which of the myriad problems that I saw in my life were founded in the situation and which came from within. The second big thing that I have is perspective. I can look back and make better decisions about which things I am willing to accept and which I want to change.

“An optimist believes we live in the best of all positive worlds, a pessimist fears that this is true.”

Rocks ahead or path to view?

I think we get frightened by the story of the green grass. People make it out to be illusion and myth. “Don’t leave what you have just looking for something better, because it isn’t out there and you will lose what you have.” The really insidious part of these stories is that often they are based in wisdom. Why is that insidious? A lot of people tell these stories from their own experiences and are well meaning, attempting to warn from never enjoying what is good and always searching for what is better. But often the similar sounding story is told from fear and worry that although perhaps a bad situation, that there are many other worse. To act out of fear is almost always the wrong choice.

I think there is a real perspective and benefit for some comparison shopping in life. It provides knowledge so that decisions are not made from fear. There is a limit to this of course. I have learned that always running isn’t really an answer, but having a basis of comparison gives real leverage to decisions. Knowing that there are other options and I would rather the choice I have made feels somewhat satisfying. The balance of this is knowing when to stop looking. When the looking becomes not seeking of knowledge, but slips into fear of missing the “best” choice, again the decisions are based on fear.

Lunchtime

I see this balance in my life in the oddest ways sometimes. As posted, I have an issue with indecision. So my balance is to know when to stop testing alternatives and just make a choice. I noticed this at lunch the other day.

There is a fairly small set of streets near the university that I go eat lunch in. They are quiet and cheap and decent food. I know these streets pretty well and which restaurants serve what food. Yet often I find myself walking around and around looking for something to eat. I am so starving that I can’t decide. I look at one and it doesn’t appeal only to search for the next choice. In the end I often run out of time and just end up with a quick sausage or whatever from a bakery. So I spend my lunchtime looking for the greenest grass and end up with a somewhat scraggly weed.

The point of this is not that I should also just pick the first thing that I see, choice is still a good thing, but that for me too much choice can overwhelm. This is one of those things I learned is part of me and not an issue coming from the choice prone US culture.

What does this have to do with Travel?

Like green grass, try green door.

It is often said that travel opens horizons and broadens perspective. I see this as taking tours of different pastures. By seeing different ways of life (different choices) I get a chance to make some decisions about myself. Do I like warmer places or cooler climes, how much rain can I deal with. It also can teach the restraint part as well. At some point walking from one end of Zagreb to the other, just pick a hotel, it’s not worth that much pain to find the perfect place.

If life is a set of doors and passageways that we move through, then there is good sense in checking a few doors before you pick a corridor you like. Being afraid of opening is one end of the balance and being afraid to not open every door is the other end. Try a few, make a choice and stick with it for a bit; then perhaps check another few doors or open a window for some fresh air.

Act not out of fear of the unknown, but also not to let things go so far as to ignore what is actually worth enjoying.

Searching for Greener Grass is a feed post from Grounded Traveler.

Ok, I speak native English, fluent German and basic Italian. I have taken Intro to French twice in my schooling, so I know enough to read a bit. My last trip to a place where I didn’t speak some of the language was to Czech Republic in April. There I had no problem with the random sounds I was told meant Please and Thank You. I had this within minutes of entering the country in fact. I explain all of this to show I am not a language dolt.

Despite this, I could not seem to say Merci to save my life. Every time I thanked a waitress or shopkeeper, it came out Gratzie. This even after being reprimanded early by a coffee waitress (France remember, they seem attached to their language.)

The language of travel, especially exotic travel, is an interesting one. We often weave between various flavors of local school-learned English (which I am very grateful for) and general hand-waving. Most practiced travelers learned a few phrases to use to show respect and attempt not to mangle them too badly. How does language add fit into our experience?

Grunt and Point

The most basic language that I use in travel is what I call “grunt-and-point”. In Plzen, Czech Republic, seemlingly far from tourist friendly Prague, I found myself in a bakery. Ok, a bakery shouldn’t be a complex place.  Well in general it isn’t, until you stand, starving, trying to figure out which of the various similar looking pastries would appeal. Even if someone spoke some english, noone learns the intricacies of local pastry fillings in school language class. So in the end, you just point at something and hold up a finger.  In return they show you the cash register readout. Then with respect to the line forming behind you, you give the girl a handful of coins that you hope covers your chosen delicacy and get an oddly similarly sized pile of coins back. Only later to find that the pasty you picked tastes funny.

To some this is real travel, having no clue what you are eating or paying for anything. This is really stepping out of the comfort zone big time. Menus at restaurants are even better, where you don’t even have the benefit of looking at something first. You literally just pick at random, point at the menu and hope. I am unfortunately a pretty picky eater, so in countries like that I tend to the english menus or the fast food places where I see before I eat.

Mangle How?

The first phrases I pick up when traveling in a new place are the following:

• Thank You and Please.
• Where is the bathroom?
• I would like a beer.

I figure anything beyond that is just over-taxing my brain. With those phrases I can live and make new friends (hopefully local friends who speak more than those phrases.) The trick then is to practice these phrases enough to be understood. There is not much worse than having a ten minute “grunt-and-point” conversation when you mangle your hastily learned ‘thank you’ and accidentally insult the shopkeeper. I find bartenders to be useful for this practice for several reasons. They are friendly, often speak decent English, and bars are good places to actually use these phrases. As everyone knows, you learn best by practicing a language, not on paper.

Language, Culture and Travel

So much of culture and language are intertwined. A language is part of the culture and so many cultural things are tied up in language. This is part of why the french waitress corrected my odd Italian slip. It also comes out when you get a bunch of different English speakers together. We are distinct from other language groups and share a lot of culture too, but at the edges are very different.

Language is a way to bond on the road. Both with other travelers and with locals. It is a great thing to hear words you understand after a long time in “grunt and point” land. This plus a round of beers is usually enough to make new friends. On the flip side, attempting (even mangled) the local language is bound to get you some new friends from the locals as well. Everyone likes when someone else makes an attempt to understand them.

Too many languages? Maybe in my head, but it’s fine; I’ll just point and get a pivo.. err bier.. yeah that one to the left of the one you are pointing at. Oh, I only need one, ok I’ll find someone to share with. <sigh>

Any interesting language/travel stories to share?

Of Language and Beer is a feed post from Grounded Traveler.