Trains and boats and planes

My buddy and fellow blogger Don suggested we write about the benefits of travel. I thought it was a good idea, so here's my take. 

Travel has brought me up close and personal to a few of the "must sees" in the world: the Louvre and the Mona Lisa, the Musée d'Orsay and its spectacular collection of impressionist art, the Coliseum in Rome, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, a Tori gate at the start of the climb up Mt. Fuji, the Panama Canal, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Grand Canyon, the Vienna State Opera House, the Paris Opera, the French Riviera, Michelangelo's "David," Jan Palach's grave in Prague -- the list goes on. Plenty of folks know more about these places than I do, but I've been there, and only travel gets you that.

And then there's food. I grew up in a very conservative household as far as culinary matters go. It was meat, usually with potatoes, every night except Friday, with the occasional spaghetti -- never "pasta" -- with red meat sauce -- never meatballs, sausages or any other variety. Mom was an excellent cook, but had it not been for Japanese and Chinese dinners in Tokyo at age six I wouldn't have known the world had such variety. Then when I started to travel as an adult my eyes were truly opened: maybe the world's best pizza in Nice, France; poki in Hawaii; fresh sardines in Paris; amazing Indian in Cambridge; bulgogi and bibimbap here in Korea; this list goes on too.

I also thank traveling for a certain set of memories that are among my favorites. Things that might have happened anywhere, but the location, the event and the players combine to form an experience that is forever special: asking the hostess at a Chinese restaurant if she was still serving only to realize we were in fact in a Japanese massage parlor (!); arriving at a Czech train station and not having a clue how to deal with the language and the subway ticket machines; seeing a young Frenchman reading Oscar Wilde aloud while leaning against his tombstone at Père Lachaise; Don ordering a Drambuie in a Prague restaurant and getting a chocolate sundae instead; walking across the fens in Salisbury and having a staring contest with a fox; sitting in the choir in a closed-to-the-public Westminster Abbey for a glorious Evensong; being yelled at by an Austrian father because I was walking against the light in a near-deserted Salzburg at 8am. This list too could go on and on.

And the greatest benefit of seeing the world is that it has opened my mind to the idea that the way I do things, the perspectives I have, the things I eat, the very core of who I am is all dependent on the family I was born into and the experiences I've had. Meeting people of other cultures who have had vastly different experiences taught me that my way is just that: my way. Not the only way, and certainly not the right way. Just one way among many.

I think Americans tend to be more jingoistic than many cultures and I think that is related to the fact that we tend to visit other cultures far less than, say, Europeans. The "love it or leave it" attitude that extreme patriots display exists in far more liberal folks as well, just more subtly. Most Americans are convinced that ours is the greatest country on earth and would be aghast to hear me suggest it may not be. Traveling has opened my eyes to the way others see the world, see us, see our place in the world and see their own society and its place. We do NOT have all the answers. Traveling, and more specifically, meeting and sharing with strangers, is so very important to our own well-being and the well-being of the planet that I think it is the most important thing we can do with our leisure time.