Coda

(I wrote this a few months ago and never got around to posting it because it felt too sentimental. Rereading it today it didn't sound so bad. Here is a last post for Videza. For now.)

So this blog needs a coda. We made it back in one piece, twelve hours on a plane not withstanding.

This is hard to write because I do not have anything revelatory to offer. I don’t actually travel with the purpose of reworking my perspective on life, or finding deeper truths.

I travel because I love it. Because waking up somewhere new, learning a new set of streets, new words for “entrance” and “exit” are exciting. Travel makes time for other things, for thinking and brainstorming without the intrusion of routine, for breathing space.

It’s almost three weeks since I got back to Ohio. Life is different and the same. The strangest part is realizing that most people, everyone except Chelsea, can’t really understand the anomaly of the last three months. It was three months for most people – they worked, they read, they studied and lived.

And for me, looking at the pictures, at this blog. Remembering everything that happened and was said off the camera, it feels intangible. It would not take much to convince me that I never left. That it was a dream.

Which is why it is best to travel with someone you trust, because they will remind you that you were awake. Of the moments when you put your foot in your mouth and the pictures you deleted. And of the occasional dumb wonder that struck at unexpected times, when we realized that first a week, and then a month and then three had passed.

Well, I know you all believed in us, and knew we’d make it safely home. But now we are, and the fact is perhaps better comfort than your confidence. Thanks for reading and traveling with us.

Cheers.

Here and Now

As you gaze across the bobbing sea of heads and cameras, meeting Mona Lisa’s eyes across the room, as the echoes of the constant murmur of “no photo” from Italian polizia fills the Sistine Chapel, as the man next to you exclaims, “It’s a unicorn,” and laughs at the absurdity of the Crown Jewels, one begins to ponder the nature of tourism.

On this trip we have spent not an inconsiderable amount of time in what I would term “dead” monuments. The Tower holds no more executions, no kings live in Neuscwanstein, and the last battle in the coliseum, well, you get the idea.



It’s part of why I enjoy visiting places of worship. Because most of them are still alive.

Now, I will not pretend to be the most reverent of visitors to these embalmed places. I quite enjoy the imagined consternation of the Hapsburg ghosts as they see their venerated grounds invaded by the masses. But why do we go? Where is the line between overprotective snobbery and appreciation, between good humor and a loss of wonder?

When we were wandering the Louvre Chelsea and I were passed by a gentleman with a camera. He walked directly to each case in the room, snapped a photo and walked on. Without looking at what was there. This baffled us then, and still does. Where is the worth in that? What was the point of your admission? To say that you were there?

(And again, I am not above doing some things for the mere purpose of making a factual statement. We took a train ride to Malmo and back, and proudly count Sweden on our itinerary. Yes, yes, laugh at us.)



All of this makes Venice an interesting case. Venice, we were told, is a city of tourists. The old town, the part everyone thinks of when we think of Venice, gave us no evidence to the contrary. We heard a lot of languages, and very little Italian. There were street hawkers and cheap masks, gaudy gondolas and plenty of “I heart Venice” shirts.

And yet.

Some mask shops boast finer ware: fragile metal butterflies and swirls of stiff fabric, glittering crystal and delicate flourishes of gold. Some canals are still a breathtaking aqua, and some streets are deserted, left for the dreamers who wish they were wearing cloaks and lace and had important business about in the floating city.



And then it is back to the irreverent noise of cameras coming on and gelato running down your fingers. And the ice cream is marvelous, and you’ll be glad you got that shot later, when you are trying to convince yourself that you ever traveled halfway around the world.



If any of this seems to contradict itself, then I suppose that’s my point. I don’t know if there is a solution. I don’t know if there is a problem. I’d be sad if these treasures were locked from sight, I am sad that our dead have so little weight.

I Heart Prague

Everyone says that Prague is beautiful. And in this case Everyone is right.



We got into Prague two days ago and after five minutes of wandering narrow streets, gazing at the river and the copper spires turned green with age, we stumbled upon an open air performance.

It was modern dance, performed in full suits to harsh repetitive electronic music and with a dozen or so desks as props. Chelsea and I stood entranced for the whole thing. They managed to work in people dropping pages out of phone books from the five story buildings surrounding us and a naked man in a window with a cell phone.



This is the first city where the tacky “I heart 'insert city here'” t-shirts has been tempting. We love Prague.

Also – 1 USD works out to nearly 20 kroner here. And as opposed to Denmark where a similar phenomenon meant nothing, here we got Indian food for two people for less than 10 dollars. As stated: We love Prague.

We spent most of the day, roughly 9ish hours, walking around today.



This though I blame on Paris. A result of our stay in Paris is that we got used to small spaces on city maps taking us a long time to traverse on foot. Paris is huge, so an inch or so on my Paris map is roughly 15-20 minutes walking. But now, in smaller cities, and especially old city centers, we tend to cross whole blocks of the map without noticing – hence we missed Amsterdam’s red light district the first time we walked through it.

So in Prague, when we look at a map with our hostel and the zoo literally on opposite sides and then gauge from our walking the day before that it really wouldn’t be that bad of a trek we shrug our shoulders and head out.



And as we are heading back, it is less of a bother to walk than to try to figure out the bus.

We are safely in the hostel now – tomorrow we take off for Vienna. Our feet hurt and we could stand to do laundry. Soon. But we love Prague. Ciao!