Just as I grew to love Little Women’s Jo March, I grew to share her dreams. I remember so clearly Jo’s utter excitement and envy when she hears of Laurie’s extensive European travels. She longs to escape Concord and “see the world,” to travel to Italy, France and England. Before coming to Madrid, the thought of Europe gave (and still gives) me a heart-in-throat, adrenaline-pumping rush. It sounded so glamorous that I could never really imagine myself there.
In the past week, I’ve gone from Madrid to Milan, to the Italian Cinque Terre, to Switzerland where I am now. Within the next week I’ll see Venice, Budapest and Barcelona. I’ve hiked through the mountainous Swiss countryside and laid on breathtaking Italian beaches. The reality of hauling a backpack full of smelly clothes and grocery store-bought food is much less glamorous than all this sounds. The beauty, though, cannot be understated. I am seeing the world, albeit the European world. Yet as I encounter new and spectacular vistas, I find myself comparing them to ones I’ve seen in the US. The Alps remind me of the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas, the overlaying fog in Monterosso, Italy, is just like what I’ve seen in hilly San Francisco, and the Italian mountain cacti are just like my own El Paso cacti. As far as nature’s beauty goes, I have already seen so much of the world. What I’m seeing now, this new world, is more the new cultures I’m discovering.
Something as simple as a greeting is far more complex than I realized. The Spanish greet each other with kisses on both cheeks. If you mess this up, it can be quite awkward. From my experience, the French only gave one kiss and you can seem a bit overzealous if you go in for the second. The Italians I’ve met kissed my left cheek first, and the Swiss just greeted me with words and phrases which I swear were different each time they greeted me. All this is before the conversation has even begun.
I have never sat on a train and not understood a single word being said around me. Apparently, and thank God, communication transcends verbal language. A couple days ago I tried to ask an elderly Swiss lady for directions and she quickly realized I really couldn’t speak any more German than “I don’t speak German, Allmig Peak please.” She motioned for me and my friends to follow her, then walked us half a mile to find someone who spoke English and could explain the directions better. Occasionally she would stop, grunt, say something in German and point at livestock, but mostly we walked in silence. Words were not necessary. At times, though, language is crucial, say, when you’re buying a ticket or being questioned about your ticket which is actually for a different train. Or if you would like to compliment the food at a café rather than the person serving it.
Europe’s glamour has faded a bit in my mind but these new discoveries of languages, cultural norms and the intersections of differing ones remain as fascinating and beautiful as European countrysides. They are even more fascinating than what Jo or I ever dreamed of.