Making Connections

“The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sight-seeing.” – Daniel J. Boorstin

I have to admit, anytime I travel there are moments when I am clearly a tourist and other moments where I am more like a traveler. I am a planner. I like to know what I'm doing, what I'm going to see, and what is happening next. This is a huge strength of mine, but when it comes to be a traveler sometimes my planning causes me to miss out on incredible opportunities and moments interacting with the people and the culture of the place that I am in. Right now I'm starting to think about what I want to do and where I want to go this summer. I've decided that yes, I am going to make plans, but only to the extent of knowing where I'm going, when I'm going, how to get there, and where I will be sleeping. When it comes to what I am actually going to be doing in the towns and places I visit, well, that is where I hope this summer to be more of a traveler than tourist.

The best moments on all of my trips so far have been when I've stopped worrying about what I'm doing or where I'm going and I've spent time interacting with locals. I'm also an introvert so this isn't something that comes naturally to me. It is amazing how you can be somewhere half way across the world from where your "reality" is and you can make connections with people from a different background, a different upbringing, and a different culture than your own. Sometimes you can even make connections without being able to communicate via language.

One of my favorite connections that I made while traveling was one that was so simple and so brief, but has left a big impact on me. When we were in Egypt we had scheduled opportunities to go to an Egyptian village and speak with a family, but other than that we really did not interact very often with locals. During dinner one night at an Egyptian restaurant, I needed to go to the bathroom. There was a young woman who was probably in her mid to late twenties who was wearing an Abaya and head scarf. She was covered from head to toe as part of the customs of her culture so all I could see was her face. When I came in she smiled but she couldn't speak English so the smile was our only communication. For those of you who know me well, you are probably aware of the fact that I love earrings. I have probably close to 100 pairs and have some pretty neat ones and I make it a point to buy at least one pair in every country that I go to. On that particular day I was wearing a large interesting pair of earrings. When I cam out of the bathroom and went to leave the young woman grabbed my shoulder and stopped me. She smiled again and then modestly pulled back her headscarf and revealed a beautiful dangling pair of earrings. She then touched the pair that I was wearing and smiled again. This one such a small moment, but in that moment we both realized that despite the difference in our experience, the difference in our beliefs/cultures, and the fact that we had no way to really communicate with one another, that we had a connection- we shared something. For me this was also a very touching moment and something that must have taken some sort of bravery from the young woman. She made the decision to show me beyond her headscarf, to take something that is so important to wear in her culture off to show me something she was proud of and show me that we have a connection. It is moments like these that I really cherish when I travel.

The point of sharing this story is to remind all of us that when we travel, and even when we are here at home, to look for the little connections that you have with people. To realize that even though you may think someone is very different from you, that there are things that can bring you together- there are ways for you to connect. I think if we all took time to listen to one another, hear each others stories, we would learn that we aren't that different and that we can live together in harmony and appreciate one another. Look for those connections. I promise they are all around you.

Fred the Donkey

For those of you who know me well, or to be honest, have ever interacted with me, you know that I like to feel in control of things and like to have everything planned out as much as I can. Sometimes this is a great thing, sometimes it drives people crazy, and sometimes things just happen that I can't control or plan out (which causes me to become a little frantic and anxious). When I'm not in control or have my own plan, I tend to ask a lot of questions so that I get all the information I need to understand what I'm doing or feel like I am kind of in control.

Well, when a little Greek man sticks you on top of a large donkey without a guide at the bottom of the island of Santorini so that you can get to the top of the island where everything is, you really have no control whatsoever and just have to trust that your donkey knows what it is doing and where it is going.....go ahead and imagine what was running through my mind. I bet several of you are laughing right now.

Getting to the island from our cruise ship was a little rocky to start out with. There wasn't a dock in port for our ship to pull up to so we stopped in the middle of the sea and had to take tender boats from the ship to the island. Usually this wouldn't have been bad, but the weather wasn't the greatest and the sea was acting pretty angry so it was a rough ride from the ship to the island. Once you get to the island you have two choices- 1. take the reliable, safe cable car up to the top or 2. ride a donkey all the way to the top. I was talked into taking the donkey option to the top of the island because who knew when I would have the opportunity to do that again.

So my little group got up to where they put you on donkeys and I saw that some people were put on a "donkey train" which was several donkeys tied together and then led up by a guide. The others in my group got put on a donkey train....not me. I was put on "Fred"(this was the name I came up with for my donkey after our adventure together) who was by himself and had no guide. Clearly, the control freak in me didn't like this plan, but again, you have to do what the little Greek man tells you to do. Well, Fred had a mind of his own. Instead of taking his time getting up to the top of the island, or staying in order behind all the other donkeys, he decided he would go really fast and then abruptly stop all of a sudden. And when another donkey was in his way he would just hit them as hard as he could in the butt with his head. And then there were several times where he decided it would be cool to get as close as he could to the edge of the cliff. Needless to say, I was having a mini panic attack riding Fred. He was probably having the time of his life. There was nothing I could do but hold on for dear life and hope that Fred would get me to the top of the island. I really wish there was a video of this for you all to see.

Luckily, Fred did manage to get me to the top of the island. Never again will I take a donkey to the top of Santorini again..next time I will stick with the cable car. After getting to the top, I realized that the crazy ride with Fred was worth it. Santorini is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to in my life. We got there right in time to see the sunset over the sea as well which was just breathtaking. I spent my short amount of time on the island wandering the streets, speaking with locals, and shopping. It was so relaxing and just incredible. And of course, I decided to take the cable car back down to the bottom of the island instead of going back down on Fred.

The point of this story is that sometimes there are things in life that we can't control, things that may scare us, and our journey might not be exactly what we had planned. But when these things happen, we end up with a beautiful experience or a great story that sticks with us and makes us realize that it is okay to let go sometimes, that being afraid of something shouldn't stop us from doing it, and that we learn so much about ourselves when we take a detour on our journey.

This is Fred my donkey

This is me at the end of my crazy journey with Fred. You might not be able to tell, but I am terrified.

Views like this one were what made the crazy journey worthwhile

It's Time That You Won

Too often we live our lives in fear. Fear of failure. Fear of doing the wrong thing. Fear of falling in love too fast. Fear of taking that one step that will put us on the right path for our lives. When did we start being so fearful? When did the switch in our lives change from being a carefree child who wanted to see the world and would take any risk to do so? Maybe it was the first time we got hurt. Maybe it was the first time we failed. Maybe we just learned from society that all things don't end with the perfect happy ending, so we stopped trying to find it. When we let fear take over, we stop living. We stay inside our safety nets and build up walls so people can't get too close and can't get to know who we really are. 

I think I've been stuck in fear since December 4, 2009. I hate the fact that I can remember certain dates in my life. Typically they are the ones that I want to forget, but for some reason they stay etched somewhere inside me and I can't get rid of them no matter what I do or how hard I try. There were plenty of times before this when I messed up, when I disappointed others, when I let fear hold me back, but this was the first time in my life that I felt like an utter failure and had no idea how I was going to pick up the pieces and start back over. I've come to learn that life is all a series of moments that we have to piece together, and sometimes have to piece back together when our puzzle falls apart or is missing a crucial piece. 

Sometimes, after we feel like we have failed, we rush back into something instead of taking the time to really reflect on what happened and what we could have done differently. Sometimes we don't take the time we need to heal before we try to put the pieces back together, and typically thats when we put the wrong pieces together and have to fight with the puzzle pieces to get them back apart before we can start putting things in the right place. We force things to get better, or things to happen, before we are really ready to move forward. As a person who for most of their life up until that point has been very successful, had always been really involved, and had usually been praised for the work they did, I hated feeling like a failure and so I rushed into a new situation that ended up being ten times worse than the first and made me lose trust in people. I started to build up my walls to keep people out on September 6th, 2010. 

Luckily, the past two years since then have been better. I've started to feel successful again, I've gotten the chance to do amazing things and go to incredible places. I've felt needed and appreciated. I managed to find two institutions where I knew I could make a difference. Things are slowly getting better. But I've still spent the better times living in fear. I constantly walk on eggshells afraid that I am going to do something wrong, say the wrong thing, or hurt someone to the point where they won't be in my life anymore. I still have my walls built up where instead of going out and meeting people, I stay inside, in my safety net, where I can't get hurt and where I can't hurt anyone. if you let it, fear will cripple you. 

So what is the point of this post? It isn't to make you feel sorry for me, or to make you wonder what happened because of how vague I've been. I think I've honestly been living in denial for the past few years of how much certain things in my life have affected me. I've kept things bottled inside that probably should have come out a long time ago. And I let fear take over. I also know that I'm not the only person who has done this. There are plenty of people in this world, and especially in this country where success is the quintessential " American Dream", who have let fear stop them from doing what they love. From taking a risk. From visiting another country. From telling someone that they love them. Its beyond time that we stop letting fear control us. We need to start living our lives again. The key song in one of my favorite musicals (which also happens to be a movie which is where the song originally comes from), Once, has a line in it which really hits home with me and I hope will hit home with some of you as well :

                                                  "You have suffered enough

                                                   And warred with yourself

                                                   It's time that you won"

So 2013, guess what? I may be a couple weeks late in putting up a resolution, but I'm going to win this year. I'm going to start, one step at a time, letting go of the fear and taking down the bricks in my wall. I know it won't be easy and I don't have the blueprint on how to do it, but I'm determined to. I already know I have big adventures ahead of me this year and I want to experience them without fear. 

Plus, I think that it is time that we all win. So if there is anything that is holding you back from accomplishing your dreams, seeing the parts of the world you want to, or anything else, start letting go and take risks :)

Reflect & Remember

December 31st 2008. Four years ago today. I was on my first major trip outside of the United States spending 14 days traveling around Europe on a bus with 54 people who started out as strangers and by the end of the trip became friends. For most of the people on the trip, we were there in Europe to have fun and see the sights, but none of us had any clue that December 31st 2008 would leave a major impact on each of our lives.

It was early in the morning and our tour group was leaving Munich after a late night of enjoying the famous Bavarian culture. We thought we were heading straight to Innsbruck, Austria where we were planning on enjoying the local new years eve festivities and fireworks. Our tour guide had a different plan for how we would spend our time on the final day of the year. Shortly after leaving Munich, our tour guide told us that we were making a stop outside of the city to visit Dachau Concentration Camp. For those of you who don't know, Dachau is located 10 miles from Munich and was the first concentration camp established by the Nazi Party. Dachau was created to be a camp for political prisoners and served as the prototype for all other concentration camps that were established. In total, Dachau became the home for 200,000 prisoners. Of the 200,000 two-thirds were political prisoners and one third were Jewish. This concentration camp was mainly used as a work camp, but over 35,000 people are thought to have died at Dachau from either disease, malnutrition, or other causes.

At first I wasn't sure how to feel and based on the reactions of most of my tour mates, everyone was struggling trying to determine how they felt about this unplanned stop. For some, the reality of where we were going didn't seem to hit them and they probably felt as though this was a stop getting in the way of their new years party. Others on the bus were hit hard as they had family who at one point had been held in concentration camps and they were not sure if they would be able to go to a place that would bring up so many feelings and hit close to home. I made the decision to go into Dachau and use my time there to reflect and remember. To remember those who had lost their lives both in Dachau and in other concentration camps around Europe and to reflect on my own life and the things I had accomplished that many of the people forced to live, and in numerous cases die, in these camps never had the opportunity to do.

I walked around the camp silently. For me, even though horrible things happened where I walked, it was still a hallowed place- a place where people had died and still to this day needed to be respected and remembered. I took my time walking around the camp, trying to understand how these places could have been created and how it managed to take so long to liberate the camps and the people in them. You can't fully understand what a place like this is or how you feel when you are there, until you actually go yourself. Until you see the barracks where prisoners and innocent Jewish people were forced to live. Until you stare inside the crematorium and realize the horrible things that happened. We see pictures and read stories in textbooks, but what we see and what we read are nothing compared to walking on the same ground that people died on years before.

Going to a concentration camp isn't the way that I would recommend you spending the last day of 2012, but what I would say is that having that experience made me realize several things. First, in order for history not to repeat itself we have to remember, and remember often. Second, we have to stand up for injustice both at home and abroad. I would also say that it should not just be the injustice that leads to genocide, but rather all forms of injustice so that one population, part of society, or person is not mistreating another. This can be something as small as bullying, but we need to stand up and say something more often than we do. Third, we need to care about one another more. Too often we focus on ourselves and what we are getting in our lives. Rather, I urge us to think more globally. To think about how we can help each other, support one another, and become a better society by taking the time to get to know one another. Fourth, we need to be constantly reflecting on our own lives. Most of the time we wait until the last day of the year to look back at all the great and all the bad things that have happened to us. Instead of waiting until the last day of the year, we need to be constantly reflecting and using that reflection to move forward and make ourselves better. Even when life is hard, and even if overall you feel as though you have had a terrible year; you are blessed; you have great things in your life; and you didn't spend time in a concentration camp like the prisoners in Dachau.

Our experiences shape us and make us who we are. For me, spending the last day of 2008 at Dachau touched my life in more ways than I understand or that I can explain. And now, on the last day of 2012, I'm taking time to remember and reflect. I hope that you do the same.

Christmas in Egypt

When you travel, there are moments  that will stay with you for the rest of your life. There is something about traveling and seeing the world that opens you up to new ideas, new experiences, and in the end you come home a different person because of what you have seen and what you have done. This is what I love about traveling. You can go somewhere new, meet new people, be whoever you want to be for a brief moment in time, and you can immerse yourself in the culture of where you are.

In 2010, I decided to go to Egypt. I feel as though when most people think about where it is that they want to travel or go on vacation, they typically think about places where you can relax, where you can see pretty things, and where you have a beach you can hang out on. I'm not that kind of traveller. I like to go to places with history, where I can think about the millions of other people who walked where I am walking. I went to Egypt with four friends and we had an amazing experience, but there is one moment that has stuck with me since I left that I felt as though I should share since its Christmas and I think that sometimes we tend to forget the things that are important about this time of year.

On Christmas Day 2010, my four friends and I made the decision to explore Cairo on our own before out tour group got together because we had the whole day to ourselves and wanted to take advantage of seeing the city. For those of you who have never been to Egypt, it is a beautiful country with so much unbelievable history right before your eyes, but it is also a country in the midst of major struggles, where poverty is real, and people live in a completely different way than we do in the west. Cairo has multiple parts to it just like every city. There is the touristy part of Cairo where the Egyptian Museum is; the area with the market; a trendy area; and then there is the area that we ended up walking around.

We were trying to head to the touristy part of Cairo and clearly my sense of direction was a little off that day. Here we were, a group of five friends wandering around the part of Cairo where real Egyptians lived. Where abandoned cars were piled up on each other throughout the street so much that you had to weave your way through the cars to make it from one part of the street to another. We were in an area that tourists must not usually go, because almost every person we walked by, whether they were also walking on the street, working in a store, or smoking a water pipe in a cafe, stopped what they were doing and watched us. Now, I won't lie, we were a very interesting group of tourists. Clearly we were all from America and we came in different shapes, sizes, and colors. Three white women (one of which was Jewish), a homosexual man, and a black woman all walking around Cairo. It is probably understandable why our little group got a lot of attention from the locals.

Then came the moment. The kind of moment I talked about in the beginning of this post that stays with you long after you have left the place you have traveled. While walking we saw a small boy and his father also walking. The boy had just gotten a glass bottle of coca cola and based on his excitement and also the physical state of himself and his father, this was probably a huge treat for the small boy. For me, being Christian and it was Christmas day, I equated the coca cola to being the only Christmas present that the boy had gotten. Now clearly I know that the boy probably didn't celebrate Christmas because of his religious beliefs, but all I could think of looking at that boy was how happy he was to get the present of the coca cola. And then I thought back to how we are in the United States. Many of us get all kinds of presents on Christmas Day. Our families and friends get us everything (or most everything) that we want on our gift list. We get extravagant things, new computers, new iPhones, brand named clothing. Essentially a lot of us are spoiled on Christmas and don't appreciate the gifts that we get or the people who give them to use the way that little boy cherished his bottle of coca cola. We get upset when one of the gifts we asked for isn't wrapped up under our tree or if someone got us the generic gift, not the name brand one we requested. Why is it, when so many other people in the world have so much less than we do, that all we care about at Christmas is getting the expensive gift that in a year or two we probably won't use anymore, might still be in its box never used, or will be replaced by the newest model?

A heartbreaking moment happened during our walk right after we saw the excitement of the young boy. Trying to be so careful with his bottle of coca cola, the boy dropped it in front of us and glass and soda went everywhere. You could see the pain and disappointment in the little boy's eyes. And then I looked down at his feet. The boy had no shoes on and more than likely some of the glass had ended up in his feet. The one Christmas present the boy had gotten, the one treat he had been given by his father was gone. But instead of crying, instead of causing a fuss and demanding that his father buy him a new bottle, the young boy put his head down, took his fathers hand, and continued walking. Clearly, the little boy, though heartbroken, understood what was important in life. It wasn't the bottle of coca cola, but the man who had gone out of his way to show his son he loved him by getting him the treat.

This story reminds me of what Christmas should be for all of us. It shouldn't be about the gifts we get. It shouldn't be about what is and isn't under our trees. We shouldn't be focused on the expensive gifts we want. Instead, we should be focused on the people in our lives. The people who take the time to get us whatever gifts they can, even if that gift isn't something they can buy. Christmas should be about getting to spend time with the people who matter most in your life. Telling them how much you love them and how much your appreciate them. And if you do get that gift you've been waiting for, or even if you don't and you get something else instead, make sure you show that same excitement, appreciation, and love that the small Egyptian boy did. 

Hi All :)

Welcome to my wonderful new blog. For those of you who don't know, I've been selected to serve as a Residence Director on the Summer 2013 voyage of Semester at Sea where I will spend 66 days traveling to 9 countries and 12 cities. Semester at Sea has always been a dream of mine and to be honest, I never thought I would be selected, even after my interview. Six months from now I will be sailing through Europe and North Africa. While I am on the ship this will be the blog that I will attempt to keep up with (despite what I've heard is terrible internet on the ship) to keep everyone updated with where I am and the adventures that I take. For now, I wanted to use this blog to think back on some of the incredible travel experiences I have had over the past four years and share some stories as I prepare over the next 6 months for the trip of a lifetime. I hope you enjoy!

-Lynsey