The experience of travel...

This summer I have had the benefit of experiencing the enjoyment of travel from many perspectives.  In the past I might have scoffed at some of the different reasons or interests in traveling, but after the summer I have realized that whatever the reason the end result is the same: they were happy. 

There are people that travel almost exclusively for the passport stamp or to be able to say that they went to a particular country.  These are the same type of people that I was referring to in my post above about taking photos at major attractions.  I have a difficult time with this approach to travel, because it misses in my mind the main point of travel.  However, after showing a few visitors around over the summer that approached their visit with this mindset I realized that this was what made them happy.  

I might argue that I am the other extreme of the travel experience seeker, but I know that there are others.  I would like to avoid touristy places with their picture clicking hoardes (but sometimes still find myself there) and get much more out of a trip by staying for a few days in a particular area.  I enjoy being immersed in the culture of a region or area to understand how the locals live their lives.  For a long time I considered this to be the epitome of travel, but seeing people enjoy their touristy trips this summer I realized that it´s more about how in travel there is something for everyone.    

Documentation...

I hadn´t intended on blogging while out of the country, but this particular observation has been with me for two days now so I think it´s worth putting down. 

While taking a walking tour of the Alhambra I couldn't help but stop to notice the picture hungry tourists.  I was amazed by the number of people at the Alhambra and even today in Sevilla (at the Cathedral) who were clicking away nonstop.  The Cathedral today was a barrage of flash photography so much so that I felt like I was a celebrity on the red carpet.  The HyWy made a good point about how amazing it would be if major monuments would not allow photography of any kind and what an effect it would have on the tourist experience.  We both agreed that the experienced would be significantly different for the photographer and the person affected by the photography.  I don´t believe the photographers are truly experiencing the beauty they are surrounded by because they are absorbed in capturing the ¨next great Nat´l Geographic Photo¨or great photo for Facebook.  I understand the need to capture memories, but at a certain point I think people are blindly shooting everything that seems good.  It is definitely distracting from my experience of the particular attraction, but how do you sway 20+ individuals clicking away.  I think this tendancy has grown in the last 5-10 years with the proliferation of digital cameras such that every individual seems to fancy themselves as they next Ansel Adams.  I´m sure I am being harsh, but I think I´m just being real. 

Where I was...

Last Friday marked the 8th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th and every year on the anniversary I read stories about people remembering where they were on that day. For some reason I'm always intrigued by where people were on that day and how they found out about the events that unfolded in New York City. Growing up I heard my parents recollections of famous moments in history (often deaths) with the same degree of interest. Where my Dad was when he heard about the assassination of JFK, where my Mom was when she heard about the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, or where they both were when they heard about John Lennon.

I remember the day very vividly. I was walking down a back ally on campus towards the fall career fair at the basketball arena that would kick off my final two semesters at Tech. I was walking behind a guy who saw someone he knew walking by. The passerby asked his friend whether he had heard about what was going on. The response was as in many cases one of query and confusion, "no what's up?" The passerby responded that he should just check out CNN. I didn't think anything of it and continued on to the career fair. Once at the career fair it was a scene straight out of a movie as people were milling about watching the televisions all tuned to the same thing. I remember hearing someone ask what was going on and the reply stunned me, "a plane hit the World Trade Center." We watched in shock, sorrow, disbelief, and numbness as the second tower fell. Shortly thereafter a friend who was working the career fair said that they were going to shutdown campus and that I should dump all my resumes as fast as I could on as many companies as possible. On the drive home taking a back road to avoid traffic I remember listening to the radio and tears just streaming down my face. I would spend the next 6 to 8 hrs in front of the television like many others. At one point my Mom called completely confused and in the dark over what was going on. She was by herself in Singapore, my Dad away on business in Paris, awoken to this nightmare by a phone call from India. Through the tears and the sobs all she kept asking was why would someone do this.

Barely a month later in a fit of frustration over a personal problem I fled to the only place that felt comfortable and oddly enough one of the last places to seek it: New York City. I can still see the glow from Ground Zero. I can still smell the mixture of smoke, dust, and who knows what else.

One day I will tell someone how I remember exactly where I was on September 11th.