In 2008, I quit my corporate job, sold off everything I owned and moved overseas with my husband Drew. Since then we've traveled around the world, started our careers over as creative types and nurtured our love of sleeping in late. Oh and we had a baby. Cole, our almost 2 year old has been traveling since he was four months old and probably knows more Thai than me (not that he brags).
Check Your Ego at the Border
GUEST POST: While I am on the road this week and exploring Madrid, I’ve arranged for some of my favorite travel bloggers to share their travel stories and advice here. So enjoy, give our guest bloggers lots of love and be sure to check out the author’s site.
Traveling is like eating a big piece of humble pie. It doesn’t matter if you speak the language, have studied the culture, read all the guidebooks, or have been to your destination multiple times before, you will still encounter situations that make you feel like it’s your first day of high school and you’re the only one who can’t find the classroom. You will eat humble pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You’ll snack on it when you get hungry. You’ll consume so much of it that at times you’ll feel like you couldn’t possibly take another bite…oh, well…it was so good, maybe just one more…
As a foreigner it’s natural that you don’t know everything about the places you’ll be visiting, but this fact will offer you no consolation. You’ll find yourself having to ask a million silly questions, you’ll get lost regularly and you’ll commit embarrassing social gaffes. You’ll sometimes struggle to say even the simplest things in their language. If you’re like me and you decide to come to Paris – where hours of operation are extremely varied and subject to spontaneous changes – you’ll inevitably at some point travel all the way across town to visit an office building or a museum only to discover that they’re closed on Thursdays…between 10 and 2…for this week only. In fact, if you’re really like me, you’ll repeat this mistake over and over and over again.
At some point, you’ll ask yourself the question: what am I doing here? Why did I leave a place where I understand all the rules, where I understand and speak the language with ease, and where I feel like I know what I’m doing at least the majority of the time, to come here?
But of course, you know the answer. It’s quite simple, really. You do it because on some level you enjoy being a foreigner. You enjoy the rush it gives you. Sure there are tough times, times when you feel a bit helpless, but there are also the times when you feel a sense of accomplishment, when you beam with pride as you claim victory over the travel gods. A local asked me for directions! I navigated the metro from memory! I just had an entire conversation in a foreign language and they understood me! I finally got the French bureaucracy to send me my social security card! And somewhere along the road, surviving all those mishaps and roadblocks make you realize what you’re made of. You’re made of tenacity, of courage and of sheer determination. You are a successful traveler.
So go ahead, eat up! That humble pie’s not so bad. And the aftertaste is amazing.
About the Author:
Tanya Brothen is a second-year graduate student at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, DC pursuing a Master’s Degree in International Affairs. She is currently studying at Sciences Po Paris on a semester abroad exchange program.
When not blogging about life as an American in Paris, Tanya enjoys traveling throughout Europe, cooking in her tiny French kitchen, searching for her next favorite Parisian café…and being a foreigner. You can read about her experiences at www.parisianspring.blogspot.com.
Photo (top): Tanvach