Travel Notes

All right, I am ready to stay put now.

My first week in Germany consisted of moving into my attic flat in Elsen; registering for internet, mobile, and bank accounts; lots of improvised sign language; and signing forms that I didn't understand at all (according to some accounts I married four coworkers during safety training, and adopted a child while signing for my stipend).

My second week took place in Hamburg, as my supervisor was gone visiting family so I took a spontaneous trip (this was okayed ahead of time!). I felt a bit like a slacker, scooting off in the second week, but I would have felt like a workaholic if I had turned down the opportunity - so given the two extremes, I chose travel. Pictures will be posted to the photo blog soon, and I'm ready now to start my project in earnest. For the record, though, some of my accumulated observations from hitting the road follow:

We are the Canadian Borg: Resistance would be impolite

First off - yes, I'm a geek and I live in a house of them. Secondly, if there was a plan for global domination, someone forgot to tell me. Every time I introduce myself as a Canadian, I'm met with various levels of disbelief, all stemming from the same reaction - another Canadian? What I hear over and over again, consistently and from everyone I have spoken to is that travellers always seem to be meeting Canadians and Australians - or at least, everyone except me.

Where are they hiding? I've met Brits, Irish, Americans, a smattering of Canadians, one Australian and one Ghanaian, and an assortment of continental Europeans and Asians - in short, a lot of people from around the world, visiting major cities for reasons of business, vacation, or study. But no single nationality has been dominant, and yet every time I say I'm from Canada I get the same response.

On a related note, I would like to compare the actual population of Toronto (2.5 million) with the number of people who claim to be from there - including myself now, although I do have 14 years for credibility. For a country as sparsely populated as Canada, most foreigners can barely remember the cities of Toronto or Vancouver - and seem to regard Quebec as a country in its own right. As a result, I have a suspicion that all these Canadians that people are meeting hail from the six provinces of: The North, Vancouver, Between-Vancouver-and-Toronto, Toronto, Quebec, and The East Coast. Maybe it's my own laziness, but after a few weeks of 'Hamilton, near Toronto' I just gave up and simplified the story.

Ice Cream

One of the sad truths of travelling is often being denied dessert. Not that I eat dessert all the time at home - in fact, I'd say usually not. But travelling does lead to restaurants sometimes, and if it's been a long day or there's a specialty in the region, it's nice to have a treat.

However - for whatever reason - sometimes you are out of luck. Maybe a snooty waiter will decide to tell you there is no dessert menu, and bring the family behind you some lovely looking fruit dishes. Maybe you will ask for gulab jamun in a Pakistani restaurant, happily thinking that there is no way that that could be misinterpreted, even in German, and you get the bill instead. Oops.

But when it's been a hot day of exploring, there's one thing that can't be beat, and is always there for me. Even if it's being called glace or eis, good old ice cream never lets me down.

The giggles

If you travel with your eyes open and a willingness to really think about where you are and what it means, I think my favourite part of exploring is what I call 'the giggles'. The giggles are that wonderful moment when you realize - usually because of some physical contact, like the airplane touching down or your first step out into a busy main street - that you are somewhere else; somewhere you are lucky and grateful to be; someplace with new things to see, new people to meet, and new experiences to learn from. It's realizing that a city that only existed before in movies, TV shows, and books is all around you; it's standing on a rainy beach and knowing the ocean in front of you stretches out for thousands of kilometres; it's understanding that you're in a place you've worked towards for a long time.

The giggles can't last forever - eventually the novelty wears off - and this is necessary for integrating, or at least blending in. That's the point where I'm at now, and it's time to start working within the culture rather than just observing and wondering at it. But in the beginning, when there are these moments where the joy of adventure and exploration and newness just floats up and out of you like bubbles - it's powerful stuff, and I love it.