Europe Trip

Europe... seat of the Western Civilization and a steaming brewpot of cultures and people. I began my travels in Europe mid April, 2007 with the view of seeing as much of it as I could within 3 months. So far I've travelled through a fair part of central Europe - Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and a few interesting places in the South - Morocco, Portugal, Spain. In the next couple of days I will be moving from the Czech Republic to Vienna in Austria and onto Budapest in Hungary. There is the slight chance that I will be visiting Switzerland after that, though given the tight schedule - flight from Stuttgart, Germany to Rome, Italy on June 19th, this may not be possible. From Italy onwards I intend to fly to Cypress and travel via the islands to the Greece peninsular. By the time I finish there it will be late July and there will be a flight waiting for me to Shanghai, China from Frankfurt, Germany and then finally back into Australia where a job and Life awaits.

Travelling is a step out of reality.

I found that going through so may places at such a quick speed is like flicking through the National Geographic and seeing only the browns and the greens that is Africa - you get the feeling but not the full substance. As a speed traveller you're only ever there to see a few notable landmarks, ohhh and ahhh at a couple of cultural relics and talk to other English travellers - usually Canadians. If you're lucky you'll be able to sit at a cafe and absorb some of the atmosphere. If you're unlucky you'll be hit smack in the face by some local filth thrown at you in a foreign language by a socially maladjusted individual. A lot of the time an encounter like that is enough to colour your entire experience and memory of that place and for some people is enough to develop into a prejudice not only against that individual, but against his whole family and all his countrymen. That's why its always good to stow away pride in your backpack and keep handy a phrase book of common local abuse to dish out with a cheery grin and a 'fuck off, don't spoil my day' attitude. Fortunately most locals are friendly towards travellers and I've never stopped being grateful and surprised at the lengths they'll go to help out a lost alien like myself.

I sometimes wonder what life is like for people in the places I visit. The beggar on the street, the harried business man, the persistent market vendor, the jolly drunk. Not only their lifestyle but also the internal makeup of these people. One of the questions that I always ask myself is: are we really all that different? From what I've observed thus far I don't think we are. I suspect that at the base level we're all pretty similar, driven by the same sort of love, hate, ambition, etc forces. I think the perceiveable differences mainly lie in society´s preachings on outward appearances which determine embarrassment levels. Underneath that at the mid level things like education, religion affects the tolerance of for new ideas/culture and morality, etc and this gets thrown together into some sort of belief system. But at the surface level I think it´s just about what looks right to the rest of the people.

The world and its people without the dressing is a salad. All we taste is the sauce.