Lindsay's blog

“Welcome aboard flight 159, direct flight to…” the stewardess continued but I quickly tuned her out. I had already listened to an undesirable amount of phony contentment that had no place in a discussion about the continuous delays of flight fucking 1-5-9. Unable to squeeze my oversized carryon in the tiny bit of empty space available in between a sea of black shapes in the overhead bin, I shove it “under the seat in front of me”. Even after a few vigorous kicks using my Pilates toned legs, my toes are still jammed against its aerodynamic handle. How splendid.
“This would never have happened to me at home” I said under my breath in between the quiet grunts that accompany my persistent leg thrusts into my carryon bag.
“Home...home…lady you’re country has gone to the dogs. No one cares, and that’s the worst of it.” I looked to my right and left, noticing only a temporarily empty seat and a man in a suit using every remaining second to spew out an email on his Blackberry.
The voice came again: “Selling junk, buying junk, eating junk…”
At this point I gave up finding a comfortable position and cocked my head into the aisle, looking up and down for a face to match the voice. No one in particular stood out from the crowd or confronted me again so I resumed my position facing the beige tray in front of me. As I reached over for my seatbelt I caught a final glimpse as the plane took off. One last look at the brilliant greens of the forests and hombre azure Ocean and I knew I would be back.

Home as described by Z: “Home is everything. Home is not sex but also about it. Home is not a delicious meal but is also about it. Home is not a lighted bedroom but is also about it. Home is not a hot bath in the winter but it is also about it.” 168

 A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers gave me my new explanation of “home”. Around this thanksgiving break everyone was throwing around this word, but without context it was difficult to determine if they were talking about New York or ... their place of prior living (hometown doesn’t even work in this context). If home is where you feel comfortable, as it is to Z, then I think that we can have many homes, just as we have many aspects of our personality.

central park holidayIf travel is the “interrelationships of environment, life-style and character” perhaps we should consider “holiday” a state of mind. Rather than jetting off to Italy to experience a “no-strings-attached holiday”, could we just decide to take a trip to central park and enjoy the distance from city life? Although Italy may stereotypically provide the image of a “conventional holiday-land of novelists such as Cooper, Hawthorne, Henry James and Aldous Huxley – a beautiful, civilized landscape that is at the same time both excitingly exotic and reassuring familiar”, can one not find this at home?

While in Italy, in the “land of holiday”, “the heroine is free to make friends, make love and make mistakes”. I suppose this might be too much freedom to ask for at home, without becoming suspicious or distancing yourself from the “comforts of home” including friends and family. Maybe this is just me being all freshman student, entering a “new world” with relatively few strings attached, but what Shirley Hazzard put forth as “holiday”, enjoying temporary surroundings and possibilities, seems like something that could be found at home if you put your mind to it and made an effort to stray from routine.

[references to Nari’s “Ripening in the Sun: Shirley Hazzard's Heroines in Italy”]

How long is the ideal vacation? During high school I decided 10 days was pretty good, it allowed you to travel and settle in just enough to unwind and become comfortable with the new way of life. Eventually vacation life like Colin and Mary experienced for three days (“We can have a shower, and sit on our balcony and have anything we want brought up to us.” (50)) becomes tedious and vacationers begin looking for something new. Did Colin and Mary spend too much time on vacation so that their relaxed, and thus, altered minds confused an unsettling feeling with a feeling of curiosity and enticement?
Reading this novel with this in mind brought up feelings more of the comfort of home rather than the comfort of strangers. As Colin says, “The thing about a successful holiday is that it makes you want to go home” (106). As much as being in a new scene is enticing and freeing, too much of a good thing seems to become a bad thing.

solo creeper“A haunting new translation” says The New Republic and I could not agree more. This novella touches upon a new kind of tourist/traveler that we haven’t encountered before. This is the solo traveler. It is exactly characters like this who give solo travelers a bad wrap. Instead of enjoying the sites of Venice, which are described in an eerie manor, the protagonist enjoys watching a little boy. After reading this I guess a moral of the story could be beware of the solo traveler, for he probably has twisted intentions.

This idea of traveling solo conjures up a variety of images, but overall I find that stereotypically it is considered creepy for a man to do and sad for a woman to do. Even in Ugly Betty (yeah…I watch it) when Betty goes on a trip for “self discovery”, to learn what makes her happy and reevaluate her life, it is viewed by everyone else with pity, a sad undertone that implies a lack of relationships or friends. Is it really that improbable to travel by yourself and enjoy it (at least for some of the time)?

As much as you may despise your birth country, it clearly grasps a hold of your way of thinking, with such a tight fist that it is hard to shake off. Allie embodies the “rebellious” traveler, who does not accept his birth county’s culture. But I think his actions speak much more than his non-stop talk. To some extent, the American outlook is that of “our way is the right way” thanks to a firm belief that America is the most powerful and/or glorious country in the world. While Allie thinks that he is escaping this frame of thought by running off to Honduras, he is actually just displaying how genuinely American he is.

Assimilation is never the object of Allie’s travels. Instead, his travels aim to defy the happiness that supposedly comes from the educated, traditional American life. This is evident in his speeches preaching about the price mark ups of agriculture and lack of American-made products. But his actions reveal the instinct of the American way of thinking. For example, when on the boat with Mr. Haddy, Allie doesn’t even try to understand that there is possibly a way to determine direction without a compass. As well, to Allie, everyone in Jeronimo is there for his needs and desires.

I believe that with an increase in education of other cultures and the multi-cultural tendency of cities this concept of an innate “way of thinking” as learned in your birth country may be able to subside for an interest in accepting other cultures. But I think that only denial of your birth county can lead a traveler to believe that we can travel without the constraints of our birth country’s way of thinking.

stereotypical touristWhile reading Heart of Darkness I couldn’t get help but compare and contrast the imagery to the tourist video that we watched in class about westerners visiting Africa. During the video I very easily succumbed to the feeling that the tourists (American especially) were only superficially looking for authenticity – as in what they had been taught to expect, and that which contrasts drastically with their life. The arrival of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, “each section headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims. A quarrelsome band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels of the donkey; a lot of tents, camp-stools, tin boxes, white cases…” (36) got me thinking about how to achieve authenticity as a traveler when your skin color so clearly brands you as a non-native, and thus a tourist/traveler.

Prestige clouding the ability to determine authenticity

Authenticity in travel has become caught up in the realm of solidifying a prestigious status. A concern for authenticity is now a result of wanting to achieve specific prestigious recognition. Instead, a concern for enjoyment of the travel experience will result in experiences of authenticity. This is clearly shown in the novels Daisy Miller and On the Road, where in fact, enjoyment stems from rebelling against prestige.

If prestige is the motivating force of travel, then this tourist, the prestigious tourist, will only be able to accept “authenticity as knowledge”(Jafari). This is because the prestigious tourist judges their interpretation of authenticity against other prestigious tourist’s interpretations. Thus their interpretation of authenticity is based on preconceived notions from previous experiences and stories of what is “known” to be authentic. It is important to distinguish here that the previous experiences and stories could potentially be elaborated, sending the prestigious tourist travelling with false expectations of authenticity.

Sal travels light. Sal travels without a wallet. Sal travels for the new friendships and the excitement of change.
How many of us can say the same? I feel like in today’s world even carefree traveling has become far from carefree. Magazines feature countless articles on how to pack the perfect carryon to provide the traveler with the perfect wardrobe that can mix and match to suit every occasion and withstand a weeklong trip. Road trips aren’t started until the car is hooked up to satellite radio and the newest GPS system, and traveling without a wallet means you’re walking to a friend’s house. Unfortunately this change in carefree travel is partially due to the progression of time: Gas prices going up, border security increasing, danger of strangers, and our general addiction to electronics (cell phones, cameras, iPods).

The Sheltering Sky really questions the difference between tourist and traveler in many different passages. The conversation between Lyle and Port on pages 52-53 shows the clash of definitions as to who is really a tourist and who is a traveler. Lyle speaks of having “an itinerary which we try to follow exactly” whereas Port believes that “the only way to travel, at least for us, is to go when you feel like going and stay where you feel like staying”. Personally, I think I would agree with Port that a traveler might have potential plans (as in they will eventually take a train to Boussif, but leaving on an exact date doesn’t matter) but not a strict itinerary.
I like to say now that I live in New York, but this got me to thinking, are we all just tourists of New York? Now perhaps we could be considered travelers, but it is most likely that we’ll be returning “home” during the summer. This “home” would then contradict Port’s previous definition of a traveler. Unfortunately, I guess having my flight booked home for Canadian Thanksgiving puts me into the category of people with itineraries…so as much as I’d hate to say so, I guess I’m a tourist.