The best and the worst of Europe

I write this after having been in the United States for  few weeks. I've had time to reflect back on the two months of experiences I've had in Europe this year. One of the most common questions that I get asked by people who aren’t really travellers (sorry to look down upon you common folk!) is “so, what was your favourite place?”

I hate this question.

Honestly, I don’t think it is possible to put a label on your “favourite place.” Budget travelling, by its nature, can be influenced by a whole series of things which aren’t really relevant to the location itself.  The hostel, the people you meet, the weather. Some of my most fond recollections might pertain to one evening in time, one person I met, but the city as a whole may have been average. So instead of even attempting to reflect upon this question, I’ve broken it down a little bit further to present to you a reflection of the best and the worst of Europe, 2012. 

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Most surprisingly enjoyable city: Riga, Latvia

I had zero expectations for Riga – and I was so pleasantly surprised. There’s nothing nicer than arriving in a city thinking it won’t amount to much and leaving feeling so glad that you came. I could’ve spent two weeks at the hostel, happily, and really taken the time to get to know Riga and the wider Latvian region. This was largely because of the hostel and the lovely people, but simultaneously I really enjoyed the overall vibe in Riga.

 

Place I could’ve skipped: Frankfurt, Germany

With the exception of one little section of Frankfurt with these picturesque German town square buildings – Frankfurt was ‘blah.’ Even though it was the police oppression of the planned protests which really impeded upon my time there, I sense that there really wasn’t much more to Frankfurt than what I saw. I’d have preferred to have gone back to Munich or Berlin, or to have given a number of other German cities a look. From conversations I’ve had with other travellers, my perceptions are pretty much consistent with those held by a lot of other people.

 

Country I wish I’d explored more: Poland

I generally was impressed and intrigued by Polish culture and the fusion between modern developments in infrastructure and architecture; and the past they are emerging from. There are a few smaller cities which tourists who head further off the beaten track get to which I would’ve loved to have had time to explore.

City I didn’t make it to which I regret: St. Petersburg, Russia

When I arrived in the Baltics, one of the big 'talks' was people discussing the notion of going to St. Petersburg. This city is right at the north of Russia, the north west, and on the coast. It has a ferry connection to Scandavia and Estonia. You are able to take the ferry 'via' St. Petersburg and get a transit visa, 72 hours, without applying for a Visa ahead of time - something which you cannot typically do with going to Russia. This was one of those lessons in the advantages of having flexible plans. If I hadn’t already booked the next couple of weeks ahead, then when I first heard about the possibility of being able to go to Russia without all of the usual hoopla, I could’ve made it happen. But I was already pretty much tied to a schedule.

 

Thing I’m most proud of myself for: Dining alone

This sounds simple, I know, but it is a big deal for me. Past travels abroad, I really struggled with going into restaurants and dining alone – anywhere where you sit down and order from a menu with a server. Doing things alone scares a lot of people – I know in real life, most people I know would be wary of dining alone, going to the movies alone, and so on. I’m not a foodie, in the slightest, so I can’t claim to have really sought out the most ‘traditional’ of dishes. However this trip, I battled with my fear head on and in quite a few cities I was able to dine, enjoy real food, experience cuisine and interact. In Europe 2008 I can recall eating mostly from grocery stores, and because I’m not into cooking, most of the grocery store food I would eat would be bread, cheese, meat – like having lunch over and over and over. Not good for my general sanity!

Biggest personal regret: Being too ‘organised’

This trip, I had told myself that I’d be more fluid in my planning, that I’d be flexible and take the opportunities as they came – but as a result of working my schedule around other people and having a ‘hit list’ of countries, I found this being tossed out the window. Travelling out east, I found myself coming across more people who had few plans. In Tallinn and Vilnius, I met people who literally would decide on the morning if they were going to move on that day – rolling out to reception just before check out time and blearily saying, “one more night” and luckily, the bed being available. I’m not sure I could ever be quite this loose in my planning, but I do feel as though I could’ve had some really cool experiences and seen a few different places had I been less constricted to a schedule.

Most beautiful location: Trakai, Lithuania

Trakai was beautiful in a fairytale way, something so majestic about this castle on an island in the middle of a lake. It is the kind of place which on a nice weather day, I would go prepared with a book and a magazine, find a grassy patch by the lake and just “be.”

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So there you have it, just a handful of reflections on my European experience this year, the good, the bad and the ugly - and the amazing!

The Lucky Ones

I’m very fortunate to be doing what I’m doing. I know this. So many people who I meet, whether they be fellow travellers or tour guides or people who work at the hostels, they ask, “so you’re a student? You’re on a gap year?” And I tell them I graduated two and a half years ago, and they ask, “what kind of job do you have where they let you take off four months?!” When I announce that I quit my job, I often get looks of being impressed – the “I wasn’t happy so I quit” announcement caused a big group applause and then a cheers, clinking our sangrias together at the Tapas tour in Madrid while chatting with some Americans. Some people though, I suspect, think that I must live some precious spoiled life to be able to make such a decision.

 I know that I’ve worked hard to be able to afford the overseas travel that I have done. From my very first pay cheque I earned from my first waitressing job, I started saving money and many a time I’ve not done things for myself in order to ensure that I kept working toward the ultimate goal of travelling. Whether it be concert tickets, CDs, clothes, that I didn’t buy even though I really wanted to. My work colleagues would go out for drinks after work and I would go home and have my laptop to keep me company. I stayed living at home longer than most of my friends, forgoing the experiences of independence. At the same time, I know that the generosity of my parents in supporting me staying at home, that I’ve never had to pay off a car loan, that only in 2012 did I buy my own car insurance – yeah, it’s a mixture of hard work and being fortunate that has led me to where I am today.

Auchwitz-Birkenau

I was already in an interesting state of thought – contemplating my own life and my role within society. This may have been the perfect mindframe to be in when going somewhere like Auchwitz, or maybe it just put me into a vulnerable state. I would recommend for anyone who is travelling to Europe, however you are going, for work or study or backpacking or on a guided tour, to make sure that you can go to one of these sorts of locations – I went to Dachau from Germany in 2008 and I know there are others. I think it is something which should do out of respect, and out of a willingness to open your mind and to really confront the realities. You go to school and you’re told statistics but they don’t compare to being right where such tragic events took place.

Logistically, just to cover off on the how and the scheduling before going on more of an emotional tangent.

Transport

I chose to not use a tour company and instead to make my own way independently to Auschwitz. I literally showed up at the bus station at about 8:50pm and there was a bus leaving at 9:00am. I bought a return ticket from this particular driver – it appears that there are different companies which do the trip to Auchwitz. The one I took cost 24 Zloty return, which upon conversation with other people who I met throughout the day, was comparable. It was a 16 seater bus, and it didn’t just go to Auchwitz  - it also stopped at some random stops in a couple of villages on the way there and seemed to service like a regular bus route. By booking my return with him from the outset, I was restricted to when that particular bus service was returning, and I was given a card with all of the departure times. Really it worked out fine, I was sitting waiting for maybe half an hour longer than necessary – if I’d booked the single, there was a different bus with the times listed. If you want to have flexibility, then don’t worry about booking a return, there are many different bus options available, particularly if you’re getting there around when I did.

The tour

During peak hours (I think 10am – 3pm) you are required to purchase a guided tour. To be honest, it is the kind of place where you are best having a tour guide, or an audio guide of some description anyway. At the main Auchwitz site there are lots of information boards so you could still go bright and early (if the buses run then) or later in the day after the block out period and get the appropriate details. I enjoyed the delivery of the guide, it was very appropriate that we all had headsets as there were about seven tours leaving at the same time, plus other independent groups, and if all the guides were shouting it just wouldn’t have been appropriate given the environment. You are being taken around like sheep so you don’t get the option to spend longer in particular areas if you desire.  It is timed very well, we finished the first section at Auchwitz, had about ten minutes break time then the shuttle bus was departing to go over to Birkenau (about 3km away) which is actually the larger of the sites. Birkenau you are not required to have a guide, however there are not many information boards so I think it is worthwhile to be there with a guide who you’ve come over with from Auchwitz. We finished at Birkenau, the bus was leaving about five minutes later, and then when we arrived back at Auchwitz about ten minutes later a documentary was beginning – not in English, but still some moving/horrific imagery.

Guided tours from Krakow

Multitudes of companies do a guided tour from Krakow. Between the price of the bus and paying for the tour at the site, I probably only saved about 10 Zloty by doing it myself. The advantage would be that, if I had wanted to, I could’ve stayed back longer at Birkenau; or when we went back to Auchwitz it was after the ‘peak hours’ so I could’ve gone back in. By arranging my own transport I gave myself that flexibility. However, for the convenience level, it isn’t much more cash for a guided tour. I’m not sure if those sorts of tours offer any sort of general ‘Krakow’ or area commentary while on the bus on the way to Auchwitz and back. To me this would be something that might make it more worthwhile to simply pay one fee for the whole package.

Reflections

My experiences in Poland were really hard hitting for me. While I was in Ostrava, a lot of the conversation that Craig and I had revolved around how lucky we are to be Australian. We’re lucky to have English as a native language, we’re lucky to have grown up somewhere with good social support systems. Craig recalled stories about basic things, like items of stationery, which you physically cannot buy in the Czech Republic, they just don’t exist. We talked about missing just regular white bread, the kind that would zoom round me at Tip Top Bakeries and I wouldn’t really think much of it. Going to Auchwitz was important for me because even after just a few weeks away from home, I was missing petty things. I think a dose of reality is healthy. A dose of ‘you have your whole life to eat bread, you’re in Europe, embrace it!’ kick up the ass can be necessary.

As I already touched on, what I find the most striking when going to concentration/death camps is the reality of it all, hitting you right in the face. Some of the buildings are reconstructed or they are upgraded due to deterioration, but on the whole they are authentic and a large volume of it is original. When you study these horrific events at school, you can’t truly understand it, not if you’re a middle class white Australian with no (known) Jewish ancestory, no one in your family affected. But you go to concentration camps and suddenly ‘extermination’ has a whole different feelings. When you’re told ‘this is where 10 people would sleep’ or ‘this is the train track where the train would pull up and they would then sort them – into who will be killed immediately and who will be kept around to do labour.’ When you’re standing in a room with toilets and told they got to use them once a day, when you’re walking through collections of glasses and childrens shoes gathered from the camps... it’s all very real. Sometimes I feel like what went on during World War II seems so unreal, so outrageous, that you cannot comprehend it as being something tangible. It’s like a story they tell you in school to discourage racism and promote democratic ideals. But it was real. 

 

Homelessness in Europe

Outside Russian Orthodox church in Tallinn, Estonia

After my time at Auchwitz, I found myself spending more time contemplating me and my experiences travelling and my role within wider social responsibility. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to ignore someone on the street who wants money in Europe, I could fund another round the world trip. I know that on a certain level for them, the mentality is “you’re rich enough to travel, what’s a dollar to you?” and my God, so many times when I walk past homeless people holding out cups in desperation, I think that maybe I should’ve just never travelled and taken all this money and donated it to some amazing charity which helps create support systems for these people. It really, really hits me when I see people who are homeless and disabled – often disfigured in some way. I think to myself that in a western country, more of these people get government support with disability payments. It’s so sad to see someone who is maybe in their 30s or 40s who is disabled and homeless – to me it means they probably have no family, and they don’t live in a world where the government will arrange housing and send them a cheque every week.

When you’re in countries in eastern Europe and doing a tour or something of the like and they go over a brief history, I’ve had more than one tour guide say with this sarcastic roll of the eyes as they recount the conclusion of World War II: “And we were liberated by the Soviets.” I don’t know a lot about the realities of life under Soviet rule, but apparently a large contributing factor to homelessness in eastern Europe is a flow on affect of the fall of the Iron Curtain – particularly in some older generations who have less skills, less education and under living for years under Communist reign, the inability to build wealth. Suddenly capitalism was in and here they were without the skills or ability to make money for themselves; and the building of social support systems from a government level obviously doesn’t just miraculously happen overnight.

Is Australia ‘the lucky country’?

This was a debate topic we did back in high school. I mean, from a debating perspective, it comes down to your interpretation of the word ‘lucky’ - the negative team can break it down and say that yes we are ‘fortunate’ but is ‘luck’ (definition: sheer chance, fluke) anything to do with it. We seem to have tragic weather related events (floods, bushfires) but on that deeper social level, Australia and Australians are so sheltered. We get ‘kind of’ involved in these world conflicts but on the whole, we are fairly isolated. When your average person wants a big ‘cultural’ experience they go to Phuket or Bali and shop at markets and laze around at the beach. Maybe this is why we’re laid back and carefree – we haven’t had the experiences of time and world events to jade us into being guarded and wary.

But at the same time, I feel like it is only the people who travel who really understand how fortunate Australians are, who appreciate the opportunities that we have. Whether it be from the perspective of social welfare and benefits, government assisted job find and upskilling, our education system supporting people to study and if you choose not to study, having other options available which are equally supported. We are lucky to not have to go to the pharmacy to buy simple things like sunscreen and panadol. As a white Australian who speaks fluent English who has a university degree – I am in a position of greater power in the world. If I was prepared to work anywhere, the colour of my skin and my mother tongue, things which I take for granted every day, are things which make me ‘powerful.’

Sure, alcohol is expensive but maybe people should drink less and read more, just a thought!

Working Abroad & Immersion into Culture

This entry is kind of an appendix or a reflection of sorts to my previous entry. In my last entry I detailed the physical logistics and things that I saw and did whilst staying with my friend Craig in the Moravian area of the Czech Republic. I’ve told you about the experience from  a sight seeing perspective, but really, I think the important learnings and reflections that came from this trip were much wider, and they were the kind that I was able to really take away and use as a set of evidence,  set of information, in me trying to decide what the next stage of my life is going to involve.

I can still remember when Craig was making the decision to accept this job in the Czech Republic and we had a conversation discussing the various countries he might be able to get work in, the advantages and disadvantages of heading to a non-English speaking country. One of the things which he’d talked about was that appeal of going to a foreign country and being forced to learn speak the language, at least on a basic level. This is something that he has certainly done, and something that impresses me so, so much. Czech is not an easy language to learn, and he’s done it more or less independently.

Craig is a teacher. He teaches at a school where they teach in English – apparently this is a thing in Europe, I didn’t really know this before. Some schools in Australia offer ‘French Immersion’ which is where you study all your subjects in French, and so I suppose this is the closest equivalent. It makes sense – for someone in a non-English speaking country, if you can become fluent in English, then you will have more opportunities in life. English is the bridging language in Europe, German to a lesser extent, but most young Europeans study English. The prevalence of English in Europe is a separate issue, one which I also intend to blog about, so you can look out for that.

In so many ways, he embodies for me the ‘dream’ and I only wish that my academic background was one which leant itself toward the type of experience he’s been able to have. Teaching is, without a doubt, the best way to be able to see the world. There is a high demand in so many locations for people who are of English as a first language background for teaching roles, and not just ‘teaching English’ roles – actual classroom teaching. You’re then guaranteed holidays at different times of year which then allow you specified time to schedule trips. If I was to do a working holiday visa, the only way to get career relevant work is to apply for permanent roles. If I get permanent work, then getting time to travel is hard, unless you find some awesome employer who lets you take unpaid leave or long weekends as you desire.  

Without a doubt, as a budget traveller who travels the way I do, I’m not able to truly understand a country’s history, culture, people. I just barely skim the surface. I can make wider observations about ‘European’ culture because I have spent months of my life in ‘Europe’ but to take individual countries from within that? Impossible. The only way to develop this kind of understanding is to live somewhere.

There are obvious limitations to this experience though. In Craig’s world, he teaches at a school where there are a bunch of teachers from ‘western’ countries (Australia, New Zealand, USA etc) and they have bonded together as a social group, to be each others support network because they are going through similar experiences. Their ‘group’ does have some non-Native English speakers, but the core group of them are all English as a first language. One of the guys who Craig is friends with made the point to me that there is little incentive for them to learn Czech – they hang out together, they speak English together, they speak English all day at school. This is why it is the area of food and beverage ordering that they all first master. Craig told me that on his first night in the Czech Republic, he learnt how to order a beer. However beyond this, the ability to learn is difficult. Developing friendships, true connections, with locals is difficult, except for those in that immediate circle who are obviously fluent enough in English to teach math and science and history in it.

As Craig said to me, he can’t do more complicated things alone – perfect example was that recently he had to go to the dentist, and he had to take someone fluent in Czech and English with him. This was an off the cuff statement from him, but something which so incredibly resonated with me. It’s one thing to master basic conversational skills in a foreign language, but learning those obscure, technical things is something which is so much more difficult to master, especially as an adult.

More important than language though, is looking at culture. This is something I found myself thinking about more and more - this notion of whether you can ever truly assimilate to another culture. You can live in it and therefore come to understand it more than any backpacker passing through town will, but can you ever truly become a part of their world?  Even if you become fluent, you’re likely going to have an accent; and you’ve been raised in a country with different values, different approaches to life. It is while I am backpacking that I truly come to realise my ‘cultural’ nuisances, the things that make me ‘me’ that are a result not only of my individuality, but of my nationality. Often I find that I don’t fit into your stereotype of an Australian – if I’m talking to someone from France or The Netherlands and they make an assumption about Australians liking beer and the beach, for example. Maybe I don’t fit into those sorts of cultural ‘norms’. However if I was sitting around a table with an Aussie, a Canadian, an American, a Brit – the Aussie and I will ‘get’ each other on a deeper level. Is it growing up with Christmas in summer, with high taxes on alcohol? Is it just the fact that Australia is removed from so many global issues, geographically and culturally, so we have a more easygoing sense of freedom. I’m not sure.

The way in which Australians interact, react to meeting new people, approach social scenarios and relationships – a lot of this is cultural, it is innate, it cannot be unlearned no matter how long you spend in a foreign country. This isn’t a bad thing – but it is a barrier which can prevent you from ever completely being able to fit in or completely understand other cultures.

This is all just me musing and reflecting from conversations with Craig, his friends, and other people I've talked to who have worked abroad. It isn't an experience I've yet to have - but one which I look forward to the opportunity to tackle, despite the limitations I've acknowledged.

Have you ever worked abroad? Have your own thoughts on the matter? I'd love to hear them in the comments below!