Being part the first of my adventures in Budapest, March 2004.
Travel broadens the mind, they say.
Like most such clichés, this one doesn't get examined all that often. That's the problem with overfamiliar things; their familiarity makes people forget what was so appealing about them in the first place. In other words, familiarity breeds contempt.
It was only recently that I got interested in travel outside the United States at all. This is, after all, a fascinating country, so much of it still wild and isolate, its culture bombastic, individualistic, and self-contradictory, its landscape tailor-made for epics.
But there's a lot more to the world than America (aside from the U.S., the only country I've been in is Canada), and while happiness might be Earth in the rear-view mirror, for the time being one must settle for taking off in a jet plane. For a few years now I've been nervous about flying, but for most of my life the best way to get me to do something was to point out all the reasons why I shouldn't. Fear, as Gavin de Becker points out, is a survival mechanism; worry and anxiety are mostly bullshit. Good fortune and a general propensity for thrift (except where Powell's is involved) meant I could afford the plane ticket, and I like my cousin Eleanor, whose wedding invitation provoked all of this reflection. Until last August, we hadn't seen each other in over 15 years, but in some ways that didn't matter.
So I bought myself a round-trip ticket to Budapest, where my cousin had accomplished the equivalent of mounting an expedition, or so it seemed to me: had arranged for housing, activities, local transport, and information for over 100 guests, over 50 of whom would be traveling from the U.S. and who didn't speak the language. My acquisition of perhaps a dozen words in Hungarian served me in good stead throughout the week, but anything more sophisticated than "Tejeskavé esh naranclé, kérem," was beyond me.
In fact, the language barrier was simultaneously less of a concern than I'd feared, and more of an irritant than I expected. Hungarian is notoriously difficult to learn, and Hungarians themselves seem to be well aware of this; in any case, I found that the usual reaction to my halting attempts to ask for the time, coffee, or postage stamps to be an indulgent tolerance, as well as pleasure that I'd made the attempt at all.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I got to Sea-Tac early, because getting to airports early does wonders for my peace of mind and, never having traveled anywhere that required a passport before (for those who might not be aware of it: the U.S.-Canada border is very open, and Americans have never needed passports to go to Canada, at least during my lifetime. Since 9/11 they have required some ID beyond a driver's license, but this need not be a passport), I wasn't sure what to expect.
Not a lot, as it turned out. The check-in agent wanted to see my passport, seemed surprised that I had no baggage to check (I'm paranoid about lost luggage and I hate carrying lots of bags around), and sent me on my way. A security check and a few hours later, and I was onboard Northwest flight 34 to Amsterdam. This was somewhat more expensive than the option that would have taken me through Pittsburgh and Frankfurt, but one less plane change is not to be sneezed at, and I'd been informed that an hour to make a connection in Frankfurt was nowhere near enough.
The flight to Amsterdam was overnight, and despite the melatonin, I slept poorly. Partly because I never sleep well on airplanes; partly because the reading lights on DC-10s are set high enough that the one belonging to the passenger in front of me shone indirectly in my eyes; partly because my seatmate had the volume on the in-flight movie turned up high enough that I could follow the plot of Seabiscuit without actually watching it. In any case, I catnapped rather than slept, pulling the airline-provided blanket over my face in an attempt to block out most of the ambient light.
At one point, I opened my eyes, looked out the window, and blinked in confusion. We'd be arriving in Amsterdam shortly after sunrise, but surely it wasn't time for that yet? And yet, outside my window there was a greenish cloud that resembled the dawn. Only, I could see stars both above and below it, and they were definitely stars and not, say, the lights of Rejkjavik or Edinburgh. Northwest/KLM's flight to Amsterdam travels north of the Arctic Circle, and one sees little evidence of human habitation of any kind, even during the daytime.
No, what I saw looked more like this. At first it just hung there, like a cloud lit with inner fire; then, as I watched, a ribbon of light curled up from it like smoke, or like a serpent uncoiling. Until that moment, I had only seen still photographs of the phenomenon; to watch it in action, from what had to be fairly close range, was awe-inspiring even in my sleep-addled state. In that moment I understood every legend I had ever read associated with the aurora; it is exactly the kind of thing that sparks the human mind to mythology, and knowing that it is the result of charged particles colliding with molecules in Earth's atmosphere did not lessen my sense of wonder. I hadn't even made my connection yet and I'd already seen something I'd never seen before.
Travel is the acquisition of distance--not just physical distance from familiar things, but mental distance as well. The further away something is, the more comprehensible it becomes, seen in toto rather than in part. Travel is a gaining of perspective--not just figuratively within the mind, but physically as well, a drawing back to look on a thing from another plane of examination. As the aurora receded, to be replaced by ordinary night, I had a sense of having crossed a boundary, and opening a new realm of personal experience.
Of course, nowadays people go to the other side of the world all the time. But it was my first trip to Europe, so you'll forgive me if I wax poetic befitting someone half my age.
More to come, with photos.