To Travels and Trunks

To Travels and Trunks-Hey Marseilles

Last year, my family took a trip to England and France. It was, as expected, extremely stressful.

Being the history nerd I am, it was immensely gratifying to be able to finally see the places I had read about for years. My dad (who I take after quite a bit) and I would go to cathedrals and museums while my sisters and mom waited outside, complaining about how much time we could have spent shopping instead. They (my sisters, not my mom) failed to marvel at Gothic architecture, yawned at classic art ("It's really crowded by the Mona Lisa; we should just not bother."), and gave me annoyed looks when I tried to tell them more about D-Day. It should be said that my youngest sister was eight at the time, but still.

Unfortunately, this trip also required me to constantly accost random French strangers for directions and the like, which turned me into a nervous wreck by the end of the trip. I almost invariably chose women with children to ask for directions in the hopes that they would not laugh at me in front of their children. I don't know why I expected people to be that way-everyone was friendly and helpful-but I did. And like David Sedaris in Me Talk Pretty One Day, I went to great lengths to avoid grammar mistakes, sometimes ordering multiple units of food items so I wouldn't have to decide whether it was masculine or feminine.

This trip, though, confirmed my belief that people are simply not given enough credit. From the kind hotel manager to the hundreds of people gathering to witness the liberation of the Gurkhas*, everyone seemed to genuinely care about other people. Granted, we weren't visiting the worst parts of the big cities we went to, but we weren't visiting the best parts, either, and people were nice.

I'm trying not to sound like a pretentious snob, but it was a great trip in retrospect. Hopefully someday I'll be able to visit these places more in-depth, maybe even live there. It's a pipe dream for now, but there's always a chance...

*The Gurkhas are Nepalese soldiers who fight in the British army. They are a dedicated special unit and have fought with the likes of Prince Harry. Their training and base camp is near Folkestone, England; up until June 2009 the town was segregated. Also, they were unable to gain British citizenship until that time; before that they were simply deported back to Nepal after serving Britain. There was a ceremony going on the day we were in Folkestone, right outside our hotel. Nearly every Folkestone citizen had come to see the desegregation of the town-and they were all overjoyed.