Must stop the madness!
OK, so for the 3rd weekend in a row I found myself leaving the mellow, and sometimes boring country of Austria to discover the more untraveled parts of Europe. Yup, this weekend I found myself visiting Slovenia and Croatia. I slept in a hostel which had once been a prison and had executions in the basement, and I climbed lots and lots of HUGE hills to see beautiful perspectives of random cities. It was fun, and neat, but I am tired. I took a lot of pictures, so if you want to know more, E-mail me and I will send them to you. Or, I can tell you if we ever hang out. Goodness, I am looking forward to staying here this weekend.
I went on this trip with a guy from Sweden, a girl from Germany, and another guy from Finland. After a long discussion about family and family history over dinner. I realized something fundamentally different between myself and my 3 companions. No, it is not that I only speak one language. It is that my national and cultural heritage is so drastically different from theirs that it clearly has produced differences in who we are. After talking to the German girl, Bretta, I had to stop and think what it would be like to come from a country with such history. She would say things like, "I think the country we are in was once part of Austria. I think that is why the food seems Austrian." She was explaining the very interesting culture of the Slovenians and the Croatians as something that traces back HUNDREDS of years. As we talked she spoke of her grandparents, and their involvment in the wars. And I had to think, I get my cultural identity as someone from Oklahoma, and Kentucky, but mostly just as an American. The American culture, has instilled some fundamentally different ideas from everyone else. I could not even comprehend what is would be like to think of another country having conqoured mine. Even if it had been 200 years ago. It gave me a lot to chew on. A cultural identity that took losses and accepted them and moved on. I am not sure I could handle that. I take great pride in the fact that the US has not been invaded. I don't know, I keep talking, and I am not sure I am saying much, but it was really something for me to think on.
I am going to bed now.
I went on this trip with a guy from Sweden, a girl from Germany, and another guy from Finland. After a long discussion about family and family history over dinner. I realized something fundamentally different between myself and my 3 companions. No, it is not that I only speak one language. It is that my national and cultural heritage is so drastically different from theirs that it clearly has produced differences in who we are. After talking to the German girl, Bretta, I had to stop and think what it would be like to come from a country with such history. She would say things like, "I think the country we are in was once part of Austria. I think that is why the food seems Austrian." She was explaining the very interesting culture of the Slovenians and the Croatians as something that traces back HUNDREDS of years. As we talked she spoke of her grandparents, and their involvment in the wars. And I had to think, I get my cultural identity as someone from Oklahoma, and Kentucky, but mostly just as an American. The American culture, has instilled some fundamentally different ideas from everyone else. I could not even comprehend what is would be like to think of another country having conqoured mine. Even if it had been 200 years ago. It gave me a lot to chew on. A cultural identity that took losses and accepted them and moved on. I am not sure I could handle that. I take great pride in the fact that the US has not been invaded. I don't know, I keep talking, and I am not sure I am saying much, but it was really something for me to think on.
I am going to bed now.
posted by Humble Narrator at
2:56 PM
1 Comments:
Post a link to this blog on your myspace page. More people will see it that way. Email me and I will give you the code to copy in... or you can just go here and figure out how to write html yourself. It's really not that difficult. Also you need to post some pics on here, or on your myspace page.
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GraceKathryn, at 6:10 PM
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