I’ve been back on US soil for 22 days now.
Exactly four weeks from today, I’ll be on a plane to Europe
once again, only this trip across the Atlantic will leave me there for almost
four months. Even though there are a million and one things I need to do in the
next 28 days, I’m ready to go back. I’m ready to breathe deep and trust God and
dive head first into a million new experiences this semester will bring. It’s
going to be a crazy, wild ride.
I’m not sure why I love to travel so much. All I know is
that I have this intense desire to set foot on every continent, to try every
local cuisine, and wander down every narrow street. My self-diagnosis? Wanderlust. My cure? Wild boar and
venison in Austria, apple strudel and schnitzel in Germany, schneeballen in Rothenberg, and an absurd amount of gelato in every town we visited this summer.
We climbed too many steps to the top of church steeples and abandoned
fortresses and old castles for insane panoramic views and a burn in our calves
that made my dad and I not feel so bad about the extra scoops of gelato.
I haven’t quite gotten the hang of this comprehensive flow
that many bloggers have, seamlessly weaving stories together in these great glowing paragraphs. So for now, I’m content with my choppy little anecdotes, little
pieces of what’s on my mind, random things I really like, and what my trip was
all about.
I love the people you meet
in airplanes. A girl with perfect English traveling home to Germany after
her first year in college, a Mom with her four children traveling to Vienna to
visit her parents, a man from Pennsylvania on his way to vacation in Istanbul. I
love the bustle of airports, being a plane ride away from adventure. There’s a
sense of community when you’re going through rigid security and trying to
navigate unfamiliar airports.
Double Dutch:
It’s a very sing-songy language, Dutch, and it has this distinct rhythm.
Arky-varky-du-du-du-du. My dad and I can pretend like the best of them, but
this language is trick-y. The guttural “g” and the diphthong “ui” and all of the
stinking jk’s. And for once, I don’t mean just kidding. You try pronouncing Gefeliciteerd
met je verjaadag, beminnelijk, or ongelooflijk. I’ve made my case.
Vienna
Calling: It was a wild, warm, jam-packed 4 days
in Austria’s capitol city. In case you don't know, the Official Hagen Family Vacation Philosophy is as follows: walk ‘til you drop. Just walk,
because you never know when, or if, you’ll be back in this place ever again. It’s
a simple philosophy, but when I can barely move one foot in front of the other,
it’s hard to follow. But we do. We sit on a bench for a second, or grab a scoop
of gelato, and we’re off again. Because life can be just that simple if we’ll
let it: just walk. For 19 days we
wandered, no maps, no GPS, and most of the time with no end destination in
mind. We wandered the streets and gawked at the pastries in the window and got
very, very lost about as much as we ate gelato (and that’s saying something).
About every other day we got really, seriously,
I’m-so-mixed-up-we-could-be-on-Neptune lost. And I loved that. Purposefully
lost. It led to lots of exploration and laughter, some short-tempered remarks, and that confused feeling you get when you’re focusing so hard trying
to figure something out.
I’m
thankful for authenticity. I love being unfamiliar, a tourist nomad in a
far away land. On the one hand, I love seeing the touristy destinations – St.
Stephen’s Cathedral, the Opera House, Schonbrunn Palace, or Vienna Hofburg Imperial Palace, just to name a few. I love the perfect facades of these old
European cities. The beauty is breathtaking and the history is rich and deep,
deep, deep. But the best part about our visit to Vienna was the fact that most
of the time, I didn’t feel like the typical tourist. We stayed in a second
floor apartment on Borsegasse in the Inner Ring. We had bell peppers,
hardboiled eggs, and warm, crusty bread with sweet honey butter and apricot jam
for breakfast. We saw the city through the eyes of Ms. Edith, a 72-year-old
Hungarian spitfire. We experienced the gritty, watered-down, real Vienna. Kids
on the way back from school on the subway, friends without homes hoping for
some change on the street corner, children playing in the park, a mother
shopping in the grocery store. For four days I walked. I ate gelato and lit candles in
Catholic churches and soaked in as much of Vienna as I could.
I love
being surrounded by unfamiliar places. I feel right at home when signs are in
different languages and I can’t understand a word of the conversations around me. I think I love it so much because it reminds me that I am so small,
and God is so big. There is so, so much out there that I haven’t yet seen or
experiences. The newness of these
places I travel to opens my eyes and my heart to the beat of the world. There
is good everywhere. There is gorgeous beauty on every continent. There are
friends without homes and crime and hurt on every continent, too. But you can’t
let the bad stop you from exploring and living your life. Because the end all and be all is that God is always
good.
I overdosed for three weeks on a combination of
castles, palaces, vineyards, old people, gelato, schnitzel, and churches. Add
four-course meals, a pinch of public transportation, cobblestone streets, and
old-fashioned doors, and a sprinkle of polizia with big guns, toilet dragons,
and hundreds of years of history beneath my feet, and there was my vacation in a nutshell. But there's more, my time across the ocean went deeper than just my stomach. I
felt really torn at times because I was seeing all of these
beautiful churches, but I didn't see anyone in them. I had a really hard time, and my
heart got really heavy, because I felt like Europe was a godless
place. I didn’t expect to feel that way and I didn’t like the way it felt. Are
people actually using these churches? Are they coming here to bend their
knees and cry out to God in prayer? Or is there too much history, too much
blood and conflict, in Europe’s past to celebrate and embrace and walk with God
today? The only people I ever saw in church, besides
tourists, were around the age of 65. I was strikingly aware of the absence of people my age. Where are the youth? Are they in the
church? I felt disoriented, tangled and caught between questions and confusion; I didn’t
know where God was or how He could bare to stare at all of the empty pews week
after week.
But no, no no no. God, He is there, of that I am certain. I simply need
to choose to see Him, even if many people choose not to. I need to live
out eucharisteo, this lifestyle that has led me to thank God for 951 gifts in 5 short months. I
need to take a breath and live the hard eucharisteo. It caught me off guard, this realization. I
didn’t expect to be challenged spiritually while on vacation, but God has a
funny way about His timing, and I should have known better than to think
complacently about these three weeks, or any time in my life for that matter. There is always room for spiritual
growth, at no point will I ever be too full to say no to God’s
moving and shaking of my heart.
National
Pride. The Germans know what’s up with national pride, let me tell you. Cheering
squads at every major American sporting event pale in comparison to the mob of
flags, leis, face paint, and anticipation the hours before, during, and
after a German soccer victory. We had the privilege of watching the Germany vs.
Greece Eurocup football match in a German biergarten. And let me tell you, it
was an experience.
Even in the little town of Regensburg, every biergarten was filled to the brim and a handful of big screens were brought into public squares, where people
packed in like sardines to watch their beloved players beat Greece. We found
enough space in the corner of the biergarten, ordered a few beers, and proceeded
to hoot and holler following the locals’ cues. We talked with a really nice girl
with perfect English who had just finished medical school. When we apologized for
keeping her from her boyfriend and friends, she surprised us by answering that
they had just met the people they were sitting with. Her boyfriend was deep in
discussion with them, so we assumed they all came together. That’s exactly the national pride I’m
talking about – I love that the Germans just sit down at a table with people
they don’t know, order a beer, and pretty soon they're friends. There’s comradery, and
old-fashioned friendship, and people generally lookin’ out for each other. We
could learn a thing or two from these guys.
After the victory, we paid for our beers, said goodbye and thank you
to our new friend, and made our way through the maze of people crowded on the
streets. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper, and everyone felt like it was their
civic duty to honk their horn every 15 seconds, not in agitation of the driver
in front of them, but in celebration of their country’s victory. Combine that
with yelling, fireworks, and people sprinting through the streets waving the
red, yellow, and black flag I’d come to see so often, and the sound just might
have traveled all the way to Greece. I loved every minute of that night. The
sense of unity and pride and the twinkly lights strung across the biergarten – it was definitely one of my favorite memories of the trip.
Grocery
stores are some of my favorite places ever! Everywhere I go, I mosey
through grocery stores like a booklover through a bookstore or a woman through
a shoe store. Not only do you get to see some crazy unique foods (like large
toothpaste-like tubes of mayo and mustard!), but the chocolate is a lot
cheaper than the tourist stores. Like, really, really cheap. You see, my dad and I have
this thing about chocolate…and pastries…and gelato. Everyone needs a
mid-morning snack, so why not make it authentic? That’s our philosophy, and
we’re sticking to it.
Amsterdam, the city
where bicycles have the right-of-way over pedestrians and you can’t get coffee
at a coffee shop. It left me very confused though, because the naïve blonde in
me wasn’t sure where you actually could get a cup of coffee. Places would
advertise coffee, and I didn’t know whether to believe that you actually could
get a hot beverage there, or if it was the other
sort of substance the town is known for. I wasn’t about to open my mouth and
ask, but I think you actually can get
coffee in coffeehouses…but don’t quote me on that one. Besides seeing many of
these coffeehouses and the Red Light District (interestingly centered right
outside churches in some areas), we visited the Tulip Market and wandered until
we found a quiet canal walkway - all the while keeping an eagle eye’s watch for
oncoming bikes. If I hadn’t pulled my mom up onto the curb a few times, she
would have been bike bait.
Surprise of the day. Remember the First Rule of Hagen
Family Vacations? Well, our just walk philosophy particularly shined through in
Wurtenburg, Germany at the Residenz we visited. I was tired and hot after a long day
trip into Rothenberg, and didn’t really want to take this extra tour. I
expected it to be a little museum, frankly, and I didn’t feel like being very
studious. Cue the bus pulling up to this giant fortress-palace-mansion and my
jaw on the floor. Expectations blown. Attach a gorgeous public garden and
festival with food vendors and live music, and it was my own piece of early
evening heaven. To think that I was just going to go back to the ship instead
of this! No, sir, I’ve learned that you’ve got to just keep walking, keep
exploring, because you never know what you may discover around the next street
corner.
So here’s to adventure, to tired feet and full stomachs and
friends together, whether that’s in your backyard, at your local Chili’s, or
across the world. Eat well, travel often, my friends.
