The Italian Man in Seat 37E

         The navy blue cloth of an airline seat back gradually materializes in front of me as I awaken from an uneasy slumber. For a few seconds I lose any sense of my whereabouts as my fuzzy mind struggles to find reality. Who am I? Elizabeth Sager Miller Campbell. Where am I? Somewhere on an airplane in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Where am I going? Italy. I’m going to Italy to travel write.

         My body aches as my legs untangle and I free myself from my contorted position between two armrests. Looking around, I see familiar faces sleeping soundly despite the desperate wails of a toddler nearby. On my right, I notice an Italian man with gray-speckled hair and half-moon glasses snoring across the aisle. His blue striped linen shirt and ironed pants suggest that he is careful of his appearance and his worn leather shoes reveal that he has traveled many miles. He looks like the kind of tired that comes from too much living. His crimson Italian passport peeks out of his shirt pocket and I wonder about the stamps that line its pages. Where has he journeyed? I am acutely aware of the vast cultural ocean that separates this man from me. My mind travels along the deep wrinkles that line his suntanned face—what wisdom do they hold? What is it like—this place he calls home? It is surely not like mine.


        I imagine that he lives in the rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside with his apron-wearing wife of many years. She raised the children and cooked the spaghetti. He worked long hours on the family vineyard until his back started to hurt and the heat wore him out. Like his father did for him, he passed the business down to his hardworking sons. He wakes every morning with the sense of satisfaction that he has given back to the earth, and he spends the remainder of his days bonding with his grandchildren in the garden behind his little house. He is never bothered with rush hour traffic and he doesn’t carry a watch. He lives by dawn and dusk, worrying little about what tomorrow will bring. His home is wine, family, and the fresh country air. His home is Italy.


       My home is Arkansas. Memories of my almost twenty years of life flash through my head one by one. I recall learning to ride a bike on the suburban streets of my old neighborhood, playing tennis with my father on Sunday afternoons, and the fast pace of growing up with parents who worked long hours at the office. A product of the technological age, my life has been defined by widespread Internet access, text messages, and impatience for anything that takes more than a few seconds to download. My rural house is a picturesque refuge from the rush of the city. My home is sweet tea, southern hospitality, and thirty-minute commutes.


        The elements of my home make up everything that I am so far. My travels, too, have shaped me. The charming streets of Europe and the breathtaking views of the Swiss Alps have shown me physical beauty. There has been pain in the form of homesickness, stolen wallets, and the weariness of sleeping on another hard hostel mattress. But most importantly, my journeys have shown me humanity. I think of the roofless home of a Moroccan family in Rabat and how they were more than kind to a tiny American girl who did not speak a word of their language and whom they would never see again. There is my Spanish host mom, Elvira, who revealed the pain of losing family members and the joy of welcoming new guests, like me, into her home to stay. I see the tears of strangers and the grin of the elderly man I passed by every day on my way to school in Seville. With each new destination, the differences between the next person and myself shrink. As I explore the cultures of others, I recognize the flavors, colors, languages, gestures, flairs, and backgrounds that make us unique but not divided. We all miss someone. We all lose people we love. We all hurt, laugh, feel and share the experience of the fragility of being human. Perhaps we are not so very different after all. Maybe the Italian man’s home is not so different from mine.


         I aim an ear-to-ear smile at my elderly neighbor in seat 37E, who is now wide awake. He mutters something friendly back in Italian that I do not understand. The language barrier does not matter anymore—the oceans in his eyes seem to write back to me. I imagine we communicate on a deep level, both searching for what holds us as beings under the same constellations; as breathers, thinkers, and lovers; as creatures who start wars and who are simultaneously devastated by them, together. We are both on journeys that have little to do with our destination. I hope he, too, has found true beauty on his.

Travel Writing Through Italy

It's been about a year since I've blogged about traveling because I had to be productive and go to college for a year. While I certainly missed my European adventures, I think there's something valuable in staying put for a long period of time. Stability kind of messed with my not-committed-to-anyone-or-any-place mantra. I'm used to having friends from all corners of the world and I'm okay with losing touch until our paths cross again. But some pretty special people at college taught me that sometimes you need to fight to stay close to the important people in your life, no matter the distance. I needed freshman year to remind me that I don't always need to go elsewhere to find beauty in the people or places surrounding me. I am learning to be content where I am and trying to say, “I miss you and I hope to see you soon" more often.

Back to the traveling part. With a semester in Chile and a deadline for declaring my major(s) looming on the horizon, I continually ask myself the question of what exactly it is I want to do with my life. At a college where the majority of my peers will be among the finest future doctors, lawyers, and CEO's of America, I'm over here suffocating at the thought of sitting behind a desk and between four walls every day of my life. I think know that life is too short for constant misery and thus have committed myself to an occupation that makes me feel alive. So, what makes me feel alive? Traveling. Writing. Photography. Learning new languages. New experiences. Adventure. I'm going to take any and every opportunity to make sure these things are a regular part of my life. 

Consequently, I'm about to spend three weeks roaming across Italy with a group of students and three professors where I'm supposed to contemplate the 'art of travel' and express it through a 5000 word portfolio due at the end of the trip. I'm stoked to have the opportunity to try my hand at legit "travel writing" in an academic and historical setting. I'm more stoked to eat all of the spaghetti and gelato that Italy has to offer. I'm the most stoked to put my restlessness behind me and see the world beyond the United States again. Italy is chaos, art, and romance. It is ruined and thriving, ancient and alive. Pompeii, Naples, Rome, Florence, and Venice are calling and I am ready, pen in hand, to capture each place's beauty for what it is. After Italy, I'll travel on to Salzburg, Switzerland, and England for leisure, returning to Arkansas in the middle of June. 

I am currently: keeping my fingers crossed that my Macbook and camera travel safely throughout my journey, trying to figure out how I'm going to fit all of my stuff into a carry-on size bag, considering becoming a minimalist, hoping the Italian wifi isn't too sucky so I can regularly post my essays, and peacing out cause I'm Rome bound tomorrow.

Wish I knew the Italian word for goodybe,

Elizabeth

83 Days Later and A Lot of Nostalgia

I finished my summer job exactly four days ago. And while I'm ecstatic that my sweaty days of leading little kids around and taking fish off the hook and hiking with twelve first-graders and cleaning up someone else's vomit off of the cabin floor are over, I can't help but miss being a camp counselor at the same time. It's a strange but not unfamiliar feeling-- longing for somewhere, something, someplace, a period of time in your life that you can never return to. I guess they call it nostalgia. For someone who's never content staying in one place for very long, I have the hardest time letting go of the happy times in my life. Which is probably why I found myself scrolling through Yahoo's travel section this morning. Among the Top 10 California Beaches and the Truth About Summer Road trips, I come across articles about the places I've been. And I miss the glittering lights and sweater weather of romantic Paris that Paige and I spent a week in this past November. And I miss the stunning view of the Swiss Alps from my hotel window. And I miss freezing in Amsterdam in February, waiting in line to visit the Anne Frank House. And I miss staying in a house with no roof or shower in the Moroccan heat. And most of all, I miss my Spanish home, Sevilla. This morning, my host mom sent me a text, "echo de menos tu sonrisa, "I miss your smile." And if my Spanish were better, I would tell her that I miss how her home always smelled like lemon cleaning supplies, how I loved coming home to a huge meal at 3 in the afternoon (and that she fed me when I wasn't hungry), and how grateful I am for the kindness she showed to a little, jet lagged American girl that showed up in a taxi at her door speaking no Spanish. Sometimes people ask me if I was scared about living with strangers in a foreign country where I don't speak the language. I wasn't at all-- I was beyond excited that life would become interesting again. Maybe I should have been scared, but things have a way of working themselves out. If had let fear keep me from Spain, I would have missed out on the grandest adventure of my life. And so, while I'm sitting here, flipping nostalgically through photos of my travels, I'm telling myself that it shouldn't make me sad. One day I'll get to experience the rush of getting on an international flight by myself again. One day, I'll visit the cities that I fell in love with. One day, my path will cross again with the people who shared my journey. The absolute biggest challenge upon returning home has been learning how to be content with staying still. So far, the remedies are taking siestas, writing about my experiences, and talking about travel with anyone who will listen. I've been really lucky this summer to have made some friends from Colombia, England, Kenya, and New Zealand. Their daily presence reminded me of the world beyond Arkansas and that yes, it still exists. (I've added a few more places to my bucket list, too. Next stop, Bogota.) 

I was sad to leave Spain, am sad that the amazing people I've met this summer have moved on to better things, but happy knowing that each change in life presents new opportunities and adventures. It doesn't mean that people and places won't find their way back into your life again. Because they will, if they're meant to be there. 

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like." -- Lao Tzu

Always looking up, still independent, still fiercely passionate about travel, just a little bit stuck in Arkansas, 

Elizabeth 

Where is home?

I've been home for six weeks now. I decided to blog because my 8 months in Spain continues to influence me here in Arkansas. There's not a day that goes by that I don't miss my Spanish life, family, friends, and culture. My experience abroad is still so much a part of who I am. One of the first things I tell people when meeting them is that I lived in Spain, as if without knowing that piece of information, they wouldn't really know me. Of course, most people only acknowledge it, say "that's cool," and the conversation moves on to something else. I don't blame them. It's much easier to talk about something everyone relates to. And I guess that's what's so disheartening about being back in America. While all of my highschool friends talk about their first year of college, roommates, and frat parties, I keep silent for one of three reasons: A) mentioning that you lived in Europe makes you come across as a prick, B) mentioning that you legally drank sangria by the river on the weekends/ went bar hopping/ clubbing tends to win over red solo cups, C) mentioning how awesome your host mom was really detracts from the college roommate horror stories. I've just learned to accept that my experience was unique and that no one cares about it as much as I do (except of course all of the wonderful people who were there with me.)  I've also had to accept that the world didn't stand still when I left and that everyone else has changed too.  It can put a lot of distance between myself and people who used to be a part of my everyday life. We have different paths out into the world now and less in common. Change is inevidable, but I appreciate the time that our paths intertwined.

Right before I returned up until now, I've gone through through reverse culture shock. There are generally four stages of it: Disengagement, Initial euphoria,Irritability and hostility, and Readjustment and adaptation. On the plane ride home, I was really excited to return to my previous life. I had all of these ideas and images in my head of how great home would be. And while, I was happy to see everyone and everyone was happy to see me, my initial excitement only lasted a few days. After that, I fell into a post-Spain depression. I longed to return to my days of siestas. I felt like no one understood me. I was critical of the US, of our wastefulness, our wealth, and our attitude. I felt like a stranger in my home. My independence was threatened as I readjusted to living with my parents, rather than a host family who didn't really set boundaries. I kept seeing all of the negative aspects of my return, rather than the positives of my journey. I've now adapted back into American life, but it's not the same as it was and I'm not the same I was. Back in the spring, I spontaneously applied to be a summer camp counselor at a camp near my house. I figured it would be a good way to be home for the summer and to have a little bit of adventure. This job is a lot less glamorous than my travels, but it's been more rewarding than I could have imagined. It's hot, dirty, humid, and I don't have time for a siesta. But I get to be outdoors all day, meet people from all over, and stargaze at night. It's truly a beautiful place and it's been a humbling experience. I think I'm learning how to just be without things I thought were necessities before: my iPhone, air conditioning, and makeup. Not only did I grow as person abroad, but I'm growing in Ferndale, Arkansas too. A place where I thought I might shrink. You see, you don't always need to travel to find yourself. I'm learning things about myself here that Spain couldn't have taught me. As much as I wanted to see the glass half-empty this summer, it's getting pretty full.

I plan on going to college in the fall. I plan on spending summers traveling. Maybe I'll go to South America or spend a year in France somewhere in between. I'm going to do whatever makes me feel whole and I'm going to be completely myself, two things I had never been this time last year. I'll keep this blog and update it occasionally, and when I have time, reflect more on some memories. But for now, I'm still getting used to being here and it's an adventure in itself.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth

Why do you go away?

"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." 

Terry Pratchett

 I spend a lot of time on airplanes. In fact, I started writing this blog as I flew from the beautiful island of Mallorca to Barcelona. And then I fell asleep. And now I'm writing this blog on the plane from San Sebastián back to Barcelona. A new blog post has been long overdue. Since I last posted, I've been to Lisbon, London, Ireland, finished my program in Spain, and am at the end of my final adventure through Spain. I meant to post about each and everyone one of these places but time just got away from me. So while I won't go into the details right here (I'll share plenty of stories when I get home), I will take the opportunity to write about the ways in which my travels have changed me.

I've had to navigate London Heathrow airport four times by myself in the past two months. For those of you haven't ever been in Heathrow, it's a nightmare. On my way from London to Dublin, I had to go through security twice, two passport checks, customs, take a bus from terminal 1 to 5, and walk what felt like a mile to reach my gate, which then changed, making me walk across the airport again. To me, it just seems pretty casual. But in reality, I'm an 18 year old American girl navigating her way successfully through Europe's busiest airport without blinking an eye. I think I'd say I've developed a skill. Or maybe I have an affinity for 3 ounce bottles, ugly terminals, long layovers, and hard plastic chairs. Or probably, it's just something that comes with becoming independent. My travels have made me fiercely independent. On my way home this Wednesday, I will fly from Sevilla to Madrid to Dublin, where I will lug my huge suitcase to a hotel, spend the night, and return to the airport to fly to Heathrow, then Chicago, and finally Little Rock. A year ago, I'm not sure I would have had the confidence to do all of this on my own. But I've been to Morocco, Paris, Portugal, Ireland, London, Holland, and all around Spain this year, and I've managed. Before I left, people said it was a brave thing to do, to leave my comfort zone and go out into the world by myself. But that's another thing about travel, it connects you with so many other people. The friends I've made on this eighth month journey have influenced me in incredible ways. I've learned to be far more open-minded and accepting of other cultures, backgrounds, and religions. I left a tiny part of the world-- the conservative Bible Belt-- and I've found so much more. I've learned to not define myself by what I was taught growing up. Gay, straight, Christian, Buddhist, conservative, liberal, agnostic, Muslim, black, white, rich, poor-- no matter your circumstances or your beliefs, you have the right to be exactly who you want to be and I respect you. And I will go home as a better person for having discovered this, thanks to the friends I've made along the way.

And finally, my travels have made me fearless and passionate. Leaving my comfort zone was the best decision I've ever made. There have been ups and downs, days when I wanted home and days when I was on top of the world. But at the end of the day, I'm happy, because I'm doing what I love. I am passionate about travel and passionate about sharing my love of travel with other people. I would love to literally travel and photograph the world one day-- and I think I just might. I've learned that you can't let fear hold you back from pursuing your passions. I think I can do anything (and pre-gap year I got nervous ordering pizza on the phone.) 

Tonight is my last night in a hostel. Tomorrow we will wake up and return to Sevilla for the Feria de Abril. I come back to the United States on Thursday. And I plan to fit one last blog post somewhere in between. 

Elizabeth 

The Power Of Communication

     I can't believe it's been a month since I last blogged. Time here in Spain is a strange thing. It seems to pass slowly, especially during the lazy, warm hours of siesta. But at the same time, this morning I woke up and realized that I have less than two months left in this paradise. Spring has finally arrived, the days are 70 degrees and sunny. Each day after school, I lay by the river, soaking up the sun until lunch. We've been spending late afternoons in the park or drinking chai lattes in a cafe or taking advantage of 3 euro movie nights. These are all things that the locals here do as well, so I guess I've finally made this place my second home. I'll go home to the United States with a piece of Seville in my heart. When I'm sitting in class next semester on a dreary day, I know that I'll be wishing for the Spanish sun. I belong to two places.

     Since I went to Amsterdam, I've been to Cordoba twice, Granada, Cadiz, and Malaga. The highlight of all of this was seeing Carla, my precious Venezuelan friend. Carla studied at my high school two years ago. She came to America without knowing any English. Over the school year, we became best friends. Without her example, I probably wouldn't be sitting here typing this right now. I think she probably gave me a little bit of her courage. It's hard to learn a new language, much more difficult than I first imagined. It doesn't come easily. I've found it frustrating at times to have such little command of the Spanish language when writing. In English, I can write a complex, meaningful sentence without any thought, and even with all of my attention, I can't reproduce the same thing in Spanish. Have I improved since I came here with NO knowledge of Spanish? Absolutely. Can I effectively communicate with those around me? Yes. Am I fluent? Close to it. Will I be bilingual by the time I leave? Absolutely not. In CLIC, my international school, there are 6 basic levels of learning languages (this goes for all European languages.) I started in level A1-- beginner-- which according to the CEFR means that I "can understand and use basic phrases, introduce myself, and interact in a simple way." I'm now in the 4th level, B2-- upper intermediate-- which means I "can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in a field of specialization, can interact with a degree of fluency that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party," and I "can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options." And the last level, C2, means that you interact like a native speaker.  These guidelines of language learning have really changed my perspective. I used to think that you either speak a language or you don't. But it's much more complicated than that. You can be fluent in a language, but not bilingual. In fact, it would take years and years of study and immersion for me to call myself "bilingual." I'm not perfect when I speak Spanish, I make mistakes, but I can communicate. This will serve me well wherever I may be, in Little Rock or Latin America. And when Carla came to visit, I was the one who was speaking a new language. It was really interesting the way that we communicated, I would say a sentence in Spanish and throw in an English word or two. She would say something in half English, half Spanish. It was completely chaotic, but it was effective. Anyone else listening to us would have been lost, but we understood each other better than we ever have before. A Venezuelan. An American. In Spain. Speaking each other's language with southern accents. And it's all worth it, a thousand times over.

     There's a girl from Ecuador in my English class that I help to teach once a week in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Seville. She speaks very little English, so our conversations are always in Spanish. Our worlds are nothing alike and without this new language, they would have never collided. Today, we bonded over music. There we were, walking down the street, listening to Romeo Santos, and laughing like old friends. You know what? We're not so different after all. 

We're not so different after all.

Until next time,

Elizabeth 

Becoming a Global Citizen: The Netherlands

I did a project on Netherlands in my seventh grade Geography class (shout out to Mrs. Noble.) I remember how magical and far away Holland seemed, like a place out of a fairytale. I knew I wanted to go one day. I just didn't know that one day would be so soon. If I haven't said it before, I want to say that I'm unbelievably grateful to be seeing the world at my age. I've learned what it means to be a global citizen and the importance of understanding and respecting other people and where they come from. 

Last week, a few of my friends and I boarded a RyanAir flight for Eindhoven. If you aren't familiar with RyanAir, it's the best and worst thing ever when traveling country to country in Europe. The flights are impossibly cheap (78 euro roundtrip to Holland from Spain) and they're almost always on time. The downsides are the uncomfortable seats, rough landings, poor customer service, and the ways in which they find to charge you obscene amounts of money. For instance, if your bag is bigger than the tiny carry-on requirement, you're charged to check it. When you buy your tickets online, you have to scroll through pages of advertisements and unnecessary extras. Don't forget to check all the boxes with "no" or else you'll end up with a bill of hundreds of euros. And finally, if for some sad reason your host sister spills water on your tickets that you printed out and RyanAir has to print them for you at the airport, you'll pay a fine of 170 euros. This actually happened to my friend Allyson on this trip. Two. pieces. of. paper. Also, RyanAir flies you outside of main cities. We flew to Eindhoven, which is an almost two hour train ride from Amsterdam. Seems like they forgot to advertise this along with their car rentals and city tours. I've learned to expect the worst, and in turn, have mastered the art of RyanAir. 

We took a taxi to the airport in Seville. Caught a plane from Seville to Eindhoven. Took a bus from the Eindhoven airport to the train station. Took a train from Eindhoven to Amsterdam. Took a tram from the Amsterdam train station to a plaza near our hostel. And then walked. These trips are always stressful and it seems like we're always running late, running for a train, etc. As glamorous as travel can be, it can be just as unglamorous. Things get stolen (someone's camera), lost (my hat), and people wander off (my friends.) You run into people, you get elbowed in the face on a crowded tram, and in Amsterdam, you almost certainly get in the way of thousands of bikers. So, even though we may look like we have it all together in our pictures, we actually don't. We're just trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B without getting run over. And I guess we succeeded. 

The first day, we checked into our hostel and explored the magical city. It's full of charm, history, canals, and amazing pastries. Literally every bridge has an incredible view of the river. It's such a contrast from the slow, colorful pace of Seville. I still can't believe the variety of landscapes and cultures in Europe. That night, we headed to see Ellie Goulding in concert at the Heineken Music Hall. We didn't really know where we were going or how to get there, but we figured it out in the end. Her concert was amazing and full of 6,000 screaming Dutch fans. In European countries, (mostly)American and British music is really popular. I've found that concerts are a really good way to remind you of home, and also really cool to tell people that you saw so-and-so in a big city in Europe. Thank you, Ellie. 

It was my goal to visit the Anne Frank house. If I was going to see one thing, that would be it. We waited in line for over an hour in the wind and freezing cold the next day, but we finally made it inside the museum. I had read her diary and was pretty knowledgeable of the Holocaust, but none of that prepared me for the museum. To actually see where her family lived for two years, to see the room that confined her, gave me a tiny taste of what it felt like to be stripped of freedom. She couldn't even look outside without fear of being discovered. I can't really grasp the torture of it, but by being there, I was trying to understand. I'm not Jewish, but I am human, and I felt connected to her in a way that maybe I can't put into words. Maybe as a writer, maybe as a teenage girl who's figuring herself out, or maybe in the way that she longed to make a difference in the world. I will never take my freedom for granted.

That night, we ventured into the Red Light District and quickly ventured back out. It wasn't really a recommendable view, just mostly sketchy. On our last day full day, I saw the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum. As an art fan, I really enjoyed both. Van Gogh's works were really cool because they were in chronological order. As he succumbed to his mental illness, his work became heavier and darker. I won't say anything more, because art museums are not super interesting to blog about, so go if you ever get the opportunity. 

We finally made it back to Seville exhausted. Now when I say I'm going home, I'm referring to Seville, at least for the next few months. I look forward to returning to my tiny bed and chatting late at night with my adorable host mom. How lucky I am to have two places that I belong to. I have many more trips planned in the future, but tomorrow, CARLA IS COMING. Carla is my best friend in the world from Venezuela, and I get to show her part of my world these next few days.


Un abrazo,
Elizabeth