Traveling Ironies: Foul Language, Sacred Places
Europe
Okay, so maybe you want to see it and maybe you don’t. You’ve been pressured by your teacher, mother or guide book; this is a famous sight, one you must see, well because… It may have all the answers you need! It may make you a better person than your neighbor (who hasn’t seen it)! There is an undeniable pressure upon travelers to visit certain places/objects whether they have any personal significance for them or not.
Follow the masses to the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge, the Mona Lisa, Michaelangelo’s David, the Taj Mahal or the Great Wall of China. These are just a few of the places that spring to mind as universally recognized sights. So even before you visit you’ve seen a million pictures; copies of pictures; maybe even copies of the copies. Yet this drive to see it, live and in person before you; to somehow make it yours, is insatiable.
You imagine your moment a million times before it happens. There you are sharing a kiss at the top of the Eiffel as the wind gently teases your hair; the beauty of the Mona Lisa brings you to tears; you feel thousands of years of history coursing through your blood as you walk the Great Wall. These are the elusive, ideal moments of the mind’s eye; moments like those you would imagine with a lover; so perfect they leave you speechless.
After having visited several famous sights in Europe, I realized that it is entirely possible to have your moment with the place/object, but it will hardly ever be as you imagined and it is never to be yours alone. You will, after all, be surrounded by many others and the high energy of this human anticipation always sparks the unexpected.
The first time I traveled overseas was to Florence, Italy. It was an unexpected trip, planned around a workshop, so I knew very little before arriving. One thing I knew was that I couldn’t spend two weeks there without seeing Michaelangelo’s David. There would be a long afternoon of waiting in line and then a fee of 6.50 euros. My immediate reaction was that it was a hefty sum to see a naked man of marble, but then again, this was not just any old statue. I wandered several halls of paintings I cared little about, letting the anticipation build. I entered the hall where David stood at the opposite end, bathed in natural light. This is it; there he was. Okay. I walked closer, circled and found a place to sit; a bench that so happened to have the best view of his derriere. I reflected on it. Okay. Well, it was actually more than okay to rest my eyes upon.
I opened my ears to the conversations around me, curious to how others were reacting. I saw school groups and families; wide eyes. Some silently reflected on the statue, while others talked animatedly. A teenage girl and her two friends stopped by my bench. “My boyfriend, well, he has the hairiest ass ever! I tell him to shave it, like, every day. I can pull on it, that’s how long it is!” The group of three erupted in giggles. I looked up at David’s smooth figure, smiled to myself and took my exit, strangely satisfied with that peculiar moment. I was embarrassed at the girl’s brashness; proud of her uncensored thoughts.
On my last night in Florence I ventured across the river Arno to Michaelangelo’s lookout over the city and had a similar incident. The lookout was crowded with couples and groups posing for photos as the sun set over the magnificent city. I sat reflecting over the past two weeks I had spent in the city, getting lost, walking in circles, loving gelato on every corner and getting sick of Renaissance art. I watched young and old couples share quiet whispers, kisses and caresses by the rail until two young girls stepped dead center, sharing swigs from a large brown-bagged bottle. Things were about to get interesting. I didn’t have to try very hard to listen, as all of the city could probably hear them.
“This city is fucking awesome.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m having the time of my life, but I miss my boyfriend.”
“Me too.”
“When I get back we are gonna smoke a blunt and get it on all night.”
“Oh man, I love sex with my boyfriend. He’s all rough and I’m like ‘Oh yeah, bitch?!’”
I watched couples move away, looking as though they had a sudden bad taste in their mouth. Moments were crashing, ruined. I was appalled and horrified as well, but at the same time the experience struck me as so true and real to life to find oneself suddenly turned upside down in a perfect moment.
After my experiences in Italy, I was decidedly more prepared for curious reactions to famous attractions. In fact, I now expected and looked out for these kinds of tourists, almost always American, that would never pretend that something so famous should be respected with silence; it deserved a moment of truth, however naive, awkward or drug-induced.
When I studied abroad in England, I had to have the quintessential tourist experience and see Stonehenge, and in pouring rain and whipping winds, I did. In spite of the elements it was impressive and our tour bus followed this visit with an afternoon in Bath. I hadn’t noticed the group of three young American army boys on the tour until they stumbled into the seats behind me with a six-pack as we left for our return to London. It was apparent how they had spent the afternoon, as they almost immediately started up a conversation full of loud cursing.
“Gentlemen, this is a family tour,” the soft-spoken guide reminded them. When they began singing songs about napalming little birds and children, I looked to the floor. One asked me what I thought of the current war situation and I told him it was a joke. Whoops. I attempted to curb his growing anger by explaining that I thought the reasons for the war were a joke. War itself is never a joke. He didn’t hear anything but joke; you are a joke. I suddenly found myself genuinely afraid as I locked eyes with the young female guide. Luckily my army man was distracted by his friend with crutches having to pee. He went to the front of the bus and somehow managed to convince the driver to pull over on the side of the motorway. As the three stumbled off the bus, everyone else shared knowing glances that hoped the driver would just leave them and go. When they got back on they seemed to have lost some of their fighting spirit and passed out until London. I left the bus that evening ashamed for my country; worried that America was indeed represented overseas more by outbursts like these than anything else. I was suddenly an American spying on other Americans overseas and taking notes.
So on one last note, let me tell you about the Mona Lisa experience; it is simply this: First of all, most, including myself, only go into the Louvre to see the two most famous pieces of art. Those are Venus and Mona. The floor in front of Mona will be mobbed. She is a celebrity; it looks like a press conference or paparazzi mayhem; cameras raised in the air. Cameras taking pictures of people taking pictures of this famous painting of a woman with her smile of irony. Everyone is cursing each other; “Out of my way, out of my way!” As I passed through the room I could have sworn she was laughing.
There really isn’t such a thing as one appropriate reaction. Silence is respectful, but boring. If no one shared what they thought, conflict would be avoided, but life would never advance. So spin the wheel in your gerbil-caged life; travel and react loudly to what you see or to what you see others see! It took me awhile to learn that I didn’t always have to like what I saw, no matter how famous it was. In the end it was always more interesting to watch the other tourists than the attraction anyway. I found traveling to be the perfect experimental forum to find folly in human foibles.
