Does Size Really Matter?
This last weekend i travelled to Brussels, Belgium, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. While there I sampled the waffles, the chocolate, went to the Anne Frank House, saw Starry Night at the Van Gogh Museum, and went on a tour of the Canals.
Did you know Belgium is responsible for creating the saxophone, the Smurfs, and the www in every web address ever?
I felt like a typical tourist during my trip. Over the last two months, Ireland has begun to feel like home. I can navigate my way around Galway. I know where to go for a cheap meal. I even know the time tables of the library right now. Travelling to Brussels and Amsterdam was the first time in a while I’ve felt truly out of my comfort zone, and the first time on this trip that I’ve had to navigate a country where I didn’t speak the language.
Stereotypes are a prevailing reality in any country you visit. Ireland is known for it’s rolling hills, St. Patrick’s Day, and the Guinness Factory. Belgium is famous for it’s waffles, chocolate, and architecture. Amsterdam is renowned for it’s canals, tulips, and the Red Light District. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the problem with stereotypes and how they become perpetuated. I’ve come to the conclusion that as a tourist you typically enter a country only knowing the bare bone facts, in other words, the stereotypes. It’s a lot like going to college and only knowing that there are five jobs out there, Doctor, Teacher, Lawyer, Police Officer, and Rock Star.
Therefore, when you enter the country you immediately gravitate towards what you know. Especially for broke study abroad students, most out of country experiences involve trying to hit up all of that country’s stereotypes. This creates a cycle in which the country’s stigma is experiences, carried home, and then related to all of the traveler’s friends, family, and semi-acquaintances.
Have you ever seen one of those T-Shirts people have in the US that says, “Everything is bigger in Texas?” I feel like I should get one of those for when I travel around Europe, only instead of Texas, I’d have to change to to the USA. A striking difference in each of the cities I have encountered, is the size of things. From portion size, where at McDonald’s in the States they load up your to-go Big Mac with extra packets of salt and ketchup and (FREE) mayonaise, to our vehicles, where you can regularly see such gems as Hummers cruising the New York City streets, we tend to do things to excess.
Our laughs are louder, our obesity problem is greater, and our buildings are much much taller. Still I have to wonder, with all of our emphasis on bigger is better, what is this X-tra size really getting us? Europeans seem to have scaled down the package and yet included all the essentials. They are the sleek iPod to our 8 track tape…and there’s something charming about strolling down a street that hails from the 1800s and being able to see the city skyline hovering twenty vs. 220 ft about your head.
