Traveling is Good for You

Oftentimes, I write about things that honestly don't matter. Most of my blog posts talk about food or something cool that I saw. My parents probably read this and suspect that I'm wasting money or not becoming mature or responsible. Luckily, it's not really like that (I promise, Umma). In order to show them that this year out of school is not in vain and also to share with readers what I am learning, I have decided to explain why traveling is good to you (at least how I see it now that I'm on the road).

I'm only going to share one reason at a time (you don't learn a billion lessons a day, you know), and today's reason for traveling deals with patience.

In South America, I got annoyed easily. When I got sick, people in the hostel would just walk in and be noisy, turn on the lights, and then leave the room. I was sick and frail and it required way too much energy to go turn the light off but I couldn't sleep with it on! I ended up getting up and turning the light off and hating the people who did that to me. And I complained quite a bit (sorry Yoontae) about all the people that annoyed me and the little discrepancies in our trip that irked me. It's not like I was unhappy, I just was impatient with people and obviously that's not a good thing.

Now that we're in Germany, there are even more things that annoy us. Little things, but annoying nonetheless. You know those lights that turn green and red for pedestrian crossings? Well, NOBODY here jaywalks (I loved how in South America we basically ran across freeways and it was normal). Even when there are no cars at all. Matt and I hate the feeling of being judged here in Germany so if the light is red we have to stay put too and it kinda sucks because we're so impatient. We want to walk, even if it only makes us get there 5 seconds faster because we're big fans of instant gratification.

Another thing about Germans is that their understanding of personal space is drastically different from that of an American. Here, people standing behind you in line will breathe on the back of your neck and be so close that you wouldn't be able to fit a book in between your bodies. It's really not fun. Matt hates this oh so much (it's one of his biggest pet peeves, worse than scratching fingernails on a chalkboard) and he was so annoyed by people touching him every three seconds all over his back. He said he even wanted to start yelling and breaking free of the crowd like a monster would do in the movies. Maybe like The Incredible Hulk.

So why am I describing all the annoying things we have to put up with? While traveling, different people have different ideas of what's normal and polite and what's not. Sadly, Matt and I have grown a bit too accustomed to our group of friends and our culture and we don't have the patience to put up with what we're not used to. I mean, it even annoys us that the drinks are so small (or maybe that's just 'cause we're fat). But honestly the longer I spend traveling, the more I become open to little differences in etiquette and the more it takes for me to get annoyed when people don't abide by the rules I live by. I don't think you can just sit at home and expect to become open to new lifestyles and cultures. As amazing as traveling is, there are definitely times when you experience annoyances that you wouldn't encounter at home (like not being able to find a bag of hot cheetos), and learning to put up with all kinds of new things generally helps our patience to grow.

So if you have a problem with patience, maybe it's time to book a flight to Germany and stand in line.