Fernweh

Fernweh: (n) wanderlust, a desire to travel, a longing for far-off places




Recently I stumbled across the blog of my all-time favorite bachelor candidate, Lesley Murphy. For a living Lesley travels around the world with her boyfriend experiencing the best that travel has to offer. As a camera crew follows her through five-star hotels and enormous wine vineyards littered with only the best grapes in Argentina, she arguably has the most amazing, glamorous job on the planet. 

The world, travel and different cultures have always been something that intrigued me. I grew up in the same house, I went to college one town over and have been confined to the same streets and people for a majority of my life. 

I grew up in a town that was divided by zip codes, a north and south. Those from the northern part of town are known to have bigger houses, nicer cars and better lives to the naked eye. I can't help but wonder what makes their lives better? These are the people that travel to five star resorts and the people the alienate those in the same town with same income based on a series of numbers. These are the people teaching their children to harbor a sense of entitlement toward their classmates and a distaste toward their peers that may have an opinion different from their own. These are the people that don't grow in their lifetime. 

I grew up in a high school where if you didn't play sports or find a group of friends by the time you were in seventh grade you didn't fit in. Opinions of one another were flung around freely and concerns over someones well-being were few and far between. 

I think it's easy for everyone to complain about their hometowns but when I did venture out to college  I discovered that there are people who have lifelong relationships from high school with amazing people. That's something I don't have but something I have grown from. It's interesting for me to see what may be normal in my hometown is completely different from one town over, which leads me to wonder what it may be like on the other side of the world.

Post high school graduation my parents and I traveled to Ireland and London. Upon touchdown in Dublin I found that Europeans are significantly more friendly than those in New England. I remember feeling almost creeped out by their generosity and openness toward my family and I. Why? Why is someone holding a door and stranger after stranger offering a smile and a wave a creepy idea for me? Because it's out of the norm for the life I am accustomed to. 

With most of my friends graduating from college this year and starting their adult lives, I have been thinking a lot about life and what I want from it. I want to experience those cultures on the other side of the world but the way they really are. Not the culture a five-star hotel wants you to see. I believe that you learn about yourself when you are pushed out of your comfort zone and learn to be thankful and accepting when you dive heard first into different societies. 

I want to be responsible for being the change I want to see in the world on a daily basis. Can I change the world entirely? Probably not but in a realistic view offering a smile and well wishes to someone on a daily basis could be the difference in one persons day or even week. There are roughly seven billion people on earth. If each individual person finds one small way to be kind in a day that is seven billion acts of kindness. Now that is an unrealistic thought, but I am determined to be one person that changes a day. 

I'm off to research cultures and hostels for I can't wait to dive in head first and learn about myself and the world around me. 

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