I already loved to travel and had been around western United States and had been to East Coast a couple of times. In fact, as I was traveling to the USSR my family was prepping for our move to New Hampshire. But this trip solidified the diagnosis that I had a permanent case of the Travel Bug. I immediately wanted to travel again. Although I was in high school I was able to earn college credits through the University of Utah and as such it was my first study abroad experience in addition to being an exchange program. (We had students from the USSR visit us in Utah, including at Davis High School.)
While in college I studied abroad for a term in Mexico. And then as a professor I've taken students on three study abroad programs: to Taiwan (2009), the Dominican Republic (2010), and Cuba (2012). In fact, it was the trip to the USSR that inspired me to make the Cuba trip a reality. I'm currently finishing my plans for the 2014 course. In addition to leading these study abroad experiences I've also been abroad for my own research or to conferences as a professor (my own "study abroad" programs, so to speak): to Canada, Taiwan, Chile, and Peru. There's practically no place I don't want to visit.
What is it about travel that appeals to me so? In a word, curiosity. I'm curious. About language, culture, politics, history, education, economics, well, about everything (or just about everything) and there is really no substitute for "being there." And the best part of "being there" is meeting the people, not just seeing the sights.
Mark Twain summed up why that experience of "being there" is so important:
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
So, as I reminisce 25 years later, here are a few snapshots of me in the USSR doing what I most love about going new places -- making new friends.
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| Singing Beatles songs with Russian rockers at our hotel after seeing their concert in Leningrad. One of us had just given the lead singer the "Moscow Summit" t-shirt. |
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| After a friendly game of basketball at a Soviet Pioneer Camp. |
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| Maybe borrowing a Red Army soldier's hat wasn't the wisest move I've made in my life. At least Doug seems to approve. In other news, Doug and I may have been "detained" by police in Leningrad for suspicion that we had allegedly, or were about to, trade on the Black Market with two friends we had met, Ilia and Dmitri. But that might be a story for another time. |
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| A page from my photo album. Like my great cartography and Cyrillic skills showing where "Utah" is? And, no, Victoria and I didn't stay in touch. |
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| In front of Lenin's Tomb right after meeting its embalmed occupant. |
