The real treasures of travel

by JoLynn (Ana) Dillion (United States of America)

Making a local connection USA

I think something anyone born with the wunderlust gene can relate to, are those special moments in transit when you connect, even for the briefest moment with a stranger. Someone who most likely you will never see again, and yet make a connection so profound it never leaves you. It is perhaps something harder to do in our modern times. I was caught off guard when I first began to travel again after 911, to find that traveling in the United States, especially with air travel, people had shut down into their spheres of personal space. Cutting off any but the most necessary intercommunication, preferring their electronic devices. However I still find, in other modes of transportation, one still has opportunities to make these brief but wonderful connections. Of course prudence is warranted in life, there will always be dangers inherent in the world, but I feel the greater danger by far would be to be stuck with a seat mate who has a compulsory need to share the details of traumatic medical procedure, or the trials of an unfortunate travel blunder. But for me, this risk is far outweighed by the chance of a brief glance into a world I've never known, or a mutual understanding with someone I will only know for that one moment; learning something wonderful about life that only comes through connecting with another human being. Fate can sometimes be kind while laughing at us. I was waiting to board the Coast Starlight train in Oakland traveling to Eugene Or. I had noticed a guy dressed in Patagonia layered with camouflage shorts and looking like a nylon hippy. I took him to be unsavory and made a mental note to stay as far away as possible. The train was running very late that night, and when we finally boarded, I was dismayed to learn that my seat mate would be this grubby specimen. All laughs on me, my companion turned out to be a charming Italian web designer who lived in Paris and was on holiday, traveling solo across the US. He told me his name was “Cheeto” and made an innuendo that I should not judge him for this well known diminutive from the south of Italy. To this day I still have no idea what information this would convey to someone with a greater understanding of Italian, but who he was in comparison to the assumptions I had made about him on first sight still makes me cringe in embarrassment. I wont go into the details of that midnight ride, in reality it was innocent enough, but there was a subtle undercurrent, something that I cherish and blush to recall, in the very best way. Switzerland has the reputation as a cold and perhaps too well ordered society, but my personal experience, has taught me something else. In my collection of treasured moments, I remember one such experience when traveling from Bern to Geneva on the train, thus traveling from German Swiss to French. When the train made a stop in Fribourg, a young man boarded and took the seat across from me. We sat in silence, I was nervous of making social blunders in all circumstances, but when the hour struck noon, we both, produced a midday meal procured from a station kiosk and simultaneously wished the other “Bon Appetit!” and “A Gute”* We shared a conspiratorial laugh and went on to eat in a companionable silence until disembarking with a warm nod of adieu. I am sure I have had many disagreeable encounters, moments that have been expunged from the readily accessible regions of my memory, I try and remember the sage advice of Miss Elizabeth Bennett and remember only those things that bring me pleasure and dismiss the unpleasant to the deeper recesses, at least so far as is practical and not necessary for my progress through the world. These moments for me are more valuable than the trinkets acquired in tourist centers and sit in comers gathering dust. They are moments I could never express in a clever quip on social media, but they will always be my real treasures. * A colloquialism of “Guten Appetit”