There would be no revelation. Nothing learned that couldn’t
be otherwise learned through careful practice.
I spent just under six weeks in nine cities - eight of them
new to me. I was in airports, train stations, ports, metros, busses and taxis.
I walked probably 200 miles, often on bumpy streets and
dragging a bag that I came to call Petit Pierre because it weighed as much as a
French kindergartener.
I gazed at contemporary buildings, legendary stadiums, old
churches, art, parks, mountains, fjords and people.
I “communicated” in seven foreign languages, two of which I
had studied before.
I was constantly lost. I was physically lost for practically
the entire time, reinventing the wheel every 4-5 days when I arrived in a new
city. At times, I felt lost altogether. Wondering how the story would end.
I ate the best and worst food possible. The breakfast buffet
that was so welcome the first morning in Helsinki became detestable by the last
morning in Copenhagen. I managed to find some great kebab in almost every city.
I paid 1 euro for a glass of rose at a restaurant in Barcelona’s
Gothic District and $12.50 for a beer at a cheesy bar on Oslo’s Karl
Johansgatan.
I met gypsies and representatives from the World Health
Organization, beautiful women and executives from Nokia, rude Parisians and
affable Spaniards, former lawyers and future lawyers, colleague connections and
ephemeral hostel party-mates.
I read several books, but Don Quixote was the one that
mattered most. It took me longer to read this masterpiece than it did to finish
my MBA. It is the longest and most meaningful relationship I’ve ever had. I
spent two years wondering how it, too, would end.
And in the end, it was exactly as it should have been. We
realize that everything we have been doing along is frivolous, the fodder of
simple enjoyment. Others laughed at us and we reveled in it. We will sulk at
misfortune and giggle our heads off in sheer ecstasy, and, eventually, the
vibration of the strings dulls into silence.
