time dilation, growing up, and brazen honesty
musings from two weeks of travel
When we’re traveling my mom likes to marvel at how far an hour can take us. As if an hour isn’t simply a unit of time to describe sixty continuous minutes but also a little measuring tape that unspools from her purse wherever we go. Can you believe that the last hour took us from our AirBnB to Split Old Town and then past all four Roman gates, around the Cathedral of St. Domnius, and to the sea shore? At home sometimes an hour doesn’t even take me from the living room to the kitchen! Hearing her say that always cracks me up, but it is quite unfathomable that objectively those two hours are the same. All I can say is that even though I know special relativity is about objects in motion not people in motion, time dilation for people who are traveling has to be real. I’ve been traveling basically non-stop for the last two and a half weeks, but considering how much life I’ve lived it feels like it’s been much longer.
Towards the end of October, my parents came to Europe and took me on a road trip down the eastern side of the Adriatic sea, from Graz, Austria → Zagreb, Croatia → Split, Croatia → Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina → Dubrovnik, Croatia → Kotor, Montenegro. We spent our week together mounting city walls and bell towers, manifesting sunny weather, naming Roman emperors, stopping by supermarkets for Pan Radler Limun, and staring at the edge of the ocean. Traveling with my parents was so effortlessly fun, and the whole week felt like such an indulgence. Our family trips usually aren’t all smooth sailing—little arguments between me and my parents are more or less an ineluctable feature of our trips—but this time was a lucky exception, and that in itself felt like reason to be happy.
At the end of the trip, my parents remarked that I’d grown up, which in the moment felt like such a random comment but looking back feels like the firmest affirmation they could have given me. I spent all of college recounting to my parents how I felt like I was growing—as if I could physically speak change into existence—and wondering if they too could tell I was growing in those ways. But turns out not only is growing up much more tortuous than it is meteoric, it’s also freaking invisible for like forever. Until the change becomes so real and embedded that it can start to take form in words and thoughts and actions. I guess for all the maturing I’ve undergone this semester, it’s finally been long enough for it to become faintly perceptible in the real world, which is pretty cool. I’m kind of curious what it was that made my parents think that I had grown up, but whatever it was, I am mostly just glad it was discernible!
After our trip, my parents came back to Lyon with me to meet my host family, who hosted us for an apéro and dinner (my host mom cooked the most incredible tartiflette it was actually insane). My host parents don’t speak English and my parents don’t speak French, so I wasn’t exactly sure how things would go, but the language barrier turned out to be no object, and we shared much more in laughter and mirth than in English or French. It was such a lively and convivial time, and mildly chaotic with all the translations back and forth but in the best way. Everyone was so good-humored and light-hearted, and between our love of gardening, cooking, traveling, and eating there was so much to talk about. I was so so happy, and it was such a special night for me and one I’ll look back on so fondly for many years to come.
The next morning, I headed to Italy on my first real solo trip, which was actually an adventure and a half. I took the bus to Turin (can you imagine sitting on a bus for four hours and boom you’re in Italy like why does that feel like the stuff of fiction) and spent a day just wandering around on my own. Turin absolutely blew me away and is easily one of my favorite cities that I’ve been to in Europe. It is magnificent—grand plazas bustling with life, narrow alleys revealing just a sliver of sky, arches leading to arches leading to arches—and somewhere I feel like I can just breathe easy and experience the world for all that is beautiful in it. Lost count of the number of times I exclaimed “wow” out loud to nobody else but me just because I was so amazed by how sumptuous the city was.
While I loved Turin, the main destination of the trip was Cinque Terre. I actually wasn’t super impressed by any of the five villages because they were quite small and unremarkable, but that didn’t matter much because I ended up spending most of my days hiking through the mountains to get from one village to the next anyways. The trails were incredible and took me through terraced vineyards, across waterfalls, and up mule tracks, and the views from above made the brutal inclines feel so worth it. The skies were pretty clouded over for most of the time that I was there, which someone explain to me how the water can be so aqua green even when it’s cloudy, but the moments when the sun managed to find a clearing amidst the clouds were also undeniably striking and felt like such a treat.
This trip was my first time staying in a hostel, which I was mildly nervous about, but the people I met at the hostel were so open and free-spirited and good-hearted, and I feel like being around them made me more of those things too. Most people were taking somewhere between a few months to a year off work or school to travel through Europe, and I loved their courage to put a pause on their lives and careers and relationships to do something for themselves.
I think the thing about meeting people in hostels is that by nature our lives only converge for a few days before we go our separate ways, so there are no stakes at all, which really encourages everyone to be their most bold and candid self. Talk to me or don’t, like me or don’t, join me or don’t. Who cares? If you don’t like me, well okay see you never. But if you do, you’re asking me 10 minutes into the conversation: Can I come with you on your hike tomorrow? Can I come visit you in Lyon? The leap from stranger to friend has never been faster. I feel like in real life, we are diligent about building trust, careful not to share too much, cautious when it comes to letting people into our lives. We have years to grow a friendship and the rest of our lives to live it out. In comparison three days is nothing, but crazily enough there’s people I met there that I feel like I now know as well as some people I’ve known for a year. No stakes means in our conversations we get to put our truest selves on display, unearth our defining life experiences, exchange our mottos and life philosophies, and share all the darkest thoughts hidden deep in our brain. Maybe that kind of honesty is brazen, but that’s what makes it fun.
What I’ve been reading
The Chalice of the Gods by Rick Riordan (2023) — For anyone who grew up reading Percy Jackson because genuinely this book was pure nostalgia.
The Chinese Groove by Kathryn Ma (2023) — Witty, quirky, and just not your average Asian American lit. The Chinese groove is a funky term but so well captures all the unspoken parts of Chinese culture.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021) — Loving how mystical the story is and how it blends so many narrative voices together.
WAHHHH this was SOO GOOD!!!