As you may remember from this post, one of my biggest struggles while traveling is often unrealistic expectations.
Especially in the days of this rampant social media, often the pictures of a beautiful place you are seeing are edited, angled for the best view, taken at the best time of way/during the best weather, and often don’t include many people. It’s difficult not to have preconceived notions living in a world like we do, but I tend to enjoy a place more when I let it surprise me.
I’m still working on it!
When I reflect, though, I realize that every place I’ve visited has surprised me in some way, either in my own reaction or in the place itself.
For example…
In Greece…everyone warned me that Athens is grungy, Santorini is touristy, the Greeks run on their own special time, and more often than not there is some kind of transit strike going on. While I found all of this to be true, I was surprised by the fact that I didn’t care and loved it anyway.
In Peru…I expected my first big solo trip–six months of studying abroad–to be full of adventures and wonders, as it was my dream finally coming true. All this happened, but it was also full of homesickness, cultural barriers, language difficulties, a scary illness, and more challenges I could ever have predicted.
In Venice…I expected it to be overcrowded, overrated, and smelly. Maybe it’s because we went in March, but I found absolutely none of those things to be true. Venice was as dreamy as I’d always hoped.
In Montenegro…I knew the nature would be stunning, but nothing prepared me for the feeling of stumbling back in time.
In Costa Rica…what I expected to be a slow, relaxing six weeks turned into a much faster-paced adventure, as we discovered just so much to see in this tiny Central American country.
In Vietnam…I didn’t expect to find such immense natural beauty.
In Paris…it was impossible not have ideas on how it might like be. When a city is as famous as Paris, you can’t avoid forming some expectations. I was surprised by the very high highs and the very low lows of Paris–I knew I would love seeing the Eiffel Tower, but I didn’t expect to feel so joyful and emotional when I finally did. I knew it would be crowded, but I didn’t realize how maddening and inescapable the crowds can be in a city as well-known as Paris.
In Thailand…even knowing it was called the “Land of Smiles” could not prepare me for the stunning generosity of the people there.
In the Czech Republic…I could never have known just how many adorable corners of the country I would discover, nor could I have known how attached I would become to this little country.
In Germany…I never predicted how seeing the world through my parent’s eyes would impact me.
In Iceland…I never expected to be so thoroughly enchanted in just a 17-hour layover.
In Switzerland…I could never have predicted how my first overseas trip could have changed my goals and my life.
In Budapest…one quick weekend could not prepare me for living in this complicated, maddening, yet wonderful country. (Although why I thought it would is beyond me at this moment…).
