The Accidental Gap Year

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and I was getting dinner with some friends in Middletown. As Jeannette cooked us a fantastic barbecue meal in the restaurant kitchen, we talked about high school and everything that had happened since. Some of us still lived in the area, but others took trains and buses from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. I had quite the story to share, as the freshness of quitting my first student teaching placement was still weighing heavy on my mind. At some point during our conversation, my friend Christine mentioned what she calls her "accidental gap year". She missed graduate school application deadlines the year before, so her first year after graduating college was spent at home with her parents and brothers filling out applications and waiting for the next semester to start. It happens to so many of us, the confused generation graduating with only a vague idea of what career we'll pursue. Young adults will inevitably stumble, but not everyone recovers from the stumble smiling and without looking back.

This year, 2013-2014, is my accidental gap year. I have plans to student teach in the fall, but right now it's April. It's been a long year. I've been substituting and tutoring, so I'm working, but I thought I'd be looking for a salaried teaching position by now. And I'm not. I will be leaving for Copenhagen on Monday evening, however.

Laurel is studying abroad, and my parents have had plans to fly out and meet her for several months. Six weeks ago, I realized that I have a really flexible work schedule and I have the money to go to Europe. My trip is significantly longer than the trip my parents and grandparents are taking, but I will be meeting them in the middle for a large portion of the trip. The rest will be done solo. The departure day is quickly approaching, and it's been nearly two years since I've planned my own adventure of this scale. I'll be writing about my days spent in Europe here, in this blog. It feels good to be back here, where I can record my thoughts on my trip. Admittedly, the excitement of an approaching trip is sometimes nearly as good as the trip itself. That said, the trip is where the learning and the stories come from.

I Speak Mandarin With A Little Help From My Friends

I met Stephanie when we were studying abroad in London. She joined me in an adventure to Brussels and Amsterdam, so we've traveled together before, but she's wanted to show me her home city of Taipei for a while now. She had told me about the motor scooters and the amazing food and the friendly people, all of which were present in Taiwan's capital.

What made Taipei different was the group I was with. Stephanie had a few friends vising from the United States, so, with the help of some of her Taiwanese friends, she led us through the city. Our crew of new friends ate the best soup dumplings ever ("You have to eat it right. Bite into it a little first and let the soup fall on the spoon. Then eat the dumpling, then drink the soup"), learned how to pray at Longshan Temple (Put a stick in each pot with your left hand for good luck), and climbed Taipei 101 for... Well, we didn't seem much through the clouds, but we were very high up - higher than any office building in North America.

Knowing the locals has its perks. Stephanie and her friends were our translators and our tour guides for our time spent in Taipei. She introduced me to some of Taiwan's local cuisine. Milk tea is delicious. Pig's blood is somewhat less delicious. Even if I didn't know what I was eating, I was always told after. Sometimes, the identity of the food was hidden so my new friends and I would try it without thinking it was too different from what we were used to. Sometimes, though, that isn't even necessary. Rich was eager to try snake blood at one of Taipei's night markets. He loved it and said it tasted very sweet. Even Stephanie wasn't too excited about that one.

Though some of the meals might seem really strange to those of us raised outside of Asia, I could tell that Taipei's food was really good. Even though I didn't like the grilled dried squid, I knew it was probably the best grilled dried squid available anywhere. The food's just really different. I think it's easy for Americans raised eating typical American foods to go to Italy and love Italian food. The animals-and different parts of animals-used in food here take some time to adjust to eating. The food's excellent, it just sounds really bizarre to us. When I asked one of Stephanie's friends about it, she said American food seems just as weird to them. When I think about it, I know what's in pig's blood. I don't have any clue what, exactly, is in my hamburger.

Freedom of Press

It's okay, I have a good excuse as to why I haven't posted lately. The Chinese government censors certain sites on the internet, including Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, Blogspot. The owner of our hostel called it the Great Firewall of China, a phrase the locals use to denote the censorship.

Guangzhou's only a two hour train ride into the People's Republic of China, the full political name for the place that's considered the most populous country on the planet. It's the first city I've ever visited that's bigger than New York, at 11 million residents. The Metro system is chaotic, with everyone pushing and shoving to get on and off the train. The American rule of waiting until everyone gets off the train before getting on doesn't seem to exist.

On the street level, Guangzhou's pretty crazy as well. Bicycles, which are fading from the city's streets but still a popular means of transportation, carry heavy and bulky loads of cargo and sometimes two or three passengers. The entire time I was in Guangzhou, I did not see a single traffic light. There was only one walk/don't walk sign ("We have to take a picture," Rich said. "It's so rare.") Traffic seems to follow a set of mutually understood rules, but there are no visible signals to control cars on the streets. A bunch of new buildings line the streets, all very tall with lots of glass stretching into the thick layer of smog that coats the city.

Canton Tower is the single tallest thing I've ever seen. It's about 300 feet taller than the Empire State Building. When I got off the metro station by the tower, I couldn't immediately see the top. Not far from the new, enormous tower, however, was an old pagoda. It was one of the few pieces of old China I saw while I was there.

Guangzhou was called Canton during its period of British colonization. As the name implies, it's the heart of Cantonese cuisine. One morning, our hostel owner, Huang, took Rich and I to "drink morning tea," which is the literal translation for the Cantonese term for having breakfast. He ordered us porridge and dumplings, but Rich and I both agreed that the cakes were the best part of the meal. We sat at a round table with complete strangers who spoke Cantonese as we ate. Breakfast was delicious, but neither Rich nor I were adventurous enough to try pig's ears or chicken feet.

The most interesting part of Guangzhou was simply being white. According to Huang, most of the residents of the city are migrants from rural areas of the country, but there are very few immigrants from other parts of the world. It was extremely rare to see any non-Chinese people there, and Rich and I both frequently caught strangers staring in passing or on the Metro. One group of guys about our age even started talking to us in English as they passed on the escalator. It seemed as though people of our race were a rarity in Guangzhou. The stares and the hushed talk and glances by the locals were not so much unnerving as they were interesting. I'd imagine it's tough to live with such a thing on a daily basis, however, which really puts issues such as immigration and racism into perspective.

Where it all Started

Sixteen hours on a plane will do things to a man. We flew over Montreal before shutting the window shade. When Rich opened it again, there was nothing below us but miles and miles of the frozen Arctic ocean. By the tenth hour on the plane, I was exhausted and I had to stand up every so often just to move around. Eventually, all the snow of the arctic faded to the brown and green land of China, and the plane began its descent into Hong Kong. I had boarded the plane at 3:00 on Thursday afternoon. Now, after a twelve-hour time change and a full waking day on the plane, it was Friday evening.

"One day I will travel to Hong Kong."  These were the first words of my college admissions essay. Now, at the  end of college, it seems so appropriate to be here. That essay, which was about how I love exploring the different transportation and infrastructural aspects of cities when I travel, was the precursor to both majoring in urban studies and taking this trip. Back in 2007, I imagined being here and enjoying the streetcars, the busyness of city, and the beauty of the skyline rising above the water but below the cliffs. It's everything I hoped it would be.

Rich and I took the bus from the airport to the hotel. We grabbed the front seat on the top of the bus, as any tourist just off the plane would. A big man sat across from us. He was one of the only other white guys on  the bus. "Where are you from?" he asked with a thick accent. We told him we were from New York, even though I know I might not be able to live there again. He was from Russia. He seemed drunk, but he told us about the city that was slowly growing with each harbor bridge we passed. "People of Hong Kong," he said, "Have two brains. A European brain and a Chinese brain. They understand us." The English only turned their Hong Kong territory over to the Chinese fifteen years ago, so the age of colonization has left its mark here by means of spoken English. This Russian guy said he was here teaching English and translating for students. He had just dropped one of his students off at the airport for a flight home to Taiwan. He said he lived in a tiny apartment on one of Hong Kong's outer islands. He warned us of the heat. Then he said he had sex with the student in the airport bathroom.

On the first morning here, Rich and I woke up to grey skies and the most humid weather we've ever felt. Not only was the lens of my camera fogged over, but the entire camera was damp from the water in the air. We set out early, jetlagged, for Central to see the skyscrapers, ride the world's longest escalator, and see the busiest part of Hong Kong. As we stepped off the rickety double decker streetcar and into Hong Kong's Central district, the skies opened up. We headed for the Central Mid-Level Escalator since it was covered. It's not even monsoon season here, but the downpour seemed to overwhelm the drainage system and flooded the sidewalks.

Tai O is one of the more interesting places we've seen so far. On the end of Lantau Island, Tai O is a fishing village with houses on stilts. It smells terrible from all the seafood that is caught and then dried out and sold, which, to my American eyes, hardly looks like food at all. All over Hong Kong, seafood seems to be sold in two extremes: Either completely dried out and aged, or still alive and swimming in a tank. Of course, the animals consumed are exotic as well - squid, sea cucumbers, and an unidentifiable sea creature that looked sort of like a sting ray are some of the most interesting things I've seen so far. Tai O is the first piece of Hong Kong I've seen in which people do not live entirely in high rise apartments. Instead, some Tai O residents live in houses that are completely open during the day. Their living rooms have retractable walls that pull back from the sidewalk, giving passersby glimpses into the private lives of the villagers. Tai O seemed so quiet and old fashioned, but it was an hour's trip from downtown Hong Kong by local public transportation.

Hong Kong has a really pretty skyline. It speaks English and Cantonese, it's both urban and rural, and, best of all, it's everything I had read about before I wrote my college essay. Fifty year old antique ferries cross the harbor, double decker streetcars slide across Henessey Road, and the MTR (subway) is extremely clean and fast. If this is Asia, I'm a fan.

Life, unscripted

Back in October, I asked Rich if he wanted to adventure through Asia with me. We've been friends since the first week of college. Six months ago, we admitted to ourselves that we probably would be jobless right after graduation (we were right), and we recognized that a trip like this would be difficult to take once we have jobs and wives and lives to worry about. So we booked the flight in November, and then booked shorter flights to get to and from Taiwan and places to stay, and we read a ton of information on what we're going to see and do and eat and experience. Japan's a place we both really wanted to see, but since we're flying that way anyway I also really wanted to see Hong Kong, and we decided to stop a few places in between as well. The final list: Five cities. Hong Kong. Guangzhou. Taipei. Kyoto. Tokyo. We leave next Thursday.

Before we head out into the land of dim sum, temples, and bullet trains, though, we have to graduate. Senior year of college comes to an end Sunday. I've had a great time here at college, but I'm ready to leave. I'm just not sure what's next. I've been applying to jobs across the country, and I've applied to graduate school, but I'm not completely sure what I want yet. I hate all this uncertainty, but it's also pretty cool that I have no idea where I'll be just three months from now. It certainly helps that so few of my friends know what they're doing yet, either. I take comfort in being part of the clueless masses who will toss their caps in the air on Sunday afternoon. Since this trip's been planned since November, though, it's provided a few weeks of certainty in an otherwise very confusing time in life.

Author Junot Diaz came to talk at school this semester. Before he started the formal portion of his talk and reading, he chatted with my creative writing class about writing and school and careers. He told the graduating seniors in the class that this is the start of free-form living. Prior to graduation, there's been a script to follow, and the script's been there since we've been old enough to make any sort of decisions on our own. Wake up, go to school, do homework, have summer vacation, go to college. Then what? Then everyone starts going in all different directions, and some people go to graduate school and some find jobs and some join service programs. Monday, the day after graduation, is my first day of living without a script. It's the first time that there isn't really any pressure to choose one decision or another, and I'm finally free just about anything I want to on my own. It's the start of life unscripted.

The Next Big Thing

I booked a trip today. It's a big one, but different from London. I leave May 24th, just four days after graduation, and Rich is coming. I already have this rush, this good feeling, this energy that comes with planning something big. It's something to look forward to at the end of the school year, or, rather, at the end of school. A celebration. A trip. An experience. Here I go again.

These Streets Will Make You Feel Brand New

This was the best winter break yet. Less than a day after I landed, I went to work at Price Chopper, a big supermarket in the next town. Even though I was just ringing customers up on the register and putting groceries in bags, working was a good way of making winter break go by quickly without spending the whole time wishing I was back at school in New York. Immediately earning back a small portion of the money I spent in Europe.

The snow over break was impressive. Winter seems to have followed me across the ocean to the United States. Over two feet of snow fell on Connecticut when I was home, and New York got another 15 inches last week. On top of this, it's been raining ice on more than one occasion, and there have been smaller snow storms in between. It's been the most snow I've ever seen in my life, by far.

The best part of being back in the United States is being back at school. It's great to be back on campus with my friends, even though a relationship has ended between two of my close friends, other friends have become enemies with each other, and everyone has more work than they seemed to last year. While all of my friends aren't necessarily friends with each other, I am very thankful that they're around. When I talk with the people I studied abroad with, they say one of the things they miss most is the friendly community of our small London dorms. NYU, as they describe it, is a cold, unfriendly school where students keep to themselves and there is no NYU community, just New York City and a bunch of students living in apartments. Manhattan College isn't like that. Manhattan College is a friendly place.

My dorm room has become a shrine to all that was good in Europe. A map of London hangs above my desk. Most nights, before going to sleep, I lie in bed and flip through my book of pictures from my trip under the collage I made of all my ticket stubs. A newspaper hangs on my wall with a front-page picture of the crowds at Heathrow from the day all the flights got canceled. I love New York, but I love London, too. Maybe even more.

I've been in a good mood despite being really busy around school. It's a combination of being really glad to be back and finding a new appreciation for things I missed while I was away and feeling like everything's a little new again. I was falling into a rut, getting a little sick of the routine, by the end of sophomore year, but now I feel refreshed. Everyone else who studied abroad says they feel run down already and sick of internship applications already, though. Maybe it just hasn't hit me yet.

I also want to travel more. I've been running searches on everything. Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo, Taipei, and Hong Kong. I can't do anything now since I have my own money and internships to worry about (Except Washington, I'm hoping to book that trip soon). Someday, though, I'll get to all these places.

On Wednesday a Rwandan Genocide survivor came to give a talk at my school. She told her thrilling, tragic story about being trapped in a tiny bathroom in a house for three months while the rest of her family was killed and her village was destroyed. She ended her story with lighthearted anecdotes from the time she was on 60 Minutes and the process she went through to get her book published. She reminded me of an elderly woman who came by my Price Chopper line this summer. At the time, the store was collecting donations to the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. When I asked this woman for a donation, she declined, saying that camp brought back bad memories. She then rolled up her sleeve, revealing a number tattooed on her arm. She said she was in the Holocaust when she was very young. She got separated from her family, but eventually she escaped "to America. To freedom!" She was really proud of that last part. Both the Rwandan Genocide survivor and the Holocaust survivor were strong. They did not seem to be haunted all the time by memories of their horrible pasts. Instead, they were normal people. Friendly, even, like someone you might talk to if you saw them reading an interesting book in Borders. People like these women are why I can make it through the occasional bad day.

Apologies for the late, not-very-exciting post. Life here is exciting, but not nearly as exciting as Europe. Oh, I miss it.