My parents never traveled much with me when I was younger. That's fine. I probably would have been really embarrassed anyway, given their proclivity for singing in public and asking me if I've pooped lately. It's nice to be surrounded by your peers while abroad, what with common interests like staying up past 10 p.m. and all that. At least that's what I thought, until my recent trip to Amsterdam, where I was confronted by the irritating subculture of young, "backpacking" Americans.
These privileged people, upon graduation from high school or perhaps after growing bored at their universities, are now plagued with life's most difficult questions, like: "Does beer taste better in France or in Spain?" They are seeking the answers through their travels in Europe. It's "finding yourself," but are we, the upper-middle class youth of America, really that lost - except for this abundant apathy and pesky lack of cohesion?
So what these lost souls do is enroll at "Backpacking Across Europe University." In the BAEU enrollment package, one receives a how-to guide for growing white-people dreadlocks, a ratty backpack with thoughtfully placed patches, some Lonely Planet travel books that will go unused (save for the nightlife sections), and - most importantly - V.I.P. access to your parents' hard-earned money.
If I wanted to experience American accents and stale pot smoke, I could have just gone back to Anderson Hall for my week off from school. Instead, I booked myself a couple nights at the Flying Pig youth hostel in Amsterdam, with visions of Anne Frank, van Gogh, windmills and legalized vices dancing in my head. Unfortunately, the Flying Pig turned out to be BAEU Headquarters, complete with a pseudo-bohemian fa?ade intending to make the average alternative mind feel right at home.
Whoever first decided to Backpack Across Europe as a method of self-discovery must have sucked. He must have worn a black turtleneck and wrote moronic poetry as means of seduction. I probably would have hung out with him anyway. Today, millions of young Americans go through the motions like a cult pilgrimage. But somewhere along the line, another suckface decided there should be at least four fast food restaurants and an "American sports bar" within spitting distance of every hostel in any given European city. Finding yourself made easy.
This romanticized concept of Backpacking Across Europe conjures up notions of venturing into the unknown, using one's wits and nonverbal communication to get by and viewing the world through a different lens. But somehow this all got lost. Now there are legions of loud American kids stomping the streets, not unlike a suburban strip mall with all the comforts of home. As far as globalization goes, I'm definitely blaming someone with white-people dreadlocks. The idea of pointing fingers at a single individual is comforting to me.
I didn't meet a single backpacker that hadn't been to one of the following cities: Barcelona or Madrid, Rome, Paris, Munich (Oktoberfest, duh) and now Amsterdam (legalized marijuana, duh). They travel from one pre-determined destination to another, clinging to fellow backpackers and partaking in mostly comforting activities, like a sports bar called "Babes and Beer" with awkward Dutch teenagers rolling their eyes at everyone.
Hopefully my experience in Amsterdam was relatively exclusive to the site. At one point, I was informed there was "nothing to do in Holland but smoke weed, get drunk and play pool." This sentiment was echoed no less than 15 times. Luckily, all three were possible within a two-second walk from our hostel! And there was a big screen TV showing "Road Trip" downstairs! But what about the self-employed prostitutes? And the phenomenal graphic design industry? And the canals, or the way the city just molds to the feet of those walking through it?
Perhaps I hold the ideal of Backpacking Across Europe too dear. I always assumed that it would at least include camping out instead of charging another night to some distant relative's credit card ("This one has a bar IN THE HOSTEL!"). As this odyssey grows rife with stereotypes, I returned to Berlin a lady embittered by submersion in a once would-be life-altering experience-turned-institution made bland by my peers. I struggle just like they do, for these flaws are my own, but now a sense of added alienation looms overhead.
Jen Turner tells it like it is from her foreign locale twice monthly.
E-mail her at jen.turner@american.edu for some lively travel-related discourse.
