“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It
Oh how true this is! Daughter #1 and I have just returned from a six day visit to London.
(Actually, it was more of a shopping expedition than a visit.)
Walking up and down the streets, in particular Oxford Street, we encountered people from, literally, around the world. From Korea to the Middle East, Italy, France, Spain and the Scandinavian Countries, it was like the United Nations en masse.
As I started to pay attention, noticing people as they went along in the shops and restaurants, I could see that people have far more in common than we often realize. Parents, growing impatient with little ones struggling to keep up with them. Mothers and adult daughters, enjoying lunch together. Construction men, leaning on their shovels and keeping a lingering eye too long on the young, and sometimes not so young, women passing by. Husbands and wives holding hands while window shopping. Pedestrians ignoring the flashing red light while crossing the busy road. Young people tapping away on a cell phone, unaware of the world around them.
There are so many activities which seem to be universal.
But I don't realize these things if I stay safely tucked away, in my own little corner of the world. Mark Twain is right - traveling to other states and countries gives us the opportunity to see that most of us hold the same simple wants and desires in life.
To love and be loved, to laugh, to succeed, to be with family and friends.
Our insides are the same, even when our outsides appear different.
Travel enables me to see that first hand.
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