The Requisite Reflections

My dear friend Jenny jokingly says that she decided to pick up and move to Manhattan after watching too many episodes of “Sex and the City.” For me, I think perhaps the decision to move to Vienna and work for the UN resulted from watching too many episodes of “The West Wing,” (thanks Justin) and – let’s face it – a little “Sex and the City” too. I wanted to feel like I was an environment where I was making a direct impact on the issues – ala West Wing – but I had also always dreamed of living in Europe someday and taking a grand adventure.

It is hard to encapsulate all the emotions that have arisen from the past four months in a blog post, but all in all this has been even more of a learning experience than I imagined it would be. I learned that I have a deep and profound respect for the work that is done by the staff of the United Nations, but I also put the UN on a pedestal before I arrived here. There is certainly a lot of redundancy, overlap, and bureaucracy, but most of the people who work there do so because they passionately believe they can make a difference in the world, and they are experts in their field. They work long, tireless, and often thankless hours. And while I share their passion, I am not sure that the UN would be the right place for me – at least not at this point in my life. I found I truly missed being ‘in the field’ and connecting with the people I serve on a daily basis. At the UN I often found like I was in an ivory tower, so disconnected from the issue that I couldn’t be as fulfilled as I would like to be.

I learned that now – more than any other time I have traveled abroad – is a precarious time to be an American in Europe and abroad. This was a sentiment echoed by multiple other Americans we met while traveling – a massage therapist from Sedona, a public defender from Laguna Beach, a recently married couple from Wisconsin who have relocated to DC. All were experienced travelers, and none of them were loud, obnoxious, or ‘ugly Americans,’ and they too had some unsettling experiences while traveling. In Siena and Budapest Todd and I had other minor anti-American incidents, and while they were minor, they demonstrated a tension and palpable anger towards Bush and the US that I can’t quite describe. You need not point out the irony that the person who is yelling, “Burn the US!” in the square is wearing a Nike shirt and Levis jeans. There seems to be no problem embracing the music, movies, fashion, and pop culture of the US, but there is little love for the US as a whole. Like I said, it’s just hard to describe.

On a lighter, and more personal level, I have found from this experience that I feel more confident in my skin. All my life I have idolized European women – or the pictures I saw of their models in magazines – and their tiny figures and ability to eat large quantities of butter and not gain a single pound. I have always struggled with my physical self-esteem, and in an odd way, being in Europe has made me realize that European women are no different from us. Ok, maybe they do have better metabolisms. It may sound strange, but the fact that when I arrived I realized I have a ‘normal’ body, and that every woman here isn’t a size 2 made me start to realize how silly I have been my whole life. I’m not a big blob, which at times I felt I was. I am very, very normal (by global standards now I guess), and I am ok with that. I’ll always have to work to stay fit, but knowing that European women are mere mortals too was oddly comforting. That isn’t to say that whenever I saw a 5’9,” 120 pound Slavic Amazon chowing down on a cheeseburger I didn’t think to myself “Damn her,” but you get my drift. J

Finally, this whole experience has made grow to love and appreciate Todd in a new way. I wouldn’t say that I ‘love him more,’ because I don’t think you can quantify an emotion. But being able to quit your job of five years, move 6,000 miles from home to a country where you don’t speak the language and know no one, and have your boyfriend be your rock and true partner in crime (and not an additional source of stress) is a really amazing thing. Whenever I had homesick days or frustrating moments he was always there to make me laugh, give me a hug and kiss, or just hold me steady. Even that fact that we could travel together for three weeks and not only not kill one another, but in fact love every minute, makes me love and appreciate him in a whole new way. True, the 38th time he started singing “Good King Wenzeclas” in crowded, 100-degree heat Prague I was about ready to throw my shoe at him, but then he would do something to make me laugh, and we’d be right back where we started. And that pretty much sums us up. I never would have had the courage to do this without him, and I am thankful that he agreed to take this adventure with me.

Well blog readers, this is my last post from abroad. I could keep writing for another hour, but I am about to go to bed, as tomorrow morning we fly back to the States. This blog has been one of the most enjoyable things about this whole experience, and I thank everyone for reading it, posting comments, sending emails, etc. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me, and I hope you have enjoyed hearing snippets of our European adventure. Todd thinks I should start a new blog entitled “The Merry Misadventures of Kristen in Connecticut,” but I am not sure how interesting of a blog that would be. We’ll see. If I do decide to keep a blog on the relocation from West Coast to East, you will all certainly be the first to know. Thank you again for sharing your lives with me, and allowing me to share some of my thoughts with you. We love you all.