{"id":4555,"date":"2018-11-26T08:56:12","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T07:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4555"},"modified":"2019-02-04T11:54:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T10:54:10","slug":"im-better-than-you-because-i-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4555","title":{"rendered":"I’m Better than you Because I Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So, it\u2019s no secret that we all should be travelling all the time. Go into debt if you have to, but travel. You\u2019ve seen the memes. It\u2019s very enriching. And don\u2019t mistake me for a tourist. Tourists go to Ocean City and Disney World, two places I don\u2019t go to unless my parents are footing the bill. I carry a backpack, not one of those rolly thingies. I hate buses. I would rather wrap myself in banana leaves than stay in a famous hotel. Also the places I travel to are usually filled with people who don\u2019t speak the same language as me. Or brown people. Or Asian people. And these things make me a much better person than you. Here are some ways that travel has made me a fantastic person.<\/p>\n

I spent two weeks in Africa a few years ago and now I totally understand racism. People looked at us the whole time. We stood out like a sore thumb. It was so annoying. People kept asking us for money. It was probably really stressful for the hotel security who had to keep scaring those kids away from the other side of the fence at the pool. It was so annoying. But afterwards I did what I always do. I sat under a tree indigenous to the country, took out my moleskine, and searched my soul. I demanded that I learn a lesson from the experience. The lesson was that now I totally and completely 100% understand what it\u2019s like to be black in America. Maybe in the northern states. I understand what it\u2019s like to be black in Milwaukee. I am one with my brothers. Fist in air.<\/p>\n

Asiatic peoples totally give me the food they eat. I speak some Asian (yes, they all get it) and now whenever I go into an Asian food place, they inherently know that I know what I\u2019m talking about. We can piece together a conversation in their moderate English and they bring me what the other Asians in the place are eating. My white friends are so angry with me all the time. I tell them \u2013 go travel! This is what happens. You become one with the world\u2019s community. Plus, extra broccoli (for a low fee). They make it spicy too. They know I\u2019m different from the others. It\u2019s, like, totally authentic.<\/p>\n

One word: language! Jazyk! Taal! MOBa! I know so many languages that I can always communicate with anyone at any time. If I go somewhere and people speak English to me, I\u2019m like \u201cNo! Speak your beautiful language!\u201d It\u2019s the only way to get a truly authentic experience. I know how to say \u201cis this gluten free?\u201d in fourteen languages. I have so many languages rattling around in my head that I don\u2019t even remember English pul of the zeit! Oops. There I go again! It sometimes gets in the way, you know, like back in the U.S, (whenever I happen to be there in between sojourns). Last week I was in Starbucks and the Indian guy there and I started chatting. I said \u201cNamaste\u201d and then he was all like, wow, you speak Hindi and I said \u201cyes, I do.\u201d Then I had to mime the word for \u201chalf-caff iced Frappuccino with almond milk.\u201d But the guy got it pretty quick. He\u2019s a mechanical engineering student at Cornell. My friends were like, dude, can you come back to English, we can\u2019t understand you! It can be a pain to be honest, but I say no! You should travel and you\u2019ll learn other languages.<\/p>\n

Most of all, I have the experience of being at places before they got all touristy. Back when they were totally authentic. Like this fishing village on the west coast of Ireland where there used to be about twenty houses and a pub where I accidentally shit myself because I drank too much Guinness. I went back last year and there were two pubs and a whole bunch of condos. It\u2019s totally spoiled now. I am only thankful I got there before it became basically like Wildwood.<\/p>\n

This is really important, because I am totally obsessed with getting the most authentic experience I can. I force my way in, if I have to. I have pictures of myself among so many indigenous tribes in their indigenous habitats. They love me. I made one of the guys wear a Phillies cap. He loved it. Plus, there were no other white people around. I don\u2019t even become Instagram friends with someone unless they have a picture of themselves amongst indigenous people in their indigenous habitats. Next! A few weeks ago I got to an island near India that we weren\u2019t supposed to go to. I said, screw that! You can\u2019t keep me away from an authentic experience! But it was hard, the coast guard was patrolling the waters off the island to keep people away because the indigenous people there had never made contact with the outside world. But I just had to see them and take a picture with them. They loved me. I asked one of them to put on my Phillies cap and they attacked me. I mimicked their language pretty well (they were impressed) and they attacked me and the coast guard had to come rescue me. I think a few tribesmen were killed after they shot arrows at a battleship. But they started it. Anyway, I\u2019m glad I have the experience of having been to that tribe, because now the government has moved in, the military is there. Next thing it\u2019ll be hotels and casinos. Lots of white people. It\u2019s so over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, it\u2019s no secret that we all should be travelling all the time. Go into debt if you have to, but travel. You\u2019ve seen the memes. It\u2019s very enriching. And don\u2019t mistake me for a tourist. Tourists go to Ocean City and Disney World, two places I don\u2019t go to unless my parents are footing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/travel.jpg?fit=1300%2C1390&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1bt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4623,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions\/4623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}