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Well, I've seen a lot of Europe over the years and we've gone on several European vacations in the past five years, so it's off my list for awhile. I like Europe a lot, but there are other places I'd just as soon see, several of which are in the US. For instance, I have never driven up the New England coast, nor have I seen the Great Lakes, so those are at the top of my list right now.
Fear of terrorism wouldn't keep me from going to Europe if I had plans or a burning desire to go - in fact, my husband and I have been talking about taking a trip to Poland just because we're curious - but the whole refugee and terrorist thing certainly isn't a selling point to that region.
I have stood in the exact spot at the Brussels airport that was bombed the other day. That's a sobering thought. I'm glad I've already gotten a lot of international travel under my belt, If I didn't, I'd still book a trip but it's a big world out there and I'd just as soon go see something else and let things calm down a bit in that region.
I think people underestimate just how many refugees and immigrants there are in Europe, and their effect on the local cultures. It can be a bit of an eye opener to see first hand, especially in larger metro areas. Also, especially through western Europe, there is a marked loss of individual country's cultures over the past 20 years. Just like so many quaint, picturesque areas of the US have been compromised by commercialism and a booming population and tourist industry - many parts of Europe have experienced the same challenges. Some areas have weathered this fairly well, others not so well.
I'm very glad I got to experience Europe twenty years ago in a big way (I lived in Germany for three years and got to travel a lot while I was there). I was lucky enough to live there just as the Berlin Wall came down and communism fell, so I also got to see a lot of Eastern Europe before western Europe made much impact. Our last two trips back, we realized just how homogeneous so much of European culture has become over the past two decades. I'm not saying that Europe has lost its charm - but I am saying that its charm has faded, unfortunately. At least for me.
Folks, get real. "Europe", that big, really? I plan to visit Dordogne, France later this year, do you think there is a high risk of terrorism in that region? Do you think I will see hundreds of refugees in Rocamadour?
Can we be a little rational about this? Does some random gun violence in Baltimore or Detroit deter you from visiting Yellowstone? In fact, is the chance of your getting killed in a terrorism bombing any higher than a plane crash?
I just don't see why people can't be rational about this.
Well, I've seen a lot of Europe over the years and we've gone on several European vacations in the past five years, so it's off my list for awhile. I like Europe a lot, but there are other places I'd just as soon see, several of which are in the US. For instance, I have never driven up the New England coast, nor have I seen the Great Lakes, so those are at the top of my list right now.
Fear of terrorism wouldn't keep me from going to Europe if I had plans or a burning desire to go - in fact, my husband and I have been talking about taking a trip to Poland just because we're curious - but the whole refugee and terrorist thing certainly isn't a selling point to that region.
I have stood in the exact spot at the Brussels airport that was bombed the other day. That's a sobering thought. I'm glad I've already gotten a lot of international travel under my belt, If I didn't, I'd still book a trip but it's a big world out there and I'd just as soon go see something else and let things calm down a bit in that region.
I think people underestimate just how many refugees and immigrants there are in Europe, and their effect on the local cultures. It can be a bit of an eye opener to see first hand, especially in larger metro areas. Also, especially through western Europe, there is a marked loss of individual country's cultures over the past 20 years. Just like so many quaint, picturesque areas of the US have been compromised by commercialism and a booming population and tourist industry - many parts of Europe have experienced the same challenges. Some areas have weathered this fairly well, others not so well.
I'm very glad I got to experience Europe twenty years ago in a big way (I lived in Germany for three years and got to travel a lot while I was there). I was lucky enough to live there just as the Berlin Wall came down and communism fell, so I also got to see a lot of Eastern Europe before western Europe made much impact. Our last two trips back, we realized just how homogeneous so much of European culture has become over the past two decades. I'm not saying that Europe has lost its charm - but I am saying that its charm has faded, unfortunately. At least for me.
A pretty good example of how the threat from terrorism - which is real, but statistically tiny compared to other potential modes of harm - is being used, consciously or not, to indulge the part that exists in all of us (but which is more exposed in some people than in others) that is simply frightened of change.
In other words, you're not really frightened of being blown up, but the slightly-less-tiny-than-before chance of this happening provides a sort of heightened dramatic context for something that definitely is happening - namely, that a part of the world which many value for its quaint irrelevance is currently being catapulted into some version of the situation of change that has for some time been the norm in most other parts of the world.
A certain sub-clique of American tourists, of which you are a prime example, seems to want to come and see something that represents a particular olde worlde vision of Europe. That's understandable. But culture is dynamic. The fact that things seem different to you from how they did twenty years ago only demonstrates this essential, vital quality of culture. When I return to London from the relatively homogenous part of eastern Europe where I am currently living, I am wowed by the cultural achievements of recent decades - namely, the complex and highly developed interplay of different cultures that now exists in places like London. It's certain that some things have been lost, and by far the biggest culprit when it comes to homogenization is big business, and the unfair commercial environment it has constructed around itself. But the cultural mix - and, indeed, the entirely new cultures that have emerged from this - are something quite new and quite unique to time and place. If you see only the fact that, say, there are fewer bakeries and butcher shops than there were in the past, and miss the entirely new manifestations of culture that have appeared as those have - and I agree that this is a sad thing - withered away, then you are not an observant traveller.
You have everything you need in North America, why bother to visit Europe? Europe is rampant with crimes and attacks.
I hope you are being sarcastic, otherwise, that's really a funny comment!
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