It's weird what you learn about yourself on the road - your prejudices, ethnocentricities, comfort zones, beliefs, habits... It's all illuminated when you're suddenly caught in a new place alone.
I've spent the last week or so bonding with Alex's family in Brewood, England and visiting Kelsee, a college friend au pairing in Munich, Germany. Between Belfast, Brewood, Munich, and now Budapest I've had a fair bit of time traveling alone. It's not quite the year long solo trip I imagined years ago - hopping from hostel to hostel and city to city without knowing another soul.
When I sat imagining and researching that trip, the dangers of solo female travel popped up everywhere. I thought everyone had lost their mind - I'm a firm believer that people are fundamentally good and a few bad eggs shouldn't ruin our view of the entirety of mankind. However, the stories are rather sensationalized and growing up in the rape culture of the US doesn't allow for much sense of security as a woman alone in a new place. I hadn't realized, before this trip, just how much the culture of my childhood affected me. As the daughter of a reporter who covered high-profile murders and a controversial neurologist who got death and kidnapping threats, apparently my subconscious was not as convinced about the goodness of random strangers as my conscious brain. However, my lived experience has been that of my conscious assumption. Everyone I've met has been wonderful, interesting, helpful, and not in the least bit "scary." That being said, it's still nice to know that someone who cares about my wellbeing is waiting at the airport/bus station/train station at the end of whatever solo leg of the journey I happen to be on.
