The Gift that Keeps Giving.

I’ve been accused of being bull-headed, of having a fiery temperament worthy of a redhead, and a stubbornness born of an Ox. Meh, I’m an Aries. So a town that celebrates the bull? Sounds like my sort of place!

She didn’t want my help; she was scared.

As the old lady tripped and fell stepping up to the bus, I dashed forward to play the shining role of Prince Savior. Now the town of Rakvere, Estonia doesn’t see a lot of foreign tourists. But somehow I still felt the need to rush in, collect up the lady’s spilled groceries, and put out my hand to help her up.

She just looked at me as though I was born-on-the-other-side-of-the-planet, hostile, and threatening. Shrinking back, getting frailer as she cowered. From inside the bus I heard gasps of “ameeriklane”. Safely assisted from inside, the doors closed and the saga drove away. Me? I was left playing the fool, holding her recycled toilet paper, wondering what cultural insult I had made this time. I was just another dumb American tourist!

There’s something about travel that emboldens the mind and weakens the hesitancy of even the most reserved. It’s implicit in the notion of travel – of stepping out of the familiar, going places and seeing the unexpected, putting yourself at some small amount of social disorientation.

But, we needn’t impose those conditions on those we visit. It is their lives that we want to experience, not our own. It is their cities that hold the charm when ours have almost completely lost any. We don’t want to turn true gems of the world into yet another Tijuana, but everywhere we go we misbehave.

More than once I have wanted to cry out: why can’t we leave ourselves at home? Because there’s many a day when I sure wouldn’t want to invite me around and be forced to offer myself gracious hospitality. Thankfully, the world is full of people who think otherwise. And, other than a mis-step or two along the way, I love the travel that is full of open-hearted, generous and brave people.

Funny, but that’s always been the reputation of the fine people of Rakvere, Estonia! Bulls welcome, too!