Brock { Abroad }

Perhaps the best way to describe this city is like Amsterdam’s bitchier sister who is just as hot, but more in the ‘I can kick your ass’ kind of way. Rotterdam has chewed me up and spit me out, yet I still keep coming back for more. With gusts of salty wind, huge skyscrapers, and an impossible grind of cars, trams, and bicycles, she doesn’t give you the time to think. People aren’t strolling canals in circles, but crossing bridges with a direct destination in mind. Here, you work hard and you play hard. Any questions? If so, catch the nearest train back to Amsterdam; maybe someone up there will give you the time of day.

“The Glimpse Correspondents Program is for talented writers and photographers with a passion for storytelling and a knack for finding truly unique stories. The program is open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 36 who will be working, volunteering, or studying outside of their home country for at least 10 weeks.”

Here is a artistic statement written from the prompt:
“Why you are interested in being a Glimpse Correspondent? We also want to know what issues you hope to explore and/or what kinds of cultural adventures you hope to embark on.”

On Pilgrimage:

The ability to craft stories that create a meaningful connection between author, reader, and the snapshot moments spent with people on the path makes up my life. When it comes to using my talents in a passionate way and making a positive impact on the world, storytelling is more than my medium. Storytelling is my passion. There is a Zen belief affirming that upon leaping, a net will appear. This seems a fitting statement for the story. My extremely brief life has been a journey of leaps that led me to Amsterdam. After a long and bitter cold winter squatting with circus performers in Montreal, I became a Knowmad. As a nomadic knowledge worker at The New Business School for the World, my other passion for travel is used on a daily basis.

Joining an international team of young social entrepreneurs working and learning from each other has challenged me to “combine, passion, business, and playful learning,” as our motto states. Studying process design, social innovation and sustainability, new business design, personal leadership, and international project design, Knowmads aims to “educate change-makers.”

I continue exploring my learning journey that has brought me on pilgrimage with purpose. From Santiago to Varanasi, Palestine to Paris, I view life as pilgrimage. I’ve realized now on this journey that the destination never seems to arrive. Taking this approach to heart, I find myself constantly exploring this theme in my writing while listening to the life philosophies and stories of people from all over the world.

When it comes to travel, it’s often the people that make the place. As we continue flowing into an increasingly chaotic world, there’s a certain silence in the stories of people, all over the world. I believe this creates a story in the telling that no other medium can quite replicate. In story, a voice is given to the voiceless. In telling, a much louder sound emerges. This is a sound that holds more power than any army could possibly provide. As a storyteller, I am seeking autonomy from a society that has mastered the art of fear in the unknown through mass-management and hysteria in media and politics.

As I explore myself further through my craft, I also want to explore the broader implications travel has on socio-cultural interactions and innovations. Through bringing people together, there lies a necessity for an authentic cultural understanding. Through story, I attempt to break down the barriers and stigma modern culture and society has been spoon-fed by mainstream media. Through their telling, I hope to close the border between places and their people. I believe this responsibility is the natural step that can break down not just borders within myself, but also the borders within this world.

beginning

I saw the old woman as I descended down the mountain toward one of the villages. She grinned a wide toothless grin. Responding with a nod and returning the smile, I continued on. Minutes later, I encountered  a fountain with a saint encased in plexiglass and surrounded by coins. A shell was plastered above the display and a sign hung over the water to inform passerby that it was potable. Dropping some change into the offering, I fumbled to make a sign of the cross, almost second-nature. I filled up the bottle, took a long gulp, and re-filled my bottle again. It was cold; and refreshing; and as I turned to admire the view, I saw the woman from before also admiring a view, except in my direction.

“Esta fria.” She confirmed the water temperature loudly and I agreed. There was a pause as we both just looked at each other curiously. Without any other sort of introduction, she told me not to walk at night, or rather yelled it. I didn’t understand her between the lack of teeth and strong country accent. “What did you say?” I asked. “Are you deaf like me, too?” She inquired. “No!” I yelled back. She continued. “And don’t walk at night. And stay off the highway. And don’t go the wrong way. They have markers that help you. And watch out for the wolves.” There was more, but I couldn’t make it all out. All I could do was assure her that I had some good information for the route and I promised her I would avoid the highway, wolves, and wouldn’t walk at night. “Good, son.” She replied more quietly, almost to herself, satisfied. “Bon Camino!” She yelled towards me as I walked on thanking her for the advice with a smile and a wave.

middle

Later that day, the woman at the hostal gave me the new booklet after asking me to fill out my name on its front. She couldn’t read the penmanship on the registration card and asked me to pronounce it. “All the same.” She shrugged. “I’ll just call you Yankee.” It seemed hospitable enough to me. At least I was getting a nickname around the place…

end

In the distance, I can hear cars zooming along a freeway. Dogs barking, roosters crowing, geese quacking–my plastic bag picnic dinner is ruffling against leaves losing battle with wind. Colder and colder, the sun sets behind the highest mointain. Even the Spanish rioja can’t seem to warm me enough any more, no matter how much of the bottle’s contents disappear.

Fingers too cold to write, I lose myself in thought of what, or perhaps who, would be encountered on the path ahead…

It only took me five hours to get to Tineo; except it was through a combination of cow shit and mud. So, I’m still not sure if a short day through shit is better than a long day without shit, but it all depends on how you look at it, I suppose. I take an inventory of my accessories as I pull out my utterly useless almost brand-new Nike sneakers that take up almost half my bag. I slip them on to celebrate my first arrival to a village before nightfall. I realize how lucky I am to have been loaned this nifty little pack from Mac, my American friend in France. It seems to me that when things work out so easily, there is a reason. I consider it a moment that gives just a little more light on the path, to let you know that you’re headed in the right direction. Although I’m not the most prepared and definitely had my priorities all wrong in the beginning, I can see a little light on the path ahead.

As for just getting the bag, compressing some clothes, and strapping it on, all I had to do was take the first step and here I am… The weather conditions have been unusually pleasant. This morning, from a barmaid, I got the scoop. My main sources of ‘scoop’ on this route so far have been from barmaids. It had been raining there the entire past week! I sure ‘lucked out!’ I thought back to my sort of ‘grey’ week in London before the trip. Frankly, that was nothing compared to having a week of rain on this already muddy route.

After waking up next to a flowing stream I suppose you could call a little river, I reach the much stronger source of the water and am looking down at Salas. I enjoyed the little village and it’s medieval castle turned four-star hotel smack-dab in the middle of town. The style of living was good and it was easy to tell. I sat at a café the previous night writing and drinking coffee and noticed the seemingly perpetually retired lifestyle the people seemed to be living.

As I sipped my cortado, I interrupted the barmaid in the middle of an animated conversation asking for a… a “that,” I stubbornly spit out the Spanish. “Cendrecero…Where are you  from?” She asked. Informing the woman and gentleman across from her that I was an American, but having lived in Spain, I was embarrassed about the vocabulary I’d seemingly lost, just like the map and passport that had fallen out of my back pocket. “It’ll come back soon, poco a poco.” She replied. ‘Little, by little’ I thought. A momentary grin flashes across my face. I remembered hearing the saying often whilebeing constantly corrected by my family, friends, and teachers. “Cendrecero;” I repeated, smiling. Yeah, poco a poco, I thought…

The gentleman stands up, says farewell to his barmaid friend, and as he walks towards the door, she calls back. “Stop by later, ok?” He gives her a nod of recognition and saunters out the door. They really do like their coffee breaks, their siestas, and the art of not working in general, I thought. Yet for a country that manages to get in a daily siesta, they manage to clock in some of the highest work hours in all of Europe. Go figure. Read the rest of this entry »

I stop to eat a bocadillo. Starting yet another ascent into large patches of fog, I enter a village and notice muddy wooden clogs outside the doors of quaint homes with beautiful wild flowers growing haphazardly in the nooks and crannies of the entries.  As if borrowed from another culture, the numerous buildings next to most of the homes look Japanese. I call them ‘Zen pads’ because of their flat square shape and placement on low stilts. I later learn that they are used to store harvested goods, but sort of preferred their previous mystery. I pass an old pilgrim’s hospital turned albergue. Perched atop the highest point, it overlooks Grado, the town I spent the previous night in. I stop to admire the view as two gentlemen, the owners, appear from the building with cigarettes and coffee in hand. They offer me a cup as we gaze out in silence over the landscape half-hidden by fog. Relaxed, I say goodbye. In unison, they wish me a ‘bon camino’as I saunter forward. Read the rest of this entry »

I hopped on a plane for Europe knowing what I was passionate about and determined to find a way to make the terms on which I wanted to live my life and the the things I truly cared about work together. I ended up in Rotterdam, Netherlands a few months ago, where I first heard of Knowmads through a friend I’d made with my couchsurfing host. After putting down more and more of myself on paper, I knew it was time to take those thoughts moving. It had been almost four years since I’d been back to Spain, a year of enormous self-growth studying and living with a Spanish family in the south. A month later, I left Rotterdam to complete the Camino de Santiago, an over 300 kilometer walk through northern Spain.

I soon began to understand what Nietzsche meant when he said “Never trust a thought that didn’t come by walking.” Read the rest of this entry »

I wake up to a cloudy day in Oviedo, ready to begin the camino. After printing off some information on the route, the owner of the cybercafe hands me the papers and tells me to get ready for a wet walk. I laugh it off and walk out of the overcast city. Twenty minutes later, I find myself heading onto a freeway towards oncoming traffic and admit defeat. I never have been good with maps. Turning around, I re-enter the city and walk towards someone who can point me in the right direction. I see a nun nearby, and not only does she give me directions, the dear sister walks me to a nearby tourist office informing me that I need to get my pilgrim passport. I’d read about this, but didn’t see a real need to have a piece of paper from a tourism office to validate my experience. I thank the nun and get information and a fairly beautiful phamplet to fill with stamps from cities along the way. On the front, there’s a quote that reads:

El que va a Santiago

y no va al Salvador

visita al criado

y deja al Señor.

Read the rest of this entry »

Passing the sight of water crashing along eroding cliffs, night soon began to shroud the mountaintop farms with grazing goats dotting the landscape. Soon, I drift off. Four hours later, I found myself dismounting a very comfortable bus where I was able to stretch out on the empty seat next to me for a make-shift bed. I find the motion of trains, planes, buses, and automobiles very soothing and can actually sleep much better in them than strange beds and sofas in foreign places. I realize just how comforting I find the act of moving to the point of leaving my home for extended periods of time to do so. Upon my exit from the warm shelter of the bus, I am welcomed to the city of Oviedo by rain; reinforcing the idea that this is no welcome home party. After finding a cheap room, I descend into the street and wander as nostalgically as I can through streets of a country that doesn’t seem at all familiar to me anymore. I find the cathedral, quite a beautiful centerpiece to the city, and watch the scene unfold behind water-blotted spectacles. Read the rest of this entry »

I wake up with a headache to the sound of a jackhammer chopping up the street below me. There are seven cigarette butts in the ashtray on my bedside table. One is standing straight up. I cross the drab and empty room and enter the bathroom to release my full bladder. There is a streak in the bowl from my violent reaction to a whole round of camembert cheese I crammed into a baguette, my final meal in France and proof that I am incredibly intolerant of lactose. There are curly black hairs stuck to the still damp bathtub and my clothes are laid out on the dresser next to some brochures for the Guggenheim museum, an architectural gem I’ve been waiting to see for years. It was an off start to my first day ‘home’, to say the least. To say the most, I felt pretty damn lonely; and I couldn’t understand why. Read the rest of this entry »