Big Three Oh

“I'd like to hope that I will continue to live my life void of age constraints. Void of fearing a new number next to my facebook birthday. But who knows what the future will bring? All I know right now is I've thoroughly enjoyed living a portion of my life, and I hope the rest of it continues down this path.” (One for the Ages)

That was how I felt over five years ago when I was writing about age. I don’t know why in June of 2009 I was stricken with motivation to explore the intricacies of age and our relationship to it, but I do know why I have fallen under the same spell today. In the last three months I have either attended or unfortunately declined six 30^th birthday parties with a seventh looming on Saturday. Ranging from house parties with family to dance marathons in Wicker Park, they’ve all been consistent in one thing: let’s get the most important people in my life together to celebrate this milestone. And who can blame them? Thirty is a big number, right?

In June of 2009 I was winding out my first year of living in the big, scary city. I was 24 and possessed the same defining trait as Jon Snow: I knew nothing. It makes me happy to see documented proof that I was enjoying my time and was stuffed with hope for an indeterminate length of time that rested ahead, unstirred and unguaranteed. It’s hard to pull a consistent string of memories from my 24^th year on this planet, but over time I can recall some of the highlights and even a few of the lowlights. I can think of a few birthday parties I went to that year when we still thought it was cool to get wristband deals at Lincoln Park bars. I remember justifying drinking on a Monday night because burgers were only a dollar with the purchase of a beer and it was the fiscally responsible thing to do. I remember dumping so much money into a Golden Tee while endlessly eating pizza on Sundays that we sought out and bought a Golden Tee machine of our own because it was the fiscally responsible thing to do. I vaguely remember making a drunken fool of myself, but distinctly remember the feelings of regret and shame I that I still feel to this day despite the collective alignment of ‘we’ve all made those mistakes.’ I remember incorrectly calculating the trajectory of the ricochet from a garbage can with my necessarily covered car too close for comfort. I remember smoking hookah on our rooftop before heading to a Wrigley Field bleacher debacle. I remember life as a 24-year-old.

“There are some people that wake up 30 years old and go 'shit, I need to get my ducks in a row.’”

I guess that’s probably still the case, but for the most part, my friends seem to be in pretty good control of their ducks. They might not all be lined up, but they haven’t let any drown either. But I think that 30 represents something wholly different than making sure your life is in order, though I suppose that’s part of it. For some, it represents a foray into married life, remodeling bedrooms, building cribs, staining decks. For some, it’s an unwelcomed reminder of their own solitude, first dates, long, meandering nights, 10-minute love and 5-minute heartache. For some, relationships don’t bind their life and the focus is on career, or school, or family and friends. Whatever it means to you, I think it’s inescapable to wake up on your 30^th birthday and not take some assessment of your life. Not that you can’t do it when you turn 28, or even when you don’t turn anything at all, but sometimes built-in check points are a helpful way to turn the looking glass inward.

“The ebb and flow of life is as wispy as swept up clouds sneaking across a low mountain sky, not meant to be contained, straightened, or organized.”

Self-analysis and honest to goodness self-awareness is such a necessary part of growing up. When you’re eight, all you need to worry about is enjoying life. When you’re sixteen, all you need to worry about is prepping yourself for future success, which can mean different things to different people. When you’re 24, apparently all you need to worry about is how to drink on a budget, lessons that college probably equipped you with. But by the time you hit the alarm clock on 30, it might be the first time you’ve had a chance to take a holistic look at your life; a sort of personal inventory. It’s a wake-up call whether we asked for it or not. And I would be willing to make a bet that the snooze on the alarm gets shorter and shorter as you age, prompting consistently more frequent stares into the mirror. This, by all accounts, is a good thing.

Skipping kindergarten has given me the opportunity to observe countless of my peers rolling over the stone of 30 before I get there, gleaning from them what I can, inferring the rest. My thoughts might not change on the dawn of my big three-oh, my actions, my theories, my feelings, they might all remain intact, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be a significant day in my life. Which is why I have a plan.

If you’re reading this, you’re invited. Saturday, October 10^th, 2015. Save the Date. Details to follow… 

Happy Feet

I love taking pictures around Chicago. Whether it’s on my way to a bar, heading home from work, or taking a day off from work, I’ve captured more city scenes than I care to share. So when a long-time friend of mine, we’ll call her Paula, came to me with a proposition that involved taking pictures around Chicago, I didn't need to hear much more, despite the inquisitive looks that everyone around us demeanored. The task was to photograph a large percentage of her very nice shoe collection in the foreground of an obviously Chicago scene, with Paula acting as the lower leg model. The pictures would go no higher than her calf and the focus would be split between the array of fancy-type shoes and the history of our Midwest Metropolis.

On a risky date in late October, the Earth decided to cooperate and grant us the colors, the sky, the temperature of a perfect picture day. Having sent me the catalog of shoes, I was able to assemble a rough idea of landmarks and trademarks that embodied the city, but really depended on instinct and creativity to fill in the gaps and provide the originality that we both sought. Buckingham Fountain is nice (even without the ‘fountain’ part), but there are millions of tourists that think B.F. is Chicago. I had hoped that we could capture a little more of life in Chicago without completely abandoning the post card fodder.

Before we even left for the city, I pushed our departure time back about two hours to squeeze in another 9 holes of par 3 golf on what was one of the best mornings for golf that I can remember. Paula, an absolute sweetheart, offered to postpone the plan and ironically rain check the date. Despite the delay, I wasn't going to waste the weather on presumably additional day-drinking within the confines of merry establishments while celebrating my friend’s 30th birthday. As much as she considered this a favor, there was no denying my own excitement for the day ahead. Besides, plans are plans. We set up camp, packed as many ‘daytime’ shoes as we could in her large, bright-pink bag, and red-lined to Roosevelt to begin our journey.

The walking lower bodies at Agora; the Roosevelt bridge looking at Michigan Ave; the Lakefront Trail outside of the Shedd Aquarium; Lake Michigan with the Planetarium; Buckingham Fountain with a skyline backdrop; the Jackson St. Bridge looking into the depths of the loop; the iconic lion outside of the Art Institute of Chicago; Lurie Garden near the Pritzker Pavillion; Millennium Park; the Chicago River; the Merchandise Mart train platform.

At the conclusion of our time with the sun, we found more calendar life than everyday life, but the colors and brightness of the day made the trees and buildings and water all shine and glisten like New Year’s Eve. We traversed almost four miles, took seventy five pictures, talked, laughed, shared an appetizer, enjoyed some beers, and finally headed north to regroup for the evening session. We had made fantastic progress and it felt like the day was over, but the best was definitely yet to come.

The Ron Santo statue outside of the Right Field Bleachers; The Chicago Theater; the State Street Riverwalk; the Chicago Remembers Vietnam Memorial; a Chicago Flag painted horse on Michigan Avenue; The Water Tower; a CTA sidewalk cardinal directions; a fountain at Kinzie and La Salle; the Merchandise Mart train platform; the Brown Line CTA car; the doorway of an apartment building.

After twelve hours, six and a half miles, and one hundred and fifty pictures, we were spent. From two dozen footwear changes to street stains on my hoodie, phase one of the project was complete and our bodies were worse for wear. Aside from the hopeful product of this difficult to explain, rather ambitious adventure, which will range from a coffee table photo book, prints on canvas, and who knows what else, why would we exhaust ourselves, both physically and literally, laying on the street behind a resting CTA bus?

When things are changing in your life, you find solace in comfort. And when things are changing in your life, comfort means familiarity. While my social calendar has shifted in recent weeks, I not only found comfort in making plans, possibly overextending myself, and following through with those plans, but I also found comfort in creating something new for the benefit of another. There’s an unbelievable feeling you get by helping others. It’s as selfish and warm feeling as going out and buying a new video game system, but at a fraction of the cost. It’s not only about giving the product, which I hope turns out well, and it’s not about giving my time, which I have more to offer these days, but it’s about giving your attention, passion, and consideration to someone and something. I’m not saying I’m a beacon of humanity because I took a bunch of pictures of my friend, but I did scoff when she asked how much she should write the check for, you know, to pay me for my services. As if! 

Ambitious and revived, not long into our nighttime shooting and after posing in front of the Chicago Remembers Vietnam Memorial, we received the same consideration and attention. In between failed 50-50 grinds and shaky kick-flips, a propositioned high school boy held Paula’s arm while she modeled on his scraped deck and I lay on my stomach, framing and snapping one quick picture of sidewalk, wheels, board, shoes, river, and part of the Marina Towers. 

Family

I saw a check-in on Facebook on a Tuesday night. This by itself is not noteworthy, but the fact it was my cousin, a decade-dweller of Waikiki, a stranger from my life since my days in college, and he was attending a Cubs game on a chilly Tuesday night with his now serious girlfriend made it grab my interest more than, say, checking in at another hot yoga class. After a short exchange and some mild planning, a few days later my brother and I jumped in my car and drove up to Glenview to meet said cousin for some much needed catch-up time. Calling it catch-up time is misleading, though, I guess, because it’s hard to catch up on eight years over a few beers. Hell, he had been married, and divorced, since the last time either of us had seen him.

There’s not much you can do after an eight year hiatus besides act like no time has passed. A year, or even two, is reasonable. You can recap some of the major events in your life with relative detail, filling in the gaps with stories and jokes, and the person you’re describing this to will be able to keep up, follow along, and maybe even recognize the names in your truncated biography. But after eight years, aside from basic setting details, all you can do is pick the best or funniest or most engaging stories from your recent history and spit them out like you just saw this guy last month. They won’t be a true depiction of your life, and they won’t bridge the chasm of time you helped create, but how can you caulk a canyon?

My Lazzerini (and Polydoris) cousins and I were never that close. Not like my brother and I. Outside of family gatherings, we rarely if ever saw each other. But those family gatherings were something special.

Every Thanksgiving was at my grandparents’ house. The day would start downstairs, milling about the suddenly more spacious family room, picking candied peanuts from the crystal bowls, watching the Lions or the Cowboys with the kind of interest one can only have before the invention of Fantasy Football, which is to say not much, at least not for a pipsqueak like me. I was the middle cousin, if that makes sense. My brother and three older cousins range between 4.5 and 8 years older than me, and I am more than 4 years older than any other cousin. Normally this would leave me a little out of place, but I was thankful and lucky to have an older cousin with the heart and mind of a child that would entertain me with buckets of G.I. Joes, using my grandpa’s old television as a camp base, using their stairs and railing as the most dangerous terrain on the planet. You’d think that my reminiscing about Thanksgiving would elicit paragraphs about the food, but aside from the candied sweet potatoes, that was the last thing on my mind. Before holidays turned into drinking holidays for us, Thanksgiving was about being a kid, aside from the notorious Thanksgiving of ’98 when I got my hands on my grandpa’s book of inappropriate jokes and gave all the adults a good chuckle.

Every Christmas was at my aunt and uncles house. The day would start at home, opening presents and the like. The biggest decision was to figure out what toy or game or article of clothing I needed to show off. When you walked into their beautiful Wilmette home, the holidays almost knocked you over. The roasting ham, the scented candles, the classical music, the lights, decorations, everything. It wouldn’t take more than a swift second to know that it was Christmas Day. As it turns out, my role in the family parties didn’t change much, again usually holed up in my cousins room, in awe of the amount of cool stuff he had. I distinctly remember building a pretty badass fort in his room. As I grew up a little I’d wander into his brother’s room where the highlight, of course, were the nun chucks. Thank heavens he had padded ones I could whip around. As I grew older still, I tried to keep up with the big kids. I remember asking a cousin to make me my first real drink. I had started my drinking on the easily-cover-up-able vodka and choked down a few sub-par beers, but in my head had never been drinking adult drinks. So what did my 18-year-old mind think was adult? How about a rum and coke. I hated it. And to this day prefer whiskey to rum. I guess he ruined it for me.

We always had a big group at holidays. I’m thankful for that, especially now as the times have changed so much, as they usually do. The oldest and aforementioned cousin played saxophone on a cruise ship for a while before settling in Hawaii. The next spent some time doing God knows what at Club Med before setting in San Diego, at least for now. My holiday counterpart stuck around and it’s been a joy catching up with him more frequently, hanging out on a few holidays, and seeing his little boy start to grow up. Both of their parents have moved to Arizona, along with their other sister. The last uncle and the four younger cousins are relatively close, but might not be for much longer. Family parties these days consist of my brother and I heading home and hanging out with my parents. Occasionally some friends will adopt us and there will be more than four people, but for the most part, we’re okay with what we have.

My brother and I share a relationship that most can’t comprehend. Even though at times we grew apart, mostly due to a four year age gap and the accompanying interest disparities, we’ve been insanely close from a young age. Whether it was rolling monster trucks down a hallway, listening to the new Live CD in his bedroom, playing Joe Montana Football ’94 in the fourth bedroom, or standing in line outside Rolling Stone records to meet Slipknot, it’s kind of always been me and him against the world. For a long time, his social life made up the majority of mine as I often struggled with a strong group of friends of my own. In recent years the tides have turned. I don’t think either of us worried about it. It always felt natural. I’ve had my share of close friends, but no one has ever come close to the connection we have.

As the three of us shared some top notch beers and tried our best to catch each other up, the easy feeling of conversation and laughter was memorable. We won’t remember all the stories or the details of our lives, I still can’t tell you my cousin’s girlfriend’s name (sorry!), but I can tell you that the feeling of family is and will always be there. We were all fortunate enough to be around each other, see each other, talk to each other, appreciate each other, and establish relationships that might fade but will never evaporate. I don’t know if I’ll book a trip to Waikiki soon, despite my desire, but that doesn’t change who we are or what we mean to each other. Same goes for the rest of the bunch. What I can tell you is no matter the blood line or last name, when you have that kind of connection, it’s the best there is. I used it as my status when I checked us in, and I’ll finish with it here.

Family. Above everything else, family.

Picking Up

Somewhat unexpectedly, I was thrust into booking four nights in a Financial District hotel in New York City, book-ended by early morning and late afternoon flights between Midway and LaGuardia airports, all to observe the second week of a five-week pilot of an insurance training program that I helped design and develop. This was not my first trip to the concrete jungle, but it was my first time going at it alone. It had been almost three years since my last visit. The previous three visits were filled with exactly what you think when you picture 3-4 good friends from college. I can tell you the experience is a little easier when everything you do is expensed. Flying to NYC also marked the first time I’ve traveled by myself since the fall of 2012, a stint in Hong Kong, the final trip of an amazingly exhaustive year of country hopping and storytelling. A year previous, Hong Kong was my destination the first time I ever left this country, a fifteen hour flight without a friendly face to join me. 

While I was in New York I got to spend some time with the instructor of the pilot, a fascinating gentleman from Dallas, who, upon first glance, might not strike you as the untapped resource of blissful conversation he is, but once cracked, becomes a wealth of knowledge and entertainment. It was then, grabbing dinner with my colleague, one with life experience and, much to my surprise (though not by accident), familiarity with my writing, told me that given any new found free time I might have, that writing is one thing I should not give up. Granted, this is a man that was convinced I was a black belt in karate based solely on the way I present myself and speak, but I still valued his opinion. 

I have long-time missed writing, but over the last few years, I just haven’t been inspired enough to sit down and figure something out. After everything I put in, it seemed like there was nothing else I could wrap my head around and twist my fingers through to spit out something that I deemed shareable. That’s not to say that my life was stagnant. In fact, if you’ve known me over the last two years, quite the opposite can be said. But in a way, I felt defeated. Not that I had lost, or that what I had produced was a failure, but simply that I thought I could do this forever. I always knew writing was immeasurably challenging. I didn’t realize that it would be so easy to give up. 

I find myself on the other side of a crossroads in my short life. In a variety of ways, my life has changed in the last two months more than it had in the last two years, and not just because I gorged myself in New York and have some work to do in the gym. In a way, I had lost a lot of who I was. I didn’t hate who I was or the life I was living. I don’t regret any decision I made. Something just felt different. It’s not uncommon for me to peruse some of my textual history, from the spattering of posts over the last few years to the 4x12 years in my hay day and all the way back to the notes I used to leave in the Wal-Mart of the social networking sites. Sometimes I miss who I was, sometimes I miss what I was doing, but most of the time I miss the act of carving my thoughts into a consumable medium and putting them out there, wherever there might be. 

It’s important to be able to pick something up that you once left behind. Whether it’s scheduling time with friends that you’ve grown apart from, dusting off the guitar and plucking some strings, or dashing your fingertips across a laptop keyboard, just because it was once important in your life doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be again. Life, by definition, is constantly changing (don’t look that up). Change can mean both good and bad, but change also means opportunity. 

It was nice to check my suitcase at the Southwest counter and walk through security with nothing but the clothes on my back, ear buds in my pocket, and a book in my hand, although that’s not entirely true. Much to my frustration, I forgot my book at home, but much to my relief after checking three different book stores in the airport, not quite knowing what I was looking for, I stumbled upon the newest collection of one of my favorites, David Sedaris. It had been a long time since I had that much time to myself, where, after what can only be described as magic, I would end up in a completely different place than where I had left. As I read through short stories of a man that has truly mastered the art of the written word, once again descending across an array of massive buildings, stacked together like books in a library, a stranger to my left and a stranger to my right, awkwardly peering just past their face and out the window, catching a glimpse of my next five days, I felt a sort of comfort that I haven’t felt in a long time. 

It’s good to be back. 

Character

The moment that I saw what took place at the Boston Marathon on Monday, I quickly went through a range of reactions and emotions. Disbelief, at the very notion, curiosity, of the details, sympathy, for the victims, attraction, because sometimes it’s hard to look away from a disaster, mild panic, was this just the beginning of something, confusion, why this event, at this time, and finally admiration and appreciation. The last came when I saw the amount of people, from EMTs to BPDs, from not that injured victims to barely able to walk marathon runners, all reacting nearly without thinking in a ‘whatever needs to get done we will do’ type mentality.

The long-lasting stories from tragedies inevitably revolve around the heroes, not the villains. If you’ve never seen Boatlift, the 9/11 documentary about 500,000 people being evacuated from Manhattan Island via a sandlot team of sea vessels, add it to your queue. When your heart sinks and can’t think of anything besides ‘what’s wrong with this world,’ to quote a surprising source of inspiration, comedian Patton Oswalt, “the good outnumber you, and we always will.” It's not only uplifting in down times or only warming when your bones feel a chill, it’s not only a safety net when you feel threatened, but it’s a reminder that no matter the region or the weather or the time of day, there are more people willing to help than hurt. And most people won’t have to sit on a fence to deliberate the consequences. The adrenaline boost of weary runners, dehydrated beyond exhaustion, who helped in any fathomable way, is nearly inconceivable. I can barely wipe the treadmill down after 3 miles.

Not long after the scope was beginning to be understood, the magnitude of the chaos felt, the realization of who and how many people were now in the streets of Boston without a cell phone, a change of clothes, an idea of what to do or where to go, a Google Docs spreadsheet arose. When I first heard about it via Twitter, an immensely powerful and dangerous addition to breaking news, the list was 1,200 people deep. Bostonians with a place to stay, offering their name, phone number, email address, neighborhood, and details about their conditions to anyone in need. Even offering to drive and pick people up. Boston isn’t known to be a friendly city. Whether the stereotypes are true (1,200 is a relatively small sample size), there are a lot of Boston residents that made a lot of visitor’s lives better.

This was a public event. This was a worldwide shock. The repercussions will be felt for a long time. At the end of the day, I’ll focus on the above and not the politics. I’m less concerned with who did it, how they did it, or if it will happen again, and despite Fox News’ attempts, I surely don’t care what we call it (I was on a treadmill, it was not a choice). There was a mass of people, with the cameras rolling, that all strapped on cape and became heroes. It’s undeniable.

But a hero, and a person of great character, might not be one in the same. Having character is not about reactions, instincts, adrenaline, or panic. Character is dictated by what you do when no one can see you. What you would do if there were no consequences.

In no way am I claiming that the first responders, paramedics, fire and police of Boston, runners, first aid volunteers, or anyone else involved with the events of Monday don’t have character. It’s a transition.

As members of our current society, one filled with instantaneous social media sites, high quality cameras in every pocket, and everything else that has changed how our lives are documented, it’s become harder and harder to fly under the radar. When the spotlight’s always on, your character isn’t often tested. Your actions and reactions and comments and mistakes and boring, monotonous, mundane, crossing the street, drinking water type activity, it’s all seen or heard or observed or felt. Until that one moment, that instance, that passing passage of time, where you are presented with a choice, to act with integrity, or to turn away, with absolutely no chance that anyone would ever find out. It’s how you act in that moment that defines you. To quote a hero, ‘it’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.’ And with Bruce Wayne, he contributes to society under the shield of a mask, in a situation clearly seen, but one where consequence doesn’t hold the same as it would for the playboy billionaire himself.

The question isn’t what stops us. I don’t care why, when I’m alone and have to choose between option a, the socially accepted option, and option b, the socially rejected option, I choose option a. I don’t care why anyone does it. Whether it makes you feel good to help someone else in need, or whether you believe you’re influencing the foundation of our society, without which civilization would crumble, makes no difference to me. I’m not the moral police or the eagle eye. I guess I just hope that regardless of the means, we all reach the same ends.

This has already been quote-heavy, so to leave you with one more, from another unlikely source at least in my eyes, since I never knew much about who he was or what he stood for, some inspiring words from the late Roger Ebert, ‘“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try.”

U.S. Centricity

It’s almost exactly a year ago. Fall is in full bloom in Chicago, but the heat and humidity has staying power in Hong Kong. It is my first time ever leaving the country. I have gone coast to coast, touched the southernmost point in the continental U.S., surfed in La Jolla, snowboarded in the Rockies, swam off Long Island, boated in the keys, but never once crossed a thicker boarder than state to state. It’s a work trip, and I am traveling alone, fearing not the fifteen hour flight, or the seven million people, or the two weeks away from home. I’m a cautious, planned fellow. I use my first day in Hong Kong to the fullest, getting my tourist on, exhausting myself, experiencing a new world, taking pictures, living. In this new world, on the other side of the world, I feel comfortable, at ease with the transit system, confident in my map reading skills, relaxed despite a non-international cell phone, which, upon arrival, renders itself as no more or less useful than a pocket watch. It isn’t until my first day in the office before I feel the gravity of the distance, and the egotism of my perception.

My time working is spent in a lab, with subject matter experts, lab managers, and lab technicians. The SMEs know the content, the mangers schedule the resources, the technicians perform the test. I’m here to document the tests with a handheld Sony and a reasonably steady hand, assuming my evening prior held an umbrella, and after scripting, recording, and editing, produce an on-the-job video reference guide along with a platform for international lab communication and discussion. I’ve done some of these back in Northbrook, and I want to show the entire team, the half dozen lab techs, two managers, and two SMEs, along with my ULU colleague, what I’ve done, and what I expect out of them at this morning kickoff meeting in a conference room that is less than accommodating.

I talk for seven plus or minus two minutes and show a short snippet of something I’ve created in the past, pausing for explanation and emphasis. My goal: simple, pressure-less scenarios where we stage very little. My role is that of a documenter, not videographer. I introduce myself, my role, my history, and my future. I’m received with wide eyes and cognizant reactions, with head nods and smiles, with understanding and eagerness. I’m dressed well, impressed with my speech of sorts, and feeling like I owned the room. I figure I’ve just kicked this week off to such high levels of production that people will wonder if it was two people sent across the Pacific and not just one, even though the flight from Chicago flies up through Wisconsin, across Canada, north of Alaska, steers just clear of the North Pole, then slides back down the globe, comes within an earshot of Japan, and finally comes to rest in the south of China.

This is where my world gets shifted. I glance over to my host from UL University, who, in the matter of seconds, deflates all momentum I ever dreamed I built.

‘Chris, do you mind if I translate what you said?’ What?

I literally talked at a group of twelve people sitting around a small conference table, grinning like an idiot, for seven plus or minus two minutes, and if I had to assign a percentage to how much, on average, was comprehended, I would put it at seven plus or minus two percent. How arrogant. How selfish. How naïve. How honest.

It’s two week ago. Fall is in full bloom in Chicago, and also in Switzerland. It’s my first time traveling to Europe. I’ve been to Hong Kong, Macau, and Penang, Malaysia in the last twelve months, but never crossed the Atlantic. The flight from Chicago to Zurich actually crosses the Atlantic, but up closer to Iceland. I’m traveling for work, alone, and the nine hours on a plane are nothing compared to the fifteen that I’ve graced six different times. A rarely discussed but highly useful benefit of international travel is that domestic travel is a breeze. My two weeks of travel before this flight negate the usual time spent on planning, but my international phone equips me with everything necessary to get from Zurich to St. Gallen, from St. Gallen to Horn, and from Horn to my hotel, the Bad Horn Hotel. Or so I think.

I de-board, make it through customs, and retrieve my luggage, all without removing my headphones, keeping my recent kick of Childish Gambino flowing. I know that a train will take me to St. Gallen, so I begin my trek through Zurich International, following the sign of what I can only assume is a picture of an engine car. I escalate down a few levels into a massive mall, and down one more level to a platform. The scene feels familiar. It feels like the Metra. So I retreat up a level to an automated kiosk that looks to be selling train tickets. English is an option. I can’t figure out which train line to pick, but I can search, and I find my place, purchase my ticket, and feel great. Then I remember where I am. The train ticket comes out in one hundred percent German. I speak no German. I escalate up, and down, and up, and down, looking for clues, and wind up clueless. I train pulls in and de-boards, so I ask a conductor what platform (of four) I need to be on. He says maybe three, not sure. I walk to 3, less than confident, until I find a timetable. In German. But I recognize ‘Zurich Flughafen’ as where I’m currently located, and I see St. Gallen, my destination. Platform 2.

I board and ride for an hour to St. Gallen, relatively content that I made it this far. I know I must transfer to a train to get to Horn, and I see another kiosk. I search, again, by destination, find Horn, purchase ticket, and walk away. The ticket, if you couldn’t guess, is in German. And absolutely nothing of it makes sense. The last ticket at least said ‘St. Gallen’ on it. This one just says ‘Einzelbillett,’ which I’m pretty sure isn’t where I’m going. I also see the word ‘bus,’ which I guess means bus. I know, I should have been a detective. Technology-able, I use a translator app on my phone to figure out that this is an adult ticket for a train or a bus that cost 6.80 Swiss Francs. There is literally no more information I can glean from this ticket, so I ask an attendant. She tells me bus, 31. I say bus 31? She says yes, 31.

I walk outside to see easily two dozen bus route pick-ups. I walk to every one, and not one 31. Frazzled, I pull my phone back out and check directions, current location to Bad Horn Hotel, and it tells me to take a bus. Which bus, doesn’t say. Just take a bus. At 11:31. Ah ha! There’s the 31. I follow a link to the transit website. I find information that it’s bus number 21016. I don’t think that’s a route. So I start with ‘210,’ which I saw earlier, walk to the route, and see on the back of the sign it says ‘Horn.’ I wait ten minutes and board, showing the bus driver my ticket to his confusion before he allows me on. Forty minutes later I’m at my hotel and all is well.

The point of this isn’t that I’m an awesome international travel when forced to improvise. The point is, in Hong Kong, and in Switzerland, I just assumed everything would be easy. I assumed everyone could speak English. I assumed that a foreign traveler would be catered to. I assumed that I shouldn’t have to plan ahead to get from the airport to a small country-side city 50 miles away. Then I thought about the alternative.

What if you were German, traveling to Chicago for the first time?

Your grasp on the English language was enough to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you.’ You land at O’hare, terminal 5. You follow signs that say ‘train to the city’ even though all you’re doing is looking at a picture of a train and hoping for the best. You have to buy a ticket to board a train, which, luckily, one runs one direction. You take the blue line towards the city. You’re buzzing by hectic traffic on 90/94, you’re checking out the buildings in Logan Square, all of a sudden you’re underground. There’s no end to this train. There’s no final destination. Looking at the map of the colored lines, you figure you should get off somewhere in the middle. So you do, and you follow the masses to the surface. Now you’re in the middle of the tallest buildings you’ve ever seen, since no building in Munich can be taller than the tallest church peak. You panic. How do you get to Cary? There’s no station in site. You pull out your phone. You can see all the train tracks lead to something called ‘Ogilve.’ That can’t be right. You walk to Union Station, because despite your lack of knowledge of the English language, Union seems much more American. You try to buy a ticket, but you don’t know what line to take. You finally ask someone, ‘Cary?’ They say you’re in the wrong building. It takes you 20 minutes just to get back to the street. You finally buy a ticket for the Northwest Line. Now you enter an enormous hanger of dozens of tracks, scanning the digital titles, hoping for a clue. Trains are coming and going faster than you can process, not knowing if it’s your train or not. More panic. You finally get the courage to ask someone, and they brush you off because we don’t have time for you. Then, you see it! There’s a 7 on your ticket, and a 7 up above. You finally board, hoping, as your train departs, that you guessed correctly, and for 75 minutes you wonder, so this is Chicago?