As I arrived back in Bloomington IN, I was reminded of my experience travelling to the “Unknown”. When I decided to adventure to Indiana to complete my undergraduate degree, I had never stepped foot on the campus when I made the decision. Going to foreign cities during my travel abroad experience was in many ways the same feeling; I will share a couple of those “first” experiences. Since you all have read enough about my boringVienna experience, I will give you a taste of travelling to a new city really feels like!
My conducting teacher and I talked quite extensively about how to adjust to a new city from an excerpt of Goethe’s “Italian Journey”. This might seem odd for a conducting teacher to talk about this, but let me explain. In the story, Goethe arrives upon one city and explains how he familiarized himself with the foreign land. He is able to explain precisely the way in which one surveys the land. Specifically, he noticed and observed things without any assumptions. As my conducting professor explained, the key part is to not have assumptions because these assumptions get in the way of perceiving the reality of the situation. Each thing Goethe observed added to a mental map, but each new observation only added or adjusted what came before. This is almost self-explanatory, but it is important to understand the language used. After these observations, and after he thinks he knows the city, he journeys up to the highest point in the city to see if his observations were correct. From the observation point, he is able to adjust and create an even better picture before drawing his own map of the city!
This is the exact process that my conducting teacher instructed me to read a score. First you walk through the piece, observing where there is new material, repeating material and more. Then after these observations, you slowly come to grasp the form of the piece. While making observations, one must also be careful not to assume something while observing. The process in many ways is intuitive and should use rather little forceful reasoning. However, once this approach is used according to my teacher’s regiment, the music in ways can feel more natural and feels more organic. I am still trying this out, but it hasn’t failed yet!
Alright, onto cities. First stop is Paris. The Parisian trip followed the story of the Italian Journey perfectly. With no map and no Wifi to rely on, I had to rely on my senses. My phone was supposed to work in any EU country, but I probably ignorantly didn’t turn roaming on…but that means adventure! I arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport, and realized that Paris was a long train ride away. Luckily, I found the kiosk to buy tickets for the city after following the crowd in that general direction. Then I purchased a train ticket to the main city hoping that the ticket would work. Sure enough…it didn’t work, so I went back and realized I bought a ticket only good for inner-city travelling. I finally arrived in the city around 10 am with The Louvrein mind. After sniffing the crepes and seeing the pastries, I slowly worked my way to what looked like a shopping center. Knowing only some words in French (learn basic phrases people!) I was practically lost.
I again started walking in the direction where most people were heading. After seeing a MASSIVE building and one street sign that mentioned The Louvre, I observed I was headed in the right direction. I finally found the Louvre, with the famous pyramids in the front area. After being asked to buy an umbrella from hustlers about fifty times, I finally was inside, dry and with Wifi! From there I was able to understand a little bit of where I was going. However, I still had to memorize routes by taking pictures, or just saving a mental image until it kind of vanished from sight. This was possibly the reason I walked over 50,000 steps in two days, but in any case, I had a blast. After my second trip back to the hostel I was staying at, I was able to get back home without fail, as well as navigate back to the main part of the city. Through this exploration, I was able to create a mental map of the city that would have not existed if I had used my smartphonethe whole time.
The next city that I adventured to half by myself and half with a friend was the city of Salzburg. My phone was functioning in this trip, fortunately or unfortunately. But knowing the Iphone 6s battery life…okay okay nevermind. As with most trips, the morning was early, and there was a slight chill in the air. The Westbahn train effortlessly glided us to the destination two and half hours away. Here, we wandered around without a map to find the Mozart museums, as well as find a good place to eat. After having walked about 5 miles before lunch, we had traversed the small main city center all morning. We headed to what looked like the big Cathedral, only to realized we missed our mark when this church was practically empty. Readjusting, we finally arrived at the monumental Cathedral surrounded by bustling Weihnachtsmarkts. By the time that I was able to see the great view from the Festung,or fortress, I already had a pretty clear intuition as to how the city was laid out. Now with my mental map, I could travel back to the train station with ease.
These new experiences are quite phenomenal and challenged me to think in different ways. It’s interesting once in a while to put yourself in Goethe’s footsteps and familiarize yourself with a city without a map. Once you throw yourself in a foreign city, it is truly impressive to see how much your intuition can guide you. This is similar to anyone entering a new city. Of course, when you live in a city for a while, your intuition turns into a 4K resolution with each and every new experience. Hopefully I will be able to have many more of these true Italian Journeys, and not just the abstracted version one can do in music.
Ideas credited to: Jörg Birhance
Thoughts with David 
Enjoyed how this post laid out ideas – nice personality through the writing and the experiences were shared in with thought. I had a lovely time reading, keep it up.
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