Chilling Out: European Style

With some “Harold and Kumar”-type fantasy and a vague desire to find out what stroopwafels were, I booked a last-minute ticket to Amsterdam for spring break. The phone call home telling my parents about this decision was, unshockingly, a bit of a downer.

“It’s a terrible idea,” my mother said.

Maybe. I’d never gone on a spring break vacation before, and had little knowledge of it outside of laying at home in my pajamas watching “Say What? Karaoke” on MTV. Spring break was a time when college kids assumed their parents had a temporary loss of television or eyesight, or a time when college students in warm places went to slightly warmer places for a week. For me, a pale Jew with uptight parents, one who burns at the smallest suggestion of sunlight and craves cold, foggy weather (eat your heart out, Stephenie Meyer) the idea didn’t sound too appealing.

“Europe,” said one blockmate. We’re all pretty lazy, so nobody took it too seriously. “Europe is an even worse idea,” said my mother, whom I like to scare with stupid ideas anyway.

I’m not sure how it even happened. A few trips to Expedia, a couple are-we-actually-doing-this moments, and then I was on a plane to Amsterdam with a bad head cold and the threat of a British Airways strike boding poorly for my return to the US. Unlike my blockmates, I did absolutely no research before leaving. What was the national language? Or food? Or rapist population? I had no idea. Was I staying in a crack den? The price tag certainly seemed to indicate it. I told my mom we’d be going to cultural sites. Did streets of hookers count as cultural sites?

Fortunately for me, Amsterdam was pleasantly manageable. Van Gogh and the Rijksmuseum, check. Requisite picture near the “I Amsterdam” sign, check. Overeating like the country of overeaters we were proud to represent, check. One might say it was our patriotic duty.

For me, though, the best of part of it, besides the pancakes—I had a cheese and mushroom pancake I would murder a tiny dog for—were the interactions we had with people around us (all Jewish, mom. All imaginary, too). I don’t want to judge Cancún vacations too quickly; maybe it is possible to make friends over sweaty PBR and Jay Sean. Lord knows those two have done more to help Harvard undergraduates than grade inflation and Quad shuttles. But the more relaxed pub settings of Europe—it’s hard to find those in the US, or in the warm islands that welcome tons of STDs and college kids every March.

Most people who know me know about my British Isles fetish. After my summer in Ireland, I announced to my parents that I was moving there. It was like my parents were Pat Buchanan and I had just told them I was dating a Democrat. A black Democrat. They weren’t pleased. I’ve tried to figure out why I like traveling to Europe so much. It’s not just the inviting palaces or inviting hookers, as great as those are. I think it has more to do with café culture and pub culture, with striking up conversations with strangers, something I rarely do in the US (with the small but notable exception of Chatroulette. Hi, Estonian friend!).

I write this in Peet’s, where an army of hipsters has been shooting me death glares ever since my failure to immediately move upon finishing my hot chocolate. “Move, outlet-hogging bitch,” their eyes say. “And is that...Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ coming out of your iPod? We hope you are listening to that ironically.”  Everything seems faster here; everyone seems busier. Maybe it’s just that it’s home. There’s something endemically more interesting about someone from another country than about someone from another state, who calls soda “pop.”  That’s not interesting. It’s just really annoying. I’m not really interested in chatting up these judgy hipsters. I want them to leave me alone. I want them to put on actual pants.

It’s a Harvard thing too, I think. Everyone thinks that what they’re doing is the most important—and sure, PBHA, maybe teaching blind kids how to read Braille is kind of noble, or whatever. I think you could say writing for FM has its noble, humanity-saving aspects as well. Wasting time (either not working, or not thinking and complaining about working) is anathema here. Few people spend afternoons lazing in coffee shops or cafés without an accompanying laptop.

I am absolutely the wrong person to be mourning the lack of friendliness on this campus. I am admittedly not of a sunny disposition, and I’m pretty sure I’ve awkwardly avoided eye contact with a good portion of the readership of this magazine. Deep down, yes, I do believe that my own work is more important than yours. You have non-thesis work? That’s cute. Oh, you wrote one also? It probably sucks.

When it comes down to it, I guess, I can only recommend that at one point during college, you drop everything, piss off your parents, and go abroad—for a week, for a summer, for a semester. Do something stupid. Make new friends. Do nothing for a long period of time without thinking about work. Then come back and return to the land of worry and G-chats and stalking ISawYouHarvard, a few regrets and pounds heavier. It’s the American way.

Jessica L. Fleischer ’10 is a History and Literature concentrator in Eliot House, and is still looking for a black Democrat.