Tourism is complicated and sometimes death and history is romanticized to allure people into thinking it is okay to be excited about it.
"Torture and terror happened here" they say,
"come and take a picture!"
There's something eerie about stepping into a place that is historically so significant and looking at other tourists taking pictures with smiles and peace gestures and thinking...what are they doing? Are they happy for what happened? Are they aware that they're stepping on war ground? Is it pride? Are they showing off that they were born during a time where war ended and they can stand on those grounds without fear of dying because they were a century late, is that it?
It's as if one day when the remnants of MH370 and MH17 is assembled together, and when the sewol ferry is preserved and shown off to attract tourists. What exactly is the attraction? A history of death and terror summarized and sold for tourism.
Colchester and London were great, Edinburgh was majestic, Lancaster was humble in its beauty, Paris was unforgettable and Brussels felt like that unhappy kid growing up wanting to be Paris. The trip was overall very experiencing (if that's even an expression) and there's too much to say as well as not knowing where to start, but in short I can say that I liked it. Everything weren't particularly easy, we had a whole episode with the rental car but looking back I really liked it. I went through a whirlwind of emotions and the whole two week trip made me think of a lot of things and I am grateful to have those trigger of thoughts and hopefully I have the will and wits and strength to pen those thoughts in a travelogue for people to read.
But in the mean time, let's just settle with 'the trip was satisfying.'
Labels: nael goes to places, travelogue