On the other side of the mirror

While travelling, usually it is you who is looking for the adventure. You are the one who visit new places. You are the one wants to meet new people. You are the one who is curious of the unknown culture. Whatever your travel is about, you are the one who makes an effort. You are the one who dares.

For the whole year long it was exactly like this to me. I was reading guidebooks and making a list of interesting places. I was talking to locals, asking which ones are worth visiting. I was walking through the markets and buying every fruit I didn’t know. While going for lunch, I was always ordering the thing I haven’t tasted yet. I would talk to street vendors trying to understand how they make tortillas and I would observe craftsmen trying to get a feeling of how they produce the cloth. I would stop random cars to get a ride and I would stay overnight with people I didn’t know at all.

Now I was about to stand on the opposite site. Agustin, Mexican friend with whom I said goodbye just a month ago, was travelling around Europe. I managed to convince him that Poland is a must-see. I was utterly repeating that Cracow is way more charming than Paris and that pierogi are way tastier than Italian pizza. So here he was. Catching his bus to Poland and checking whether my convictions are true.

Seeing Agusting at the bus station was really weird feeling. I was so happy to have him here! Yet, his Mexican face somehow didn’t fit to the snowy weather. He should be catching the sun and not the snowflakes, right? He should be speaking Spanish and explaining me the local dialect. He should be picking me up from the bus stop and showing around his city. He should be explaining me all the unknown names on the menu and teaching names of exotic fruits. Yet, it was all on me. It was me who spoke the local language and me who knew where to get the best coffee. It was me who knew that Wrocław is easier to reach by train and Cracow by bus.  It was me who knew what was bigos and what was żurek.  It was me who was home.

Until that very moment I haven’t really realised that I came back. I was meeting  old friends over coffee and telling them about my travelling adventures. I was writing a blog and reviving wonderful moments from the trip. But here it came down on me that it was all over. No matter how many times I would replay the same story in my mind, it was already in the past.

Suddenly I was on the other side of the mirror. I wasn’t taking pictures, I was showing around. I wasn’t asking questions, I was explaining. This time I was receiving and not being received.

I had to go through the deepest labyrinths of my memory and look for well-known stories. I had a chance to remind myself how Cracows’ dragon exploded and how Bochnia salt mine emerged from a bewitched ring. I had a chance to recall how Nazis provoked the war in my hometown. I had a chance to reminiscence why the same Mermaid is a symbol of Warsaw and of Copenhaguen…

But I also had a chance to look closer at my own culture. To ask myself question why during Christmas time priests visit every single family in their parish. To see how easily people open up when they start complaining together. To spot how people value time, but how comprehensible can they be when the plan changes…  Through the eyes of my guest I was able to see things that I have never seen before.  Omnipresent, yet transparent.