The Meaning of "Travel"

By far the coolest place I visited in Barcelona, Market Boqueria is the meaning of travel. So many colors and smells and sounds and people and tastes and strange words that you should be overwhelmed, but instead are curious to find more. We walked around forever, just staring at the strange foods and wondering how things so fresh could be so cheap. We listened to a multitude of languages, ate a plethora of flavors and saw an array of colors. It's funny how something that is free to see is the most cultural and enlightening experience you can encounter. You pay so much money to visit museums and see expensive art pieces or watch a play, expecting to find yourself "cultured" or "well-rounded" afterwards. While they surely help you to open your eyes, they are in no way the equivalent of seeing something like that market. Traveling is about immersing yourself in a new place. Falling head-first into a new language, a confusing city, a strange culture and fumbling to get yourself from the train station to your hostel. That's where you learn the things that make you a traveler. Somewhere between the desperate hand motions for food and the hand drawn map to the nearest metro. That's where your eyes are opened. Where you realize more about yourself than you could ever find in a textbook or expensive gallery. Standing in a market in the middle of Barcelona, amidst a sea of voices and bright colors, in your practical walking shoes and travel dress, with the camera around your neck and your hands pulling your hair off your neck in the humid Mediterranean air - that's when you learn what it means to travel.