Overseas Briefing

TEL AVIV — We ended up having about 15 minutes for our last activity.  We had eaten at a burger joint, shopped in a great outdoor mall and now we headed toward Jaffa Gate to visit the Western Wall.  It was more of an afterthought, really.  Our main purpose for going to Jerusalem had been the food and the shopping, but we had a little bit of time to kill and figured we might as well visit the holiest place in the world for all of Judaism before we had to catch our bus.  It was not until later that I realized the absurdity of the situation — who goes to Jerusalem for a really good hamburger and a new pair of heels?  Sure, the burger was juicy and delicious, and the heels were killer, but I still do not think either of those things would make it on any top-20 list of reasons people visit this famous city.
It seemed that after living in Israel for four months, I had grown more than a little blasé about its 3,000-year-old artifacts and world-famous religious sites.  Someone else might look at my group of friends with contempt, maybe even disgust.  After all, we were in a place few people get to visit in their lifetimes, faced with rare opportunities and experiences at every turn, and we were busy doing things that we could probably do anywhere in the world.  However, I would be willing to bet that all of those people who would be so quick to judge us have been guilty of the exact same thing at some point in their lives.  How many people live in New York and never visit the Statue of Liberty?  How many people live in Chicago and never go to the top of the Willis (previously Sears) Tower?  How many of us Midd kids get so wrapped up in our every day routines of studying and, well, studying, that we forget to hike, rock-climb, mountain-bike and take advantage of the incredible activities Vermont has to offer?
My day in Jerusalem made me conscious of more than just my actions on that particular day, or even the duration of my stay in Israel.  I also realized that I have been guilty of overlooking these chances my whole life.  I grew up in New Orleans, but I rarely ventured down the French Quarter, rarely listened to jazz in one of the many lounges, rarely sat and watched the giant steamboats on the Mississippi River.  I am studying abroad for the full year, and I hope that this incident has taught me enough so that I will not go through the rest of my stay in Israel missing out on a land most people travel thousands of miles to see.  More than that, though, I hope that wherever I live, I never start taking that place, and all it has to offer, for granted.  Nobody ever wants to be a tourist in her city, but in some ways, tourists have it right.  I am not proposing that everyone walk around with a giant SLR camera around her neck and an overstuffed fanny-pack around her waist, but take some time to appreciate the things around you, the unique offerings of Middlebury or wherever you happen to be.