A New Sense of Wonder

I want to begin this blog by saying I’ve never been out of my own country before. At 34 I’m finally getting my Master’s Degree but I’ve never traveled anywhere. It’s always been a dream of mine; I just hadn’t gotten around to it until now. And I suppose my perspective has suffered for it. But things change; I’ve finally done it. It’s now been nearly two weeks since I first set foot on European soil and while I am still a novice international traveler two things already have become clear.

First, before coming here I had no real appreciation for history. I’d studied it in books but reading text on a page never prepared me for living among history I could see and touch. Let me be clear about something before I continue with that thought: we have history in the United States obviously but I can now say that, since coming to Strasbourg, I’ve seen buildings that when the Pilgrims sailed from England were already as old as my country is today. That’s history. The area now known as Strasbourg was first settled as a Roman military outpost by Nero Claudius Drusus (brother to the future emperor Tiberius) in 12 BC. Archeologists still unearth remnants of the city’s Roman past from time to time.

Just today, I toured a brewery that has been producing fine Alsatian beer since the sixteenth century. A few days before this I spent hours in a museum that houses a collection of furniture and artwork that were once enjoyed by Napoleon Bonaparte. The chateau I am staying in was built in 1784, five years before the United States Constitution was ratified. I am typing these words a few hundred feet away from rooms that once housed Franz Liszt, Napoleon III and Albert Schweitzer. Living in the United States has left me ill-equipped to fully appreciate this, but I find it amazing none-the-less.

Second, before coming here I had forgotten the simple pleasure that can come from being a new face in a new place. I traveled here with 13 other students from Georgia State University and with the exception of one of them, I knew none before coming here. And each of them, perhaps with the exception of one or two of us, saw each of us as an unknown. We were all strangers thrown together nearly 5000 miles from home. But ever since our arrival I find to my joy that we are becoming better friends with each passing day.

We go on journeys of discovery together. Whether these journeys are to the Musees de la Villa de Strasbourg or to the market down the street it makes no difference – at least one of us is sure to glimpse something he or she has never seen before. And we delight at the wonder of it. If ignorance is bliss in this case it is because only a state of ignorance can allow for the possibility of even the slightest revelation. I, like my newfound friends, came here because I knew on some level that I was ignorant and I felt a desire to change that. And even something so simple as the knowledge that one really can’t find sweet Italian sausage everywhere can lead to a sense of revelation in one who has never ventured beyond his own comfortable, native cultural surroundings.

Of course I’m here to make discoveries of more import and the revelations I am expected to have are certainly more immense in scope than what can be found at the neighborhood store. I am here to study the European Union and its various institutions. I will be visiting the Court of Human Rights and the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. I will be expected to develop an appreciation for the history that has lead to the creation of these institutions. I will be visiting churches and cathedrals and concentration camps and NATO headquarters. And I will be trying to synthesize a knowledge of the workings of the institutions based here and of the European Union in general and of the recent history of this entire continent into a work which will hopefully resemble something like what will eventually become my thesis. And I will certainly be posting blog entries on these topics as I get further into my studies.

But for now I wonder at the newness of the experience. I wonder at the sense of camaraderie that can develop among total strangers when they each face the prospect of a new beginning in a new city together. I wonder at the fact that I can look at buildings that I know were already old when my country was young and yet they can seem at once ancient and novel to me. I wonder that I never did this before. And it is my sincere hope that I never lose my sense of wonder.

Michael Shea
B.A. Political Science
First Year Master's Student
Georgia State EU Studies Program, Spring 2011