I found the Americans!

July 23, 2010

I found the Americans!

For the last 5 weeks I have wandered around my Old Town ‘hood navigating my way through the groups of visitors ‘ohhing’ and ‘ahhing’ at the Prezidentura wondering where all the English speaking tourists are. Only once in the last 4 weeks was I able to detect Americans in a crowd of visitors (and then it was only because the volume of their conversation far exceeded those around them), but for the most part the tourists have spoken Scandinavian languages, Spanish, Italian, or Japanese. It’s not that I think only Americans should visit Vilnius , but I have a love- hate relationship with American tourists because I like to see them and then sometimes I don’t.

Being on my own for the last 5 weeks (with 4 more still ahead of me) really makes me long for “the familiar” because – even if you don’t like it—it is still easier sometimes to be around the “devil you know” (not that I am saying Americans are devils ). However, on those rare moments when I do spot Americans, it always fills me with some envy because they are here on vacation, which means that they get to have a relationship with the country on their terms, not on the country’s terms. But, that’s always the danger of being a tourist in the touristy parts of town because you get the sanitized version of a country where signs helpfully direct you to points of interest and menus appear before you in English. Living in a country, well, that’s a whole different ballgame.

Now, I know very well that as “hard” as I think my life in Lithuania is, it’s not. I definitely know that I am no pioneer and I also know that my life in a ‘second world’ nation is radically different than being in the Peace Corps or other such ‘developing nation’ volunteer group (I know that because I did the Peace Corps for 4 weeks in Armenia before I realized that living life as a perpetual outsider takes a certain kind of worldview that I just don’t possess), still it is emotionally challenging to be alone in a foreign country, having no one to discipline you about your research except yourself.  So, this is what brings me to missing that familiar sound of American English (though I’ll take a tour bus full of Brits in a pinch) because hearing them charging through town is a comfort, even though at the same time I often resent their leisure time.

Anyway, last summer when I was here, there were hordes of Americans roaming the streets (which may have had a lot to do with Vilnius being the 2010 European culture capital, but this summer I had to hunt and peck to find them. But then, low and behold, I actually spent time at the touristy places, like the streetside patios along Rotuses Aikste, the restaurants on Pilies Gatve, and the bars by Ausros Vartai, and there I heard English around every corner. Apparently, Americans are here meandering through the streets, but I just had not known where to find them.

So the question is, now that I’ve found them, what does that mean to me?

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