Dangers of Befriending Strangers

Tromsø, Norway

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

- Henry Miller

     To say I was able to study abroad in a castle – in The Netherlands – for three months as I travelled anywhere I desired in Europe, every weekend, is pretty crazy to me when I think about it. The concept in itself seems extraordinary but I realize that the traveling aspect was something that very much changed me down to the core of my character. Through my travels I was endowed with memories that I will never forget for as long as I live: the places I saw and the things I did along the way made me understand what people mean when they say that traveling broadens the mind. However I never expected that, of all things, it would be a person that I met towards the end of my travels that would change my way of thinking more than what I ever saw or did: the stingy and vigilant traveling point of view that I held in the beginning was refined for future adventures because of him.

     When I was in Tromsø, Norway, I realized that befriending strangers whom you will likely never see again is 100% worth it. The last time I had done this, on a train ride to Venice, I talked about The Life Of Pi with a Palestinian man named Ahmad and we were so sad to see each other go that tears were shed. It was a pretty incredible exchange: it was confounding to meet somebody from the other side of the world whom I was able to discuss a book with and learn that, although we belonged to vastly different cultures, we shared similar perspectives. The conversation on the train with Ahmad had happened years before I came to the castle, while on a family vacation in Italy, and the encounter left me hesitant with mingling while traveling. I was left with the impression that it’d only result in sadness. I didn’t see a point in it. There were sights to see, restaurants and bars to enjoy with travel-mates (who you could bond with and didn’t have to say goodbye forever to), and tours to sign up for! On top of that school and media had taught me from a young age that it could be very dangerous to befriend a total stranger especially if you were on your own. Stranger danger might be something that primarily little kids are meant to worry about but I had seen the movie Taken with Liam Neeson. I was petrified to take any chances. I may be a young male but I’m damn well pretty enough to be abducted. I initially spent my weekends traveling around Europe with eagerness to sightsee and reluctance in forming friendships with unfamiliar people that I wouldn’t ever see again and couldn’t necessarily trust. However, when I went to Tromsø, towards the end of my stay at the castle, I realized with great regret how boring and restricting this travel philosophy was. I concluded, contritely, that I had mistaken friendly strangers along the way as suspect characters or as emotional burdens. I’ve now discerned, in retrospect, that this tentative point of view subtracted from my traveling experiences while at the castle. On the bright side, since I’ve realized this, I’ve adopted a new attitude for my future traveling endeavors as a result.

     In Tromsø I befriended a man from Ireland named Liam. He looked identical to Cillian Murphy: he was the epitome of a doppelgänger. Liam’s uncanny resemblance to a national heartthrob explains why my travel-mate, Hannah, thought he was so cute. Liam was sleeping at the same hostel as us and so Hannah made sure we spent all our time together as a “Tromsø Trio.” But I was not merely third wheeling. In fact I am forever grateful for the fun the three of us had together and the epiphany that Liam enabled me to have about mingling with strangers. In the two days Hannah and I spent in Tromsø, the trio hiked a mountain, shopped around the town, and made music together. On the last night, when Liam, Hannah, and I sat down at a bar to reminisce and drink some farewell pints, “Heroes” by David Bowie came on. We got up and danced till we were drenched in sweat and suffocating from laughter. As we flung our limbs around and belted out the lyrics, making fools of ourselves, others joined the scene until the entire bar was erupting in dance. After a few songs we returned to our pints, thirsty for something to drink, only to repeat the process as another classic song drove us back unto the dance floor. At the end of the night, by the time the bar was closed and we had successfully danced ourselves clean of alcohol, we went back to our hostel and engaged in a deep heart to heart talk with a man from Delhi as we shared a crudely rolled cigarette. The man from Delhi told us his life advice: “Everybody’s opinion is wrong, no matter what—especially if they think they're right.”

     While it was sad to see Liam go, and while it's unlikely I’ll get to see him again, every moment the “Tromsø Trio” shared was worth it. When I arrived in Tromsø I was excited to see the northern lights. Unfortunately they never revealed themselves to me; instead they remained hidden behind the veil of a constantly cloudy sky. If it weren’t for Liam then not seeing the northern lights would have made my trip to Tromsø a bit disappointing. My experience in befriending a total stranger and fellow tourist for one weekend was a lesson to me: I was shown that the sorrow of saying goodbye and the risk of getting kidnapped in some freak scenario is nothing compared to the lifelong memories that you can create and the comfort you can find in another soul simply by saying “hello.”