It should come as no surprise that Spain is an extremely Catholic country.
That means the entirety of the country celebrates Semana Santa, or Holy Week — the week leading up to Easter — by taking it off and traveling or visiting family.
That means we had a whole week, a pseudo-spring break, to go explore other countries in Europe.
I was lucky enough to travel with friends to Greece and London while prayer processions marched through the center of Spain. Given that we were going to two such different places, it was a fascinating comparison between two very different lifestyles.
Greece is to the U.K. as the Caribbean is to the United States. We stayed on Kos, the second largest island in the Dodecanese and an extremely popular sight for British and Irish tourists.
Given that it’s still relatively early in tourist season, we were able to explore a more authentic side of Greek life. Many hotels were still closed and only a few restaurants were open, populated with weathered fishermen slowly drinking beer and coffee.
The island and the island’s population makes its money between the four- to five-month time span of April and May to late August. In that time, as we were informed by a local, some 2 million tourists come through the island, meaning that nearly the entire economy of the island is based on their tourist industry.
I realized that Americans, and many Europeans, view tourists and tourism very differently. Our lifestyle and livelihoods are not based on the number of visitors in our cities, which means that we think tourists are annoying and in the way.
On Kos, locals are extremely welcoming. Unless they are fishermen, islanders do not work, or only work part-time in grocery stores and local shops. There are only 30,000 locals in total on the island itself. Visitors are entertainment — locals loved talking to us about where we were from and what we were doing abroad.
It wasn’t the forced appeasement one is often treated to in large tourist cities. They were excited to share their island and lifestyle with us. The contrast was apparent as we traveled to London.
This is not to say that traveling in major tourist cities is a terrible experience that I will never do again, but rather to say that London is used to tourists year-round and has developed methods to shuffle you through all the major sites, and Londoners themselves, while welcoming, are generally disinterested in why you are there. The attitude is much the same as New York City or Los Angeles.
Compounded upon that is the fact that European cities are more fast-paced. And yet, as I compared the two, I realized that one way of living is equal to the other. They both have their benefits as well as their pitfalls, and it is up to you, the traveler, to determine how to maximize your time.
It was a fantastic reminder of the diversity of the world — and the fact that there’s a place for you anywhere, if you’re willing to look for it.
