The Individual Vs The Group
I decided to go on an organized group ski trip during the recent winter school break.
Miriam Widman recently went on an organized group ski trip with her daughter during the winter school break. Germans, she discovered do the whole thing better than Americans. sandsun/iStockphoto.com hide caption
Miriam Widman recently went on an organized group ski trip with her daughter during the winter school break. Germans, she discovered do the whole thing better than Americans.
sandsun/iStockphoto.comI don't have a car in Berlin, and I dislike driving long distances. I also don't like driving in Germany. Those people who cruise down the left lane at 200 km per hour scare me.
So I went with my daughter on a bus trip with a Berlin company called "Prima Klima." The name sounded cool, and a friend had recommended the company.
I have never traveled so long by bus in my life; it took us nearly 16 hours to go from Berlin to Bormio in the Italian Alps.
Sixteen hours is a very long time, especially if you're sitting in a bus. We did take breaks, and the route took us through Austria and Switzerland before we reached Italy, but it's very hard to sleep on a bus.
Enough about the logistics.
One of the things that struck me about this trip – apart from the good skiing and organization (Germans are usually good at the latter) is that many people were on this trip for the third or fourth time.
That's right – they returned to the same hotel, the same place with the same tour company for three or four years in a row. I can't imagine doing that when there are so many places to see.
But there's this little community that has developed. Some participants meet up once a year – on this trip. And there's this kind of group feeling. There was even an older man who was traveling by himself but was back for a second year in a row and knew some of the folks from the previous trip.
Germans are better at this group thing than we Americans are. I can't imagine many Americans going on a group trip. People tend to do things on their own in the States. And I certainly can't imagine Americans going on the same trip, to the same place to the same hotel for years in a row.
And of course few Americans would sit on a bus for 16 hours when using your individual car to get everywhere is the M.O.
I didn't expect to find this "community" on the trip, but it is kind of nice. Individualism isn't all bad, but being a part of something is important too. We Americans lose sight of that a lot.
Who knows? Maybe we'll return there next year.