Learn Through Travel, Blog #1: The Excitement of That Next Trip, June 23, 2022
By Ron Bee
If you have traveled abroad, and I have to over 60 countries, the excitement of the next trip always stays with you. Every time I open the top drawer to dig out my passport, just holding that ticket to the next adventure in my life jumpstarts my adrenaline. If it does the same for you, we will likely get along. If you haven’t experienced it yet, let me help you get there. All in time, my travelling padawan.
How did my passion for passports begin? Growing up in the East Bay Area of San Francisco, my family frequently drove to places places like the Napa vineyards, Lake Tahoe, Santa Cruz, Yosemite National Park, Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Hollywood, and San Diego. All have their own distinct vibe, and their own domestic attraction. Travelling abroad, however, amps up the excitement because of new cultures and cuisines, new languages and currencies, novel approaches to life and politics, and yes, getting a new stamp in your passport! I consider the stamps as personal accomplishments, anti-bodies to boredom, and proof of an active mind. Am I excited about my next trip, especially after a long COVID-19 hiatus? You bet I am! Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines….
You may ask, what gave me this itch to travel? I first traveled to Canada as a child in the 1960s, where my grandfather Tom had served as a Mountie in the Yukon, and where my father introduced us to high tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. At that time, one did not need a passport to go to Canada, just a driver’s license. We took a ferry from Port Angeles, Washington, where my grandmother lived. I distinctly remember making my way outside the ship’s bow, the cold wind hitting my face as the ferry chugged its merry way toward somewhere different, somewhere unknown, somewhere exciting.
Of course, what made it easier, the Canadians in Victoria spoke English, with a terminally polite demeanor. Reflecting that warmth, unlike the Yukon, the weather proved relatively temperate. Canadian currency–both coins and bills- donned the image of Queen Elizabeth, which made me wonder more about Canada’s connection to the United Kingdom as part of the British Empire. Trips to Canada eventually led to my love of reading history. I would later major in European history at the University of California San Diego. Later, after graduate school at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy and Washington, D.C., my future career involved many more professional adventures in something called international relations.
My grandfather Tom Bee had learned French and German as a child so I told myself I should, too. Most of my high school classmates took Spanish because of California’s Spanish and Mexican heritage but I chose another route. My French teacher, Madame Marie Wagnon, came from a town in Normandy, France, called Sainte-Mere-Eglise. She met her American husband there when he, as part of the American 82nd Airborne, liberated her town from the Nazis after the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. Lucky for me, Marie, a French war bride, had high standards for learning French, complemented by high praise for her students. She kept in touch with many of us for decades until her death. Her strict standards and confidence building style motivated me to go on my first study abroad experience with the University of California Education Abroad Program at the University of Grenoble, France. While there for a year, I took all my history, literature, and international relations classes in the French language.
By the way, you don’t really learn a language until you live it, get hungry in it, watch TV in it, go to a market to buy food in it, n’est pas? I learned quickly that the French don’t speak like Moliere, whose works I had studied, and in a modern slang you must acquire it or remain dumbfounded, if not ridiculed by your student colleagues. Every day became a discovery–of new words, a new culture, delicious food, new perspectives, and all while making new friends.
Coming home to California required readjustment. I now thought and dreamed in French. I had to giggle as I even found myself sometimes struggling to find the right English words. Moreover, I had changed as a person and in ways my friends and family could not always understand. It became hard to describe my life abroad to others who had neither lived nor traveled overseas. Travel had proven both transformative and inspiring to me. It still does.
Learning the French language since fourth grade would lead, over time, to teaching skiing to young children on the Olympic slopes of Chamrousse, to be invited to study French foreign relations at the Quai D’Orsay in Paris, to be interviewed by French TV regarding Operation Desert Storm, to interview French leaders for an American Presidential Commission study, and work in the Middle East and North Africa. And to think I got into this business because I loved history, languages, and travel. Who knew?
I did know one thing after my first study abroad experience–I needed more. I had caught the travel bug, you know the one where you must travel again as soon as possible because you learned so much, ate so well, laughed so much, and broadened your perspectives so deeply you just can’t imagine sitting still for another second? Where’s that passport and where should I go to get the next stamp?
I promptly applied for a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University and made it to the California State Semi-finals at the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech). The interview process went for over three days, starting with a reception, individual one-on-ones, and group interviews. Every meal I sat across from a different interviewer. The first student ever in the semi-finals from UC San Diego, I had to borrow a suit and tie from a friend. I was told wearing a Mexican wedding shirt, Ocean Pacific shorts, and Hawaiian flip-flops (my preferred attire at the time) would not sit well with the selection committee. While I did not receive a Rhodes, I applied independently to Oxford University to study Modern History at Worcester College. To my astonishment, I got in. I took out a student loan to finance the trip, which over time has paid for itself 20 to 30 times over–maybe more. When you have Oxford on your resume, it stands out and always sets you apart from your peers. Who knew? I know that now and share it with all my students thinking about studying abroad.
Moreover, going through the Rhodes interviews later prepared me for a similar interview process called the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship. I did win that Fellowship, where, as a young professional, I went to work for the German Parliament’s Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in Bonn, and for the Governing Mayor of West Berlin, the year before the Berlin Wall fell! Yes, learning German in high school and college helped me get this golden opportunity, too. (My German grandmother on my mother’s side, not so much, because she had only taught me swear words. But I could pronounce them well 😉 Having spent time in France and the UK helped my growing European credentials. The friends I met, and colleagues made in Germany led to other trips to observe the first all-German elections, as well as several writing opportunities on transatlantic relations.
As I prepare to leave to team-teach for the Oxford Study Abroad Programme in International Relations (July 5-30, 2022), I reflected back on, in Jerry Garcia’s words, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” Strange but wonderful and fulfilling. Since 2015 I have been a professor of practice for this Oxford-based program that brings college-age American students and life-long learners to the city of spires, to experience the oldest and most revered English-speaking University on the planet. I am just as excited now to introduce others to the benefits of learning through travel as I was when I stood on the bow of that ferry cruising to Victoria, British Columbia, when I studied in Grenoble, Oxford, and Bologna, and worked in Bonn and Berlin.
The circle has come round, in a way, as I go back to Oxford to happily teach others about international relations, where I first learned about the subject some four decades ago at Worcester College. Will I, can I, instill the same passion for the passport in my students to become life-long learners? I hope so, and that will drive the intent of my lectures. Moreover, my wife Sandie and I, after the Oxford Program ends, will travel to the beaches of Normandy in August, pay homage to those who died on D-day for us, and yes, also visit Madame Wagnon’s hometown, Mere-Sainte-Eglise, where I will order our meals in French and toast the locals as I thank them in their own language for remaining one of America’s oldest allies.
Stay tuned here as I document our trip to Oxford and France! I will also post video-clips to give you a glimpse of our fun-filled adventures. Passports at the ready? Start your planning, and your engines. Thanks for reading, keep learning, and keep travelling!
Ron Bee, June 23, 2022, San Diego California
