Becca
Levin
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves.
- Pico Iyer
I had a fairly privileged lifestyle growing up. Despite being the oldest of six, we were a comfortably middle class family, my father gainfully employed in the software engineering and programming field while my mother stayed at home to educate me and my siblings. There were a few rough years where business was slow and Dad was laid off, but we always landed on our feet. Every year (more or less) we would take a week in mid-September just after the public schools started and go up to Cape Cod where the beaches were empty and all the best restaurants and activities were still open for the tail end of the tourist season. Even now, if I go out early in the morning on a fall day and there's the smell of last night's rain in the air and dew on the grass, something about it always smells like Cape Cod to me and makes me feel instantly 12 again. Those trips were my earliest travel experiences, even though it was just a few hour's drive up the coast from my childhood home in New Jersey. Stories from those years are tinged with nostalgia for me, the last threads of my mostly idyllic childhood.
The trip that really made my brain explode was in my senior year of college. I was in an advanced audition-only vocal ensemble that was preparing a program of classical ensemble music to take on tour in Europe. We spent a week and a half in Salzburg, Vienna, Venice, and Rome. It was my first time on a plane and my first time outside the US, and I soaked it up like a sponge.
From singing in churches older than my home country to eating truly authentic food of the places we visited, that experience truly broadened my horizons and made me realize just how much of the world I hadn't seen. At the same time, I was going through a major personality shift as well as struggling to make a decision about what I wanted to do in just a few short months after graduating with my Bachelor's degree. Yet somehow, in the midst of crowds speaking languages I barely knew, I felt at home.
After being invited to return as an alumni singer to the same choir as they returned to Italy in March of 2022, I decided to take advantage of my full-time remote job and extend my trip. From March to August of this year, I will spend a month each in Vienna, London, Dublin, Glasgow, and Athens. In each place I will cook, live, work, and explore, immersing myself in the culture and seeking something bigger than myself. I am incredibly excited and incredibly grateful for this opportunity.
