Traveling... from home!

There are many ways that allow a person to travel, the first one is of course to board a plane and land in a different place. This is the realistic but also the most expensive way of the ones that I will list right now.

In fact, the second is to hang out with people from different nationalities. Being an exchange student allows you do to that, meaning that you will spend time with the locals, but you will also most likely hang out with other foreigners, because it is typical and there is nothing wrong with it. You are not physically traveling but you will get to know people from different countries, you will get to know their traditions and customs if you want to by simply talking to them. I love traveling and I know that the two things are not comparable, going somewhere is a unique experience because you will get to see the place with your own eyes, rather than hearing about it from someone else, but I honestly like both. I like interacting with people from different countries because it makes me see the world in a different way.

TV series...

The third option is to watch TV series and movies that are located elsewhere in the world. If you know me by now, you definitely remember that I am obsessed with New York City, after all the Big Apple is a dream for many, and since I love it so much I decided to watch TV series that are located in New York. Among all, I love NBC's "Friends". And I know that it was shot in California, but it is located in New York and that is enough. It is funny, it shows the life of flatmates, it shows a bit of the city, like when Chandler and Joey are babysitting and they forget the baby on the bus, and the place where they hang out most of the time is called “Central Perk”.

(This is me, standing in front of the TV wearing my Friends T-shirt - I am not a freak, my friend gave it to me as a gift! Haha).

But there is also the CBS' "How I Met Your Mother", and you can see a bit of the city when, for example, Ted sits on the stairs of one of the buildings, or when he meets girls and stuff like that. Two TV Series are not enough and so eventually I started the third one that takes place in the Big Apple, and I also finished it only a few days ago: "Gossip Girl", which aired on The CW. Despite the fact that the first season is ten years long and that the whole series is finished since 2012, it is still spoken about and I saw that people loved it, so I decided to start it… in 2017. I never watched it because its name did not appeal me, but my friend watched it and I was told several times that it was good, and even though his name made it seem like it was a childish series, it was full of drama but best of all it was shot in New York City. So I started watching it over the summer and basically every episode started with a time-lapse of the skyline, a brief video of the Brooklyn bride, or something like that. I really loved it and I even learned a few things about the city, if that could be even possible. Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Lower Manhattan, Columbia, New York University… a lot of neighbourhoods and Universities are mentioned in the series. By watching it, it was like if I was part of the series and part of the group of friends that just walked around Manhattan trying to deal with any kind of trouble they put themselves into.

I used to watch also Fox's “Glee”, of which I did not see the last season yet (and probably never will) and there was a point where the main characters finally made it to New York City and tried to be successful. I’ve always watched tv series and now that I think about there is one that I used to watch years and years ago, called "Ugly Betty" from ABC, and this one is also shot in NYC.

... and movies

There are just tons of them, as well as movies. The one I love is "New Year’s Eve" which I saw at the movie theater. It has a good cast (like Lea Michele, Bon Jovi, Jake T. Austin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zac Efron and many more) and I simply love Christmas, New York City and both at the same time. But I even watched movies like “Friends With Benefits” and “Catch Me If You Can”.

TV series that bring up hot topics and highlight differences

There are other TV series I watch, through which I do not travel but I do learn about hot topics and learn about differences that might be between communities. The one I love at the moment is called "The Fosters" from Freeform (former ABC Family), which talks about a family of foster kids adopted by two lesbian women. One of the two is a police officer and the second one is a high school teacher, and together try to raise all these kids of different nationalities and different backgrounds. The main message is that everyone belongs somewhere, I guess.

I then watched "Switched At Birth" which is also from Freeform, and the story is that two babies were literally switched at birth and they find each other as teenagers, but one of them is Mexican and the other one is deaf, so here, just like in The Fosters, they get deep into what the problems of society are at the moment, and stuff like that.

I really think that if we do not have the chance to hop on an airplane everyday, the least we can do is to watch TV series and let our mind travel for us.

- Cristian

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