Trains at Station Vienna
Lists, emails, last minute shopping: hectic days and nights. And then: wait, snack, fly, wait drink fly, wait snack fly. On some levels my journey to Austria echoes elements of travel from the past. In other ways technological innovation shifted the scope of knowledge and shortened the time frame. When I lay the map of today over an historical account I uncovered, the contour lines match at points only to diverge at others. The tale: one hundred years ago Dirk Pieter van den Burgh together with his family packed up their belongings and left their home in the Netherlands for Canada. * Their journey, chronicled in detail to the hometown paper, included periods of waiting, finding food, and encountering diverse people. Travel for Van den Burgh demanded patience, flexibility, and some chutzpah. Ditto today. His story recounted less than scrupulous travel agents, an unexpectedly long sojourn in Liverpool waiting for steamship departure, and then a rail trip that thankfully proceeded as expected. Compare today. Flight shortened my Atlantic transit time to two days compared to two weeks though it did not eliminate the possibility of vexing delays. Internet connections increased my scope of options and knowledge, though they did not eliminate those who prey upon migrants, now in virtual as well as meet space. Van den Burgh shared his journey in the media of his day, informing others of his experiences. I do the same only my messages arrive faster. As I see it technology has expanded the opportunities for impersonal assistance—and for impersonal fraud. I share Van den Burgh’s embrace of the new, frustration with unmet expectations, and occasional perplexity with the unknown. Gender separates us. Look for more on that another time. Meanwhile I slept in three cities in the past three nights, finding welcoming faces in each place. My mode of transportation transitioned to train, conveying me from Munich to Vienna. Orientation begins tomorrow.
*My study of the Van den Burgh reports and how descendants utilized them appeared in
Dutch-American Arts and Letters in Historical Perspective, Robert P. Swierenga, Jacob E. Nyenhuis, Nella Kennedy, eds., Holland, MI: Van Raalte Press, 2008.
takeonthepast 