|
45. Does Travel Broaden The Mind? 1 One often hears it said that travel broadens the mind: if you stay in your own country the whole time , your ideas remain narrow; whereas if you travel abroad you see new customs, eat new foods, do new things, and come back home with a broader mind. But does this always or even usually happen? An acquaintance2 of mine who lives in England and had never been outside it until last summer, decided to go over3 to France for a trip. When he returned, I asked him how he liked it. Terrible, was his answer. I couldn t get a nice cup of tea anywhere . 4 Thank goodness I m back. I asked him whether he hadn t had any good food while he was there . Oh, the dinners were all right, he said. I found a little place where they made quite good fish and chips. Not as good as ours, mind you5, but they were passable. But the breakfasts were terrible: no bacon or kippers. I had fried eggs and chips, but it was quite a 6 business getting them to make them. They expected me to eat rolls. And when I asked for marmalade , they brought strawberry jam. And do you know, they insisted that it was marmalade? The trouble is they don t know English. I thought it useless to explain that we borrowed the word marmalade from French, and that it means, in that language, any kind of jam. So I said, But didn t you eat any of the famous French food? What? Me? he said. Of course not! Give me good old English food every time! None of these fancy bits for me! Obviously travel had not broadened his mind. | 
