What does it really mean to experience culture? This is a question that philosophers, scholars, and laymen have considered for ages. Yet in other instances, 'how to experience culture' is a question that serves to produce an overly pretentious intro to a blog post about how I got stuck inside a tower of car tires...
If you don't know what I'm talking about, ear not- I struggled to explain the playground device that I got stuck in to many of my classmates. The tower was was made up of five tires each suspended about a foot apart by three chains all hanging down from a platform on the wooden jungle gym. After climbing down the tower feet-first through the top four tires I arrived with my toes on the ground, and my shoulders firmly wedged atop the middlest tire. It was at this point in my endeavor that I ended the fake vlog I had been composing throughout the day- from Schonbrunn Palace to a random park probably some 5 or 6 miles away.
The point here is that experiencing culture can be so many different things that I think it is unreasonable to set out in a city unknown to you with any expectations as to what you will encounter. For me, I find that just walking and spending time with whatever peaks my interest is the best way to get a feel for the world of the culture I am witnessing- whether that be a palace with 1,441 rooms, or a tower made of 5 tires. At the end of the day, the "culture" of historical monuments, nationalistic art pieces, and the like is only a small insight into the daily lives of people who live today- people who may sometime find themselves stuck inside of a tire tower (but probably not).
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