Day 130
Location 23: Ohrid, Macedonia
Mar. 10, 2023
Traveling around the world has reaffirmed to me just how globalized the world is. I know it's trite to say, but let's really think about how far we've come:
Pretend you wake up in Spain in the year 1308 with a scratchy throat. With hopes of staving off an impending sore throat, you yearn for tea. Except you don't know tea exists because tea can only be acquired a continent away in Asia. And in 1308 a trip from Spain to Asia means riding a camel for 18 months through a literal desert while raiders wait to ambush you like in the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max, and if you survive them you'll still need to traverse the "trail of bones" mountain range, named after the sheer amount of people that've died there in an era where the most advanced snow shoe was a stick and some loose twine. And if you're lucky enough to hike past the mountains, medical care was so abysmal that the best remedy for something as simple as diarrhea was often death. So yea, chances are you don't know about tea.
Let's compare that to today's world:
Pretend you wake up in Macedonia in the year 2023 with cold feet. With hopes of warming up your little toesies in style, you yearn for socks that don the face a tv show character you like. Except there's no way Rick and Morty, a dark-humored animated show made for adults that airs on Cartoon Network , would be known—let alone popular enough to sell branded merchandise—all the way across the globe. Well think again, buddy:
Left: A sock in Macedonia with a character from a show made in the U.S. | Right: Rick (and Morty), for reference.
In the same vein, I think Marco Polo would be surprised to spend three years dodging scorpions and dysentery along the Silk Road only to make it to China and discover they were selling counterfeit versions of those black and white horizontal-striped shirts the gondoliers wear in Venice.
Left: A knockoff NBA shirt in Macedonia. | Right: The authentic shirt, for reference.
