About Me
I am Panna, I was born in Budapest in 2004. As you can read in the intorduction on the main page, I have been “obsessed” with traveling since I was a little kid. I probably inherited this from my parents, who are both passionate about discovering new landscapes, cities, and countries. They raised my sister and me to be open-minded, curious people. They did all this by showing us a variety of activities, cultures, religions, and arts from the time we were really young, but they didn’t force anything on us; they let us decide what we liked and didn’t like, and to develop our own tastes and personalities. They considered it important to raise us to be open-minded, accepting adults.
I currently live and study in Barcelona, of course one of my majors is tourism. University is a special, multicultural environment for me, where I develop not only professionally but also as a person, I learn a lot from my peers about their own countries, cultural characteristics, and traditions.
I enjoy learning languages; I speak English at a C2 level and use it every day, as it is the language of university education, but Spanish is also getting better and better, and I don't regret the time and energy. However, I still have a little difficulty with Catalan.
In high school, Italian was my chosen language, so it can be considered a third foreign language, although I can only communicate in it at a basic level.
In addition, I started learning Arabic last year and Mandarin this year, but I am only learning these on Duolingo for now, 1-2 hours a day. When I have more free time, I would like to continue more seriously.
I am interested in art because it expresses how people thought/think, how they reflect on the problems of their time, what are the questions that concern them, how they define their own role and place in their world. Theatre is also interesting to me, I like to see current plays or traditional performances abroad - it depends on the location, which one.
I think the best way to get to know a country is to try to get as close to the art, traditions, religion and people as possible. This is not possible by isolating yourself in a resort and enjoying all-inclusive accommodation. James Michener said: “If you reject the food, ignore the local customs, religion and avoid the locals, you should stay at home.”
That's why, wherever I go, I try to get to know people, talk to them, find out what it's like to live there, and what difficulties they may have to deal with. I'm very interested in how it's like to be a woman in a particular country. I'm guided solely by curiosity - and of course, often by compassion - without judgment.
Traveling is not only a source of experience for me, but I also learn a lot from it. This process begins when organizing a trip: I read a lot about the given country to understand what I will see and experience. And this knowledge acquisition continues during the trip. I am not only interested in the traditions and art of the country, but also its history, since the present can never be completely separated from the past, there is always a cause-and-effect relationship between them. I also stay informed about the current political situation, so I know what to expect.
Travel broadens our horizons, helps us to overcome ourselves and our petty problems. Sometimes we are confronted with how good situation do we live in, because we see truly shocking things and human destinies. Sometimes it involves sacrifice, and we appreciate the comforts of home when we get home.
As the quote says, attributed to Buddha: “There is no path to happiness. The path itself is happiness.” This is perhaps true for the whole of life…
About the Blog
I know that my generation (Gen Z) doesn't usually read blogs. We prefer short, video-based, quick cuts, and visual-based content, especially music. We get our travel inspirations from TikTok.
Despite this, I think it would be good to do a little more research. To get to know the culture and the spirit of the destination country a little.
Besides, social media often does not show reality. If we watch a video of a perfect, beautiful location, we do not know exactly when it was taken, we only see when it was uploaded. We travel to Bali, lets say, in winter, based on this, and we do not understand why it is raining so heavily… This is just an example of course. However, in countless cases we misjudge locations and countries based on social media. We do not always get detailed and real, current information. The filtered images / videos do not reflect reality. Another problem is that many people post about places they have not even been to in reality…
I think we need to learn to treat social platforms and the internet in general, or ChatGPT in particular, critically, and not believe everything we see/read there.
I only write about what I have seen with my own eyes and therefore have actual knowledge of. Where the content is subjective, I always define it as my own opinion.
I try to attract the attention of my own generation too with shorter texts and group my words around various topics, so perhaps everyone can find content that interests them.
I am convinced that a country can often be best understood through its art - it can be street art or culinary art - as art is alive and constantly changing, responding to social problems and the most important questions of the artist's present. Therefore, in addition to the presentation of each country and city, there will be an article about the artworks that I think are interesting, but focusing on getting to know the country through the artists' way of thinking, and its cultural characteristics.
If you are interested in Barcelona, you are also in the right place, because I live here and I also study a lot about the city at university, so you can learn a lot about Barcelona first-hand, not only about the typical tourist attractions, but also about what it is like to live here. I will recommend many programs or attractions that you will not find elsewhere, or not in such detail and well-collected way.
I want this blog to provide travel ideas, inspiration, or “just” interesting reading for many and varied people. I have a lot of work in it, so welcome and enjoy!
