When I saw my youngest cousin last, she and her fiancé drove the conversation, sharing all the trips they’d taken, were soon going to take, and wanted to take at some point in the future. I couldn’t help thinking how much I’d changed. My younger self absolutely loved traveling, exploring new places, and experiencing different cultures. My current self, however, doesn’t like the new and unknown anymore, and instead has grown fond of revisiting a few places I’ve enjoyed visiting in the past.

This June, right on the day of my husband’s and my anniversary, there was a direct flight from my Austrian hometown of Graz to the Latvian capital of Riga. Riga was Europe’s cultural capital in 2014, and everyone said what a beautiful city it was. It did look really picturesque in photos and on TV. So this direct flight was a great opportunity. Only, I wasn’t taken by the city. I probably sound like a complete snob, but it’s become rare for me these days to be impressed with a new place. Too often, it doesn’t look as charming in reality as photos or people indicated. Spending some days in the Austrian capital of Vienna the week before was so much better. Vienna is a place I know very well and love going back to – unless it’s in the midst of the summer heat.

People say traveling opens you up to other cultures and thus makes you more accepting of otherness. I humbly disagree. I’ve been to Italy many times in my life, for example. First to the Italian beach as a child and teenager, and when I was older, I visited Tuscany, the island of Elba, and Sicily. I also hiked in northern Italy. And yet I have no clue how Italians really tick. Or take Croatia. I’ve visited different beaches and towns there and hiked in the Plitvice Lakes National Park. But I have no idea about Croatian culture. The few engagements with the locals in restaurants and stores didn’t teach me much about the culture either. To really know how people tick, you have to stay for a long time, immerse in everyday life, and – most importantly – befriend natives.

I came to the U.S. as a Fulbright Language Teaching Assistant in 2006 and stayed for a year. Because I’d been two China twice, first on vacation and then as a language student at Wuhan University, I hung out mainly with the Chinese students and thus learned more about Chinese than American culture in the midst of Pennsylvania. If I hadn’t buddied up with my future husband, I’d have left the U.S. without really learning much about American culture. It was Rick, who explained his culture to me and showed me spots in Pennsylvania tourists typically don’t get to see. But of course he showed me only one slice of the diverse pool of Americanness. Many parts of his Ame-rican soul were, in my mind, very un-American, or at least not how Austrians perceived Americans. He himself was an avid traveler, didn’t have a flag at home, and advised me not to eat too many burgers and fries if I wanted to stay in good shape. He was a single child like me, also grew up in an urban environment, and worked in academics, just like me. There really wasn’t that much of a difference between us. And as he showed me his America, I realized how different it was from my expectations and that it truly was our friendship that helped me understand American culture.

And many years later my best friend came along. He is what my 2006 self would have called a typical American, and through him I get to learn about a whole different part of Americanness. He grew up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania with his siblings, served in the army, and has a big flag in his yard. Reading about the army or patriotism is one thing; having your friend explain it all to you is a completely different deal. Although patriotism isn’t big in Austrian culture and we usually don’t display flags in our homes, I now have a small American flag in my place, and I have to admit it’s really neat. I’ve never given the army much thought either, and now I’m learning all kinds of things through listening to my friend’s stories. He’s teaching me a proper salute too, which is – as I said to him – harder to learn than riding a horse. I’m also learning different country boy expressions that I better not repeat here. If I hadn’t befriended an American whose upbringing and path was so different from my husband’s and that of the other Americans in my academic circle, I’d have never gotten to know this facet of the American soul despite having lived in the country for almost two decades.

Yes, traveling does a great job providing us with a glimpse of the place we’re visiting and allows us to taste local foods and see cool sites. But getting to understand another culture means getting to know different people from that culture. And no, you don’t have to embrace everything they believe in. Yet listening to them teaches you otherness, which means understanding that there’s more than one way of looking at the same thing, and that having different views on the same thing is totally okay

Daniela Ribitsch teaches German at Lycoming College.