Culture Shock

My husband and I love to travel. We don't have the time or money to do as much as we'd like, but we enjoy taking little getaways here and there. We love to learn about new places and people, but on our latest trip, we were surprised by both.

This past weekend, we drove down to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for a stay in the Great Smoky Mountains. We didn't know much about the area, just that it was supposed to be pretty, and we were therefore not at all prepared for what we would find.

I was expecting a small town with a couple of B&Bs, some cabins and Dollywood, placed strangely in the midst of nature. As soon as we got off the highway, I realized how wrong I'd been. It turns out it is the mountains that look out of place in the midst of all the tourist attractions. Dinner theatres, hokey museums and wedding chapels covered the landscape. This was not the relaxing getaway I had envisioned.

The drive up the mountain to our lodge made things even more confusing. We saw ramshackle houses with junk littering the yard and hoped in vain that no one actually lived there. I wondered what sort of person would stay in a falling down house, without even trying to make it look nice or at the very least ensure that it was structurally sound. And less than a mile away stood our inn, with beautifully decorated rooms and gorgeous views of the mountains. And, as it turned out, the inn, the balcony hot tub and the CDs of soothing music that the owners had left in our suite made it possible for us to relax after all. And I can't say enough for the beauty of the natural landscape. Going to places like that make me realize just how ugly Illinois is.

Just when I was getting used to the strange duality of the tranquility on the mountain and the noise of the tourist trap below, one of the locals threw another surprise at me. On Saturday night, we went out to dinner, and our waiter saw us looking at a Gatlinburg travel guide. We happened to have it turned to a page on wedding chapels, and he asked about it. We laughed with him over the advertisement featuring a bearded man in overalls and a tuxedo jacket presiding over a "Hillbilly Wedding." Our waiter commented that he'd have to look into going to that place, and, asking what I thought was an obvious question, I inquired whether he was getting married.

"No," he said. "Well, sort of. I'm just helping out a friend. She works here, and she's from Russia, and if she doesn't get married, she'll have to go back."

I wasn't sure what to say. It wasn't my place to lecture this guy about how stupid and illegal this plan was, and though we were both wondering, neither my husband or I mentioned (until later, when we were alone) how weird it was that a foreigner would want to settle in Gatlinburg rather than a major city, or how horrible things must have been in Russia that marrying a dorky waiter and working in a brewery restaurant seems like a great idea. In the end, we laughed it off and pointed out the chapel whose advertisement said that Billy Ray Cyrus had gotten married there.

We escaped back to our tranquil inn, and the next day, to home, where things aren't nearly as interesting or beautiful, but at least they make sense.