Born in the United States Connor had his first experience traveling when he was seven. He and his parents went to pick up his sister in Bulgaria after she served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. With their sister acting as guide she introduced them to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and took a train to see the town of Plovdiv. The ability to travel somewhere with someone familiar with the culture had them, “really getting immersed in eastern Europe,” and its culture.
The thing he remembers most from his time in Bulgaria was having dinner at the home of a foreign exchange student that had lived with his family when he was five. Speaking of the experience he says, “The thing I remember most is that everyone in Bulgaria thinks that Americans can eat until all the food is gone, in the world. So they prepared, not a joke, a seven course meal for us and expected us to finish every course, which I could do now, but not as a seven year old.”
When asked about what else he remembers Connor gives a unique insight into the differences in cultures and customs of Bulgaria from the United States, “Bulgaria is such an interesting country. They shake their heads backwards,” he shakes his head side to side to show how they say yes and nods his head up and down to show how they say no, “because of communism that was there a lot of their buildings are falling over, a lot of their infrastructure is bad, their train is gross. But the food was great, the people were happy.”
Thinking about the people and the differences from his home country he mentions, “It’s always interesting when you travel, the people that you assume are poor because they don’t live like Americans are just as happy because they make the most of their situation.”
Later in the interview he talked about the first time he’d ever been out of the country by himself. At 19 he was called by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to serve a mission in Mexico. He was unsure of traveling there given his experiences with Mexican immigrants while living in Las Vegas. On his mission however, he learned that not everyone in Mexico is the same and within the country are three regions with entirely unique cultures and customs. Speaking of the central region, where he served his mission, he said “It was like a completely different country.”
Connor spoke about how living there was an entirely different experience from traveling there on vacation, “Well when I’d been to Europe I did find people that spoke English, there were people that could help me there. When I lived in Mexico, no one spoke English. Even if they thought they spoke English, they did not speak English, because where I was it wasn’t a tourist destination. Anywhere that’s a tourist destination there are people that speak English in order to make money, but if you go somewhere where only people live and no one would visit because they don’t know it exists, they don’t speak English.”
When asked if he thought differently about Mexico and its people after living there, he gave an interesting insight into how many people who’ve never traveled outside their home country might think and feel about those outside it, “I don’t know, I didn’t really think about them before. Because before you live in a different country, you think everybody lives the way you do.”
These experiences abroad have given Connor a deep desire to continue traveling and experiencing other cultures. When asked if he thought travel was more of a lifestyle or a fun getaway he responded passionately, “If I had the money, I would never stay at home for more than a week at a time.”
