Ride It Like You Find It

The public busses, he said, are as crowded as the trains. The busses leave between 3 and 4 a.m. because they must travel in daylight through the mountain roads. For three days in a row the Experimenters began the day's travel at 2:30 a.m. and turned in at 8:30 or 9 p.m.. "It was one of the best experiences I had--though not the happiest," Lorenz said. "We were thrown in conditions just as the Yugoslavs live."

Only at one point in the summer did Lorenz feel that the Experiment ideal was fully realized, and that was when their 42 Yugoslav friends bid the Americans goodbye at the Sarajevo station. After the usual exchange of addresses and emotional leave-taking, the train pulled out at 10:30 p.m. One fat Yugoslav mother ran the whole length of the station, yelling in the only English words she knew, "Come back, come back and see us someday."

Belgrade Holiday

The Americans spent four days in Belgrade having interviews with government officials before catching a boat home again from Rotterdam.

Although each Experiment is indeed a unique "experiment," and especially one in a Communist country, Lorenz' experiences would sound familiar to any Experimenter.

There is the initial meeting with the group of Americans, usually college students and young working people between the ages of 19 and 30. Some Experiment groups, however, are made up of high school students.

There is the inevitable adjustment to unaccustomed living conditions, usually below the standards Americans enjoy, to new foods, to new ways of thinking. There is always some problem with the language--even in the British Isles.

There is the effort to become accepted as a real member of the family--and a great feeling of satisfaction for the Experimenter if he achieves this closeness with his foreign family. There are bound to be young peoples parties for the visit- ing Americans, and there is a group trip by train, bus, boat or bicycle depending on the terrain of the country.

These are the general outlines, but the formula varies from country to country. Each prospective Experimenter requests the country he would like to visit. In each he can expect something slightly different.

Warm Milk in Suburbia

In Holland, for example, an Experimenter may well find himself in a brick home very similar to a middle-class residential dwelling in the United States. But he will learn that doors to rooms are usually kept shut, as few homes have central heating. He will learn that refrigeration is not a necessity of life, and that warm milk, while he might not like it, will not poison him.

He will discover that bread is the staff of life, and that the Dutch spread everything from chocolate candies to fresh stawberries on their bread. He will learn to put mustard or mayonnaise, and not catsup, on the French fries he buys from sidewalk stands.

The Experimenter in Holland will learn to ride a bicycle, if he doesn't know how, and will come to consider a 10-mile bike ride a short sprint. He will discover that the raincoat, and not wooden shoes, is the most essential article in the Dutch national costume.

When he goes abroad, he may come home calling a bicycle a 'fiets" and windmills "windmolen."