Spending the weekend in Brussels, Belgium, I decided to take a day trip to Ghent to see Saint Bavo’s Cathedral and the magnificent 15th century altarpiece within. I got off the train and started the blind walk without cell service to the town center.

The beginning of the walk was much as I expected it would be. On a sleepy Sunday in Ghent, most shops were shuttered on what seemed to be a main street. Open cafés spotted the corners, but for the most part, the town seemed simple and closed down.

But 15 minutes later, I found myself in the shopping district of the Flemish city. Rather than the small boutiques I would have expected, typical American fashion was everywhere.

Throughout Europe, I’ve been struck by the Americanization of fashion and the rampant commercialism. In London, I live a block away from the beginning of the city’s largest shopping street and have spent time shopping in one of the UK’s largest clothing retailers, Primark. Milan promised shopping, but most the of stores I could just as easily find in New York, Los Angeles or even Destiny USA.

The Marble Arch branch of Primark, a prominent fast fashion chain in the UK and Europe, is a dangerous place to be on weekends. I found it legitimately difficult to move once inside the store on my first visit. I returned the next week because I’m the genius who came to London without a raincoat.

In Belgium, I saw numerous Primark bags in the hands of people on the streets. Primark’s competitor H&M has been equally common in my travels. I followed my roommate into a store in Munich when he discovered he had forgotten a belt. And while I resisted the fashion haven that is Milan, I did bring a pair of shoes home from Venice.

While H&M and Primark are both European brands, the former is common in the United States, as are most of the stores I’ve seen walking down Oxford Street. As jarring as these familiar stores are in an unfamiliar face, the frequent site of new-age gadgets are more distressing to me.

I noticed on my walks home through Times Square this summer that it seemed like selfie sticks outnumbered billboards, and that’s no easy feat. After visiting Venice, I can say the phone attachments might be more prevalent in St. Mark’s Square than marble statues on the surrounding buildings. The most shocking might be the amount of vendors — in the square itself I counted at least three sellers offering the same price of €3 or $3.44. Around the corner just outside the square, though, another vendor was selling them for €5 or $5.74.

As much as I enjoy jumping into the background of unsuspecting selfie takers, this is another example of people focusing on the memory rather than the experience. I see more people taking videos with their phones on sticks than pictures. In other words, people prefer to digitally record their location, staring into a screen instead of at a historic monument.

I try to keep these people in mind when I explore London and Europe. Though I took a picture of the Ghent altarpiece, I took ample time looking at the piece itself first. It’s not about the pictures, clothes or gifts I bring home for my friends, even if that might be the 21st century mindset. The intangible memories my brain holds mean more than anything my hard drive can.

Jack Rose is a junior broadcast and digital journalism major. You can email him at jlrose@syr.edu or follow him @jrose94 on Twitter.

Published on October 14, 2015 at 9:19 pm