So...it's been two weeks and I've finally collected enough shards of motivation to start a blog and believe you me, this wasn't an easy task. I have been reading "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert (thanks Mom!), a memoir that recounts the author's journey of how to balance pleasure and spirituality across Italy, India, and Indonesia (three countries that begin with "I", which is ironic seeing as her journey is one of self discovery). Reading her awesome descriptions of everything she encountered and her reflections about it all made me realize that, even if it takes a long time to write it all down, it will be good for me. I'll be able to preserve this trip all the more and I won't have to write it out in individual letters over and over again to folks back home who are interested. So here you go, guys. It might take me a while to play catch up with my first 2 weeks spent here, but I've got ample time to do many things I've never gotten to do, including spending hours reflecting, whether it be sitting in a park thinking or sitting at my computer typing it out. I hope you enjoy these adventures as much as I have. And I miss all of you!
Thus we begin the adventures with the journey here. This is what I wrote in my journal on my initially traveling to Europe:
1:36 ET
I just arrived in Detroit about an hour ago but I don' leave for another two and a half hours. I saw Rick (dad's friend who works at the airport) this morning and he helped me check in...to first class! Rick tried to get me in all the way to Europe, but it wasn't available. Oh well. I did have an exceptionally tasty breakfast (as far as airplane food goes) of cereal, fresh fruit, and a croissant (a little cheese...on my croissant!).
5:04 ET
I have like 40 DIFFERENT MOVIES to choose to project out of the back of this person's head in front of me. (I think I ended up watching Batman Begins, a little bit of Hercules in German, and Anywhere But Here. Hercules was the best because they actually translated all of the music too. Gospel in German is the bees knees.)
8:33 ET
Everyone around me is snoring. I guess I should try and do the same, although the only times I've been able to fall asleep this early in the past ten years is when it was induced by sickness. This is weird.
10:35 ET
We're getting a lot closer and I should totally be asleep right now. I smell like plane. I tried five different positions for sleeping and none of them worked. The next night is probably going to be one of the best night's sleep I've had in a while. I'm watching this great divide between me and Europe get smaller and smaller on this monitor at the front of the cabin. There is a little plane flying over the Atlantic, blinking on and off as it scoots through various time zones. And I am that plane. I can't really believe how close it is. Yes, I'm am literally going through a time warp (7 hours difference) but I feel like I'm traveling to another planet. It's going to be really weird actually experiencing the other side of the world. It's always been difficult for me to wrap my brain around the idea that people I've never seen or places I've never been to in person actually exist. I mean, to me, they really don't. I've never experienced them. It's weird being able to recognize Angelina Jolie or the Eiffel Tower in a picture without pausing but then thinking about the fact that I've never seen either of them in my entire life...I'm going to actually experience things first hand that have only ever existed in my mind. I get a headache if I think about this for too long. I'm still scared about the language barrier, but I have another hour to get over that. Once I see that Webster sign at the airport I'll be in my comfort zone. Until then, I guess I'll just have to enjoy the ride.
11:04 ET
I've never eaten breakfast at 11:05 at night and 5:04 in the morning simultaneously before.
11:56 ET
My first glimpse: a European dawn : )
8:35 am Amsterdam
I've resolved that, after I have returned home in December, I am NEVER flying Northwest again. I'm literally sitting in the Amsterdam airport thirty minutes before my plane to Vienna leaves and they won't let me board it. They've rebooked me for a flight FIVE HOURS LATER. I'M IN THE AIRPORT!!!!! Why can't I just goooo? I'm being taunted by Europe outside the window. All that separates me from exploring the heck out of this place is some thick glass and wide expanses of runways. I wonder if I can just bust through the window and hightail it across the tar mats, dodging planes and staircases on wheels, aiming for the city. That might result in a jail sentence longer than my visa would allow for. Ugh, I'm tired and annoyed and frustrated. Oh look. A bar.
20:03. In Vienna.
So I didn't actually buy a drink, but it was weird to think that I could have without a problem had I wanted to. The series of events that has actually brought me to the point where I can write this was much more drawn out than I originally thought it would be. I finally boarded a plane to Vienna that left around 1 pm. Granted, I was originally supposed to arrive at 9 in the morning. I slept through most of the flight, which I kind of regret, but I absolutely needed it. When I woke up, we were flying over rural west Austria. Directly out my window (I had a window seat for the first time this trip and I was super grateful) I could see country and beyond that, the Danube! And beyond that, the Alps! Right over that mountain range was Slovenia and Italy. CRAZY! I'm so happy I got to see that because it was the first real European thing I got to see and enjoy, besides the company of my cab driver, Murat. Oh, how I ended up in a cab is slightly important. I basically now have a very pissed off shuttle driver person out in the city somewhere because apparently there was such a one waiting for me for an our after I landed in the semi circle outside customs with a sign. I was in that exact same semi circle for an hour and a half and I'm telling you, I NEVER saw a Webster sign. After calling Webster several times and finding out that it was now up to me to now find my own ride, I ended up paying $55 for a cabbie to take me to an address that I could barely understand over one of my phone calls to Webster. Basically, the address was fishy and the moment I got in the car and saw that the street name I had gotten from Webster and the one on Murat's GPS did not match, I had a bit of a knot in my stomach. After trying to point it out to him several times and having him shake his head as if it didn't matter, I tried to calm down a little. I endured and slightly enjoyed the awkward, broken english come-ons while inhaling second-hand smoke and jamming to techno. Once we got to the street where we presumed the dorm to be, we couldn't find it. It ended in some heated phone arguments between the woman who had given me the address and Murat. Ultimately we discovered that we were one building down from where we needed to be. SERIOUSLY? CAN I JUST FIND A TOILET AND A BED NOW? I was quite grateful for both once the never ending journey finally came to a halt. Lesson learned from those 37 hours: no matter how much of a jam you manage to fall into, it ends up working itself out. No worries.
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