Week One

Sunday morning. I've made it to Sunday morning. I have officially been here for a week, but it seems like a year. No week in the history of my life has ever been as exhausting as this one.

So far I have: Visited three countries in one day, tasted wine in France, tasted more wine in Germany, hiked to an old Abbey, explored churches from the 1200's, ordered coffee in another language, ordered coffee in english when I can't remember how to do it in another language, toured military cemeteries, seen famous monuments, seen beautiful overlooks, oh yeah, and I had some classes. I haven't watched an episode of television, a movie, not even a YouTube video since I got here. Every day is constant motion, until I get home at night and fall asleep, usually in the middle of trying to describe all the above adventures to people back home.

This post is both my rough draft and my final, I'm just typing stream of consciousness. I need to reflect on this week, myself.

I'm a weird kind of homesick. I want to be here more than I have ever wanted to be anywhere. But I feel like I am missing so much of the lives of people I care about at home. I don't want to spend the whole trip glued to my phone because I don't want to miss things happening here, but as a result, I'm missing everything back home. Everyone is always excited to hear about the wonderful adventures I am having, but I want to know what they are doing too, because it's just as important. But there is never time for both. In case anyone was considering it as a family therapy strategy, or a way to make friendships more stronger and more interesting, I cannot recommend the six hour time difference.

But on a more cheerful note, it is truly amazing here. My friends and I decided to stay in Luxembourg this weekend, to save some money before our big week-long trip for the upcoming Carnival celebration. So yesterday, we took a train to Clerveaux in the northern part of the country to see a photography exhibit. We got off the train and decided to just take some time to get a cup of coffee and warm up before continuing on. We sat at a quaint hotel cafe with rain streaked windows and The Dark Side of the Moon playing quietly in the background and ordered enough cappuccino to earn our stay. We quietly played Euchre while local guests sleepily emerged from their rooms and took tables around us. Upon asking directions to the exhibit, we discover that it is closed for the entirety of January. It was January 30th.

Normally, this would be a day ruiner. But I've made friends with a group of people more interested in making an adventure out of a wrinkle in plans than throwing a fit over it, the right kind of people in my opinion. We instead researched a nearby Abbey and decided to hike there. We trekked through the pouring rain and biting wind up narrow, muddy trails and then tucked ourselves away in a old crumbling overhang right outside the monastery, where we ate our peanut butter sandwiches and the leftover fruit we have been stealing from school lunches. On the way back down we passed the time by singing (shouting) Bohemian Rhapsody and skipping down the road. We loaded ourselves onto the train, stripping off dripping coats and hats, dreaming of warm showers and pajama pants and chatting about our plans to visit the city that night. That evening was a whole different adventure in itself.

Although not at all the day we had planned for, it might have been my favorite one yet.

If I detailed my every adventure for you, this would slowly become a novel. So I will just stick to my favorites for now.

In case I haven't been able to contact you (reader of this) directly, I miss you very much and hope things are going well back in the states. As much as I wish time here would stop passing so quickly, I am excited to be home this summer to catch up with everyone. Until then, I will do my best with keeping this, and my Facebook profile updated.

This upcoming week is all classes (that's a thing, I also do school sometimes) immediately followed by a five day class field trip to The Netherlands. From there my friends and I are leaving for our week-long Carnival break where we will travel to Venice for a few days and then Nice, France for the remainder.

This week has taught me that the only kind of prepared I can be for this trip, is to prepare to not have any preparation whatsoever. Things change, trains are late, flights get booked, classes get cancelled, better things come up, people flake out, people want to join in, exhibits are closed and you can't know what's around every corner. But I think I like it that way.

On Board

I'm starting my second blog post while I’m the plane since, spoiler alert, the list of available activities 35,000 feet in the air is limited. There is plenty of time for thinking, however. Lots and lots of thinking. And for binge watching loser HBO shows I didn’t even know existed. They have personal TVs on airplanes now, it's a pretty amazing time to be alive. As impressive as I find this advance in technology, I’m gonna choose to spend my next few minutes doing a little bit of thinking.

I am thinking about so many things. I’m thinking about how invigorating this experience has been thus far, as I’m barely halfway across the ocean.

While I ran through the airport this afternoon, somewhere wedged behind the unshakeable thought of “Oh crap, I’m going to miss this flight, how have I already managed to mess this up??” I was thinking about how last week I woke up in Mason, Ohio and today I was sprinting through a Minneapolis airport, desperate to catch a flight across the Atlantic ocean. Pretty cool.

I am also thinking about how wonderful books and music are. They are arguably my two favorite things this world has to offer. Even outside the comfortable bubble of the 513, my music sounds the same, and my books read the same. I anticipate being able to combat a lot of future homesickness with these two old friends.

Initially, on my first plane, I couldn’t connect to my Spotify and it was a completely music-less journey. It was tragic, and I shudder just remembering that brutal, quiet 45 minutes.

The last thing I have been thinking about is how many people I wish were in the seat next to me.

I plan on using this experience to do a little self reflection (I know, traveling the world alone and using it as an opportunity to work on myself, pretty unique idea). I have a tendency to be too dependent, never cutting my hair or watching a movie without consulting the people I love or the people I want to love me.

I started to notice how often I would hand off a ticket, a map, an email, etc., following with semi-formed sentences like “I can’t…” and “Will you?…”. But I'm 19 years old and I can, and I will, and if takes me sprinting through an international airport, or getting lost in a foreign city to get to that point, I’m okay with that.

As much as I want to learn to be on my own, it does not make me miss my people any less, or keep me from writing funny things on a napkin to tell them when I can, or from missing the simplicity of just following someone else’s direction, without consulting myself. It's hard and it's scary to do things by yourself.

Anyway, besides the paralyzing fear of my impending failure, things are good so far. Nothing but wonderful things to say about the good people of Delta airlines. The woman next to me on the plane is nice. Full of helpful tips like, “Honey, there is medicine for fidgety foxes like you”. She is watching Elf and hasn’t laughed once, so obviously she is a robot, and a seasonally confused one at that.

Haven't Even Left Yet

Decided as a (previous) writing major, it only made sense to create blog to keep track of my adventures in Europe. And if no one ends up reading it, at least it gives me time to make sure I'm really taking in everything (I hope) I will see.

But right now, I'm not reflecting on the new things I will be seeing, but the familiar things I'm leaving behind.

To my sister,

Thank you for being my pillar, my punching bag, my fountain of often unsolicited, but genuinely helpful advice. Thank you for being anxious enough for the both of us. Thank you for lending me money you didn't necessarily have and for accepting the angst you didn't necessarily deserve. Doing four months of life without you will be one of the hardest parts of this experience, but expect me on your couch the first Bachelorette Monday of summer.


To my parents (and grandparents),

I can't imagine how nerve wracking it must be to send a child (especially one as awesome and irreplaceable as me) to a foreign country. By this point I just reflexively nod my head to the redundant, "Please be careful", but please know, I will. Trust that after 19 years, you have raised me to be money conscious, to be aware of my surroundings, to not trust people who I don't know (or people who don't like dogs). I will travel in groups and treat my passport like it's an extra limb. I will always stay with my friends (not a lie). Thank you for the opportunity to show Europe what a kick-ass job American parents did at raising a kid, and more importantly for the opportunity to see the world. I'm eternally grateful to you and I won't take it for granted.

To my friends,

This one is pretty generic. I'll miss you guys. If we really are friends, I've already said something sappy to you, or I'm texting you right this minute whining about how nervous I am. And if I haven't done that, we probably aren't that good of friends, but I'll miss you anyway.

Now I'm going to close my computer and lay awake for hours, thinking of all the things I definitely forgot to do. This time tomorrow...I will be sitting in the Cincinnati airport. But this time in two days...I will be across the world living my dream of seeing, well, pretty much anything.