"The world is a maze, and the only way I managed to
find myself is by getting lost"
As I'm getting back into the swing of workouts, planning my
last year at U of A, and spending a little time at home, I realized just how much traveling taught me, and how much I took away from the my eurotrip. I got lost in 5 countries, figured it out, and had a damn good time doing it. Here's a look at the cliches that you hear about travel that I found to be true.
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| Fun fact- umbrellas still work like this |
1) When things don't go the way you planned- roll with it! We always joked that we were constantly wrong, lost, and confused, but we were always happy. The last few months have proved that one being
that anything that can go wrong, will. The
trevi fountain will be as dry as the state of Arizona, you will be put on a
train that splits in half without being told, the buses/trains/planes will go
on strike, you will eat every last emergency cliff bar, your shoe will split
when you arrive at the club, air conditioning will break, hot water runs out,
and getting lost becomes more comfortable than knowing where you are. Embrace being lost, because you will be 90%
of the time and you shouldn't be in a hurry anyway! Here's a few of my favorite mishaps of the trip, that actually turned out to be pretty funny.
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| Literally struggling on a bus |
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| Can't check into the hotel for 3 hours...we'll just have a picnic on this bench |
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| If you don't have bug repellant...this works too |
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| This is what the end of a 24 hour travel day looks like. 3 girls, 6 large bags, 1 overstuffed elevator. |
2) The world isn't as scary as people say it is. I think we all grow up with a kind of fear of
what we don't know. We grow up with
rules and curfews and boundaries on everything we do. Taken and Hostel aren't likely to
happen. People aren't all evil, and it's
okay to be on your own without fearing every unknown. It's refreshing to go somewhere where you can
set your own boundaries.
3) My favorite part about going so many places was just
meeting people. There are way too many
stories to tell, and way too many people that made my trip amazing. I found myself saying "Nice to meet
you" way too frequently, and actually meaning it. Generosity is a real thing, and not every local hates you, you don't have to speak the language to be respected, and cultural stereotypes aren't always correct(except the one that says most Italian guys are aggressive- that's pretty on point). I could go on and on about each of the
incredible people that I ran into on my trip.
From hanging out for 10 minutes waiting for a bus, talking for hours on a plane, or giving me a ride from the airport to my hotel. It's amazing how
all of these strangers became lifelong friends.
4) You're constantly trying new things. I'm not kidding when I say that I conquered
just about every fear that I had on this trip- including, but not limited to
public transportation, seafood, and heights.
From eating seafood(and a fish eye), to jumping, sliding, hanging, and
repelling into the Grimsel Canyon, to taking every form of public
transportation known to man, I can honestly say that I went past my comfort
zone. I learned to say 'yes' to everything- foreign foods, adventures, and cultural things like swimming without a bikini top, eating cheese as a meal, dancing until 6am, and drinking Guinness beer.
5) I learned more from this trip than I could have ever
learned in any college class. The most
valuable thing I took away from this trip was a sense of independence. Some days I would wake up and not know where
exactly I'd be sleeping that night. The
best part about it is that I was okay with that! I also spent a lot of time by
myself, which I was also completely okay with.
Even when I was by myself, I never felt lonely. I realized that I'm a
lot more resourceful than I thought I was because I was basically forced to be. No one was going to usher me from point A to
point B. You can't be static when you're
traveling. You're constantly thinking of
what you're going to do and how you're going to get there.
"Often times, we can be so set in our ways that we forget just
how many possibilities life holds in store for us."
