Litochoro

Camping at a base refuge/hostel tonight, up early tomorrow to climb Olympus and high-five Zeus. Just ate a stupid amount of souvlaki and Greek yogurt (Kroger and Chobani, you are nothing to me now) and dipped my toes in the Aegean Sea.

Στην υγειά μας!
Marg

Athens

Hiked to/through the Acropolis this morning! Off to figure out what moussaki is and catch a train to Katerini/Litochoro so I can climb Olympus and sleep in a "refuge". Whale face. #VACATION 

Peace, love and gyros

-M

Congratulations, Frankfort airport. You are, like me, strange and unapologetically German.

Ciao America!

Bonjourno gin joint lovers and indifferent alike! Welcome back to the ever-entertaining Marg read-it-and-weep (out of joy, terror or jealousy, take your pick) traveling updates and pics feed . I'm sitting in the international United terminal of O'Hare airport, gawking at the masses of people trying to fly standby due to the fire in Aurora on Friday. I myself was bumped 5 hours and rerouted to Frankfurt before landing in Athens, but I don't mind much. The proverbial flow, I go with.

I feel right now exactly as I have every time I leave the country for Europe, when I was 15, 21, 24 and now 27. I am ecstatic, excited, chill and ready. There are things out there in the world for me to do, and I'm doing them. This is, as they say, living your life on your own terms. And it RULES. If I had a nickel for everyone who has told me "I wish I could do that!", I would have... some annoying amount of nickels. Point being, I want to go to Israel and Greece and Italy. So here I am. It's actually kinda easy. Nonetheless, I am 15 again, blind and excited at what the next few days will bring me. Hopefully a ton of food (omg PIZZA AND TIRAMISU, OMG). But for now I have a long flight of killer airplane food and random movies waiting for me, including the brilliant flick in which Tom Hanks runs amok in Rome with Ewan McGregor. So. Appropriate. Stay tuned for sporadic random posts and pics to let you I'm alive and happy!

All my love and la joie de vie,
M

"It’s a treat being a runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do." - Alan Sillitoe

Today is Thursday, September 25, 2014. In three days (ummm I need to pack, whoa), I will be embarking on my fourth international vaca extraordinaire, the second of which is totes solo and wanderlustingly loner-esque. YAY, LIFE. It was tough for me to get excited about this vaca too soon, because it comes at the heels of (and in rewarding myself for) running my first full marathon this past weekend in Omaha. Barring a panicked moment in which I thought my rebelling toenails and blinding running blisters would stop me from running this past weekend, I ran (jogged.... walked a few times.... took my shoe off at one point... whatever) my first full marathon and couldn't be happier (that it's over). Ask me in about a month, when the memory of feeling like an exhausted dehydrated Simba in the African desert about to die and be eaten by vultures eventually fades, if I will ever do another marathon. Shoutout to my sister and brother-in-law for rescuing me with Gatorade and water and Vito high-fives, Timon and Pumba-style at miles 19 and 21.

I now have to pack many months' worth of getting totally psyched for another amazing out-of-my-comfort-zone international adventure into seven measly days. I also have to convince my body to recover rapidly from the 26.2 miles of awkward jog/walk/run/crying I did Sunday morning (and afternoon if you're getting technical and making fun of how long it took me). For the record, seven days is  not nearly ample time to jazz oneself on the horizon of a tangible vacation. My goal for Thursday is to start packing, aka lay out all the garments I intend to bring, realize I am backpacking and have to carry everything everywhere ever for always, cut the volume of garments in half, and decide what to sacrifice in order to make room for hostel shower shoes.

One thing about life (LIVE-LAUGH-LOVE, am I right?), as I see it and as it is running through my head at this current moment, is this: do what makes your heart FREAK OUT. Every time someone asks me about my trip, I have to stop my idiotic face muscles from turning my mouth in a creepily big Grinch-style grin, and I instinctively rub my hands over my arms to proactively warms the inevitable chills I get when I think about it. All week I have had the distinct pleasure of saying "this time next week I will be.....(insert awesome itinerary plot point here)", and subsequently doing a leprechaun-esque jig out of excitement. So, at this time next week, I will be spending my first night in Jerusalem, probably getting ready to wake up early the next morning to walk the Via Dolorosa, or the Way (Stations) of the Cross, before the city wakes up. Pause for inevitable sigh. Pause for inevitable creepy Grinch smile.

Shout-out to the rest of my beloved people who met me at the finish line of the Omaha marathon, signs of encouragement and rented bikes in tow. The people who keep me entertained and encouraged on the sidelines or end of any long race are my saving grace.

“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.” - Jack Kerouac

This is, for lack of a more magical way to say it, THE ENTIRE STORY THUS FAR. 

I was 15 years old when I went to Europe for the first time. Unsurprisingly I was enchanted by the charm and overwhelming majesty of Europe, most specifically of the first city I set foot in, La Chita Eterna.  In Rome, fairy dust was sprinkled on everything; I became positively HIGH on the drug that is experiencing Europe for the first time (or ever, in all honesty). Italian Coca-Cola had nine times the American amount of sugar, absolutely everything seemed to be covered in cobblestones that were laid before Caesar was born, and BONUS: you can drink at almost any age in Europe! HELLOOOO, first drink of booze ever (minus the alcohol my grandma accidentally gave me when I was 5).

The entire experience was akin to the first time Harry Potter came arrived at Hogwarts; everything was ubiquitously cool, and I was completely dumbfounded that such an amazing world existed all this time without my knowledge. I remember thinking I NEVER wanted to come home. I could have stayed in my perfect Italian Hogwarts eating chocolate frogs and illicitly trying to booze it up on red wine and Limoncello forever.

In some seriousness, on that trip I came face-to-face with the notion that I live in a world that is imperfect. I discovered that I apparently live in a time in which hatred, violence and injustice all still exist and manage to even thrive. These were all concepts that I had only learned about in school or on the news, and I had never experienced in such a real-world sense up until the age of 15. Lucky girl, right? First-world problems officially realized. I ended that trip with the vehement urge to return again, and I spent the next few years shamelessly wanderlusting over my travel wish list and planning imaginary foreign trips on a regular basis.

I was 21 when I next returned to Europe, an excursion for which I studied abroad for a summer on a dual program I had hand-crafted with UNL. I first set foot in foggy London town after a torrential six year hiatus from the continent. It (the hiatus) was, for lack of sharper words, JUST AWFUL. But absence makes the heart grow fonder, and fonder my heart seemed to be.

It took me about 30 minutes to get from my plane seat on the tarmac of Heathrow Airport to the real outdoor London atmosphere outside. I purposely held my breath walking out of the airport, to allow for the magical rush of European air to fill my lungs with proverbial fairy dust. It sounds corny, and frankly I feel like I wrote the last three sentences for Walt Disney himself, but that moment was everything. It was, in fact, fairy dust that filled my lungs, as does every first moment I have in Europe. It completely jazzed me. I could feel the weight of the summer I would spend in Europe flutter around me like cartoon birds in a film that claims to be live-action, but yet somehow sneaks in an animated dancing animal during an emotional moment for its protagonist.

*I apologize in advance for the numerous run-on sentences you’ll read before this is over.*

My first thought when I reflected on that initial 24 hours in London was that I wasn’t even near homesick, and didn’t intend on being, during that two month timespan. I did however have a sense of overwhelming gratitude that I had many things for which I could very well be sick for at home.

I spent two months hitting the wickedly intoxicating sauce that is Western and Central Europe; I drank the clichéd tourism like an addict with no intention of detoxing or rehabbing. I climbed more cathedrals and crawled through more tombs than I could ever hope to count, took about 300 photos a day, and learned gobs of twinkling knowledge about history, art, religion and culture. It was a veritable wasteland for my existential flank. After spending three hours in any given city, I felt as fluent in the native language as if I had been there for three years. I was a sponge that couldn’t be wrung out enough times to soak up the greatness at the rate it was being spilled on me.

Recently, I purposely re-read my travel journal from that second trip. The last entry, assumedly which should be an EPIC one, shockingly had almost nothing to do with any of the history, architecture or culture of my time there. It was all about the people I met and the influence they had on me. I easily made five of the best friends I could ever know on that trip:

Melissa,	the token gal pal who had an undying devotion to the “carpe diem” mentality, and who made me feel like I was doing Europe wrong by showering and wearing makeup daily.
Nathan,	the professional drag queen whose fashion choices in Europe forever broke me of my “this is hideous, but it breathes well and can be worn multiple times!” attitude by wearing neon pink high heels on an all-day walking tour of Paris.
Brian,	the med student who everyone knew was going to outshine all of us in the grander scheme of life by becoming a multi-lingual doctor who forgoes his salary to administer Malaria vaccines to impoverished kids in Africa.
Baylee,	the passionately hipster girl from Ohio, whose knack was convincing me to climb out of her roof window and drink 50 cent red wine and existentially talk about life with.
& Hunter,	the outrageous and obnoxious greatest Spanish speaker of us all, who insisted on staying out until 3 AM every night and took vast pleasure in translating my girly magazines into French out loud to me while I did my hair in the morning.

Those people, among others, saved me. At the time, I was very in-between phases of life, and I was even closer to falling into some kind of canyon of feeling that I wasn’t capable of being the person I wanted to be.  Europe in 2007 introduced to me the life I wanted for myself that I never knew how to foster. It started with the allure and unquenchable desire to experience the foreign experience and Heaven-sent sugar-laden foreign Coca Cola again, but it ended with a deeper understanding of how to live happily, coupled with a gratitude for the random, brand-new people that save you when you didn’t know you needed it.

I returned to Europe again in 2011, just over four years later. This trip was driven by the urge to actually undertake the things I was saying I wanted for myself.  The second most prominent man in my life (after my dad, not Tom Hanks or Elvis, as I know some were assuming), my Grandpa Ahern, had passed away the year prior. His departure left me with a sense of mild failure in that I hadn’t yet accomplished the great things he and I always talked about during his lifetime, for him to see. He was one of those highly involved grandfathers that seemed to not only know what’s best for you, but knew that you had to unearth your own understanding of this world by yourself. Every time I told him something that I considered revelatory about myself, he looked at me like he had always known; that he was merely letting me discover my life on my own.

I had in fact told him that I would return to Europe someday, and we talked about the historical sites I wanted to see that interested him also. Much of it had to do with World War II, which undeniably left a mark on both his generation and his personal history. That history was one that I always inadvertently found in the back closets of his basement when we used to play at his house as kids. Old newspapers, pictures, and antiquey gadgets were constantly being usurped from his storage closets to play house and monster with.

A few days before he passed away, I visited him in the hospital. When I walked out of his room waving goodbye (which ended up being our last), instead of saying goodbye back, he told me to “have fun on your trip to Greece!”’. Confused, I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t going there anytime soon, nor did I have any plans to go there (ever… my apologies to the Hellenic Republic). Greece had never been in the top half of my bucket list,  nor had the two of us ever discussed it. To this day, I don’t know what story or memory in his head that would make him think I was traveling there soon. We laughed it off, and I left his hospital room wondering if he would randomly bring up Greece again the next time I saw him. When I went to book my flight to Europe this year (jumping ahead to present-day, try to stay with me), the most opportune flight I could find landed me smack-dab in Athens for my first day and for that first breath of fairy dust, international solo-wandering gal air that I crave. The rest is, as they say, bingo bango bongo.

I wrote a thirteen page manuscript (YIKES, RIGHT?) after I went to Europe in 2011, as a 24 year old single, solo woman. Talk about not knowing when to shut-up (irony intended, haters). I started writing it to simply commemorate the experience in some place other than my mind, I got carried away, as I usually do (try to act shocked!), and in doing so it became some kind of highly transcendent piece of writing that forced me to acknowledge all of the existential bits of life that I could possibly glean from that experience. That year was the year I toured a concentration camp; an act that obviously engaged a cascade of emotions and thoughts that I have yet to turn off in my head. There was no way I was going to get away with NOT word-vomiting about those twelve days in which I conquered Eastern Europe on my own (or that it conquered me? Jury is still out on that verdict).

Unbeknownst to most, three months before going solo in Europe, I had been dumped by my most recent boyfriend (MEEP [not really] MY LITTLE HEART), an event that knocked me down hard. I knew even then that it was never about the guy; it was about me facing my undiscovered grown-up fears I had yet to acknowledge in myself. At the given time, it was a very unprecedented reality-slap that I didn’t see coming, especially not from ending a light and short relationship with a man I had known barely six months. I came face to face with those adulthood demons that we all harbor and battle regularly. Needless to say, I was undeniably UNWELL when my mom dropped me off at Eppley airfield that day in November. I didn’t sleep at all the night before I left, wracking my brain to try to understand how I would survive being alone for 12 days, in Europe, with a massively heavy heart and a sudden panic that I would be without anyone to rescue me if I needed it. How I compelled my legs to carry me onto my plane to Poland, I’m still don’t entirely understand. THAT, the perseverance in the midst of all things awful and despairing, was part of the greatness that I took from my 2011 adventure. SCREW whatever is currently breaking your heart or making it hard to enjoy life, at least in some portion, everyday. There is always a reason and a way to choose to find joy, or to live life on your own terms, without apology, and with RELENTLESS VIGOR. As the King would say, "do what's right for you, as long as it don't hurt no one". 

I became and have remained so much stronger and bigger than my demons because of that third trip. And thank God. Thank everyone and everything that has had even the slightest impact on me, even the bad ones. Thank God for a breakup for making me vulnerable in a time that I was given the opportunity to prove myself. It is my firm belief that the aforementioned failed relationship, head-to-head combat with my newly discovered dark side, plus a solo trip to Europe that I had planned before any of the bad went down, were crucial pieces to me becoming a much better version of myself. 

The version of myself that I have been in love with ever since.

That whole “all negativity and bad things be damned, I am awesome and let me vomit rainbows on you to prove it” mentality has made me appreciate and sink into the obstacles and heartaches I’ve encountered ever since. It also drove me believe that coincidences don’t exist. Seriously, they can't.

Present-day, FINALLY! Phew (woof).

Three years later, I am bound to cross the Atlantic for my fair favorite vacation spot YET AGAIN. As a fledgling adult, I vowed to find ways to travel throughout my life, no matter what; lack of travelling partners be damned! Having gone to a concentration camp on my last excursion, I was reminded of my fervent desire to go to Jerusalem to see the sites of Jesus, stories of whom have defined not only my faith but my person. When I walked under the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign at Auschwitz, and stood in a gas chamber where thousands of people were murdered for absolutely no reason at all, I felt more alive than I ever have.  I felt luckier and more blessed than I ever will.

Those sites, while harrowing to remember to this day, served to remind me of multiple grander lessons; be grateful, no matter what. Have hope no matter what. 

Love so much that you run out of places to put it.

Recently, I was watching a TV airing of the Disney movie Hercules; I happily clapped and sang along during a scene in which Hercules has all kinds of personal epitome’s while climbing Mount Olympus, conquering crazy feats of athleticism and strength. The ever-inspiring Michael Bolton song that accompanies him up the mountain is embarrassingly inspiring. In the past 5 years, whenever I see anything remotely Greek, I am reminded of the last time I saw my grandfather,  when he wished me to enjoy my (non-existant) trip to Greece. Now I can finally capitalize on those well wishes, and find out whatever’s hiding in Greece that he wanted me to see (I'm pretty sure it will be food related.... authentic greek yogurt, are you real life?). Additionally, in order to prove my new attitude regarding challenging my body and mind, I will climb Mount Olympus, Hercules-style (singing Michael Bolton and pretending like I’m not fatigued by the 8-hour hike).

From Greece, I will travel to Israel (RELIGIONNNNN) and ultimately will end my vaca in Rome. This entire story, from high school Europe to post-graduate adult-ish backpacking, first began in Rome 11 years ago. The first thing my high school group did in Rome was eat lunch (priorities, eh?), where I had my first sip of the over-sugared Italian Coca Cola at a café near the Spanish Steps. That was my first-ever international meal, and again, it was drenched in fairy dust. I took a photo there with a handful of fresh new friends, and I swore to myself that I would return there someday (high on fairy dust and sugar, obviously). The aforementioned café still exists exactly where it used to be. There’s no real reason for me to return there except to fulfill that promise to myself, and to bring my experience with the world and my evolution in it, somewhat full circle.  Due credit goes a long way in my book, and I have a lot of homage to pay to a Panini and a bottle of Coke there.  

In Rome, I will retrace the steps I took as a 15 year old, when I was too bright-eyed and curious to see past the glitz and glamour of everything foreign. I will return to the Vatican, now under the rule of a progressive, charismatic and unequivocally accepting leader. My first trip to the Vatican was luckily enough during the reign of John Paul II. Even luckier, he was actually IN Vatican City when I was there, and he was able to bless a rosary I bought in the gift shop for my mom. How do I top that this time around, you ask? Find Pope Francis and high-five him. Clearly. Then never wash my hand again.

Long story….well, long is this: travel seems to save me. It has always provided the answer to what I want to be when I grow up: a citizen of the world. A traveler. An explorer, an adventurer, a not only think but DO outside the box-er. College-Europe saved me from losing grip of the life I wanted for myself. College-Europe quenched a thirst that had dried my soul of wonder since I was 15 and came back from that first fateful trip. Solo, post-undergrad Europe was the solution to the adulthood demons and heartache that I wasn’t yet ready for but embraced anyway. Solo Europe was a reward for managing to lose 70 lbs on my own terms. 

There is a lot of glamour of grabbing control of one's own existence the way you do when you travel alone. Travel is, for lack of a better way to say it, not always fun and parties and bar-hopping with a pack of random friends you met at the hostel breakfast table. It was getting a splinter from running my bare hands across death camp barracks at Auschwitz. Travelling forced me to acknowledge that I was born no different than those who died in the Holocaust, or in any genocide for that matter. It was realizing that if I have been given this blessed life full of opportunity and happiness, I better damn well doing something outstanding with it.

In the end, travelling the way I do forces me to be bigger than my fears and to continue becoming who I am supposed to be in this world. It inspires me to ensure I leave a greater legacy than just a trail of Irish whiskey and some good laughs (though that would be cool too). When I am seeing and experience the world, I have no choice but to stare the beauty of the universe in the face. There’s no way not to acknowledge and remember how absolutely insanely lucky I am, how undeservingly blessed I am, and ultimately how freakishly happy I am. Menacingly happy, and secure. Because I’m not afraid of what the world can do to me. I’m not afraid of the heartache, loss and pit-of-your-stomach suffering that lay before me when there's so much joie and good to be found amongst it.

I do apologize in advance for the lengthy monologue that will inevitably occur after this expedition, a manuscript that will likely arrive on your doorstep around the holidays for your perusal (if you so dare). Until then, live as you were meant to; with joie and gumption, with relentless vigor, and without fear. The things we fear the most have already happened to us.

All my love & la joie de vie,

Margaret

The End, Europe 2011

I had about 4 hours to kill on a layover in Warsaw, going from Poland to Chicago, which I spent writing in my journal and dreading the thought of leaving Europe (typical). I again started to panic at the thought of leaving, because at that point I had no plans to return to international ground as of yet. Every time I’ve been there, in the back of my mind I weave a plan for my return, of where I will go and how I will go there.  I knew after studying abroad in high school that I would study abroad in college. I knew after studying abroad in college that I would return to backpack, whether solo or not. This time around, I have no plans for my brilliant return, though a small part of me is holding out hope that my next trip to Europe will be to Ireland, which I am saving for my family. In these last few moments on European soil that I spent locked up in the Warsaw airport, in said panic, I started buying European knick-knacks, snacks and booze in effort to bring home something besides ideas and fun and memories of my trip. I ate or drank most of it before I got home.

The flight TO Europe is the greatest; the flight HOME is the worst. The flight going there is usually at night, with starry skies and the expectation that an adventure is starting looming over you, but the flight home is awful. It’s constantly sunny out, but the airline tries to put everyone to bed by serving an awkward dinner at lunchtime and forcing everyone to close their blinds and putting in a woozy romantic film for all to watch and nap to. Then they pretend to wake everyone up to serve breakfast in the middle of the day, after virtually nobody has slept, and try to make you forget that you’re basically time traveling at this point and won’t hope to recover from it for a full week after you’re home. Luckily I had a window seat and the passenger seat was vacant during my 10-hr flight home, which felt like 24 hours. 

I finally landed in Chicago, and it took forever to get off the plane, as most of the passengers were Polish and couldn't read English. I bustled to the front of the pack, winding old Polish people through O’Hare airport and eventually to the customs lines, where I hesitantly turned on my Blackberry to allow for the texts and emails to start flooding in. I stood at customs, the last real place where I could say I was on an international adventure, and hated the thought of being done with another foreign excursion. I went through the line anyway and gave the customs official a vehement frown when he welcomed me home. Bad timing, sir.

As soon as I landed in Omaha, I walked up towards the terminal where family and friends wait to pick up their arrivals.  Even from far away, at the end of the hall amongst all the other people waiting anxiously for their own family or friends, I could still easily pick out the anxious face of my mom. I think it’s just one of 'those things'; the path to home or comfort, for me, is always lit, at the end, by the image of my mother. When I saw her in that moment, I was able to finally let go of the “solo female traveler” iron-clad shield I had been wearing since she dropped me off 12 days earlier. No longer did I have to fend for myself, be cognizant of my surroundings enough to be able to rogue off an attacker, or nurse myself back to health. With mothers, all things are OK. With my mother, I could finally let the big scary world go. Trip officially over, and all is right with the world again.

Most notably after this was that when I got into my parents car to bum a ride home, I managed to catch my jeans on my parents car door and my pant leg ripped fully open from mid-thigh downward. Somehow I managed to survive on only two pairs of pants for 12 days, and the minute I am back on American soil, I completely ruin a pair? Touché to you, universe.

I stayed up for hours that night after I got home, laying around my empty apartment, not unpacking, not doing laundry, not re-acclimating myself to US television like I had planned. I spent it writing, looking through my 800+ photos on my camera, and going through all the maps, receipts and knick-knacks I had picked up along the way. I was exhausted, but going to sleep and waking up the next day meant that I officially had to move on with my life. And that, to me at the time, meant a lot of things. It meant that I have a long life ahead of me spending hours and hours reflecting in how thankful I am for the life I lead, the person I am, and the people in my life. After backpacking Europe alone, including standing in the pit of human despair known as Auschwitz, you don’t continue to lead a life that isn’t the happiest, most productive life  you can muster. 

Some squeaky Disney character once sang that “a dream is a wish your heart makes.” When sung in the background of Cinderella, it sounds fine and dandy, but this trip made this feeling palpable to me for the first time. My heart could have physically burst the entire 12 days I roamed Europe in November 2011. There was a wonderfully suffocating wholeness in my chest. It suddenly made sense to me that my life is more than just a series of consequences that are brought down on me, but rather that my life is what I will make of it. I know now more than ever that I command my life and that I will settle for nothing but happiness, which ultimately stems from gratitude.

Since the last time I had graced the continent I so warmly speak of (when I went to Europe in college), I've tripped and fallen face first into the "real world." Ive come to find out that the majority of my 5-year plan consists of going-with-the-flow, Santa isn't real, and you're never too old to chase a shot of vodka with a pickle spear (thanks for that one, MOM). It's been both the best of times and the worst of times. Life has moved forward through everything it has regurgitated at my world, though sometimes it felt hard to believe that it would. Life is a tremendous gift, both the good and the bad. Sink into the moments that leave you breathless. 

Happiest of wander lusting until next time,

Margaret

Czech Republic, 2011

I got to the Munich bus station just in time to see my intended bus roll away without me on it. Unscathed yet again by my own personal failure to wake up early enough (such is my life), I found another bus bound for Prague for 45 minutes later.

My hostel in Prague won a few awards for being energy efficient and green; they had various signs of this everywhere, including in our 5-shower large bathroom attached to our 20-person bunk bedded room, which had motion-detection lights. I must have been too short for the showers because every 2 minutes, the entire bathroom would go pitch black, and I would have to jump up and down to get the lights to turn back on. Jumping up and down in a shower stall, clad with water and soap, can be detrimental to one’s safety; not that I would know (I know).

I again was graced by the opportunity to participate on a free walking tour of Prague put on by my hostel, which of course was plagued by near-freezing temperatures all day. We started at the Old Town Square in Prague, passed by the astronomical clock and multiple memorials to Sigmund Freud and walked through Prague’s Jewish quarter. We briefly walked through St. Wenceslaus Square, which was disheartening to me as I wanted to stay and take multiple photos, being a proud and loving alumna of St. Wenceslaus elementary school. Our morning tour ended, and I decided to find Prasky Hrad, Prague’s Castle district, on my own in the afternoon. Armed with a trusty map yet again, I found my way to a set of staircases long enough to make up for a week’s worth of cardio and finally made it to the entrance of Prague Castle. I wandered around as I usually do, loosely following what seems to be the flow of the crowd, and as I escaped a tunnel I noticed a group of tourists in front of me looking straight up in awe. I could see them before I could see whatever was causing their amazement. I walked a few more steps, and it was then that I had one of those awe-inspiring, knock you down MOMENTS of my trip.

Usually when I travel, there’s an unexpected moment where I see or experience something great for the first time that completely takes my breath away unexpectedly for a moment. It’s one of those completely soulful, out-of-body moments where you’re left thoughtless for whatever reason. The first time I can recall this moment was when I first saw the Pantheon in Rome in 2003, when our tour group was leisurely walking through some side alley, not expecting to round the corner and see an astounding, centuries-old building towering a few feet above us. I had this moment in Paris in 2007 when I rounded a corner in the Louvre, face stuffed in a French map, and looked up only to realize I had stumbled into the room that housed La Jaconde, the Mona Lisa.  I had another moment in Spain in 2003 when I hopped off a bus at 2 am, barely awake, to the sound and sight of thousands of people in Pamplona dressed in white and red, dancing for San Fermin, awaiting the running of the bulls in a few hours at daybreak. I felt exactly like Ernest Hemingway in that moment. In Prague, this moment happened to me when I stumbled onto St. Vitus Cathedral, though I’m not totally sure why. But it took my breath away and left me speechless as per usual.

This was my last full day of vacationing. The next day I would travel from Prague back to a small town in Poland to begin a long series of flights home. Being my last real day, I spent some time lying around this part of the castle, writing in my handy travel journal and taking in the atmosphere. I left the Prasky Hrad in search of the Church of Our Lady Victorious, where I had promised my mom I would see the infamous Infant of Prague statue with the golden hands. Being that Czech was almost as hard to understand as Hungarian, I couldn’t for the life of me find the church. I gave up when it became too dark outside for my liking, since the castle district I was in was less than well-lit and became less populated as night fell. I was semi-heartbroken that I didn’t do the one thing my mom had asked me to do, especially amongst the anxiety I was putting her through.

I returned to St. Wenceslaus Square that night alone to take pictures, eat something off a street cart, and do some souvenir shopping. That day was coincidentally the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in Bohemia, which commemorated the day that left Communism behind for good. Thus, St. Wenceslaus Square was a more than lively place to be that night. I got my pictures, shopping and street food all completed and said my official goodbye to Prague before returning to my hostel for bed. Still heartbroken over missing the Infant of Prague, I became defiant later that night and decided I would wake up at 4 AM to revive my search for the cathedral and the infant before boarding a train to Poland at 8 AM.

I did wake up on time the next morning, and began to panic at the thought of leaving my beloved continent. I started to take silly pictures of myself randomly at various stops along my hunt for the Church of Our Lady Victorious and began to feel sad not knowing the next time I would grace my favorite plot of land and history. Nonetheless, I found the church and saw the babe with the golden hands, which did end up being completely worth the effort. I bought my mom a souvenir to prove my success, and I made it to my train on time. I drudgingly boarded it to go back to gloomy, freaky, Cold War-esque Poland. 

Germany, 2011

I believe from my lack of recollection that all I managed to do on my first 12 hours in in Munich was buy a bier and a bag of chips from the grocery store and pass out in my day-clothes in the bunk bed that I was sharing with an older Asian lady. She was vacationing there with her two teenage-esque kids, and they didn’t speak a word of English. She ordered them into the bathroom to brush their teeth, clean their bunks, and read out of thick books (this I gathered from her high-pitched tone and hand gestures, along with their silent compliance). Happily for me, she and I were sharing a bunk-eb. Needless to say, she won the top bunk in our sleeping arrangement.

My best friend Stephanie had stayed at this hostel 3 years before me and had already recommended to me the hostel itself and its free walking tour of Munich. It was a brisk, windy, sub-zero day in Munich. Our tour guide claimed he had no nationality (because he had traveled so much throughout his life… yeehaw for you, bro) and had a strong attitude against anyone who didn’t know what the difference between Germany and Bavaria was. Learn it, love it; it might save your life from an angry non-national German tour guide.

We naturally started at the entrance to old town Munich. We stopped at the home cathedral of the then-current Pope, Benedict XVI. We stopped for lunch which consisted of the most Bavarian meal I could imagine: a sausage with hot mustard sandwiched in between two layers of thick pretzel bread, and a large bottle of beer, of which we were told would lose all integrity about 15 minutes after its opening. Commence chugging ice cold German bier on a day when there were already icicles forming in my nostrils. One of the Australians on our tour threw away a half-full bier, and I’m pretty sure she is outlawed from the region altogether now.

We continued on to my first real bier hall, which ended up being the site of the first meeting of the Third Reich, as the Nazi regime was born by Hitler in Munich. It was everything I had hoped it would be. Large, sweaty and unnecessarily loud German men were strewn everywhere, eating giant sausages and drinking out of oversized steins at hours of the day that are vaguely inappropriate to be drunk during. Being proudly German, and having been loud and full of bier myself, who was I to judge? We also visited the site of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, the failed revolution in 1923 when Hitler unsuccessfully tried to overtake Munich and subsequently the rest of Bavaria. I later was invited out to bar hop with my Australian friends that night in Munich but declined due to my early morning bus to Prague. Unlike Budapest, they didn’t get me with the “When will you ever be a single woman on a night in Munich again?!” question, and my body was still ridding itself of the memory of Becherovka. Instead I went and lurked in the subway system long enough to find the sites for Oktoberfest (Theresenwiese) and the site of the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich (Olympiaplatz), with the iconic Olympic Tower and Olympic Stadium. It was dark by the time I got there and thus opted not to find the balcony of the Israeli team that was taken hostage and killed that summer in the Munich massacre; I could only take so much creepy in one day.

Austria, 2011

"....For my first day in Vienna, I woke up early, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after my first legitimate shower and after realizing that I was knocking back on the door of what I consider civilization (Western Europe, save me!). Rather than pay for another bus tour or fail trying to find one of the many free walking tours of Vienna, I grabbed a map, paired it with my “list of things to see in Wien”, and hoped for the best. I found a long street littered with outdoor crystal-studded chandeliers and felt like a lost child who finally found its mother down the cereal aisle at Wal-Mart. Much to my pleasure, at the end of the chandelier-brick road was Stephansdom, the Cathedral of St. Stephen and the seat of the Archbishop. I had intended to attend Sunday mass there, but built in about 2 hours more than needed to actually FIND the place, and thus simply lit a candle (after a donation of a smattering of various foreign monies), said a few prayers. Mostly I was thinking of my mom, whom I was certain was hardly sleeping and potentially hitting the sauce in my absence.  She survived my adventure, so cheers to you, St. Stephen.

Vienna was the epitome of everything I have always loved about Europe; winding cobblestoned streets, sparkles, fairy dust, underground pubs and friendly faces speaking pretty languages I vaguely understand. I ordered a Viennese sausage stuffed into a sourdough roll off a street corner and continued wandering, coming across the myriad of sites surrounding Vienna’s city center and Stephansdom. I was just walking to the Parliament building when I noticed “Weiner Christkindlmarkt”, aka that site which made me fall back in love with all things Christmas-related. I literally had to stabilize myself with a light pole upon arriving there, having to take a few minutes to step back and take everything in before I rampaged onward. I saw signs for beerenpunsch, mulled wine, mulled Jaegermeister, oodles of pastel colored confections, gigantic sandwiches made from waffles, and mass amounts of unidentifiable meats and cheeses sopping out of hunks of bread. I immediately got in line for a souvenir mug of mulled wine mixed with beer and gin and completely exposed my nationality when I stumbled over the pronunciation of it in German. Little did I care however, for I was about to have a mouthful of hot mulled gin, which makes up for all embarrassment in any culture. I continued waltzing through Weiner Christkindlmarkt and sampled every kind of strange looking food I could. I had my first experience with chestnuts roasted over an open fire, and frankly they were dry and bland and weird. I never liked the song anyway.

I got up early in the morning to get to the train station to get to Salzburg as quickly as possible, as I was only spending a few hours there. I mostly slept on the way to Salzburg and very cliché-ly watched the European countryside out the window of my train compartment thinking existentially about life. As soon as I got there, I embarked on foot to the Sound Music sights that I had googled and written down in my journal the night before. I stopped at Mirabell Palace and walked up and down the stairs that the Von Trapp children (in the movie, at least) sing “Do Re Mi” on, as well as dipped my hand in the fountain that Maria splashes when she’s running out to the Von Trapp residence for the first time. I ran through the vine-covered tunnel that they bike through in their drapery clothes. I saw a pretty gazebo and pretended like it was the infamous gazebo in the backyard of the Von Trapp house (it wasn’t, but you only live once right?). Then I went into the old town and walked down the street that the kids and Maria buggy through, learning how to sing. I climbed an ancient set of steps up to Nonnberg Abbey, where the nuns were filmed, and saw the front doors where the children beg to be let in to see Maria. On the backside of Nonnberg Abbey is St. Michael’s Cathedral, which houses the cemetery with the tombstones that inspired the scene where the Von Trapp’s hide from the Nazi’s. I passed through what was the setting up of Salzburg’s Christmas market, and unsuccessfully hunted for any open vendor for which to sell me hot liquor or oversized sausages (unsuccessfully I might add).

I got back to the Salzburg train station about 20 minutes before my train departed (the next one would have left 3 hours later) and grabbed a sandwich and drink at a sidewalk cafe. I coolly watched my train roll in and leisurely boarded my train car, eyeing a decent spot to snooze in for another 2 hours to get to Munich. Come to suddenly remember, I had previously locked my backpack in a locker in the Salzburg train station so that I wouldn’t have to carry it all day, and in my relaxed state of mind had neglected to retrieve it! Awesome. Trains in Europe are extremely punctual and only spend about 4-10 minutes sitting in a particular station waiting for passengers to board/de-board. Thus, I thoroughly panicked and ran off the train, down a few flights of stairs to the locker room, and remembered lovingly that I had yet to pay for the locker itself. Upon reaching into my change pocket, and realizing I had not only Euro cents but leftover Polish zlotys and Hungarian forints, basically surrendered getting back on my intended train in my head. UGH. I somehow managed to find and shove enough Euros in the machine to pop open my locker and made it on the train with barely 40 seconds before it started chugging off again. The point of this segment is this: whenever I am in an airport or train station, I see at least one person running around with a wildly panicked look on their face, and I think “Oh how awful.” I finally turned into THAT GUY at the train station in Salzburg, reveling in the high that comes with having romped through Austria Sound-of-Music style for the day.

Hungary, 2011

"...Armed with intricate directions as to how to use the bus system in Budapest to get to my hostel, I exchanged my zloty's for forint's and decided that during my time in Hungary I would not be able to make sense of either the currency system or the language. Most cryptic locale of the vacation by far. 

Not knowing anything about Budapest, and again being subject to the world’s most heinous-to-learn language, I was late and missed the departure of the free tour. Unscathed by my failure, I was able to pop into a local Starbucks (thank you, globalization) and roamed the internet for another valid sightseeing option. I hopped on a bus tour, of which I was the only initial rider because it was below freezing and currently snowing. Nonetheless, I insisted on sitting in the open air second floor with my personal tour guide. He couldn't have been older than 30, and we sat on the top floor of the double decker bus enjoy roughly 30 minutes of unabridged, personalized Budapest socializing and sightseeing. Eventually a Chinese man hopped on our bus and had more talking points than the original two of us combined and thus dominated the remainder of the tour. He took my picture as we stood at the top of Castle Hill in Buda, overlooking the Danube River, and he bought a candy bar and shared it with me to “keep upwards my level of energy as we trail blaze urban Hungary,” (direct quote). And I thought I had gumption.

Running on virtually no sleep, I reluctantly decided to grab some fruit and bread at a supermarket and go to bed early that night. I wanted to see the infamous “baths” of Budapest the next day, and I had a bus to catch at 1 pm. As I was settling into my 6-person hostel room, I met a 28 year old traveler from Melbourne, Australia. He was traveling with two friends, who were sleeping off hangovers a few rooms down, and he invited me to join them on a night-out that evening with whoever from the hostel dared to join. I politely declined, looking forward to much-needed R&R, and he returned with, “Come on. When will you ever be a single woman, alone, on a Friday night in Budapest ever again?” Never, phrase-that-is-most-likely-to-terrify-my-parents; never.

I went out with the Australians, a guy from Rome, and a random Hawaiian-born Korean who was raised in Texas who was also staying at our hostel (commence chanting “USA! USA!” upon discovering another American-born), and interestingly enough, one of the Australians and the Hawaiian-Korean-Texan both spoke fluent Korean. As such we were all subject to ear-piercing secret conversations spoken in Korean randomly throughout the night. We stopped at a bar adorned with pastel and glitter covered animal heads mounted on chandeliers and ordered rounds of beers. Eventually, we decided to be a little bit more culturally correct and ordered the drink of choice for Budapesti locals: becherovka, a liquor that resembles a cinnamon-infused vodka. 

We continued to casually barhop around the Pest side of Budapest, stopping at a hookah bar and a beer garden where, among other things, I learned what Australian colloquialism sounds like and how to open & light an old-fashioned flip lighter in one fell swoop off of my jeans. More significantly, I was again reminded of how intricately lives are weaved; I can and did find "my people" no matter where I went. The people I went out with that night in Budapest, in the snow, on a whim, rapidly became slap-happy buddies that I felt like I had known for years. People that understood me, and vice versa. Life gives you what you need, even when what you need isn't the same as what you want. I wanted a nice night in for some R&R; I got a handful of foreigners that paid for my cinnamon vodka all night and reassured me that no matter what, I can go anywhere in the world and still find people that will look out for me. That I'm never really going to be alone. 

Much to the surprise of concerned parents everywhere, we all made it back to the hostel all in one piece, no one worse for the wear, no one abducted or roofied, and soundly to bed by 4 AM. The one caveat to the night, where I exposed my inner Midwestern American girl, was when I had a heck of a time explaining what the “champagne of beers” was to my Australian counterparts at a 24-hour gyro shack we found at 2 AM. 1200 forints and many grimaces later, I shamed American brewing to a pack of Australians. Apparently if THAT was the champagne of beers, American brewing is “complete bloody rubbish”."