| European Vacation 2002 Day One |
| It's Wednesday, May 15th, and my (lack of) planning has finally come to fruition; I was in Target getting last minute supplies for my first European trip. Where am I going? Amsterdam, somewhere in Germany, Paris, Florence and the beach in Italy, and London. Where am I staying? With the stepdaughter of my mom's friend's friend in Amsterdam, then hostels. The extent of my planning was a plane ticket purchased for DC to Amsterdam returning from London to DC, a Eurail pass, a [useless] IHA membership, an international student identity card, a few e-mails and more than a few opinions from friends, friend's of friends, strangers at parties, drunk people, and anyone else within ear shot of "I'm going to Europe for a month." So it all came down to the day of my trans-Atlantic flight, running up and down the isles of a Virginia Target, trying to find smaller containers for my shampoo, flip-flops for the showers, and an assortment of useless junk that I thought would make things so much better. The first challenge was to fit all of these items into my pack, the second would be later parting with these items along the way, which I found got much easier once actually in Europe. By the time I made it to Rome, I was ditching travel books, maps, toiletries, and clothes at an alarming rate. What was my secret? Well lets just say that despite my efforts to discard personal effects with all of the verve of a mad balloonist with a basket full of sandbags, more than a few H&M's and the discovery of the phenomenon that is the German Department store made up for any dispersion. A girl I met on a train, also a solo traveler, quizzed me on my trip and wanted to know how I felt about traveling alone. When I first decided that I wanted to take the trip, ideally, I wanted to have someone to go with, I knew, however that traveling alone had its benefits, and I would come to appreciate the solitude. It was the most "me" time I had ever come close to, and despite numerous e-mails, and calls to loved ones, there is no doubt that this journey was as much one within myself, as it was across a continent. More on that later.... Five minutes before boarding closed on my flight to Amsterdam, I took out my Let's Go 2002 Western Europe guidebook, flipped through the hefty 900 pages, contemplated for a moment, then proceeded to rip out the countries I knew I wasn't going to. Good-bye Denmark, so long Austria until I had it down to about half of what it was before. With that I picked up my bags, and headed to the jetway, passing a single mother with infant, both of whom had been “randomly selected” for a security screening. I was on my way! |