The not so great parts of travel...

I've been receiving the nicest, most supportive comments lately from friends and family about my trip in Europe.  I always appreciate the comments, as they brighten my day, and give me a chance to reflect on my trip thus far.  I've gotten a few of the "I'm so jealous!" comments today, and in honor of these, I figured I had to post about the not so great parts of travel.

I most regularly post pictures and comments to Instagram, because it seems like the easiest and quickest way to chronicle the journey.  As with all social media, though, it doesn't fully represent my experience.  I post photos that inspire me or express some sort of weird fact of life about the place I'm staying.  Lot's of cool buildings, monuments, art, and especially tourists or locals taking in the scene.  The occasional outfit post or selfie also inevitably make the cut.  What I don't post, however, are all the shitty travel quirks that pop up unexpectedly and just can't be captured in a photo.  I don't post about being lonely or homesick, or wanting to death throttle all the other tourists when I'm feeling a bout of travel rage.  I don't post about feeling guilty when I'm not constantly happy or thankful for the experiences before me, because jeez what a freakin' bummer!  No one wants to read or see that!  But it happens, man, it definitely happens.

Let's make a quick list of some of the less appealing parts of travel:
1.  Making travel plans.  Some people find this part super fun and invigorating--researching for hours and booking hostels or compiling the dopest itineraries, but this part drives me mad.  I swear, if I didn't book the first big ticket to another country, I wouldn't travel around at all.  The in betweens of travel--booking carpools, buses or trains, and then sorting out a hostel situation, and then researching the city and what should be done in and around the city--this is the part that takes me forever.  I'm always the last minute traveler and I miss out on a lot of good deals and prime lodging locations because of this, but the idea of planning is sometimes so unappealing that I don't care how last minute plans get.
2.  Making mistakes and losing money in the process.  On this Europe trip, I flew into London and had one full day there.  Because I was running behind, I booked a last minute airbnb that seemed close to the city center to me, but was actually a large distance away.  Long story short, I spent LOADS of money on a taxi to get to my location, only to spend one night in a super shitty house/room and I didn't even get to explore London's city center before I had to catch my flight to Amsterdam the next day.  Another epic London fail:  I took the wrong series of trains to get to the airport and ended up missing my flight.  It was really and truly the worst way to start the trip.  I was distraught as I was out eighty pounds, but I just had to grit my teeth and buy a new flight.
3.  Being tired from travel and not feeling as productive as I could or should be.  I often feel guilty if I'm too tired or hungover to fully engage with the city I'm staying.  Whenever I'm not fully appreciative or feeling sorry for myself, I get to feeling super guilty about it.  Even so, I've gotten better at accepting these moments and looking at this trip with a long term lens instead of just boom, boom, boom, tourist sightseeing machine.
4.  Hauling luggage.  AHHHHH I hate my luggage.  I hate carrying it.  I hate what I've packed.  I hate unpacking and repacking once a week and thinking about the way to best distribute the weight of my pack.  I just want to burn all of it and travel with a small satchel and never lug around anything heavy again.  I've already sent 5kg worth of stuff home and I'm still getting rid of as many things as possible.  I always tell myself I'm going to pack lighter, and I do, but even a backpack and small suitcase seems like too much now.  I again have to think about my travels in the long term and not be too hard on myself.
5.  Feeling lonely (single tear).  While traveling alone is usually a completely invigorating and empowering experience, I do go through bouts of loneliness.  I miss talking to my parents on the phone and hanging around with my brothers, and I often wish that I had a companion (friend or lovah!) to share certain moments with.  Like, "hey baby, let's get us some gelato and take a walk on this ancient bridge while these pink streaks of sunset rest upon house after house of stacked stuccoed rooftops all while we contemplate history, art, beauty, nature, mankind, THE WORLD!"  You get the idea.  I love making friends with the locals and hostel bums alike, but it would also be nice to (sometimes) share the experience with a significant person in my life.

I'm gonna keep the list at five to keep from sounding like a whiny baby.  I won't tell you the full story about my most recent full day of travel which ended with four cracked open eggs all over the inside of my new leather bag.  Goop galore for the delirious and wearied.  I'll save the part about dragging my roller luggage across cobblestone streets at 10pm at night--truly the most abrasive clacking noise I've ever heard, a machine gun of clacks, no way to mask it, slow or fast--all while onlookers gaped, following my path as I walked in circles in search of my hostel.  I'll save these and other travel woes because shit happens, things don't always go as planned, and hey, it's all a part of the journey, man!

Phew!  Did that give you anxiety like it did me!?  These photos are just the tip of the iceberg, my friends.  Oh well.  Here's to the good and the bad!

Berlin!

When you get back from a day of walking around in Berlin in the summer, your skin feels sticky to the touch.  The bottoms of your feet are blackened and a shiny film coats your face.  The edges of your fingernails have seen cleaner days and your hair lies limp, lifeless.  But your cheeks have a rosy balm to them and your body aches so good that you collapse into your brick hard bed feeling like you've never laid in such luxury as this.  After walking strasse after strasse to get from one museum to the next while people watching at each cute café and unique shop, popping in and out of the quirkiest of galleries, you know that Berlin is something special.  Berlin is youth, energy, grunge, rebellion, art, history, east, west, hard, soft, a literal binary, dichotomous but fused into something that just feels cool as all hell.  

When I got my belly-button (re)pierced in Mitte, I was on such a high that I was preparing myself for a radical, half-shave headed haircut and a gold double ringed septum piercing.  I'd wear overalls with the shorts rolled up and some sort of ridiculous platformed shoes, not the high-heeled kind, the flat ones like the 90s that just lift you a few extra inches.  I'd roll my own cigarettes and spray paint with the boys, skateboard, and walk my dog without a leash like everyone else.  The possibilities seemed and still seem endless. 

I've had a tumultuous few days.  I've hardly gotten any sleep and I haven't even been clubbing.  Quick list of things before I actually do fall into my bed for the night.
-Holocaust memorial and information center
-Losing my cell phone and having the nicest ppl help me at the coolest/yummiest vegan spot.
-Mailing 5kg of stuff home.
-The nice Slovenia girls who helped me book a train when I was desperate.
-Reading Anne Frank's diary every night.
-Shopping at Zara and Birkenstock.
-Rewe-I LOVE REWE. (grocery store)
-Thrift shopping at "Made in Berlin."
-Lattes every day at my favorite coffee shop "Karaca" with the Turkish guy at the counter.  I always spent my mornings writing down a list of what I'd done the day before and filling in the places I'd walked on my Berlin map.
-Hearing "Let it be" played by some kid at the Berlin Dom and getting all wheepy about Americaa.  Gave him some coins because why the hell not.
-The crazy amount of galleries on Augustrasse.
-The freaky dark piercing place with the super chipper lady who ended up giving me a deal and telling me that I must be tough because Americans are tough.
-Construction EVERYWHERE.  Graffiti everywhere.
-The coolest people.  Grungy but polished.  Berlin was different from Cologne.  I need to write an entire post on the clothing, but where Cologne was relaxed, earthy, loose fitted, but put-together, Berlin was somehow more edgy.  Walking graffiti.  Tattoos, piercings, still loose fitting, but with a certain kind of swagger, a certain level of toughness.
-The same, maybe could be said about distinctions in personalities between Cologne and Berlin people.  I don't have much to compare since I was staying with the best group of folks in Cologne but the Berlin people just seem a little more...standoffish? or really, just more tough, thick skinned, bold, brash.  And Cologne people are some of the most mellow and chilled out people I know.  Aaanyway, the general attitudes of both were definitely reflected in their dress.
-So many museums, galleries and memorials.  Bode museums (a bunch of statues that really just bored me to tears), Hamburger Banhof, a giant old train station converted into a contemporary art museum, 
-THE BERLIN WALL.  Enlightening.  I had no idea that the damn thing stayed put for 41 years.  German history in general is just.  A lot.
-Getting lost in a cemetery.
-Finding an American expat at the outdoor store and coveting her life.
-Getting mixed up on the subway.  Not paying for any of the subway fares and almost getting caught by the neon-vested subway police who give out forty euro fines left and right.  I slipped out the moment they were about to ask for my fare and then skip-jogged the distance of another stop home not believing my luck.

I don't even know.  There's so many things.  For most days, I would walk around for 6-8 hours of the day because I'm stubborn and I like walking.  My feet are dead, but I feel refreshed and ready for the next city.  I feel lucky that I've left each city so far knowing that I will return.  Each brings its own special flavor and Berlin just might be a future home.  I'll cross my fingers.

We Won.

We won.  I have a twisted ankle, bruises all over my body, and perhaps the fiercest hangover of my life, but god damnit, we won.  Last night, Germany won the World Cup final in a nail biter of a match against Argentina. 

It seems sort of weird and dumb for an American girl who doesn't follow football to care about this World Cup final, but let me tell you, it was everything.  I came to Europe knowing I would be swept up in the football madness, but I really had no idea what I was getting into.  Watching game after game after game, asking a million questions about the teams and the rivalries and the rules, and just letting myself get consumed by the madness were all just the preparation for watching the final game in Germany.

The moment that Germany scored the only goal of the match was unlike any other.  I was on the inside of a firework and I had no idea what was up, down, sideways--it was just.  It was just the most amazing moment.  I jumped up from my chair with the room full of Germans and was consumed by man hugs from every corner.  I was embraced, stepped on, swung about--at one point, a group of the huggers and me toppled sideways on a bed, and all I could feel from that point on was German bodies flinging and flopping themselves upon me.  It was probably the happiest collective moment I've ever experienced. 

Let me explain why a soccer match could be this momentous.  If you know nothing about soccer, the World Cup is a competition held every four years and just happens to be the most widely viewed sporting event in the world--more than the Olympics, more than the Super Bowl, EVEN more than the Puppy Bowl.  So, I found out right away that this was a big deal.  Maybe the biggest deal.  According to Wikipedia, there have only been 20 World Cup tournaments, and only eight countries have won in all that time, so people literally wait a lifetime to see their country win.  For Germany, their last win was in 1990, so most of the people I watched the game with were six years old at the time.  I just can't imagine watching and waiting for 25 years of my life for my team, my country to win.

In terms of "fandom," football fans take the cake, without a doubt in my mind, and I noted this distinction from the start.  It's more than just a sport to these people; it's a part of their culture, a part of their lifestyle, and it's ingrained in their collective histories.  I know a ton of diehard sports fans back home, but something about football fandom feels deeper.

 I started watching football the moment I got to Europe.  I was in Holland for two weeks or so and watched as many games as possible.  When in Rome, right?  I figured I may as well start watching so I could get to know the teams from the countries where I'd be staying on my trip.  Since I'd planned to stay with Leonie in Germany for the last week of the World Cup, I knew that Germany was the team that needed to win.

 Flash forward a month and I'm drinking beer in the street with a throng of Germans, flags everywhere, soccer balls whizzing past and all the cars honking with passengers hanging out of the windows screaming, cheering, chanting for Germany, high fives and hugs everywhere, bikers whooping and fist pumping past, and me, here I am, in Germany, I kept thinking, I'm here! I'm here! I'm here in Germany!!!!  What are the chances?  What are the odds?  And how lucky can I get to be celebrating with Leonie, Basti, and the most rambunctious group of dudes?

 I will never forget it.