Not All Who Wander Are Lost... But Some Are
Yesterday, after lunch, I began my trip to Germany for a retreat/conference. I started by taking a taxi to my teammates' house and had quite the fun time trying to talk with my driver. After we were all ready, I got into a car with my teammates and we began driving to a nearby city so that we could use their airport.
About twenty minutes in, my friend asked "Carissa, are we going the right way?"
This makes some sense, since I've been living here a year and a half and they've been here under two weeks. However, I have never driven in or around my city. I rely completely on public transit, so I didn't know if we were lost or not.
We were.
No problem, though. We turned around on the highway, and then had to turn around again, and then we were heading the right way. About an hour later, we stopped at McDonald's (universal road trip food) for a late lunch. When we walked in, the place was packed with children. So packed that we walked back out and decided to hazzard the drive through.
I took care of the ordering and somehow, with a lot of "um" and "uh," managed to place an order for all three of us. And... it all came to us correctly! No English used. Language score!
When we arrived at our destination, I had just enough time to eat some pizza and skype into my home church before we re-grouped and headed to the airport.
Traveling between European countries can be crazy cheap, but you have to be willing to put up with annoying airline restrictions. In this case, unless I wanted to rack up my bill, I was allowed only one carry-on that couldn't weigh more than 10 kg. I weighed my bag and it was 14 kg. Oops. So, my loving teammates opened up their bags for me and I off-loaded 4 kg into everyone else's luggage and I wore about three layers of stuff through security.
Once we made it onto the plane, the flight attendant came over and told us "Okay, this is an exit row." She pointed at the cartoons on the door, "If there's an emergency, just read the directions. If you have a question, you can ask."
I felt very safe.
Every five minutes for the first forty minutes of our flight, they advertised for something on the overhead speakers. Lottery tickets, bikini calendars, food, cigarettes, magazines. Needless to say, it took us awhile to get settled down. Eventually, however, I manage to take a little nap.
When the plane landed, all the nationals clapped, like they always do. Then, on the overhead we heard a trumpet charge noise and they told us that "Ryan Air has had another on-time flight!" Thanks?
We had to wait a little bit for our bus, so we didn't get started on our three hour trip to the hotel until around 12:00.
I fell asleep pretty quickly on the bus, waking up every now and then to see some orderly, clean neighborhoods. I woke up fully when our bus came to a stop around 2:50 a.m. and I assumed we were at the hotel. Well, I was wrong. We were turning around. We went up a road for a few minutes, then turned around. We went back down the main road, then had to turn around.
Eventually, everyone on the bus (including kids) were awake and feeling a bit nauseous. When I heard the driver say "No, no no!" I knew we were in trouble. Later we got treated to a string of Germany curse words at the sight of a road barricade.
I thought the end was at hand when our bus was barreling toward a parked car (parked on the wrong side of the road, by the way) with its lights on, holding two old people. Our bus stopped right in front of this car, the driver got out and started talking to the old man in the car. I suppose this man gave our driver directions, because after that, we were speeding on our way. And I do mean speeding. He was trying to make up for lost time, apparently.
We finally made it to our retreat center around 4:00 a.m.. Our team leader came out to meet us and help us with luggage, only to discover that the outside doors were locked. We stood outside for about 30 minutes, until one of the other guests inside came to the rescue and opened the door for us.
If you ever had any notions in your head about how romantic traveling around Europe is, you can now re-think them. It can be a wonderful experience, but also so strange and confusing. But what's an adventure if you don't get lost every now and then?
About twenty minutes in, my friend asked "Carissa, are we going the right way?"
This makes some sense, since I've been living here a year and a half and they've been here under two weeks. However, I have never driven in or around my city. I rely completely on public transit, so I didn't know if we were lost or not.
We were.
No problem, though. We turned around on the highway, and then had to turn around again, and then we were heading the right way. About an hour later, we stopped at McDonald's (universal road trip food) for a late lunch. When we walked in, the place was packed with children. So packed that we walked back out and decided to hazzard the drive through.
I took care of the ordering and somehow, with a lot of "um" and "uh," managed to place an order for all three of us. And... it all came to us correctly! No English used. Language score!
When we arrived at our destination, I had just enough time to eat some pizza and skype into my home church before we re-grouped and headed to the airport.
Traveling between European countries can be crazy cheap, but you have to be willing to put up with annoying airline restrictions. In this case, unless I wanted to rack up my bill, I was allowed only one carry-on that couldn't weigh more than 10 kg. I weighed my bag and it was 14 kg. Oops. So, my loving teammates opened up their bags for me and I off-loaded 4 kg into everyone else's luggage and I wore about three layers of stuff through security.
Once we made it onto the plane, the flight attendant came over and told us "Okay, this is an exit row." She pointed at the cartoons on the door, "If there's an emergency, just read the directions. If you have a question, you can ask."
I felt very safe.
Every five minutes for the first forty minutes of our flight, they advertised for something on the overhead speakers. Lottery tickets, bikini calendars, food, cigarettes, magazines. Needless to say, it took us awhile to get settled down. Eventually, however, I manage to take a little nap.
When the plane landed, all the nationals clapped, like they always do. Then, on the overhead we heard a trumpet charge noise and they told us that "Ryan Air has had another on-time flight!" Thanks?
We had to wait a little bit for our bus, so we didn't get started on our three hour trip to the hotel until around 12:00.
I fell asleep pretty quickly on the bus, waking up every now and then to see some orderly, clean neighborhoods. I woke up fully when our bus came to a stop around 2:50 a.m. and I assumed we were at the hotel. Well, I was wrong. We were turning around. We went up a road for a few minutes, then turned around. We went back down the main road, then had to turn around.
Eventually, everyone on the bus (including kids) were awake and feeling a bit nauseous. When I heard the driver say "No, no no!" I knew we were in trouble. Later we got treated to a string of Germany curse words at the sight of a road barricade.
I thought the end was at hand when our bus was barreling toward a parked car (parked on the wrong side of the road, by the way) with its lights on, holding two old people. Our bus stopped right in front of this car, the driver got out and started talking to the old man in the car. I suppose this man gave our driver directions, because after that, we were speeding on our way. And I do mean speeding. He was trying to make up for lost time, apparently.
We finally made it to our retreat center around 4:00 a.m.. Our team leader came out to meet us and help us with luggage, only to discover that the outside doors were locked. We stood outside for about 30 minutes, until one of the other guests inside came to the rescue and opened the door for us.
If you ever had any notions in your head about how romantic traveling around Europe is, you can now re-think them. It can be a wonderful experience, but also so strange and confusing. But what's an adventure if you don't get lost every now and then?
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