2012 in Review: Part Two

The adventure wasn’t nearly over when I drove away from the Artemis. We were allotted two weeks for backpacking western Europe and it was the most exhilarating period of this year and of my life. I traveled with two girls for the majority of the trip, Brittani and Bre, and even though we had our schedule “planned” and our trains, flights, and hostels booked for ten countries, I wasn’t ready.

I think I was waiting for a big dose of contentment. As I boarded the plane for our flight to Paris, followed by our marathon train ride to Basil and then Interlaken Switzerland, I waited. I watched the french countryside go by with it’s rolling green hills and flocks of sheep and I just knew that it would come soon—the feeling of content. Like, I had experienced HUG and it was great, and it was over, and boy was I glad I did it. Now onto the rest of Europe and then, America.

It wasn’t coming though, and so while my companions slept, I journaled.  Through teary eyes and with Coldplay’s “See You Soon” singing in my ears, I wrote about how impossibly grateful I was of the acts of God leading up to my signing up for such a trip.

When the train stopped in Basil, Switzerland and we wandered into the crisp cool night looking for shelter (Basil wasn’t exactly our destination) I realized that this—this backpacking thing—was going to be fun. My tears dried up as we walked from hotel to hotel checking for vacancy. When we finally settled in for the night in a warm plush bed in an overpriced hotel near the train station, the girls and I laughed, because we were on our own and it was nothing if not tremendously liberating.

Interlaken was the best place to start our two weeks of traveling. Switzerland is the dreamiest of European countries. The mountains themselves reach into the heavens and touch the clouds. There are thick blankets of snow on the slopes and atop the pines. On our train rides to nearby castles we would slice thick pieces of sharp Swiss cheese and sandwich it with crackers. We splurged on connoisseur perfected Swiss chocolates and at night we would sit in the basement kitchen of Heidi’s Hostel and cut up apples, spread peanut butter on bread and talk about our day. One morning we trained to Gimmelwald and had hot breakfast tea and Toblerone chocolate for breakfast, cutting it with a spoon and laughing the careless laughter of four girls riding a train through the Swiss Alp’s eating chocolate for breakfast.

Those were good days.

I went to many places over the expanse of those two weeks. I experienced Prague in all of its gothic grandeur. I laid eyes on the hills pulsating with life in Salzburg, Austria. I explored the german village of Rothenburg and ate bratwurst on a night train. My eyes saw the horrors of a concentration camp and my hands have touched the Berlin Wall. In Paris, I rushed through the rain to fix my gaze on the Eiffel Tower and in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa.

I have stood on the windy coast of Ireland, walked the Royal Mile in Scotland, toured Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, ate chocolate drizzled waffles in Belgium, and in London I saw the Rosetta Stone, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey. (While we’re talking about Abbey’s, I cannot forget Abbey Road.)

And on May 2nd, after four short months across the ocean and an overnight sleepover with HUG family in the London airport, I flew home. I was greeted with flowers and signs, hugs and tears, and an overdue mexican dinner.

Later that night when I lugged my tired body into my bedroom, just down the hall and across from my parents, exactly how I had left it in January, I decided that the world had never seemed so small yet so big at the same time.