Travel Solo Through Europe

Posted by Marci on Dec 2, 2010 in | 0 comments

Traveling through Europe for six weeks was the first dream on my list that I achieved. Though it started off more like a nightmare than a moment of magnificence.

I stood in front of the Parisian hotel I’d booked on the internet, realizing the place looked nothing like the advertisement. The hotel had red peeling paint on its dilapidated exterior instead of decorative window boxes. Half of a dead cow hung from the butcher next door. Exhausted, from my overnight flight, being lost in the metro and on the street for three hours, and lugging my sixty-pound suitcase up and down numerous flights of stairs, I had no choice but to enter the hotel.

I entered a smoky, dirty, lobby the size of a hall. A Colombian man came from a room off to my right. He closed the door quickly shutting out the loud conversations. He looked at me, confirmed my booking and grabbed my suitcase. As he hurried up the narrow staircase, onto an even smaller landing, I held onto the bottom of my luggage for fear he would steal it.

There were three rooms – two were being used in a very loud private manner, if you know what I mean, and the third had red walls, a dripping sink, and a bed with a stained spread. I thanked the man, grabbed my suitcase, and told him that I couldn’t stay. He nodded his agreement as he ushered me into the street.

Before I left, a door swung open and inside the room were women in lingerie on men’s laps. I had booked a brothel.

The month before, when I went to the post office to get my passport, I’d felt that balloons should’ve floated down from the ceiling as I registered for my ticket to explore the world. I never thought that travel might be hard or scary.

That first night in Paris, I stayed with a friend in town for business, but the next night I was on my own. High season had every hotel booked and I was left with hostels. But that had been my plan from the beginning – stay in hostels on the cheap while meeting great people. So I paid my twelve dollars per night without seeing the room and went off to explore the Louvre and the streets of Paris.

When I returned that night I found my room already occupied. The bunk beds were taken and I was left with a rolling cot. I walked down the hall to take a shower and found that to get hot water I had to put coins in the machine and watch a coil heat up to create a few moments of warmth. Spiders crawled along the walls.

I slept with my money belt attached to my waist and each time I rolled over in bed the cot would fly across the room and hit the still empty bunk beds. When my roommates returned at four a.m. and turned on the lights, I had enough. Youth hostels might work for some people, but I was way too much of a princess. I had always thought of Europe as a place of decadence and luxury – not spiders and rolling cots.

I wanted to go home. My dream of Europe and traveling the world didn’t live up to the ideas in my head. I was alone, didn’t know the language, I was tired, hungry, and lost. I headed to Germany and found myself a nice hotel with real blankets and a shower. Then I slept.

In the light of a good night’s sleep the world looked brighter, and I began to explore. I learned that I liked to day trip instead of being constantly on the move. I saw the Rhine River, Heidelberg, Munich, the Black Forest, and Baden Baden. I moved onto Switzerland where I stood on the top of Jungfraujoch, the highest mountain accessible by train, and ate chocolate. I stayed in a small town without any cars and sang in a pub. In Italy I met a tour group and fell in love with the nation. In Greece I stood alone at the Temple of Athena under the full moon.

That first trip, I spent most of my time being afraid of where I would go and where I would stay. I feared the unknown. More than once, a train was canceled and I ended up stranded trying to find a bed. None of it deterred me. For every inconvenience there was a moment of great awe, and I became a travel addict.