3 Weeks, 3 Friends, 3 Elephant-Sized Backpacks, and 1 Heck of a Whirlwind European Tour: Beginnings

You mean it actually happened? Yes, my friends. It actually did. In less than one week before the departure date, with minor emergencies two days before, we 3 friends managed to pull our organization skills together and serve up the European backpacking trip we'd been slowly simmering in our brains since Week 1. The result was delicious. Kind of like...study-abroad-students-who-don't-know-anything-about-traveling-internationally-pursuing-the-unknown-in-the-passionate-wanderings-of-youth-and-having-lots-of-(mis)adventures-and-emerging-in-enough-of-one-piece-to-tell-the-tale. And thus it was: an excellent adventure, a genuine learning experience, an excuse to play blog-hooky...and the point of study abroad. Which is basically like freshman year all over again, or learning outside the classroom. In any case, the plan was this: to explore 8 countries in 20 days. Pack light, tourist hard, and not kill each other.

We headed up to Northern Ireland first, which is a separate country from Ireland and part of the UK, meaning it uses the pound instead of the euro (as a side note, calling Ireland part of the UK over here is a great way to...get punched). There, we spent a day in Derry, a day at the Giant's Causeway, and a day in Belfast. From Belfast, we flew to Edinburgh, spent a day, took a bus down to London. Spent a day. Took the ferry to St Malo, France. Spent two days. Took 3 trains, a metro, two airport shuttles, a flight, and a bus to Lugano, Switzerland (I'm telling you now, direct flights are very much worth the extra money--and not just because they're convenient). Spent 4 whole days (ah, relaxation). Day trip to Milan, Italy. Flew Milan to Barcelona, Spain. Spent two days. Last chance to desperately soak up sun. Warmth. LIGHT. Then, flew to Dublin in time for an afternoon of Viking appreciation in Clontarf and took the evening Aircoach bus back to Cork.

It was truly a whirlwind tour and certainly not enough time to get to know one city, but excellent for tastes nonetheless. Primarily, we stayed in hostels or slept on the floor at friends of friends. We lived on peanut butter and apples and some fairly dubious-looking bags of homemade granola bars, which melted together and which we dubbed with the affectionate nickname 'poop'. Yet we also had at least one very satisfying meal in each city we visited, including haggis pie in Scotland (satisfying spices, man) and classic Spanish seafood paella (plus a banana). 

I had my life bundled up all in one fat purple backpack: three outfits (one for each week), itinerary, food. Neck pouch for the stuff I cared about a little more--a little oversized, leading to very unfortunate instances in which pictures show me looking a little pregnant (NOT the case, to clarify). Sporadic showers. 

All of this was great...and I liked to imagine myself as this really bad-ass, hardcore backpacker on some Indiana Jones adventure trek. Without the snakes, spiders, crazy priests, killer boulders, or temples...of doom. All in good fun.

Overall, things went fairly smoothly. We showed up in each city and found that, each time, our place to stay did in fact exist. We made our flights and trains and buses with only one panic attack and a few Olympic-worthy sprints. We didn't kill each other. And when we returned, we savored the renewed kitchen access, shower access, computer access, and extended period in which to do laundry. Deoderant no longer served as the interim laundry detergent. 

And that my friends, is a cursory summary of the whirlwind European tour. Stay tuned for more detailed tid-bits. Because, after all, travel stories are a little more fun to write about than excruciatingly detailed accounts of how Wymana studies for finals.