Trouble in Paradise

Ciao.

After the first travel week I found the golden rule of traveling: never leave without knowing were you are sleeping. This came to bite my group in the butt many times during our travel break. First off was the first night in Venice: we could not find our hostel and did not have internet to look up where it was located. We searched our maps, street signs, and asked around to see if we could get a hint of where it was, but no such luck. Finally at around 3 am we discovered that our hostel was not on the main island of Venice but one of the three neighboring islands. At this point with our bus leaving at 7 the next morning we decided to head to the bus station and find place out of the wind to wait till morning. We ended up in a parking garage that overlooked the bus plaza and attempted to get some sleep even though it was below freezing at this point.

One of the biggest differences from traveling around in America is that you will not have GPS or Google maps on your phone when traveling in Europe. When we arrived in Amsterdam, it was almost midnight at this point and we again did not know how to get to our hostel for that night. We knew the name of the place but nothing else. There was nowhere to get a map of Amsterdam that late either. We ended up calling one of our parents and had them Google map it for us and then send us the picture. When we arrived at the location pointed out on Google maps we realized that the street names were not the same and we had been lead to the wrong location. Luckily for us the street that the hostel was on appeared in the corner of the map that was sent to us. We were able to find our way there after an hour and a half of wandering around. So the second thing that I can share is the names of streets on Google and the actual street signs are most likely going to be wrong or at least in our case they were. This theme continued through our last two stops in Frankfurt and then Berlin. After the first two mishaps we started to get the hang of public transportation and reading the maps at bus stops. The tram system in Berlin was very different from any tram/subway I have been on because there was nobody to take your ticket and we never saw anyone walking around checking tickets. I am not convincing anyone to not buy tickets when getting on the tram/subway, but it felt weird not having to show someone that you purchased one.

My favorite part of the week long trip was when we were out looking for our hostel in Frankfurt we happened upon a sports bar with a Manchester United vs. Chelsea soccer game. Sitting in the bar with all of the German soccer fans yelling whenever a good/bad play happen it reminded me of back in America when we would get together to watch soccer and act in the same way. It showed me how similar events can bring people together in the same way even though they are from two different cultures and are two different nationalities.

Till next time

Ciao

Chris Patton