The End of The Rainbow

Becca, finally arriving in Interlaken

            From Innsbruck we went to Interlaken, and I could hardly wait to get there. I’d heard so many great things about it, and nearly everyone I knew who had studied abroad said it was a must on the itinerary. One bus, five trains, and nearly eight hours later we were approaching Interlaken. I couldn’t tell through the window glare and delirium how pretty the scenery was, but it had better look like the front of a post card from the minute we get to the train station after this journey.

Balmer's tent village

            Getting off the final train, Interlaken exceeded my expectations. Rows of snow capped mountains surrounding lakes that were such a bright green they seemed to be color dyed. We stayed at a tent village at the base of the Alps, which looking back now was really cool. At the time, after traveling all day I wasn’t exactly thrilled about sleeping on a bed made of plywood and some blankets. We did need a good nights sleep after all, because come 8am we’d be catching a bus to go skydiving.

Skydiving in Interlaken

            It was my second time to go skydiving but Becca’s first. I went in Texas last summer, and the one thing I said to my instructor after I pulled the chute and was floating through the sky above flat Texas plains was, “I’ve gotta do this again, except somewhere with better scenery.” On the flight up you could see snow capped mountains for miles, with lakes and grassy plains between. It was sunny and clear and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. When the plane door opened and ridges of ice were in close distance, my nerves skyrocketed. It’s gonna take more than once for me to feel at ease about jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. The second time around was better than the first for obvious reasons, and I soaked up every second of the way down, taking in the views and feeling my adrenaline rush.

Firework show in Geneva

            We finished the trip and the summer in Geneva. We figured we’d get fondue somewhere by the lake and go to bed early, but when we got there, there was a huge festival going on. A carnival wrapped around the entire perimeter of Lake Geneva and there was a firework show better than any 4^th of July I’d seen. We joked that it was Europe’s way of telling us bye, and I still like to think it was. It was weird saying bye to Becca the next morning since we hadn’t spent a single day apart the past 2 months. In a short period of time she had become one of those rare friends life hands you. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I see her again, but I’d miss her none the less.

Rainbow we saw from a train in Austria

            I met my mom in England for two days before going home. It was the perfect way to wrap up the summer and catch my breath before going home and dealing with reality. To say this was the summer of a lifetime is an understatement. The purpose behind going abroad was for an international business and cultural experience. I went to work everyday in an incredible office in Dublin for a successful advertising agency and saw campaigns I personally worked on go up around the city. I went to a Mosque in Bahrain, sat on the edge of the Cliff’s of Moher, climbed Arthur’s seat in Edinburgh, sailed the southern coast of Portugal, went to the clubbing capital of the world, International Bier Festival in Berlin, skydiving in the Swiss Alps, among many other unforgettable adventures throughout Europe and the Middle East.  The business and cultural aspects were fulfilled, and with that I earned so much more. Doing this trip was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The things I’ve learned, the people I met, and the memories I made will stay with me for the rest of my life. In some way, I did find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

Culture Shocks

Lunch in Munich's town square

Our original plan was to stay in Munich for one night, but when we didn’t get there until 11pm and didn’t feel like doing anything, our plans changed.  The one thing I wanted to do while in Bavaria was go to Neuschwanstein Castle, but there just wasn’t enough time. We walked around town, ate lunch in the square by the cathedral, went to Hofbrauhaus and on a pub-crawl. These were starting to feel like swaps freshman year, the standard way of going out at night and meeting new people. We met quite a few people from Australia who all do a similar program called “hop on hop off.” The buy a standard ticket, something similar to a Eurail pass, and a bus comes to various towns throughout Europe every 2 days. Some of them stay in one city for the bare minimum of 2 days while others would live and work there until they feel it’s time to move along to the next city. I loved every Australian I met, and it made me want to go there more than ever. 

Becca lounging on the Train

            We “accidentally on purpose” sat in first class on the train from Munich to Innsbruck. We paid for the upgrade and met the nicest Italian man sharing the car with us. We usually didn’t like sharing cars with other people, especially if the train wasn’t very crowded. When the Italian man opened the door to the small cabin he looked identical to the guy in the movie Eurotrip who has no concept of personal space. I thought “if this train goes through a tunnel and that dude is sitting on my lap saying ‘mi scuzzi’ I’m gonna freak out.” (you’d have to see the movie to understand.) He ended up being the nicest man and even insisted on paying for our glasses of wine, making our first class train experience that much better.

A Brazilian Headlock 

            Becca’s sister studied in Innsbruck two summers ago, so she recommended us to her favorite restaurant for dinner. The beautiful town is nestled between the Alps and has perfect weather in the summer. It’s no wonder hundreds of Americans come here every summer. We had met plenty of wonderful people from all over the world the past few days, with the exception of the Brazilian’s in Prague. They have no boundaries and don’t understand the meaning of no. Before even given the chance to object, they will kiss you smack on the lips faster than a bat out of hell. So naturally after this occurred a few too many times, we were so excited be around some Americans and familiar faces. A guy in a New Orleans Saints jersey sat down next to us, and it didn’t take long to see he was beyond drunk. He knocked over Becca’s beer, stole the shots we ordered and already paid for when the waitress brought them, then threw up a few close centimeters from Becca’s shoe. “This is the reason European’s hate American’s,” she said, moving her chair to avoid the vomit. My craving for “southern hospitality” was gone in a hot minute, and I wondered what was worse: the puking Saints fan or the face-raping Brazilians in Prague?

What makes a good tour guide?

            It came as no surprise that on our first night in Berlin – our first night of no longer being Dublin residents – that we ended up at an Irish pub. I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be drawn to Irish pubs for the rest of my life. Sure I always loved hanging out at Innisfree in Tuscaloosa before this trip, but now I feel as though and Irish pub is part of my own culture. It was a similar feeling to when I first saw there was a Forever 21 in Dublin – I absolutely had to go.

Fat Tire bike tour

            Becca and I were worried we would have a hard time meeting people since we weren’t staying in a hostel. Every guy that walked by in a polo shirt, Becca would ask, “What about him? Think he’s American?” Our problems were quickly solved when we met a group of about 20 guys from London who were all there for Beer Fest. They were crazy and loud and so much fun.

            The next day we did the Fat Tire bike tour of the city. It had been recommended to us by a few different people as an easy and fun way to see the city in a day. Our Australian tour guide, Randall, was hilarious and took us to historical places in Berlin we would’ve never found on our own. I think I know more about the city of Berlin now than I do about Houston. We spent the rest of the day at the International Bier Festival, then ended the night on a pub-crawl.

Bier Festival

Next stop was Prague, and everyone I had talked to that had been there said we had to go to the 5-story disco. Nobody knew the name, but everybody knew the place. Luckily, Becca’s cousin had been living in Prague for two years and acted as our personal tour guide. She took us to a cool underground restaurant and to other various bars before walking us to Karlovy Lazne, the 5-story disco. Each floor was a different theme, but when we heard “Sweet Home Alabama” playing in the Oldies Room, I made a mad dash to the dance floor and barely ventured to the other levels after that.

Becca dancing on the oldies floor

Prague is one of those cities where you stay out until the sunrises but somehow manage to get up and sightsee the next day. It’s one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to, and when I woke up to a sunny day I couldn’t wait to go look around. We had seen Edinburgh on a bus tour, Amsterdam and Portugal on boat tours, Berlin on a bike tour and were now going on an old-fashioned convertible tour of Prague.  Joseph, our tour guide, was one of the most memorable people I met all summer. Not because of his tour guide skills, because in fact he severely lacked in that department. He wasn’t as cute as Tom in Amsterdam or funny as Randall in Berlin, and definitely wasn’t as easy to understand as the recorded voice in Edinburgh. It’s highly possible that he was on drugs and probably shouldn’t have been operating an antique automobile. Despite being a native to Prague, his facts of the city were probably as credible as the National Enquirer. He was like a bad soap opera we couldn’t stop watching. Becca and I still talk about how we miss him on a regular basis.

Joseph driving the convertible

Another night at Karlovy Lazne resulted in us missing the 9am train to Munich. The next one isn’t until 5, so for the first time since I can remember I have an excuse to stay in bed with nothing to do. I love traveling and the fast-track life we’ve been living, but I’ve forgotten how nice it is to just lay in bed. 

Keep Dreaming

            It’s my last week of work and my last week in Dublin. Eight weeks has never gone by so fast. As I remember the whole reason I’m here in the first place, the reason I’ve been writing these blogs, and that “studying” abroad usually comes with a course number and syllabus, it’s hard to believe all this amounts for a grade. MC495: International Business and Cultural Experience… Go work in Dublin, live amongst the locals, learn about their culture, then come back and write a paper about it.

As I’m reflecting on the time I’ve spent here this summer, it’s almost impossible to account everything that’s happened even looking back through my previous blog posts. How can I put eight weeks on to paper? Yes I’ve learned invaluable experience, but doing what? Yes I’ve learned life lessons, but what was I taught? Yes I’ve made life-long friends, but who will I still be friends with at the end of my life?

No words can fully explain the experience I had this summer. I enrolled in MC495 to fulfill a credit and earn a grade, but in reality I earned so much more than that. Have you ever woken up from a dream and thought to yourself “wow that was such a great dream!” only to not be able to remember what happened an hour later? I’ve been living in a fantasy world this summer, one big dream that I never would’ve imagined. When I go home people will ask, “what was your favorite part?” I won’t be able to give them an answer because it’s all been wonderful and it all runs together. And whatever anecdotes or random stories I will remember will only be a small contribution to the entire summer story, unable to explain the magnitude of the experience as a whole.

Maybe that’s the case when we can’t remember a good dream – we wake up when it’s over and can’t pinpoint every specific part, but just know all of it was great. And you know the feeling when you’re subconscious in the middle of a great dream and don’t want to wake up? That’s why even though my program in Dublin is over on Thursday, I just booked a flight to Berlin on Friday. As if I were hitting snooze on my alarm, Becca and I are staying to travel for another two weeks…I’m just not quite ready for this summer to be over.  

Ibitha y Barthelona

            Our trip to Ibiza and Barcelona could’ve easily been a manuscript for another Hangover sequel. Starting on the plane, Patrick got his bottle of wine confiscated by the flight attendant and an announcement was made over the PA that passengers were not allowed to drink their own alcohol on board. That should’ve been a sign we needed to cool it, but unfortunately it was just first event in an evening that felt like it lasted a week.

VIP balcony at Eden

            We checked in to Hotel Florida, or Flo-Rida as we came to know it, and were all profusely sweating from the combination of the foreign heat and no air conditioning. Once we all got our bearings, we headed out to club Eden for Sean Paul and ended up getting VIP tickets. We had access to more secluded bars in the club and a balcony view of the mosh-pit of chaos going on down below. Remi scored a bottle of Gray Goose just as Sean Paul was coming on, probably sometime around 3 am. Before I knew it, Caldwell – a self proclaimed “non-clubber” – was amongst the down stairs crowd fist pumping in his bright orange polo like a Jersey Shore cast member.

Caldwell clubbin'

            The next series of events are all a little hazy, as everything usually is when you’re still out at 5 am. Half of us got kicked out, Caldwell got punched in the face, Becca got lost, and Remi stepped on a shard of glass that made a cut big enough to need medical attention. Somehow Derek escaped all this madness and made it back to Flo-Rida unscathed. As the rest of us sat in the sketchy Ibiza hospital while Remi got stitches in her foot, a couple of guys ran in looking for a doctor and yelling that their friend had just fallen off a balcony down the street. The doctors said there was nothing they could do and paramedics would be on their way, and continued sewing up Remi’s foot.

            In one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever witnessed, the guy died after 20 minutes of failed attempts at CPR. I honestly think his life could’ve been saved if the accident happened in another country, and I couldn’t help but think that could’ve easily been one of us. There was no way I could go to sleep now, so Becca, Ryan and I walked down the beach and recapped everything that had happened in the past 12 hours. We didn’t want any of this to ruin our trip, so we went back to Flo-Rida to wake everyone else up to go to the pool. We had a great day getting pitchers of sangria and enjoying the sun, and even got Remi on a raft with her foot out of the water. Caldwell continued to earn his Ibiza MVP award as our designated cabana boy for the day.

Privilege show

            Becca, Ryan and re-born Caldwell left on the over-night ferry that night, and Remi went to go stay with her Godmother that lives in Ibiza because her foot was getting infected. That left Patrick, Derek and myself for another night in Ibiza, so we went out in hopes of a far less dramatic evening. We went to Privilege, a club that made anywhere in Vegas seem like a place for amateurs. 4 balconies overlooked a monstrosity of a dance floor with a pool in the center, all surrounding a giant stage. Nearly 7,000 people are there every night... I’ve never seen anything like it.

Ice Bar in Barcelona

            After 2 hours of sleep in 2 days, I was all clubbed out by the time we got to Barcelona.  It was my 3^rd time back there, so I took them to all my favorite places I remembered and a few new ones I had heard about.  I think the energizer bunny may have possessed Patrick that weekend, so his adrenaline kept us all going. Despite Ryan Air’s 90 degree angle seats that don’t recline, I had no problems sleeping the whole 2 hour flight home. I’ve never been so excited to get back to Shanowen, only after we made a quick pit stop to Some Like It Hot.

I think our 4 nights in Spain took 4 years off my life, but being our last weekend trip of the summer we had to go out with a bang. The bad parts are only laughable now, and the good parts made it all worthwhile. 

Pick A Place, Any Place

Sea Caves

           When we were planning the rest of our weekend trips in July, I got on Ryan air, pulled up Google maps in a separate window, entered Dublin to ______ and went down the list of destinations. If I didn’t know the city, I’d look it up on Google maps. If the mystery town happened to be in the middle of Russia or looked like it was a place I had no interest of visiting, I’d move along. When I got to “Faro” and had no idea where that was, Google maps informed me it was on the southern coast of Portugal. Air fare was cheap and Dublin weather had me craving for real summer weather and a beach, so I booked it and e-mailed Becca and Remi to inform them we were going to Faro whether they liked it or not. I had been to Lisbon when I was in 3^rd grade, and the only thing I really remembered was that “morango” meant strawberry in Portuguese because everyday I ordered a strawberry push pop on the beach. So even though we were heading somewhere I had never heard of, my extensive Portuguese vocabulary could order us some strawberry popsicles. Things were looking up for us.

So happy to be in the sun

            The day we were flying out we still hadn’t booked a hotel, which is quite normal for our traveling style…everything is last minute. We didn’t know one thing about Faro or where to stay, and around 1pm it was looking like we were gonna be sleeping on the beach. Becca sent me a link on booking.com for Hotel Artismar – on the beach, a pool, and air conditioning – I gave her the thumbs up and she booked it. Unfortunately we didn’t read the reviews until after Becca submitted her credit card info, and apparently Hotel Artismar wasn’t exactly a gem.

            Booking.com warned us of the small elevator, that the maids didn’t refill the shampoo or bring clean towels, and that the hotel restaurant sucked. They failed to mention that we were located in the straight up hood of Portugal, but for some reason that didn’t stop us from wondering over to the local beach bar. Amongst Julio’s posse and pregnant women tossing back Corona’s, the 3 of us blondes stood out pretty bad. The owner came over with free drinks, held up his digital camera, motioned for us to pose and said “Facebook!” That was the only word in English he was able to say. When I realized my face was going to be on the Facebook page of some bar in the ghetto of Portugal and I was drinking a cocktail made by a man who owned such a bar, I began to fear for my safety.  

Villamoura, our preferred location

           For the rest of the trip we spent most of our time in Villamoura, a neighboring area that was much nicer and more for tourist. We went to the beach and took a sailboat one day to the sea caves. I was so excited to be in the sun and get a tan that I didn’t put a drop of SPF on the whole trip. My skin color is now far closer to red on the color wheel than tan, and I believe I may have 3^rd degree burns on my back. Despite staying in Portugal’s 8 mile and the fact that my skin is about to peel like Goldmember from Austin Powers, I loved our weekend in Portugal and would love to go back... except next time I’ll wear some suncreen and won’t be staying anywhere near Hotel Artismar.

On the boat by the caves

Our sailboat for the day 

Lost in Translation

            There’s nothing like a brisk morning jog, and even better when it’s through airport terminals. When we booked our Amsterdam/Brussels flights, we booked the 6am flight out of Brussels to give us an extra night. We would stay close to the airport making the early flight that much easier…so we thought. Our parents seem to tell us traveling is all about the process of learning things along the way, and they’re most certainly right. Let me back track some…

            It was raining the first night we got to Amsterdam so we were able to have an excuse to stay in and enjoy a comfortable bed and watch Family Guy and South Park. The next day was beautiful, so since I had already seen most of the tourist sights before I just walked around town with Ryan, Blake, and Matt and sat in the parks. While sitting in the Leidseplein Square, I accidentally smacked a bee to my face and got stung in the eye. After a minor panic attack, I put on Becca’s bug-eye shades to hide the swelling, downed a Heineken and sucked it up so I could enjoy the sunny day in Holland.

Tom

            And then we met Tom…probably my favorite part of the trip. I learned the hard way on my last visit that the guided canal tours are boring, so while we were sitting on the edge of the canal discussing how great it would be to get a private tour of the canal, up walks Tom offering to take us out on his boat. His adorable grin and British accent immediately had me sold, but the 2½ hours for 50 euro sealed the deal for the boys. He took us to his favorite local brewery, where I walked my dumb ass American self up to the bar and asked for a Heineken. When they said they don’t have that I laughed thinking they were joking and said, “of course you do…its Holland!” He looked at me like I was an idiot and pointed to the “locally brewed” sign, then handed me something that tasted close enough to a Heineken.   

On the canal 

             After day 3 in Amsterdam we were headed to Brussels…at least that was the plan. We were told it would take about 2 ½ hours so I dozed off, and when I woke up Ryan said the woman next to us said our stop was the next one. We got off and signs all over the station said Antwerp. I guess in my mind I thought Antwerp and Brussels was more like a Dallas/Ft. Worth type thing, where you travel to one location to get to both. I figured we’d probably have to take a bus or cab into down town Brussels. We walked around the city for a good 15 minutes and saw “Antwerpen” on every building and sign, and for those 15 minutes we honestly had no idea where in Europe we were. After realizing Antwerp is a completely different city than Brussels and definitely not the right stop, I contemplated registering for another Geography class in the fall. Instead, we read the board times for the next train to Brussels and used our hour to spare to go get Belgium waffles.

Belgium Waffles

            Once we finally arrived in the real Brussels, we wandered through town some before getting a cab to the airport hotel. A good dinner, some quality time on WiFi, and a short nights sleep later, Remi’s obnoxious alarm was going off and it was time to get up to catch our flight. We pre-ordered a cab, got to the Brussels airport fairly early, and looked around for the Ryan air counter. Aer Lingus, Continental, Belgium Airways, Delta, and the list went o – but no Ryan air. Remi glanced down at her ticket and looked up “WE’RE AT THE WRONG AIRPORT!” A 200 euro cab ride later and nearly to France, we got to the Charleroi airport 5 minutes after the gate closed.

            I can think of a lot of things I’d rather spend 200 euro on than a cab ride, but I’m not sure I would trade these acts of stupidity for anything else. I can now add Antwerp to my list of European destinations, plus Remi’s face when realizing we weren’t at Charleroi, falling into the street while making a mad dash out of the cab, and cutting through the extensive security line of grumpy morning travelers, all make worthwhile memories. If traveling is all a process of learning, consider one thing learned: I’ll definitely be sure to double check airports from now on.