An Odyssey So Epic It Should Be in Greek

***FOR YOUR OWN SANITY, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO READ IN ONE SITTING***

My trip started off just like any other, that is to say, with a delayed flight. As a result of an extra two hours in Gatwick airport (not so bad in the scheme of things, as it turns out), I am now a certified expert on its restaurant and shopping facilities, and I would definitely recommend the McDonalds on the second floor. After a nutritious meal, my plane took off, and with little further difficulty, I landed in Berlin.

I had no trouble meeting up with Tina, who was kindly waiting for me, despite my very late arrival. The only problem was, we still had to get to her parents’ house. European public transportation, as fantastic as it is, tends to become less reliable later in the evenings, and as it was nearly 11 o’clock by that time, trains were few and far between. I’ll spare you the play-by-play, but after a while, I stopped measuring time by the hour and instead went by the number of transfers. The final count: three trains, one bus and one taxi. On the bright side, how many tourists get to take Berlin trains in the middle of the night? An experience, for sure. We arrived at around 1 o’clock, where we found her mother still awake, waiting up for us. Aw! Despite everything, I felt very welcome, and I honestly thought that was it. It would be smooth sailing after this, I smugly thought as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, after nearly catching up on sleep, we took a 30-minute train into central Berlin. Yep, the city is just that big and spread out. Now, here’s a quick trivia question: What do a Star Wars Storm Trooper, a Native American chief, a giant bear and a toy soldier have in common? No, the answer is not the punch line of a corny joke, but rather they’re all characters/actors/crazy people you can find wandering around the Brandenburg Gate posing for pictures with tourists. Now that’s something you won’t find in any guidebook.

We walked through the gate and continued onto the Reichstag (the German parliament building), where the Bundestag (the German parliament) now meets, since the capital was moved back to Berlin in 1999. It was originally built in the 1890s, but then destroyed and remodeled multiple times in the twentieth century. Seriously, let’s take a moment to feel some sympathy for this poor structure; first it was set on fire in 1933, then it was bombed in 1945, and then it was abandoned in the 1950s. It’s been through a lot. Its happy ending finally arrived in the 1990s after reunification, when it was rebuilt, and today it’s an interesting mix of traditional columns and modern glass walls. There’s an emphasis on openness in the German government these days, and for that reason, much of the building is transparent. There’s also an awesome glass dome on top that Tina and I waited in line to see. The security to get in was tighter than that in any airport I’ve been passed through recently, but finally we made it to the top and had a great view of Berlin. It goes on as far as the eye can see.

On our way to Tina’s flat, we walked through Museum Island, where all of Berlin’s significant museums are located. Say what you will about Germans, but they’re very organized. We had a leisurely lunch discussing European politics and then set out to explore East Berlin.

Everything you’ve heard about GDR architecture is true, and we saw some buildings (no, let’s not even call them buildings, let’s call them concrete blocks with holes) that made me want to cry because they were so depressing and boring. No wonder people risked their lives to get away from them! But at the same time, it was such a surreal feeling to be able to explore this part of the city, which would have been impossible for most Westerners only 20 years ago. And there are signs of change everywhere. Now, East Berlin is the hip place to live, and I can see why. Tina took me to Alexanderplatz, a bustling and historic square, and we saw the Fernsehturm, the television tower, which looks like a very, very tall needle with a golf ball on it. It’s impressive, and for good reason, it has become a symbol of the city. We also stopped by Potsdamer Platz, another East Berlin square which is home to new and large buildings that I would expect to see in American cities, not European ones.

The next day, we took two trains out of Berlin and into Potsdam, which contrary to most American history classes, existed before President Truman attended a conference there. In fact, one of its main tourist attractions comes straight out of the Enlightenment. Not to be outdone by France’s King Louis XIV, Prussian King Frederick the Great wanted his own summer palace and so he built Sanssouci outside of Berlin. Not to give poor Freddy an inferiority complex, but it’s no Versailles. That said, it was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. Despite gray and drizzly weather, we managed to have a picnic in the gardens and had plenty of time to explore the grounds before we were allowed to enter. I had to pay an extra 3€ to take pictures inside, and considering how much I paid for an entrance ticket, it only seems fair that I get my money’s worth. So, I encourage all of you to humor me by taking a look at those pictures and making me feel like an actual freedom fighter for putting them on Facebook.

Still, whatever I paid was well worth it. Put me in a palace, especially a Baroque one, filled with pretty things, and I’m happy. I very much enjoyed pretending to be a Prussian princess for a few hours, and those of you who saw my pictures from France and Spain four years ago will not be surprised to read that I was thrilled when I saw all of the chandeliers. No European vacation is complete without at least one elegant chandelier.

That afternoon, we stopped by the Gedächtniskirche (try saying that three times fast. I can’t even say it once.), or as I prefer to refer to it, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. We didn’t go inside, but it’s most important feature was right in front of us. Despite that, I didn’t notice it until Tina pointed it out. The steeples are all missing. The church was bombed during WWII and never fully rebuilt to serve as a reminder of the war.

Next up was Checkpoint Charlie. There was an exhibit about the Cold War right by it, and I’m always interested to see how other countries teach the Cold War. Interestingly enough, this version was more pro-American than I think I’ve heard in most American classrooms. Then, we had tea in a coffee shop frequented by real Berliners (a treat for any tourist) and then made dinner at her boyfriend’s flat. And when I say we made dinner, I actually mean Tina prepared delicious meatballs with cheese and sauce, while I discovered Agatha Christie novels. Typical. Her boyfriend joined us for dinner, and afterwards, we set off for a drink.

We passed by a beautiful synagogue, as well as a number of prostitutes. We were in a very safe, happening neighborhood, and yet, there they were. I don’t think you would see that in comparable American neighborhoods (at least it wouldn’t be so obvious), but maybe I just need to get out more…We ended up wandering through a park filled with art made out of junk and then came to a huge concrete building (yes, we were in East Berlin). There was a punk band playing in the doorway (this description is meant to give you some of the city’s flavor), but we walked past them and up seven or so flights of stairs. And they were a cool seven flights. Every surface of every wall was entirely covered in colorful graffiti. It was a huge work of art. We finally huffed and puffed our way to the top floor, which was a rooftop terrace. It was a squatter bar, a peculiar Berlin institution, which meant that no one could throw us out when we didn’t order any drinks, and instead just sat on a beat up couch and took in a great view of the city. It was a great way to end my trip, or so I thought.

The next day, Tina and I were on the train to drop me off at the airport, and her dad called her cell phone. I didn’t know it at the time, but this in and of itself should have been cause for concern, since he never, ever calls her cell phone. He said something about a volcano in Iceland disrupting flights to the UK, but he promised to call us back after he talked to easyJet, the airline I was flying. A few very long moments later, Tina’s phone rang again, and her dad gave us the happy news that easyJet flights were “operating normally.” I breathed a huge sigh of relief and chuckled. Yeah, a VOLCANO was going to disrupt my flight back to England. That’s about as likely as me navigating my way to the airport on the S-Bahn without Tina. (A few stops later, I assured her I could get myself the rest of the way to the airport without her, and she hopped off the train. Twenty minutes later, I found myself at the correct airport.)

Assuming none of you live under a rock, you know what happened. The story begins hundreds of thousands of years ago, when someone decided it would be a good idea to put a volcano in Iceland. Why Iceland? I don’t know, but I’m guessing because there was nothing else there. Fast forward a few millennia, and the people in Iceland thought, gee, it’s time to pay back those nasty Europeans for the financial crisis that ruined our economy. What can we do to really upset them? Hm, well, we have these nice volcanoes here, and they’ve just been sitting around for a hundred-some-odd years. Let’s press this big red button and see what it does! In fact, it alerts the major news media outlets that their ratings are about to skyrocket.

I walked into the terminal and searched for my flight on the departure boards in vain. The airport information desk confirmed that my flight was canceled, and with a sinking stomach, I dashed to the easyJet desk and spent the next forty minutes desperately wishing I had a brown bag to breathe into. I don’t cope well with sudden change. I truly don’t. If something doesn’t go according to my plan, I panic, I cry, I go through the five stages of grief, and then, if I’m lucky, by the time I’m done with all that, circumstances have worked themselves out, and I can pretend I was totally cool everything all along.

Unfortunately for me, 40 minutes (or hours, as it turned out) was not quite enough time for me to process a change of this magnitude. I’m a fairly experienced traveler, and if you know nothing about me other than what you’ve read on this blog, you know that I’ve had my share of travel disasters. But something about a canceled flight makes my blood run cold. The easyJet employee rebooked me on a flight for the next night, but I was not reassured. I got in touch with Tina who figured out a convenient time and place for us to meet, and then I was left to wander the airport for a few hours.

I was desperate to get in touch with my family, but my phone was dying, so I overcame my distaste of public phones and their outrageous rates and attempted to call them. Two minutes later, I was 5€ poorer and despite calling multiple numbers multiple times, I couldn’t reach anyone, so I consoled myself by buying out the airport’s supply of chocolate and chocolate-flavored things. It helped a little.

I took the train back into Berlin and met up with Tina, who escorted me the rest of the way back to her house, where we had a relaxing evening. This seems like an appropriate moment to gush about Tina and her family’s hospitality. Unlike the girls from Dublin behind me in the easyJet line who were wondering where they would sleep that night, I am so lucky that I could stay with Tina. I’m even luckier that she knew exactly how to cheer me up (chocolate and a movie do the trick, people).

At about midnight, we were about to go to sleep, when I received the first of many panicky e-mails from my parents. (In total, they sent 24 e-mails over the next three days in regards to the whole me-being-stranded-in-Europe situation.) Even if I was in a self-imposed news blackout, they were not, and they were concerned that the situation was not going to improve by the next evening. So, Tina and her mother spent the better part of an hour with me researching trains. I would have had no idea where to even begin without them (I probably would have set out for England by foot), and an hour later, they had worked out a route that would have me back in Brighton by bedtime the next day.

Yeah, right. As we planned, Tina and I arrived at Berlin’s central station bright and early, just in time to join the mob of people surrounding the ticket office. Still, the line moved quickly and before long we were at the desk. It won’t surprise any of you to learn that there was not a single seat on any train bound for London anytime before Monday. If I hadn’t grasped the magnitude of the situation before, I certainly did in that moment. It cost just about every last penny (er, pence) in my bank account, but of course I took the earliest train I could get, and because I had been advised to move as far west as I could (good advice, as it turned out), I also bought another one-way ticket. It looked like I was going to see Amsterdam this spring break after all!

I bid a fond farewell to Tina and pulled out my phone. I texted my parents to let them know what my plans were, and despite it being the middle of the night in Chicago, after a few more texts, we were talking on the phone.

Here, I need to go off on a brief tangent, but stay with me, this will all make sense in the end. In an extremely quirky and fortunate twist of fate years in the making, my grandparents had become friends with a Dutch couple named Tom and Ria while on vacation in France more than 15 years ago. They stayed in touch over the years, had business dealings with each other and occasionally visited each other. Tom had even met my dad before, and it seemed to my parents that he would be a good person to contact should I end up in the Netherlands.

My dad called Tom for me and briefed him on my situation. (Thanks Dad!) Before long, I was on the phone with Tom, who despite never having laid eyes on me before, offered to pick me up at the train station and host me for the weekend. Family friends are wonderful people.

At this point in my journey, I was in good spirits. Although I’d never imagined it would be like this, I’ve always wanted to take a train through Europe. I’d finally accepted the change in plans, I had a safe place to stay, and I was enjoying seeing something of the German and Dutch countryside. Birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and I could almost forget that a volcano was spewing tons and tons of canceled flights and despair into the atmosphere.

There was initially some confusion about which station I would be arriving at in Amsterdam, so it took a few calls to a woman who works for Tom to straighten that out, and then another employee called to inform me that: 1. It was Tom’s 70th birthday on Saturday. 2. His family had planned a huge (and I mean insane) series of surprises for him. 3. I was going to be included in everything. She told me what to expect, and after hanging up the phone I couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of the situation. You’ll see what I mean.

Six and a half hours later, I was sweating bullets over getting off at the right station since there are no announcements on these international trains, but when I was approached on the platform by friendly looking man and his grandson, I figured I had come to the right place!

I met Tom’s wife back at his home in Heiloo, and all four of us went for dinner at a good Chinese place. Everyone was very friendly at dinner, although discussion was a little difficult since Tom was the only one who spoke fluent English, but we managed. I slept like a rock that night and woke up to all sorts of birthday surprises.

The festivities began Saturday afternoon. Friends and family began arriving at the house, and a glass of champagne was had by all. (I challenge you to try to keep track of how much alcohol was consumed that day. I eventually gave up.) I’ll admit, this was more than a little bit awkward for me. There was no one in the room I had known for more than 20 hours, and in addition to a language barrier, there was a significant age difference as well. (After all, do you think Tom makes a habit of hanging around with twenty year olds? I don’t think so.)

Fortunately, we were on a schedule. At 2:30 on the dot, a humongous tour bus showed up. It probably wasn’t actually bigger than any other tour bus I’ve seen, but in comparison to the tiny street it was parked on, it looked almost as out of place as I did. No one else seemed perplexed that our small party (20ish people) filled less than a third of the seats, so without further delay, we were off to Amsterdam for the night, and I was treated to a pleasant drive through the Dutch countryside.

Our hotel’s street was too tiny for the tour bus (I told you it was too big), so a smaller car met us two blocks away from the hotel to transport the luggage. This should be another hint at just what kind of a weekend I was in for. We stayed at the Dylan Hotel, of which I have nothing but nice things to say. After some time to get settled in our rooms, everyone met in the lounge for another drink before leaving for a boat tour of Amsterdam’s canals.

Could I possibly have gotten a better introduction to the city? I don’t think so. The tour was conducted mostly in Dutch, but Tom’s daughter kindly arranged for some of it to be translated for me. I had no idea how much history was in Amsterdam, and it added another dimension to my usual “ooh, pretty building” reaction.

The boat didn’t drop us off back at the Dylan but instead took us to the Amstel Hotel, is supposedly the nicest hotel in the country. I couldn’t say for sure, but judging by the banquet room where we later had dinner, you get no argument from me. (It had three chandeliers. I approve.)

As the boat pulled up to the dock, I saw 80 or so people on the hotel terrace cheering and waving. Talk about a surprise party…Maybe there was some mistake? Maybe they thought there was a celebrity on our boat? Maybe we were at the wrong hotel? No, no mistake, and if I hadn’t caught sight of more champagne waiting for us, I would seriously have considered jumping overboard.

The first half of the party was among the most intimidating and awkward experiences of my life, right up there with the first day of high school. Except instead of football players and cheerleaders, think of elite businessmen and their wives. My jeans were more than a little conspicuous among all the suits and fancy dresses. I don’t know how I could have forgotten when I was packing for Berlin that I had a swanky birthday party to attend in Amsterdam.

I was occasionally introduced to someone, but there’s only so much a twenty-year old American exchange student and a 70-year-old Dutch [insert occupation here] can converse about. Thank goodness for the waiters who always showed up at the right moment with more champagne. I spent a lot of time walking purposefully, pretending I was looking for someone before finally finding a nice woman I had met in Heiloo, who took me under her wing and made sure I had people to talk to or at least sit with so I didn’t look as pathetic as I felt. Everything improved after that.

Dinner was fantastic. I was seated at a table with the “young” people (probably between 35 and 50 years of age), all of whom were friendly and more importantly, spoke English. I not-so-coincidentally sat next to a man from Wales, who was good about translating the presentations about Tom’s life that interspersed every course. The presentations led up to one of Tom’s biggest gifts, a biography that his family commissioned someone to write about him. Dad, take note, the competition is on and you have some serious work to do when planning Grandpa’s next birthday.

As much as I like hearing Dutch spoken, I was more interested in the food. There was pate course, fish and then chicken, each served with a different type of wine. And my favorite part of the meal was obviously the chocolate mousse at the end. I should get stranded in Amsterdam more often…

There was a singer who performed throughout dinner, and she had a great repertoire, although I’ll never understand why she felt she needed to change outfits every time the guests started on a new course. The night ended with disco dancing. The only thing more ridiculous than older Dutch people disco dancing is that I joined them.

At midnight, the lights went on, and no one seemed very concerned about their carriages turning into pumpkins. Guests slowly made their way to the coat check and wished Tom a happy birthday, and we didn’t actually leave until after 12:30.

We took a water taxi back to the hotel (I’ve always wanted to take one of those!), and the only thing more exciting than seeing Amsterdam lit up at night was the thought of the comfy bed waiting for me in my room. But Tom and his friends know how to party, and instead of making a left to go to the rooms, we made a right and went back to the hotel lounge for another drink. I ended up chatting with Tom’s sister-in-law whose daughter received her MBA from Wash. U. Small world! Her husband, who I also spoke to over the course of the evening, later asked for my American phone number so his daughter could call me next fall. I guess I made a good impression?

The next day, we had breakfast (I was reunited with my long-lost love, chocolate croissants) and then it was time for Tom and company to head back to Heiloo. After saying goodbye to my new friends and profusely thanking everyone for everything, I went to the Anne Frank House and met up with Gwen, who was a sight for sore eyes!

The line for the Anne Frank House was long, but we were kept entertained by a series of pamphlets, including some information on the museum and dire warnings to watch our purses. The museum itself is well organized. The exhibits are in both English and Dutch, which I appreciate, and the rooms flow together smoothly. The walls have quotes from her diary, and it was more touching than I thought it would be to walk through the rooms where she lived.

Gwen and I went to lunch at a cute café and then met up with her friends for an exhibit about Oman in the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in Dam Square. It was an odd venue for such an exhibit, but the occasional medieval tomb and Bible-inspired carvings made a nice contrast to Omani artifacts. After an afternoon drink with the group, Gwen and I headed to Rotterdam, where her parents live. The Greek lasagna was ready and waiting for us, and we had a lovely dinner with her parents and brother. It was a very relaxing sort of evening, which is exactly what I needed considering the day before and the day after.

I woke up the next morning (if you can even call it that) before dawn and got myself ready for a very long day of travel. If you’ve read even a little bit of this blog before, you know that I have a tendency to get lost, no matter how simple the directions or how close by my destination is. You can therefore understand my skepticism in thinking I could get myself from a suburb of Rotterdam all the way to London without something going horribly wrong. And unlike in the past, there was no margin for error here. Every train to London was sold out for the rest of the week, so if I missed my connection at any point…it didn’t bear thinking about. Does anyone else hear the Mission: Impossible music? I certainly did.

Gwen and her dad woke up to have breakfast with me, which went above and beyond the call of duty, but it was nice to see some reassuring faces before I set off for the local train station. I made it just in time to catch a train to Rotterdam Centraal (train #1), where I paced up and down another platform, asking everyone I saw if this was the train to Brussels, despite the very clear sign stating that it was. An agonizing 20 minutes later, it finally arrived (train #2), and after a few laps up and down the platform, I found my carriage and my assigned seat.

It was a relatively short trip, a little bit more than an hour to Brussels, and I managed to get off at the right station despite the lack of announcements. I found the Eurostar terminal and made it through security and passport control with plenty of time to sit in the waiting room and be bored. Train travel isn’t as different from airplane travel as I thought.

By this time, the Mission: Impossible music had died down, and without further incident, I was on my way to London (train #3). Unfortunately, I didn’t have a window seat, but I was still able to see some of the countryside as we sped through it. We left Belgium and journeyed into France, a change I only noticed because my cell phone company texts me every time I cross a border to remind me that I can still give them money even while abroad. And in the blink of an eye, everything went dark and we were in the Atlantic Ocean inside the Chunnel.

It’s a very strange, disconcerting and exhilarating feeling to be on the continent one moment and to emerge on a completely different land mass the next, but I could tell I was back in England in an instant. Less than two hours after leaving Brussels, I was in London, with boggles my mind. I won’t bore you with all the details of my trip back to campus (after making it this far, you’ve suffered enough), but we do need to finish the train tally: train #4 was the Tube to Victoria Station, which you will all be happy to hear I now navigate like a pro, train #5 took me to Brighton and train #6 took me to campus.

Now, I’m trying to settle back into “normal” life, where my movements aren’t dictated by a volcanic ash cloud and where my daily challenge isn’t navigating the European rail system. I won’t miss the anxiety involved in constantly being on the move, but writing papers is a far cry from the excitement of seeing so much more of the world than I ever expected to!

I am proud of how I handled myself over the past week and how I managed to get myself back to Brighton under difficult circumstances, but the quote “no man is an island” has been consistently on my mind. I could never, in a million years, have done any of this alone. If it hadn’t been for my parents and their constant advice, all of the friends and families who hosted me over the past week, all the people who stayed up late researching trains with me, and all the random connections I have, some of which have been years in the making, I would probably be sleeping on an airport floor right now. It’s a humbling feeling; one of the reasons I came to Europe was to become more independent, and now I find myself more dependent on others than before. But maybe the point isn’t that I learn to do everything by myself, but rather I understand that wherever I end up in the world, I have resources (in the form of people and knowledge) all around me to help me fix whatever has gone wrong, even if it happens to be an Icelandic volcano with a name too difficult to even attempt to spell.