December 9, 2011
“The More you Get
Together the Happier you’ll be”
I’d
like to preface this by saying I’m not entirely responsible for how everything panned
out. It started off innocuously, 4 girls studying abroad in the south of France
and wanting to “go somewhere” (as if being in Europe for a semester wasn’t
enough) on their October break. England and Ireland for 120 euro? Sure...why
not? We had no idea that over the course
of the following 6 days of hotel towel stealing, couch surfing, unrequited love
and countless hours spent on planes, trains and buses we’d go from being pre-session
acquaintances to best friends. It was the ultimate test of patience, endurance,
pragmatism and goodwill. While we all suffered bouts of failure that led to a
lot of foot stomping and pouting we survived without any casualties. In the end,
we all grew a little closer and in doing so did some growing up ourselves.
GETTING THERE: MY VOYAGE
Tooth
brush? Check. Contacts? Check. Ipod fully charged with a playlist dedicated to
Adele, in order to hone into my inner British diva? Check. As I crossed the
items off my “To Do List” (because I’m in fact that person who would forget to
bring their passport) I sighed and stared at the heavy duty North Face backpack that looked like it
was going to split at the seams. I hoisted it on my shoulders and headed
towards the tram to meet up with the girls. We’d decided to be practical aka
cheap about the airport transport and take the Herault bus. Mind you, public transportation in Montpellier is
actually worth taking as it tends to be on time, cost efficient and you don’t
have to worry about getting mugged in the process. We had arrived 20 minutes in
advance because everyone knows you can never be too early! Unfortunately for
us, 20 minutes came and went and after speaking with fellow travelers, we
learned that there was an accident at the airport and the buses were being held
up. Obviously, thinking the worst (that we’d be late for checking in and miss
our flight) we caught a cab. My god…when I’d heard bedside manner was only
practiced in America, I’d had no idea of how true a stereotype it was. The first
cab we tried to haggle because after hearing our American accents the cabbie wanted
to charge us 30 euro for a 15 minute ride. When we refused to budge and one of
our newfound British friends got a little defensive, the cabbie cursed us off
and drove away. We finally managed to get one and the guy still ripped us off
but by not nearly as much and we felt we weren’t in the position to argue.
Getting to the airport and waiting in line for our Birmingham flight, we saw
our British friends who were ahead of us. They told us in their cheerful
British accents that the bus had come literally 2 minutes after we’d left.
Moral of the story…sometimes if you’re supposed to get screwed it’s going to
happen no matter what.
Going
through airport security has gotten to be much like getting booked in jail.
That same sense of violation of having everything you own put on display and
the impersonal way you’re told to divest of your belt, shoes, wallet, earrings…
On the way to Birmingham, I got stopped after sending in my backpack because I
had a bottle of toothpaste that wasn’t in a clear plastic bag. The woman
proceeded to gut my backpack of all of its contents which happened to include
among the essentials: 2 bags of salt n’ vinegar chips, a bag of mandarin
oranges and two different bags of cookies. As she kept pulling more and more packages
of cookies from my backpack she told me in French, “What are you preparing
for…a war?” I just shook my head and kept thinking, “How the hell is this all
that going to fit back in my bag?” Years of traveling to Italy with my mother
had taught me to always pack snacks because you never know when you have the
time or opportunity to stop and eat. When she finally found the blue spearmint
culprit and deemed it not a threat, I was allowed to part with my supplies and
proceeded to fight my war against hunger one chocolate covered praline at a
time!
It
was a good thing I’d packed so many snacks because traveling with Ryan Air necessitates you bring your own
food and water unless you’re willing to die of thirst/hunger or pay 3 dollars
for a midget sized can of Coke/a small
Snickers bar. Having been a virgin Ryan Air flyer and being unaware of
their guerilla tactics of advertising, I was incredibly thirsty and asked for a
glass of water. At first the stewardess in her heinous pale yellow and bright
blue uniform pretended not to hear me but after repeating myself and tacking on
the word please with extra emphasis, she obliged. She returned with a warm cup
of water and I inhaled it. Following my lead, my friend Megan asked for water
to another stewardess when she came by with the drink cart. The conversation
went something along the lines of this, “Could I possibly have a glass of
water?”
“Sure
thing, sparkling or flat?”
“Uhhh…no just a regular glass of
water, thanks!”
“We
don’t have water.”
“What do you mean you don’t have
water? My friend just got a glass from that stewardess.”
“We
only have ice.”
“Okay…so can I get a glass of ice
then?”
“I
guess.”
I
felt a bit guilty for the “kind” stewardess who was probably flogged and fired
after for providing me water without being mandatorily bitchy and unhelpful. I
suppose that in the cold hearted world of air travel there has to be a system
of rules for bottom feeders like Ryan Air
to survive and quite frankly for international airfare under 20 euro, I can’t
even complain.
That
wasn’t our only troublesome encounter with Ryan Air…oh no…that would be too easy.
Over the course of the 6 days and traveling from Montpellier to Birmingham,
Birmingham to London, London to Dublin, Dublin to Liverpool and Liverpool to
Carcassonne we each had a TSA search. I remember coming through the archway at
airport security in Liverpool wearing a pair of spandex and a tight camisole
top. I think I even skipped through the detector because I wasn’t wearing
anything but the metal in the hook and eye strap of my bra. I came to an abrupt
halt when one of the airport security women stopped me with her hand and
informed me she was going to pat me down. I think I was in such shock; I just
nodded my head while my friends stood on the side and laughed at my pain
stricken face. She then diligently proceeded to make sure I wasn’t a threat to
British national security because everyone knows a college girl with a Northface fleece and backpack just
screams terrorist. I later learned from my friend Anne Marie, that when I went
through a light flashed which meant I was one of the random 20 people they
chose to pat down. At least I can put the TSA terrorist stereotypes and sexist
rumors to rest.
Along
the course of our trip I resorted to my most animalistic tactics to bypass
airport security. I did things I’m not too proud of. I asked Anne Marie every time we’d go through
security if I could cram my makeup and deodorant in her small plastic bag. On
the way back from Dublin I poured my conditioner into empty shampoo containers
because they were 100 ml and I didn’t feel like wasting the Pantene Pro-V. The
worst was when I attempted to pull off being pregnant. I’d stuffed my giraffe
pillow pet that I’d just purchased in the Dublin airport under my fleece
because the Ryan Air attendant said
it counted as a carryon. I think given
the circumstances I managed quite well. I pretended to be suffering a bit from
back pain and did a shockingly good impersonation of Jennifer Lopez in The Back-Up Plan with the stomach
rubbing and “My feet are killing me!” However, Megan got through carrying her
purse and towel under her poncho and Anne Marie did the same with her blanket,
so I might have just been kidding myself.
GETTING ALONG
Megan
The
trip was originally intended for Anne Marie, Kim and I because we were friends
from pre-session and we’d decided we wanted to go somewhere. Megan decided to
tag along after her plans to go to Rome with her good friend Erin fell through.
It was really random as she wasn’t friends with any of us except casually nice
to Kim. From the first couple of days in Montpellier, I’d already figured out
who Megan was. We don’t have sorority life at Loyola but I’ve seen enough
movies and heard enough stories to realize she fit the stereotypical sorority
girl. She only hung out with the other University of Washington girls in the
program who were in the Greek system and while she seemed fun loving and
extroverted it was only directed to those she deemed “worthy” of her time. It
didn’t really bother me because there were 30 other people in the program who
were more than willing to be friendly and branch out. I just pegged her as one
of those girls I’d end up being facebook
friends with and write a “Happy birthday!” wall post to. When Kim first told us
Megan was coming with us, I was confused more than anything. After hearing the
whole story about her not having anything better to do it made a lot more
sense.
As
it turns out Megan ended up teaching me the most about traveling. I guess outside
of Montpellier and the dorms where she was only surrounded by what she knew
Megan rose to the occasion. I had no idea what a free spirited person she was
and how infectious it could be. When we were in the Birmingham airport she made
friends with 2 British blonde haired and blue eyed toddlers who were the most
angelic and well behaved children. Fast forward thirty minutes later, while
waiting in the crowd to board and the father is trying to get them to stop
because they keep making Megan jump and twirl and throwing themselves at her
feet. She tried to divert the attention from her a bit by telling Isabella (the
older one) to play with me. She laughed I couldn’t help but do so as well as I
tried to keep my balance while jumping and not trip over my backpack.
On
the Dublin pub crawl she even got Anne Marie to loosen up after a couple of
swigs of a bottle of wine. That night Megan stole a Guinness from the bar and when the owner, a guy with a skull mask, came
to get it he asked me if I’d seen who took it. I obviously acted stupid and
when she came up to me I laughed and told her, “The guy is looking for his beer
you’re better off leaving it alone.” She didn’t believe me at first but when she
saw him questioning other people she waited about 30 seconds before saying,
“Okay, come to the back with me and drink it I hid it we’re good!” In the
moment it was absolutely hysterical. Later on that night, she jumped on a
stranger’s back who surprisingly held her and when he asked me where she was
from and I said, “Oregon,” he just smiled and said, “Figures.”
The
following morning when we woke up at 6 am and boarded a bus for 3 hours to
Galway, instead of being hung-over and temperamental she was the exact
opposite. If you’ve ever seen a commercial with the Energizer bunny, it was
like that but if the bunny had swallowed massive amount of adderall. She was
prancing and dancing in the grassy hills on our tour of an authentic Irish
Bern. Most memorable quote from that trip being her logic of why the Irish
countryside was spelled differently, “It’s Bern like Barn like Fern is Farm,”
sounds crazy enough to sound right but it’s not… Then she fell in “love” with
the boy sitting in front of us on the bus who happened to be a self-hating
Italian living in the Germanic autonomous region of northern Italy. His name
was Andreas but Megan quickly nicknamed him Andy and proceeded to shout things
like, “I love you Andy! Don’t you just love to love? I love to love things.”
The poor kid, it probably took him all day to realize that it was all in good
fun. He even asked me a few times if she was a little crazy with a pantomime
and smile. It was the funniest thing hearing him attempt to communicate in his
broken English with a heavy German accent of his intense dislike for Italy and
watching Megan’s face fall (partially serious and joking) as she realized he
wasn’t the perfect guy she wished he’d be. It didn’t stop her from crushing on
him though, as she stole his orange hat repeatedly and they exchanged facebook information. It must have been
fate because as we got off the Cork bus into Dublin we ran into Andy on the
street as he was leaving for Italy When Megan shouted, “Andy! Don’t go I love
youuuu!” He replied, “Me too…” Which I’m guessing was his English attempt at
saying, “I love you too!” They still facebook
poke to this day…
What
I love about Megan is her gusto for living and experiencing everything. She’s
open to doing anything and everything and she rarely thinks about the
consequences. For example, she thought it was a perfectly good idea to change
from her yoga pants to jeans under the table of a supermarket in Dublin. People
were eating their baps and paying for their milk, while she casually stripped
down to her thong and no one noticed. I think getting to know her allowed me to
realize I was missing out. It can be a lot of fun when you just let yourself be
you and not think about how you look. Case in point, Halloween night in Cork, while
walking back we somehow decided it would be fun to spin each other and
proceeded to do so the entire way home. It doesn’t sound so bad, until you
factor in that practically everyone from Loyola was in Cork that weekend and on
that same street.
Kim
Kim
was the organizer of the group and in retrospect if I could have taken some of
the pressure off of her I would have. She literally booked all of our travel, even
down to the bus from Dublin to Cork. I could tell that having that inadvertent
responsibility was wearing thin on her when a couple of days into the trip and
countless, “Kim, what time is our flight/bus/train?” She would hastily retort,
“I printed out the itineraries for everyone, if you want to know you can look
it up yourself.” It was the first time I’d ever seen good-natured Kim, who was
kind enough to let Megan come on the trip, snap and honestly it was kind of
refreshing. Together, when we got frustrated over Megan and Anne Marie walking
at an incredibly fast rate (they were wearing sneakers) while we tried to figure
out the map or the next site to visit we’d vent. We had a similar mindset, we
wanted to do it all, see it all and we weren’t going to accept “No,” as a
possibility. We pretty much commandeered where we were going and what we were
doing for the entire group even though we had little to no knowledge of London
or Dublin. I guess faking that you know what’s going on and where to go is
really all you need to lead. However, you cannot captain a crewless ship which
is why I was so grateful for my co-captain Kim. When I wanted to go to the Guinness Factory, Kim was the one to
offer the suggestion of visiting before going to the Dublin airport. She even
went with me despite being so hung-over she didn’t want her free Guinness. No matter where you go you
always need someone who supports you.
Anne
Marie
Anne
Marie is undoubtedly the closest friend I had abroad. I guess that’s why she’s
the hardest to sum up in a couple of paragraphs and why it’s so difficult for
me to put into words how she made my trip in England and Ireland so memorable.
Instead of doing the stereotypical thing and talking about all the “great
times” with a montage of scenes of our best moments, the only way I can show
how great of friends we are and how I learned from her is to show the “not so great
times.” We didn’t get into rumbles or whip out make shift knives from plastic
cutlery but we had a couple of disagreements. Firstly, regarding objects
allowed in carryon luggage. She got through airport security with a razor while
I got my back emptied for carrying toothpaste outside a plastic bag. Naturally,
when I discovered this I was a bit taken aback. I chalked it up to an oversight
by one of the TSA people as they were clearly too preoccupied with the
biohazardous waste… I mean dental cleaner that was my toothpaste. She was
convinced that razors were on the acceptable list because her dad travels a lot
and had never gotten stopped. I reasoned with her that maybe they were more
lenient on domestic flights but she was convinced otherwise. Throughout the
entire trip, I’d throw random items in conversations just to mess with her,
“Are a pair of scissors okay? What about box cutters…there are tons of boxes to
cut while on a plane it’s a necessity…like shaving!” She told me she’d prove me
wrong and I would just nod sardonically in response. That is until she actually
did. She sent me an official website of items air travel safe for carry. She
was right and I was speechless.
The
ever organized Anne Marie also thought to bring a plastic bag for all her
liquids and I of course didn’t but wasn’t about to pay a euro for a 10 centime
Ziploc so I asked her if I could put my stuff in hers. Even though she had this
tiny plastic bag and it was already ¾ full of her toothpaste, shampoo (in those
designated 100 ml traveling cases) blush and lip-gloss she let me. Mind you I
asked her to hold my makeup, shampoo and deodorant from Montpellier to
Birmingham, Birmingham to London, London to Dublin, Dublin to Liverpool and
Liverpool to Carcassonne. By the end of the trip, we had a good routine going
but obviously to say it was incredibly annoying was an understatement. Despite
this inconvenience, every time she was more than willing to make my stuff fit
in the bag and never told me, “Why don’t you just get a bag?” She just
understood that it was the principle of having to pay such an exaggerated price
for something as cheap as a plastic baggie that stopped me from investing in my
own.
She’s
also very independent. Besides possessing a superhuman map reading talent and
inherent spatial skills (only when she’s not hungry though…when starvation
strikes she loses her power) she’s totally okay with doing her own thing. In
Dublin, while Kim, Megan and I visited the Guinness
factory, she opted to venture into the city herself. She visited the inside of the
Christ Church and Cathedral (we’d only seen the outside on our tour) and saw
the famous Tom and Jerry inspired mummified cat and mouse. She also found the
time to go to a farmer’s market and went shopping. When we came back I
half-expected Anne Marie to be lost and late but she had been waiting for us
for 10 minutes with the cutest purple stone earrings and a Celtic ring. I think
the reason why Anne Marie and I mesh so well as friends is because we get each
other but we’re also quite different. She provides me with the necessary reality
check that I’m not always right and the reassurance that it’s okay to do your
own thing.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
I
know this is supposed to be about me and at first glance it seems to be just
the opposite. You see it’s impossible to talk about the traveler I’ve become without
talking about the 3 girls that helped shape me into one. It was through their
patience, laughter, stubbornness, carelessness, confidence and willingness to
put up with me, that I was able to become the voyager I am. After spending 6
days and nights with these girls in a 26 bedroom hostile and on essentially a
stranger’s bed, in cramped flights and coach buses, I was able to see them at
their best and their worst. Through that, I think I was able to learn and take
a little bit of what makes each of them the ideal traveler. From Megan, I
realized it doesn’t hurt to be spontaneous and not care about what others think
(even if it means spinning on a street corner in front of all of your peers.)
From Kim, I learned that it’s important to have some backbone of organization
when you travel…at least how to get there and if you want to visit something
badly enough you can always make it happen (even if it’s 5 hours before you
have to catch a flight). From Anne Marie, it’s her independence that I most
admire and have tried to emulate (even if it means going off by yourself to
explore your own interests.) From me, I hope they were able to take away that
sometimes when it comes to airport security you have to be ruthless (even it
means pretending to be pregnant to smuggle in your stuffed animal giraffe).
However, I believe the most important thing these girls taught me about
traveling is that it really isn’t the landscape, souvenirs, sites or food that
makes a place special it’s the people you share it with that really make a
difference. I think there’s such a simple truth to the little children’s song I
used to sing in kindergarten, “The more you get together the happier you’ll
be.”
