84 hours of travel, continuous.

It took me from Tuesday afternoon to Friday night to get home from Europe.

So, in brief, the backstory:
I pushed my flight back to a month after the semester ended, since I was in Europe and had no where to be in the US (no summer job planned, but I got that figured out while traveling, so now I have my dream job to look forward to). So I visited Pompei, flew to England, walked the coast-to-coast by myself, camping (a story in and of itself), of which I am very proud. Then I saw York and London, then flew to Porto in Portugal, then to Lisbon, where I worked in a hostel for a week, then over to Sevilla where I worked in its sister hostel for a couple days. So, month of travel, 9 nights in actual beds (the rest on trains, in train stations, tents, etc). Sevilla.

I take the bus to Malaga, where I am going to fly from. This is the 3:00pm bus. Travel starts. I look around Malaga, have a subway sandwich, it being the only thing I can afford, read a bit, take the bus to the airport, scout out a location, and spend the night on the floor there. I wake up to the morning rush, pack my things, check in, and head to the gate. I look in shops, everything goes smoothly. I completely crash on the plane, getting my sleep where I can. I land in Milan around noon or 1 or something, and get the hour-long bus to the train station. Everything's going according to plan; it's a lot of waiting, sitting and sleeping in uncomfortable positions. I get the 2:30 cheap train to Florence, so I can grab my bags and overnight somewhere relatively secure, then in the early morning get to the airport. It's Wednesday afternoon and my flight is tomorrow morning. Then it's home free to the USA.

But no. Of course not. My month of wonderful travel fortune comes to a screeching and shuddering halt. Just like the train. After 3 hours of random stops, we finally reach Bologna. This is an hour journey, usually. Well, it's an hour and fifteen or so to Florence from Bologna, so we blunder onwards. Two stops later, we stop for an excessively long time. All the passengers get off, and after an hour, with no explanation, we back up 2 train lengths, into a tunnel, and start off again, on a different track. We make it to the next stop. That's all. It is 7:45pm when we roll into that stop. News trickles back that we need a new locamotive, and they're sending one from... East Gibip? Timbuktu? Kalamazoo? No one knows. So I jump train and head to the other platform, where trains march right past without stopping. Of course. We're in backwater Italy where the culture is still reminiscent of Mussolini. Why would a train stop there? After an hour the conductor gets the grand idea of calling into the main train communication center and asking for the next train to stop at our station and take some passengers along, just to Florence. Hey, brilliant. So the next train is a swank Eurostar, the priciest of travel options. And we all jump on for a free ride wisking us off to Florence for a 9:45 pm arrival.

Hey, not so bad. It all sounds like an ordeal, but whatever, it's just waiting. Except it was nearly 100 degrees outside, and humid. A measure: I had bought a huge bar of chocolate to share with the family when I got home. It completely melted. So, being frustrated and hot and miserable, I got out a spoon. That was the highlight of the wretched day: sitting in a lonely train compartment, looking out on the Tuscan countryside in blistering heat, eating chocolate with a spoon.

But then I got to Florence, where I run to my former study abroad school (which closes at 10pm) to jump on the internet and get my flight info (10:15 the next morning, 9:45 check in deadline). Great, except I can't get my luggage until 9:30, when the Mailboxes, etc. I stored my baggage at opens. It closed at 6:30pm, so no chance of getting it that night. This is bad. Doesn't look like I can make it. Hey, it's worth a try. So I get the number of a couple taxi companies, head to the train station, find a corner, and sleep there. I get woken up by the morning rush again, and head to Mailboxes, etc. Which doesn't actually open until 9:40, which puts me in a stressed-out frazzle, when I grab my bags, pay my left arm and half my right foot for their services, and run to a taxi stand (fortunately located nearby; there are only 2 in the entire city, and everywhere else it is illegal for taxis to stop). I jump in and ask for the airport, very quickly. And traffic is horrible. How torturous, to sit there, watching the seconds tick by, as it's 10am, 10:05, and we finally get to the airport. The taxi nearly runs me over getting out of there in a rush, and I run in to see my flight closed and taxi-ing down the runway. Classic.

So I go to the ticket counter and see what they can do. No flights out of Paris to Boston until tomorrow. No way to change my ticket to Philadelphia, which would be very good. I don't want to go to Boston anyway, it was just where the group flight left from. No, no logic, no reason, no changes. So I get to spend the night either in Florence or Paris. Uhhh, Paris, of course. But it's a $150 change fee. Now, I spent a very budgeted month in Europe, doing extraordinary travel and activities, and I came out of that with 15 Euros in my pocket, and $9.38 in my bank account. Good, huh? Yeah, except for the travel nightmare that is the Italian train system (they wouldn't even give me my money back for the ticket, which they had promised to do in that hour on the platform).

So, on the bright side, I get to go to Paris. On the down side, I don't have the money to change my flight or to change my later flight from Boston to Philly. So, I have to make that horrible call that I would never make in a million years, given any other options. If you know me, you know how independent I am from my parents. I don't like to rely on them for anything, and feel like I'm cheating, or being childish, whenever I do have to ask for something. At 5:30 Delaware time, I call them up and tell them that I missed my flight, it's not my fault, I had it all planned out, it all would have worked, I could have done it, but something messed up. The flight move didn't mess me up on the other end, so the only thing that screwed up was the money. Not a big deal, my sweet summer job will take care of that. Plus, it's not like I don't work 2,000 hours in overhire or anything.

But I got a day in Paris. So I run around and see all the sights, doing Paris in a day. Then the exciting part comes when it's midnight and I get to find a place to sleep. I head to the nearest train station, which closes at 1am. No. It closes at midnight. Or at least that's what the big night guard with the German Shepard on a very tight leash said. I wasn't going to argue. So I trundle down the street, looking for good door steps or benches. And I find a little island of greenery. So I crawl under a bush on a Parisian street and sleep a few hours. It was definitely not good sleeping, since I didn't have my camping sleeping pad (which is great for sleeping in airports and train stations). It was also very hot (not a thousand degrees like Florence, but still warm when I had to put on my jacket to guard against critters, etc). So at 4:30am I trundle back up the street to the train station, where it's open for the morning. I sleep for an hour on the benches there, with their stupid unmovable arm rests and hard seats, and give up. I head to the nearest train and sleep on a seat. After a couple hours, guess what? The morning rush woke me up. And at 6:30 that morning, I was up. So I wander around Paris a bit, seeing the last few things before heading to the airport, and finally get to my gate.

On board the huge aircraft, we sit for an entire hour. Why? Well, the captain comes on and babbles something about there was a car crash and we were waiting for one passenger. Then a while later, the airport lost some luggage and they think they've narrowed it down to our forward hold. When they finally captured the escaped luggage (armed and dangerous? Who knows), we finally depart, and get there nearly on schedule due to favorable headwinds. I, of course, sleep. So, not so bad. Until we hit customs, which is a 2 hour line. I finally jump it, since I have a connection. When I finally get out, I see the bus to my terminal for my next flight (now in 45 min) pull away. That drives me crazy, since I have a coming-home party in 2 hours. When I work with a deadline I get frustrated at being late or pressed for time. It had been a month since I needed to be anywhere on time. So I wait for the next bus, which takes forever (EVERY other bus literally comes twice), then we just SIT there at the stop for a while, with me grinding my teeth and alternatively hyperventilating and calming myself with thoughts on how I can't change the situation.

So I miss my flight to Philly. The ticket lady puts me on the 5:30, free of charge, sees me frazzled and is very nice to me. I was short with her, and I feel very bad about it, because she could have thrown it back in my face, but she was lovely. Thank you, good people in the world. Who knew they would be found behind a Boston ticket counter in the good ole' USA?

So I get to the 5:30, which is uneventful, and get to baggage claim no problem, find the parents and finally reveal to them that I hiked across England. Alone. And they loved every word. Which was the most pleasant surprise of all.