Week 9.867/Spring Break
Part 3
We left
Naxos Friday morning. I sat in a coffee shop, journaling until it was time to
board the ship. The entire 4-hour ferry ride home, I read my physiology book
and took notes- probably the most studious I’ve been at one time this whole
semester. When we docked in Athens, we took the tram to our hostel right behind
the neighborhood of Psyrri. Adriana and I walked around the market together,
bought some strawberries and coconuts and talked about life.
At the
end of the day, all of us girls went to a rooftop bar with a clear view of the
Acropolis and all its lights. We drank mojitos while we talked about how we
feel we’ve changed this semester. Do we miss College Station? Would we study
abroad again? How is it different here?
I said
that here, we have to learn to see the good in people. In College Station, if
you don’t mesh with another person, it’s easy to go your separate ways. If you
don’t like a situation, it’s easy to walk away from it. Here, we are with the
same people all day every day. We may not like them all or understand them all,
but we grow with them and learn from them. We are in situations that are inescapable
that force us to look within ourselves for solutions. I also feel like this
semester has been a rude awakening; I am constantly reminded of things I do not
like about myself. While I thought this would be an empowering and joyful semester,
much of it was spent realizing I want to change myself. And I think that’s
better than I prayed for. Although I would have loved to be happy-go-lucky the
whole time, what growth comes from happiness?
We woke
up the next morning and got coffee and Greek spinach cakes for breakfast before
catching the tram to the airport. Adriana had a later flight, so she stayed to
shop and tour the city a bit more. We made it to the airport early and I
studied the entire flight home. Once we got to Frankfurt, we dawdled around and
wasted time, sitting and eating and getting Jessica’s sister’s lost suitcase. No
one had bought a train to Bonn yet. Finally as we walked toward the trams, we
went to buy at the self service kiosk and each train was 80 euros. We panicked.
We needed to buy a Flixbus, but it was already 1 pm and the bus was leaving at 1:40.
A train from the airport to the bus station wasn’t coming for another fifteen
minutes. After trying every destination on the kiosk near Bonn and looking for
cheaper tickets to no avail, we thought we would have to wait until the 6 pm
Flixbus. Then Masha suggested we Uber. But how long would the Uber take to get
to us? We started to run down to the exit of the airport while I searched how
far the drive was to the station. 20 minutes. It was 1:15. We weren’t going to
make it. As I began to stop Masha, the map recalculated and showed 15 minutes.
We saw taxis on the street and sprinted for it. As we ran outside and knocked
on the window, I asked, “Can you go to Frankfurt Hauptbanhoff?” “Wie?” I
realized the taxi driver spoke no English. “Gehen sie Frankfurt Hauptbanhoff?” “Ja”
“Was kostet?” “Dreizig, zwei und dreizig”
“Okay,
that’s around 7 or 8 euros per person,” I said. “Can you get there in zwanzig minuten?”
Masha asked. “Ja,” he said, and we rushed in. The taxi driver stepped on it and
we flew down the road while Melania, the only data holder, bought four Flixbus
tickets online as we approached the station. Ten minutes into the drive, my
maps showed us very close and it became apparent we would make it. The taxi
driver brought us to the stop and our Flixbus came and leftexactly on time, 5
minutes later. Our teamwork was impeccable.
As we rode
home, I listened to my first podcast. I had been wanting to get into podcasts for
a while, and very much so this semester- and it was a great was to spend the drive.
When I finally got home around 7, Ana and I shared details of our trips- a
routine I always love.
To wrap
up the break, a group of us went to the Dubliner to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day,
since we weren’t with the UK Spring Breakers. No more free shots, and back to
reality :/
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