Spring Break!!

Spring break 2019!! My last spring break, EVER!! It was one for the books indeed! I travelled to a new city almost every day, adding another 3 countries to the trip count! The travel started with an overnight FlixBus from Bonn to Paris. IT. WAS. A. LONG. NIGHT!  There was one change over in Essen for a few hours. So I got to see a lot of what the Essen Hbf had to offer. Not much, in case you were wondering. Though it was really large! If I weren’t travelling with a big suitcase I might have left the station for a nicer dinner, but I settled for a chocolate croissant instead. Figured that would get me excited to Parisian croissants, right? Something weird happened later when I was just about to go outside for my next bus. A random lady (40s? 50s?) who was travelling with a girl closer to my age (maybe later 20s?) came up to me, speaking Italian. For some reason, I thought telling her “Ich spreche kein italienisch” would get me out of the situation… so instead she started speaking to me in German. Again, I told her “Ich spreche nur ein bischen Deutsch.” When she realized I was American, she started to tell me in English how I look Italian, or like some Italian painting... I wasn’t quite sure what was going on… so I smiled and nodded. Then she asked me if I speak Spanish, and we carried on a little conversation in Spanish for a while. So four languages later, this random woman is extremely interested in me and where I’m from, and why I’m in Germany, and how long I have been here, all the usual small talk stuff. But with a random woman who walked up to me in Essen Hbf… though I didn’t get any super weird feelings from her, I recognized the odd situation and kept my guard up just in case. My suitcase was lying on the ground behind me, against a wall, I had my backpack on, and my hand over my purse - everything zipped up and hard to get to. To this day, I have no clue what her motives were… but I made it out alive. Eventually, I was on another FlixBus headed towards Paris. So, spring break started in France where I spent a two days in Paris, a few in Toulouse, then to London for a few days, and then Bristol and Bath. Since this was my second time in both Paris and London, I won’t talk too much about those cities. Toulouse and Bristol were both a nice change of pace from all the big cities. They were both quiet college towns that had a very unique feel to them. Bath was a super cool historical place that I am very glad I went to! It was a week filled with fun adventures and new experiences! On the way back to Bonn, I experienced lots of delays and even missed a bus or two and somehow ended up in Lille and Brussels for a bit. Nothing weird happened like on the way to Paris, but it was again another long day of travel. By the end of the week, I was certainly ready for a relaxed week getting back into the routine of Bonn living! Funny how Bonn seems like home these days. :)