Wrap-Up...

What a trip. What a trip, what a trip, what a trip. It’s not quite over yet, but as I sit here on the German ICE train barreling towards Berlin, I start to get a sense of closure on what I will surely always consider one of the best months of my life. When you have solid memories like these, there is always a very warped aspect of time about them. When I think back to early or mid-August, it seems in one sense like only days ago, while at the same time I have seen an done so much since then that it also manages to feel like ages ago.

I don’t really write about emotions because they aren’t so pin-pointable with words as experiences are, but I gotta tell you… it’s a serious mixed bag with me right now. I’m partly a little annoyed, because our Eurail passes, being valid for one month starting on the 5th of August (first day of use), expired on the 4th. This doesn’t make sense to me, and it means 122E out of my pocket to get to Berlin instead of it being the last trip I could use the pass for. The trip down to Prague I was expecting to have to get another ticket for. But I digress from my emotions. Part of me is pretty sad that this month is coming to an end. It has blown by like a summer storm, and even though I don’t think we possibly could have fit more into our schedule in terms of number of places or time given in each one, I still have a desire to explore more, and I regret not having more time, particularly in Paris and Amsterdam. In a way though, this is good, because it leads me into Prague still excited about traveling and exploring, and not annoyed by bad experiences or tired by too much moving about. I was really worried when we got into concrete planning of this trip that things would fall apart. It all sounded so perfect; something was bound to go wrong… Whether we couldn’t get somewhere on time, or Corey and I had a falling out, or whether moving from place to place in rather rapid succession would get so tiring that we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace and actually DO things. I’m not a worrying person in general, and I feel like most of the time I have an unusually rosy view on any situation, but I was dead frightened that what I had worked so hard to put together would end as a result of anger, fatigue, and poor planning. Not so. We have had hiccups, as any traveling person knows are unavoidable, but for the record, this trip went so well that it has all-in-all only whet my appetite to travel more. Also for the record, Corey is a great person to travel with. For me at least. We were almost without fail in constant agreement about where to go, what to see, and how much time to give to a museum or building or whatever it was we were seeing. I have traveled with bad company and good, and the difference will most certainly and without a shadow of a doubt make or break a trip. From its planning stages up until right this moment, I don’t think that any of this could have come to fruition or gone so smoothly and according to plan without such a good friend to travel with. I really appreciate Corey for agreeing to come along on this adventure, for helping to plan it, for being agreeable and quick to forgive, and for bailing me out when I had to go pretty much half the trip with no money. Thanks, man. So I’m annoyed by Eurail, sad that this month is over, excited about Prague, and what else? I miss you guys! It’s no secret that family is a big part of my life. Usually it’s such a big part that I don’t miss getting some time to myself, whether that be by holing up at school or whatever, but after a while you really start to miss the simplicity, like-mindedness and general comfort in existence that comes nowhere else but around the family you know so well and the people you love.

On top of this I really owe my parents a huge thank-you. There’s no way I could have paid for any of this on my own, and I count my blessings every day that I have been afforded the kind of parents who encourage me to expand my horizons in their support both mentally and monetarily. THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH for this. It has been a whirlwind experience as educating as it was eye-opening, and I can’t say thank you enough for giving me this opportunity.

That said, I guess I ought to tell you what I did… Writing was something I hadn’t really considered until the first long entry that I did. I started off using the blog as a means of transmission mainly because I had it stagnant from the previous semester and I knew it would be an easy way to get bits of information all over the family-and-friend-sphere without a whole mess of email lists and forwards from this and that person ex-post-facto. I started to use Twitter, but I figured I’d stick with something familiar, and something I’d already signed up for and created. This was never going to be a diary or journal; more of a “Hey, I’m here… I went to this museum. Here’s a picture.” I don’t know when or why it turned into more, but I guess if I’ve got a captive audience I might as well keep going with it. I stopped writing after Florence because I was really tired of writing and because we did a ton of stuff in Rome. I didn’t ever want to start writing about Rome, and I didn’t want to write about this or that place afterwards because it’d be out of order. I pride myself on having a pretty good memory when it comes to experiences (not so much with other things), and at this point I guess I get to put it to the test. So there’s the excuse, and Lord help me, here’s the story…

Just so you know, this might show up over the course of a few days. Remind me to tell you about the attention span of a spider on caffeine pills, because attention span might come into play getting this done.

3 comments:

Denise said...

I'm waiting...

Walter + Peggy said...

Hi Thomas T!
So sorry we weren't available to skype with you over this weekend, but we did have a nice trip to the boat and sailing. Then the deluge. Am looking forward to the wrap-up!

Walter + Peggy said...

Great picture of Prague! Want more!