Late last month I embarked on a trip to Berlin, Germany. It seems like a really specific place to visit, but I had always kind of wanted to go there after I played Tony Hawk's Underground 2, a skateboarding video game that had a small section of Berlin as one of its levels. Another big reason to go to Berlin was for the rich and turbulent history of the city, from the Weimar Republic to National Socialism, the Berlin Wall and the subsequent reunification in 1989. Today, Berlin is a city floating peacefully in a lake of culture and good vibrations.
The only difference between almost every other travel story for a young person is this: I was, quite literally, flying solo.
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Naturally, when I was about to leave, my mother was nervous about my well-being, probably because she had seen Taken and figured I would be stolen and sold into slavery. I had no such luck. I took the bus from the Portland Bus Terminal to the halfway-decent Boston Logan Airport. This ride is the only ride I have ever taken that seemed shorter on the way down than on the way back. Also, if you like movies from 20+ years ago, you're in luck. All the screens show one movie, and it's a movie that you probably forgot existed.
As far as airports in the United States go, it was all very familiar to me. Empty your pockets, take off your jacket, shoes and belt. Put your bag through the machine and wait for further instructions from the TSA agent who probably hates their job as much as I hate going through security. Completing this, you have proven you're not a drug mule and/or a terrorist and are free to wander around in the international terminal, which is full of overpriced food, endless amounts of liquor and cigarettes, expensive headphones and some of the most stressed out people in the world.
One tip for being on an airplane for more than six hours is finding a way to deal with the bathroom situation. If you're in the aisle seat, great. You can go whenever you feel like it and you answer to no one, but you probably can't see out the window and sleeping might be difficult. If you're in the window, you get to enjoy the view and get the best sleeping arrangement, but you also have to potentially ask two people to get up so you can throw a piss. If you're in the middle seat, you have the worst of both worlds. However, most transatlantic flights have three rows; one row of three seats on each side and one row of four or five seats straight down the middle. You have double the chance of an aisle seat, but also double the chance of a middle seat.
If you have space to burn on your phone, I can't stress podcasts enough. They make time fly by faster than movies, because movies are more visually stimulating. Find some you really like and download at least 5 episodes. A personal favorite of mine is The Joe Rogan Experience, and most of his podcasts are about three hours long. However, if you download a podcast made by a comedian, make sure you know how to hide your laughter, as sudden cackles on airplanes will warrant a few death glares.
Onboard entertainment is always good, just make sure you bring your own headphones. Most airlines that provide free headphones are of the extremely low quality variety.
If you're connecting to another airport in Europe, expect to have to go through passport control and security again. Also, when booking your flight, make sure you have enough time between connections to accommodate for this.
One annoyance with traveling by yourself is that you have to take your bag everywhere you go when you're in the airport. You can't really ask a stranger to watch your bag, because they might be suspicious of someone like that, especially the way things have been in the past year in Europe.
Upon arriving at Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the central train station for Berlin, as I came to understand it, I didn't really know how to do anything. The first annoyance was that I had no change in Euros, only notes, which the train ticket machines wouldn't take. I went to the information desk three separate times before I left the station, spending a grand total of about 90 minutes in the train station.
I stayed in a hostel, which was a completely new experience for me. I brought my own combination lock, which turned out to be pretty useful, as the ones that were sold at the hostel were pretty cheap looking. The hostel had a small bar and a courtyard, which I ended up spending a lot of time at.
On the street, I tried to blend in as much as possible. By the end of my stay, there were actually German-speaking people asking me for directions, which I thought was hilarious, considering I barely knew my way around apart from getting to the nearest Mexican restaurant and the train station.
I really thought about doing a pub-crawl while I was there, but I realized that I didn't really like most of the other people that went on those sorts of excursions.
However, I did make a few friends. The room I stayed in for 11 nights had people from a lot of different places. In all, I made friends with an Italian named Gerardo guy, a Brazilian guy named Igor, a Chilean guy named Luis, an Australian girl named Hannah and a German guy named Eric. Most of these people were in the same boat as me, just kind of getting away for a little while, going with the flow in the heart of Berlin.
On the morning of what should have been my last day, I missed my flight. I set an alarm on my phone, but, ironically, a reminder came up instead, which told me that I had a flight to catch at 7:30 AM. I woke up to find this message on my phone at 6:52 AM. Half asleep and panicking, I still tried to walk to the station, take the train to Hauptbahnhof, take the bus to the airport, check in, go through security and board an international flight with only 38 minutes to do it.
Basically, I was in trouble. I had to make two long distance phone calls from a payphone, which were 45 dollars apiece. The first was to my grandfather, to let him know that I was a major bonehead and missed my flight. The second was to the airline I was flying with, which was Iberia Airlines. Iberia basically told me that I was screwed and that I would just have to buy another ticket with a different airline if I wanted to leave in the next two days. It wasn't a fantastically comforting phone call, but the reality of the situation was that Iberia and I would probably not meet again anytime soon.
Eventually, my grandfather set me up with a flight back to the States through Scandinavian Airlines and Icelandair, which was the biggest bailout I've ever received; I could have been a Wall Street banker in a past life. Kudos to that man. I would have probably had to go to the US Embassy and have them deport my dumb ass.
The moral of the story is this: you may think you're really, truly, 100% prepared to travel alone, but you should ALWAYS have a backup plan if things go awry. You don't want to be a person at an airport in a foreign country, sweating profusely with sunglasses on top of your head and bags under your eyes bigger than your suitcase while making an emergency forty-five dollar phone call at 8:30 in the morning. At least I didn't cry. I guess that makes me an adult.
In a lot of ways, travel does truly broaden the mind. That girl who came back from Spring Break in BarTHelona was onto something, if only she would just stop saying Barcelona like she's from Spain. It's nice to get away, but it's also really good to be home.
