Ok so here’s the deal, on Monday, May 16th, 2011 both my roommates Cayla and Jiemin left. Since I still had to get my life together, aka plan out where I wanted to go I stayed another night at the Piette’s. Monday was a melancholic day; it was dreary outside, slightly raining, still warmish with a freezing cold rain. Madame Piette drove us to the airport to drop off Jiemin, which was so cute! I cried when we parted ways. Then, we got back to the Piette’s, Cayla grabbed her stuff, and she and I took the metro to Gare de Midi, where we parted ways. She was going to travel to London for a few days with a friend from VeCo (that’s what we call Vesalius College, the school I attended in Brussels), and then she was going to Paris to travel with her Mom and sister. Precious!
Needless to say, having to say goodbyes has not been my favorite thing to do this past year, and yet I have somehow managed to have to say goodbye to everyone. The goodbyes started first in May, when I had to say goodbye to friends from Beloit who I wouldn’t be seeing until senior year. Then in August, I had to say goodbye to my family and friends from home. Next in January when I had to say farewell to Magic Kingdom and all the new friends I had made there. And now it was May 2011 and I was saying goodbye to Belgium friends. The good thing about this year is I have met so many new people! I can honestly say I have a friend in every single one of the fifty states, and I have friends sprinkled all over Europe. Pretty cool!
But I digress from what I was beginning to tell the story of. So I said my goodbyes to the last of my friends abroad, stayed inside packing, and pretended to plan out my trip. By the end of the day, I had finally decided on a starting point for my travels: Cologne, Germany.
I chose Cologne purely because it was only a 2-hour train ride, I knew various other friends who had visited it and liked it, and the hostels there seemed pretty cheap. I didn’t choose it because I knew anything about it, no, I chose it because others had talked about it.
So Monday night, I had my last dinner with the Piette’s, some sort of chicken dish. I love the Piette’s more than anything, but Madame Piette is a food pusher. She loves to cook, but hates the thought of having leftovers. Now, it seems as though she had forgotten that Jiemin and Cayla had already left for she made the same amount of food for 5 people, but for only 3 of us. Once I had finished my first plate and was feeling quite full, I take a sip of water to realize she is putting more food on my plate saying, “Eat. Eat.” What a lady!
After dinner, I went back upstairs had a brief freak out about my month of adventure. I kept wishing I was just going home like everyone else, not going traveling by myself for an entire month, but my mother and the Crescent Club convinced me I had committed to this adventurous plan last year, and I was on the home stretch there was no point in turning back now. Of course, they were right, but at the time, I was such a mess. I didn’t have a plan. This was the first time I had no plan whatsoever. Generally I have some idea of what I’m going to do, but this time nope. I knew I was going to Berlin to meet with Alissa and EuroDisney with Hilary, but that was it, otherwise it was just me. So I put on my matching Belgium t-shirt my roommates and I all have, and I watched an episode of Grey’s and said, “Well it’s happening. I’m leaving tomorrow for Cologne and I’ll just go from there,” and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing!
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