When you're having as rough a time as I am, you kinda just wanna escape reality for a little bit - and that's exactly what I did. There's a company called Ouibus that goes to different cities throughout Europe, and these prices are dirt cheap (my round trip was around 50 euros). I decided to go to Amsterdam for the weekend, so I left Rennes on Thursday morning, got to Paris, spent a few hours there, and caught a night bus to Amsterdam. I stayed at Wow Hostel, which was conveniently located 15 minutes by foot from the train station.
Amsterdam was a GORGEOUS city. If I could sum it up into three words, it would be canals, flowers, and bicycles, because that's literally all you see anywhere. The food was absolutely amazing - I ate street food basically throughout the two days I was there, and everything was superb. It wasn't all fun and games though: For one, the bus station in Paris is the dirtiest I've ever seen, and the bathrooms are so disgusting. I've experienced a hole-in-the-wall-no-toilet-seat-broken-door-no-toilet-paper kine bathroom in Vietnam during my AFS trip, but this was worse than that - peeing was almost an impossible feat. My bus to Amsterdam arrived an hour early, and because the sun hadn't risen yet (it was 6am lol) I was stuck at the bus station for an hour. Luckily, I met a few students from the US, and they were nice enough to let everyone use the restrooms by paying the 1 euro fee first. (Yeah. I guess Europeans don't think peeing is a human right because 93% of the bathrooms I've seen have some type of entrance fee - even in malls! it's ridiculous.) THE WORST PART. So. You know how I've been having the worst luck ever. Well. It gets worse. My bus back to Rennes from Paris, for some odd reason, didn't show up at the stop it was supposed to. Now, I am one to make sure that every single detail is correct, and because my bus got to this station an hour early as well, I had a LOT of time to make sure I was at the correct place. So, my bus wasn't at the location it was supposed to be at, but I figured it was just late (like the bus from Amsterdam to Paris). But after almost an hour at the same stop, I started majorly freaking out. I called the bus company and they told me it had already left, and by that point I was crying and on the verge of having a panic attack. The man on the phone was kind enough to re-book me for a different bus, so I now had 4 extra hours to spend in Paris. But hey, on the bright side I got to see a beautiful sunrise? ^ I made that seem a lot less terrible than it actually was, but I don't think anyone, except for my boyfriend and family, in which I called to cry to, knows how terrified I was. I was pacing back and forth, asking anyone around me if they were catching the same bus as me, my hands were cold, my heart almost dropped to my stomach, and I could feel my breathing getting shorter. While I'm going through these terrible situations, I can't help but think I'm just filled with bad luck, and that the universe is hating on me in every way that it can. But after I get over it and find a way out, I realize that the universe isn't hating on me - it's trying to make me stronger. As I look back at the many bad experiences I've encountered in the past three weeks, I'm amazed that I was actually able to power through them. There were times that I wanted to just quit everything (when I got stuck in Paris, I honestly thought about staying there and having my parents fly from Hawaii to pick me up - that's how hopeless I was) but the fact that I'm still here amazes me, because I know the Corina in 2018 would have broken down during the first housing/visa flop. The greatest realization I've made from these misfortunes, however, is that I have the strongest, best, most loving support team back home. My parents and sisters have expressed to me so many times how proud they are that I've been able to overcome these situations, and always reassure me that it's okay to quit if it means staying sane and mentally healthy. My boyfriend is always supporting me in everything, and constantly gives me the affirmation I need - and if he didn't answer the phone during my situation in Paris, I probably would have broken down. And my friends - even the ones that I never thought would reach out - are always checking up on me and encouraging me to stay positive.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |