alice

It is the day I am leaving.

I feel a bit scared and a bit worried and a bit nervous, but also incredibly excited and impatient. I know this is the right thing to do. I know that there will be times where I will panic and think I’ll want to call it all off, and I will think wtf am I doing, I can’t go travel all around European countries all by MYSELF for a few months, what if something bad happens, what if something goes wrong, I am all alone in a foreign country. It makes me feel very small.

But I know this is the right thing to do. It’s an opportunity. I have 5 months of absolute freedom, starting in April. I finish work around March 23rd, start uni in mid-September. And inbetween? Nothing, no commitments, no duties. So I see this as a true opportunity to get out there and do something. Travel many countries. That’s it. Yes it’s a bit scary and a lot to handle, but that’s life. It would be incredibly and utterly stupid to waste this perfect time. I have the money to fund it, I have the means to fund it, and most of all, I have the will to fund it. I want to do this so badly. You have to take some chances in life. This is one of mine.

Anyhow so I’ve finally got round to making some proper plans, and now I have the starting point sorted I feel a lot more comfortable. I rang Elaine last week to discuss it, cos when I saw her before Xmas she mentioned that I could travel with them to Germany in April if I wanted. It’s the German Exchange from College, and there’ll be tons of spaces on the coach, so she offered a free ride. I rang her up to confirm this, she said it’s absolutely fine yay. I went on the Exchange 2 years ago so I can remember the town and stuff pretty well. It’s a pretty little town called Unna, in West Germany, and near to Cologne and Dortmund. The 6th of April is a Sunday, and the journey takes about 16 hours or so: we leave 7am, and arrive 10pm Deutsch time. Therein I contacted my old German assistant Jutte (got to love Facebook for this kind of thing), and felt very rude indeed asking if she could help me in any way help me find a hotel/hostel/shed to stay in for the night. Jutte, lovely as always, suggested I crash at hers, as she has a spare bedroom (and apparantly hosts lots of her ex-students when they fancy a trip to Germany hehe). So that’s that sorted! She says I am more than welcome to stay as long as I like, but I think I will only spend the one night there, possibly 2 if I am reallllly tired, but from there on I will catch a train to Cologne.

And then I plan to head West to Belgium to spend time at Uka’s. He has exams in June so said although I was welcome anytime, he’d really prefer it as early as possible. I will make more concrete plans with time.

But yay!

Boring stuff I need to sort out.

• Inter-rail card: 399 euros for a month pass… I’ll need about 3 or 4 of these, depends. Lol that’s about £1000 on fucking train tickets. Nevermind, that’s only a month’s wages. I have plenty saved up. And that’s all my travelling I will ever need for this trip. Well I’ll need some for upgrades and stuff on certain trains, but that’s not much at all.
• Hostels: Right. Looking in my trusty European Hostels website hostels are costing about £7-£10 a night. That is reasonable, and then we do the maths. Let’s say I go for 3 months initially. April, May, June. That’s about 90 nights in total. 90 x £10 = £900. Wow, that’s actually really reasonable. Again, about a month’s wages.
• Other expenses: Food. In all fairness I think this is an important issue, how I will feed myself. I can’t exactly cook meals (I mean because of the lack of facilities, not because of my lack of skills!), and I can’t afford to eat out all the time. Luckily I have a small appetite anyway, so I don’t need 3 course dinners or anything. A lot of places can be really cheap, and in places like French markets you can get food for dirt cheap: fruit, meat, bread etc. I think I’ll be okay. I can survive. And besides, say I have a budget of like 10 or 15 euros a day for food, again that’s like a tenner a day. So again, another £900. Total so far = about £3000. Yes that’s a lot, but this is what I’m working for at the minute, right?!
• What other expenses should I consider?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Being out and about, Good news, travelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.