To go to Germany

So it's been a long time since I last traveled. Almost a year and the travel bug was biting again. I needed to get out. I needed to go somewhere. The only question was where? By now I've done two study abroad for three months each. The first was in London and the second was in Florence. I've also traveled from the United States to Italy two more times in addition to those study abroad. All together I've spent about 29 weeks in Europe in my life which I feel like is quite a bit. I feel like I know it pretty well. I wanted something new. A place I've never been. I began to look on sky scanner all the time for a flight somewhere. Eventually I decided that I would go back to Europe but to a country I had never been to. I decided on Switzerland. Most of you reading this are probably thinking: "what is he talking about? Switzerland? He's in Germany!" Well at first I worked out all the prices that I would go to Switzerland did a ton of research on how much the flight would cost, how much the hostels would cost and how much the rail pass would cost. I worked it out to the fact that it was a pretty manageable price. After that I began to just think about something else. I'm young with almost no responsibilities. I'm not married, I have no kids, I have no dog, I don't have my own house and I don't even have a big boy job. So why don't I just go. I knew that I would have to buy in advance in order to get a good price and there would be a lot of planning involved but I knew that I could do it. But due to my economic problems I thought it would be a better idea for me to maybe go someplace cheaper than Switzerland because even though the Switzerland trip can be pretty cheap, I could go somewhere for a cheaper price so I decided to look for a nice place to go. I came across Spain but then I didn't know if I would like it or if I could find enough people to go with me so I decided to look into Germany. I worked it out and came up with an itinerary that made the trip look like it would be fun and affordable. The itinerary itself was pretty long (about 13 pages) not only that but I also found put the information on every place we were going (the location, the hours, the entrance price, the closest subway stop, a description of the place, and a picture).  Not only that but also all of the stuff that we had made reservations for (our hostels, our plane tickets). It all turned out to be around 250 pages. I read all the information and did all of the searches, so I probably spent about 75-100 hours on the planning. So it's safe to say that I've been pretty excited for this trip since I've started planning it which was in November. 

So my friend Kevin Harris and my cousin Paige were the only two people who decided to come with me to Germany. I was kind of surprised. This trip was close to $3,000 cheaper as compared to a trip organized by a travel agency. I thought it was a really good deal and I expected I would have to set a limit on the amount of people that I could take with me. It didn't work out that way. I'm pretty happy traveling with both of my companions. I've traveled with them both before and I knew that they would be good to travel with. 

Paige is my age but she's born in July so she's technically still 21. She got a degree from Franklin and Marshall and she's quite hilarious. I traveled with her once before when we went through Italy together after our high school graduation. My grandfather takes every grandchild on a trip to Italy as a gift for graduating high school. I learned from that trip that Paige is a good traveling partner. 

The other companion traveling with me is my friend Kevin. Kevin is my age and studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. We both studied abroad together in London. I traveled with him to Prague and all around Scotland and know as a fact there are very few people I would rather travel with. This trip will be difficult. We are going to be traveling together for a long time. 

We ordered our plane tickets in November which were so cheap. It was about $660 to fly round trip from Dulles with a final destination of Berlin. This is where the trip first starts to get difficult. We are cheap so we decided to take the cheapest flight which includes a layover... in Moscow. So we have a 9 hour flight which includes us flying over Berlin to get to Moscow. There we have a 4 hour layover and then it's off to Berlin on another 3 hour plane ride. Like I said, it's gonna be a tough trip. 

We also ordered a rail pass (second class, because it's cheaper for 7 days of travel). We ordered that in like March and we booked all of our hostels. We had to pay 12% of the price for the hostels before we left. We also got insurance on our plane tickets. So before we had even gotten to Germany we had spent over $1000 on the trip. 

The trip really started when my friend Kevin showed up. He took a vacation with his grandma to Washington DC which happened to be the week before we left for Germany. So he spent a week seeing some of the coolest things in DC (a lot of which I have never seen) before I picked up from his hotel two days before we left for Germany. We just kind of hung out for those two days. Mainly just sitting inside and watching tv and movies because he had just done a week of sightseeing and was about to do two more (intense) weeks of sightseeing with me so we just chilled. 

The worst part was about 6 days before we left I started to get a little ear infection. That could be disastrous when I about hop on 4 different planes in a two week time period. So 5 days before the trip I went to the doctors and they gave me some pills and some drops and then I waited and it still hadn't cleared up. So the day that I left for Germany, I woke up early and went to Urgent Care and they fixed my ears right up. 

I actually didn't start packing until about 10:30 the night before we had to leave. But I got it all packed by just throwing random stuff together in about 30 mins. I even got a new haircut the day before so I would look good in all my pictures. 

Then the day of the trip was here. I started it by going to Urgent care for my ear. Then coming home, showering and then eating breakfast. After that we got a quick picture and we were off to the airport. 

We got there with plenty of time and even beat the rush for the lines to check our bags. Unfortunately, the night before I had tried to check in to the flight but I was told there was a technical error. So even though Kevin had gotten to check-in (he had booked on the same website as me) I was not able to and neither was Paige. So we went to the airport anyway and we're getting ready to check in then. We were all ready and suddenly Paige and I were unable to be checked in or anything. We were taken over to a manager and she explained the situation in a tough Russian accent that was difficult to understand. Our flight had changed times and the company had failed to give me a new reservation number for the new flight. Paige had a different company but apparently hers had failed to get her a new reservation number either. So we were kind of stuck on the side of the line trying to call our travel agencies and get on to the flight. It was not going well. The first time the lady hung up on me. The second time they kind of hung up on me after I asked them to hold on. I also could not understand the people I was talking to cause I think they had a strong Indian accent. All together it didn't work out too well and I would not recommend faregeek to anyone. So Paige finally gave the phone with the person from the travel company to the manager of the check in table at the airline. The manager berated the travel company and ultimately decided to check us in by calling her boss in Russian. It was awesome.so we got our tickets to the flight. And we only had about an hour to get through security and get on the flight so we hurried through and while we did that I called all of my credit cards and told them that I was headed to Germany and that they should expect foreign charges from there. My dad gave me a card to use for emergencies but it turns out it was an old card but luckily the people at Capital One venture worked with me and I will be able to use my card in Germany and Russia (Yes!). So I got to call everyone. I got to buy some snacks at the airport, I managed to go to the bathroom, call my beautiful girlfriend and get on the plane and everything. It was great. Now I'm on the plane in an aisle seat, with a Russian lady who lives in Florida next to me talking to me every once in a while (which is pleasant). She told me about how Russia is very safe, better than the U.S. to live in and how Russia didn't take over any countries, those countries wanted to be part of Russia. So I was like "cool". Her 24 year old daughter is on her other side and they got into a large, loud argument in Russian. Paige is in front of me and Kevin is behind me and now I've been typing this for almost two hours so it's time for me to watch some of these free movies!