Traveling

On the Bus I decided to write a lot of stories about different my travel experiences. Below you can read them at your leisure!
I'm at Banana's house now in Colorado and the travel wasn't bad just very long. I had some rough patches, and my legs falling asleep.



Just today
This morning is was lightly misting rain when I arrived at the bus station in Des Moines with Kate Baumgartner. The station itself was closed seeing as it wasj memorial day and well after Mid-night. We decided to stay in the car and chat. While talking we realized one small problem - if the bus station has been closed all day I have no way to get my actual ticket. We end up calling Greyhound, and I’m a little stressed at this point - because if I can’t get on the bus I think I may actually die. The person on the other end of the phone reassured me that if I had me refference number the driver would take me to the next open station and we would get a ticket there. With a little sweet talking and the normal Nikki charm I was on the bus. The next open station wasn’t until Kansas City my change over city. After getting off the bus the driver took me to the ticket counter, said “We are not waiting in line!” and we went right to the front. I checked my bags and got official tags for them, got my real tickets, and was sent on my way. Saving myself probably 20 minutes in line!



Church and Beer
Once on a trip to Cologne (Köln) Germany with a couple of friends we decided to get some real Kölnish, a dark beer made in the city. Being the exchange student that I was, after drinking my bottle of beer I decided to put it into my bag. A few hours later we were in the famous cathedral on Köln. We were kneeling on one of the prayer benches half way back when the bottle clanged out of my bag. It made the unmistakable sound of beer bottle glass rolling and bouncing on stone floors. The old ladies of the church didn’t seem happy, but just as quickly as we came my friends and I were gone. I still have the empty Kölnish bottle on my dresser at home.


We are everywhere!
Winter break my first year I did a 13 day backpacking adventure throughout the midwest (for under $200). My first trip was from Kewanee, IL to Chicago, IL. I was headed to see Mona Ghadiri and friends. The trip up to Chicago was pretty uneventful. I still had the sugar gliders at the time and they were nestled into my sports bra comfortably napping. When we got to Union Station I somehow got myself a little turned around and couldn’t find the metro that I needed to take to Mona’s. In the train station I ran into 4 Grinnellians, 2 independently and another couple together. It was exactly the refershing boosted I needed that day in Union Station.




Well lubricated
On the way back from San Fransico, Spring Break my first year on a red eye flight. That mean’s it was flying after midnight and before 6 am. Our particular flight was at 2.30 in the morning to Omaha Nebraska. We were all sitting in the San Fransico airport. I had decided to take a nap under some of the chairs and I woke up a little bit over an hour latter to the cackle of a woman. She was actually talking to a boy named Kyle who I was traveling with and every so often would let out a shriek of a laugh. Her and her friends had decided to drink before the 2 am flight, and were “well lubricated” as she called it (repeatedly). I found myself awake and in awe by this woman’s stature, clothing, and voice (however shrill it was). She started to flit with me not long after I sat up off the floor and into a chair. I left the conversation with her business card, that I glued into my travel journal and haven’t looked at since that trip.


Snowy rights or lefts
I was in Hamburg Germany at a March retreat. Hamburg is pretty far North, and the day I had traveled it had been snowing. I was not prepared for how windy it was going to be in Hamburg. Two other students on my program and I got off the train and followed the print out instructions to the U-Bahn, or subway. We got off the U-Bahn at the right stop and followed the directions up the stairs and to the right. We were suppose to walk 2 blocks to the youth hostel. So 3 blocks later we were really confused when we couldn’t find this place. One of the other students ended up making a phone call and it turns out we went up the “wrong” stairs so we should have taken a left instead of a right. By this time we are all tired, hungry, and cold. So we start walking back the other way. We have to go 5 blocks now in the windy northern cold. By the time we all got to the hostile we were bleak and didn’t feel like doing much of anything, but we still had to climb 3 flights of stairs to get to our rooms, which we then shared with 7 other people.


Homeless in Chicago
After some housing confusions in Chicago my girlfriend at the time and I were a bit more nomadic than we would have liked. This meant one afternoon was spent wandering the city streets of Chicago looking in shop windows. It was cold, and snow started to fall down around us when we decided to call it a day and head back to Union Station where we were storing our things and then catch the metro back to where we had found housing for the night. We got that train ride out of the city free as well, because of a found ticket on the ground!



Flight into Germany
The international flight from Washington DC to Frankfurt AM (am Main) went compleatly smoothly. I got my passport stamped at customs with little questions asked, and luckily asked in English. The major stress of the adventure was when we had to run up 3 flights of stairs with carry on luggage and then to the very last terminal and the very last gate to catch our plane. Then when we got there we realized we had read the information wrong and had plenty of time. In my group of 4 Americans, I spoke the best German which really meant I understood most of what people were saying to me. It was a stressful plane flight as we were officially alone in Germany.



Bus rides
Figuring out the bus and train and subway system of a new city is almost the most interesting thing for me. I have a map and it tells me where things are and I use the subway or bus map to figure out how to get there. I was in Hannover, best know as one of the 2006 World Cup cities. I had been in Germany for about 2 weeks at this time and I stood staring at a bus map. An older man was sitting on a bench and I thought for a long time how to phrase the question, “does bus 25 go to Hösen?” I am not sure how or what I said to him because even after my delieration her yelled at me! All I remember him saying is those who are in Germany should learn to speak proper German. I took that to heart and from that day was very dedicated to know my way around and to mastering the language enough to fool old men. Years latter at a table in the Grille I was able to talk to some German speaking profs in Grinnell for a symposium and they asked if German was my native language. Later that same week at German Table I sat next to a German man who was impressed by my language skills and also thought I was German or native to the tongue.


The hot chocolate emergency
I was sleeping in a greyhound bus. I got on the bus at 2.15 and around 3.30 I decided it was time to trust the people around me and sleep some. I had been writing on my computer, and I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. Using Bahba as a pillow, clutching my pocket full up with my ipob blasting music, my wallet with all my information and money in it, and my cell phone, and with my computer on the seat as well I decided to curl up into a ball and try and sleep some. My head was closest to the bus wall and my feel were towards the middle of the bus. All around me in the dark bus I know everyone is sleeping, but I can not see any of them. I allow myself to drift into sleep. around 4.15am I am awoken by a man who says to me, “ we had a hot chocolate emergency and I sit with you?” I sit up in an instant and tell him of course he can. He goes on to say that his seat neighbor had spilled hot chocolate and he didn’t want to deal with the sticky sugary mess so he decided to find a new seat. After this explanation I realized I was dealing with an autistic individual. Our conversation only solidified that claim to me as we talked about the rain.