The Decision (Yeah I'm Lebron)
My final week in the States included an accounting final on Wednesday, my little brother's graduation party on Friday night and my flight left from Columbus at noon on Saturday. But I had something quite important on my mind; to be more specific someone, my girlfriend Hannah.
Now I have never been one for relationships, or really any commitment of any kind. I've never held a job for more than six months and even my friends seem to change every couple months. But something about Hannah kept me interested. Anyway, we had been dating a mere two months and the decision to break up was on my mind. Actually it had already been made; we were going to break up when I left. But on one drunken night in spring quarter I actually let this slip to her, and I was surprised by her reaction. She was hurt, obviously, but she understood. She didn't think about herself but instead on what I would be missing out on if I stayed with her. I wouldn't have the opportunity to hook up with a foreign girl, or do all the wild things that single, intelligent me would get into. But oddly enough I didn't want to do any of those things. I had no interest in the mystery of a foreign girl. I knew I would get into shenanigans whether I was single or not but I just couldn't bear breaking up with her.
Anyway, we spent as much time as we possibly could together before I left; which left no time for packing. I ended up waiting until Friday afternoon to even start packing and ended forgetting: a towel, a rain jacket, a swimsuit, a power converter, a translation booklet and brought no school supplies of any kind. I have also been one known to regret decisions and I did my best to rethink this one. Every time we talked it seemed like we fought about not seeing each other. At one point I even broke up with her, without really talking to anyone else about it. It seemed like she wanted me to just tell her that everything would be alright but I honestly didn't know if it would.
This was my mistake. I was off traveling the world and she sat around all day in Ashtabula, Ohio with nothing to do but think about me. I would be lying if I said I thought about her much because honestly I didn't very much. But everything was going to be ok, I don't know why I didn't realize it. I was the one traveling the world and doing new and exciting things every day. It was really up to me to tell her that everything was alright, and it was. So we made it through the summer and haven't turned back yet. She's been the greatest thing that has happened to me and without this summer, I probably would never have even given it a chance.
The Train Station
To pretense this next story, I need to share some information. My group decided to purchase the Eurail Pass, which allows you to get on any train in Europe during a certain amount of travel days. What we didn't know when we bought it was that only 10% of the seats on the train were designated as Eurail seats. For that reason, you needed to book weeks in advance.
The first weekend we went to the Nantes train station and booked our tickets to Bordeaux without any effort. It was a 2 Euro scheduling fee and that was it. The next week we went back to book our tickets to Paris at the international desk. But there are 8 of us and he says he can only accept three separate payments, but none of us have the money to put it all on our cards. So we go to the other line. It is impossible he says. None available. But how could this be? We were just told that it works at the international desk? We went back to the international desk and he wouldn't even let us try to work with him. It is impossible he says. There is NO WAY we can get to Paris and he is tired of working with us because we don't speak French.
Totally frustrated we leave and go back to your friend's apartment to plan out our next move. "Impossible he says" this would never stand back in the states. I thought the customer was always right? I've worked at several customer-oriented jobs in my past and been bitched at by customers when I acted ten times nicer, why are we getting this treatment now? We spent hours jotting down every single train we wanted to book, the number, the time, the location, everything. Then we headed back to the station. We walked into the door and the man at the desk held up his hand motioning us to just leave. We went over to him and he acted like we were intruding on his day by asking him to do his job. His manager even came over and yelled at him to work with us. So finally he started to talk to us. First train, "Impossible!"; second option, "impossible!"; and so on and so forth. We didn't know what to do. Eventually he just told us that we were wasting his time and other customers were waiting. He even grabbed the next customer and pulled them into the seats in front of his desk to show that he was done working with us. So we went to his manager. First words out of his mouth, "I am not American, I am French; Speak French to me." But none of us spoke French.
Eventually we asked our advisor to go to the station and book our tickets for us. It took an hour of him yelling at her about how arrogant we had been and pompous Americans we were for him to even work with her. She then got our tickets booked for a swift 300 Euros, on top of the 700 we paid for the Eurail Passes to begin with. All because of this douche bag at the international desk.
My 21st
I'm sure some of you have heard me talk about my 21st birthday, but I spent it in Pamplona, Spain. After a nightmarish adventure booking our tickets, skipping a class that was rescheduled after we had booked our tickets and fighting with our advisor about insurance issues; we were on our way.
We spent the Thursday night in Hendaye, France just on the border of Spain. Not a super exciting night, but it was on our way to craziness so we didn't care. The next morning we woke up, walked 2 miles into Spain and caught a local train to San Sebastian, Spain. The "Half-Shell Beach".
We spent all Friday and Saturday in San Sebastian and I celebrated my 21st in San Sebastian. It was really nice because we stayed in basically a college dorm, so there were college kids everywhere. Also, we had kitchens in our rooms so we were able to cook. Anyway, we went to the beach and were separated from the girls. We picked up bread, cheese and 1liter of wine each for probably 5 euros each. After enjoying our spoils, Ellis and I decided it would be a good idea to swim out to the dock where a diving board was. After we were out there for a little while, the others seemed to try to come out but turned back for some reason; honestly its a bit hazy. We got tired and decided it was time to swim back. About 100 yards from the beach I feel a sting on my arm. Then a life guard was on top of me with a kayak. He told me to follow him and I swam after him while getting stung over and over from every direction. After a gruesomely painful swim back to the beach I threw myself onto the ground. While I lay there writhing in pain, the other tell me that Ryan had tried to swim out to us but got caught in a school of jellyfish. He was battling them off and began to drown before Martin and Alex swam out and saved him. These were the stings I encountered on the way back in.
We went back to the dorms to lick our wounds while the girls prepared dinner. I passed out in the grass outside and was completely burned on my frontside when they got back. We ate dinner and I began my Black Label Journey...
As you can probably imagine, I don't remember much of the night from here on in. Apparently we went downtown to some clubs. Then I proceeded to spring out the front door and they had to chase me down. After being refused from 3 cabs, all MBs, we were finally allowed into a cab to take us home. End of my night.
July 7th we wake up on my birthday and hang out at the beach all day. We bought tickets for the 9pm bus to Pamplona that night. The beach was topless, nuff said. On the bus to Pamplona, we were pretty excited but didn't know what to expect. First of all, we thought we were being clever by catching a bus from San Sebastian to Pamplona. They had 6 buses leaving every 15 minutes completely full of people just like us, but with zero luggage. No bags, suitcases, pillows, blankets, nothing. These people had the full intention of passing out on the street. The people across the aisle from me were snorting cocaine with 100 euro bills. Shit was about to get real weird.
Entering Pamplona was like entering a MOB Scene. People were everywhere. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands. We got off the bus and a guy was in a wheelchair and there was a newspaper of a guy being dragged by a bull the day before. What had we gotten ourselves into. Ellis and I stayed out until 5am and it felt like we left the party at its peak. People were face down in gutters, piled on top of each other in the park and we slept in the train station. We slept here...
We woke up at 6am, basically after laying down for an hour and headed to the beginning of the race. At this point, only Martin and I had decided to stick with our decision to run. I can't put the run into words so I will just assume that I will explain during class and leave you with one video.
And since the quality of those suck..
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