My Trip Bloopers

When you go on a big trip it’s not uncommon to have a few hiccups along the way. 

Even when you plan really well, mistakes and mother nature happen. It’s also not uncommon to change plans last minute. So… how do you handle it and still have a good attitude?

Honestly, the “I told you so” does no good, so hold back on saying it. You just cause more contention. The best thing to do is take a deep breath, step back for a moment, adjust yourself to what just happened, let go and move on. Then laugh about it.

So, here are the bloopers from my trip this spring:

First, we missed our train in Amsterdam to take us to Bruges. It was stupid really. We were already at the station in plenty of time and thought there was enough time to eat. So we sat down for a bite to eat… and then ended up missing our train by seconds. Rookie mistake on our end! We felt more stupid then anything else. And, of course it was the last train that was leaving for Bruges that night!

What do you do?

We immediately went to the information desk and started asking who we should talk to. You could tell by the face of the person behind the information desk how stupid they thought we were. Not to mention I heard them say, “probably not possible to get a train tonight.” As we were trying to stay calm, it wasn’t helpful having people look at you and remind you of how stupid you feel. So not helpful! They told us to go to the south end of the station where we could work out a new schedule to get to Bruges that same night. We had to buy new tickets and the only way to get there was to hop from train to train because there wasn’t a direct trip. So, we train hopped and some stops were tight. We had to run from one train to another in minutes, not knowing the platform when we got off. We actually had a great attitude about it because it was so funny getting off on some random stations, having no clue which way to go.  Sometimes we just had to run and figure it out really quickly or just start running up to complete strangers and saying,”Do you speak English?” Then out of desperation saying, “Do you know which way platform 4 is?” I think every person we ran into that night thought, “Stupid Americans!”

It was so funny! At one of the station stops, we knew we only had 4 min to get off our train and on to another train. And let me tell you… those trains leave right on the DOT! Not a second later. We learned that the hard way.  So, we got ready and right when the doors opened, we picked up our stuff and ran.  When we got to the escalator it was broken!!! ARGHHH!!! We booked up the escalator with our luggage (glad I packed light) and ran around looking for our next platform. As luck would have it our transfer was at the far end of the station, so we ran as fast as we could and got there with 45 seconds to spare. Whew! On our last train, there was this little old man who was using a walker and was just shuffling along. Nate and I were both breathing hard and as we were catching our breath and laughing at how ridiculous we must have looked and how fortunate we were to make the train with 45 seconds to spare, here comes that little old man and his walker, who slowly shuffled up to the train and boarded with seconds to spare. He must have known a shortcut and we must have taken the longest way possible because there was no humanly way possible in his condition to make that train. Nate and I burst out laughing.

But we ended up getting to our hotel around midnight. We were very fortunate that our hotel had 24-hour check-in.

It made for a new adventure that we laughed about. We got through it and still had a wonderful time.

Second, I got food poisoning or the flu in Paris. Not sure which one it was, but it was extremely painful. If you missed it click here for my Paris hospital post.

Again, we both had a great attitude because despite my unfortunate illness, I was in Europe on vacation loving all the cultural experiences. Plus we had travel insurance and were prepared and I knew I was going to be okay.  I just needed to get better.

Third (and this was my personal fave), Nate and I lost track of time while hiking in Scotland and ended up sleeping in our car for the night.  Turns out the field we parked next to was filled with sheep and we got to listen to “BAAAHHHH!” all night long.

We had plans to stay in a B&B but the latest arrival time to check in was 11pm. There was no one to blame but ourselves.  We were so in love with hiking and exploring (so much fun) in the Highlands that we chose to explore it more. So, we chose and accepted that we lost our place to sleep comfortably for the night to see more of Northern Scotland and arrived at the B&B in the morning to wash up and eat a homemade breakfast. Because… we still paid for it after all and, we were looking forward to a home cooked breakfast. I have to say though, it was pretty cool to wake up next to large, fluffy sheep right outside my car window.

The final shift in plans was in Iceland, when we canceled our original car rental reservation for a more expensive car, because everyone else booked the cheap car rental service and the line was insanely long. To save our precious time, Nate booked a car through another car rental place that had no line so we could get on our way.

These experiences didn’t ruin our trip at all. In fact, it gave us more to talk and laugh about. We worked well together under pressure and figured things out faster because we stayed calm. If we were mad, we just stayed quiet for a bit to calm down so we didn’t speak in anger and stayed positive pretty much the entire time because we were on vacation in Europe, and it’s not worth it to get angry when we both worked so hard to pay for such a wonderful experience. We loved it all! And we will do this again and again!

We were also so grateful that we were prepared and planned for hiccups from the beginning. Life isn’t perfect. It never will be.  The quicker we accept and adjust to life’s flaws as they come, the happier we will be.

XOXO

Melessa