Submitted by Veronika Lynch on the 2017 winter session program in London, England sponsored by the Department of English and the Department of Theater…
When planning a trip, there are all these things that you don’t expect to happen. Like missing your train back home to London from Paris, having your money stolen off your debit card and almost having to fight the women in charge of the Western Union in order to get your money. Although the stress from these separate events is enough to make anyone go gray immediately, this program has still been one of the best times of my life.
While I ran through the metro station in Paris praying to whoever was listening that I would make it to the train on time, I couldn’t help, but think that it is insanely lucky that I even had the chance to miss a train in Paris. The events that led to me missing my train, however, were not filled with the same positive thoughts. In fact, they were filled with quite the opposite. I had left my apartment for the weekend at exactly 7:00 am for my 8:15 am train ride, making sure to leave myself enough time to get a little lost if need be. But while I made my way down the metro and towards the gates, I realized that I did not have a ticket and of course that exact metro station did not sell them. So then, I had to run out of that station and into the next which had the same exact situation, and now I was on to the third which luckily had an actual attendant who could help me. Now, I had to wait another 10 minutes for the train since apparently they run a lot slower on Sundays, why I didn’t think to look that up beforehand, I will never know. Slowly, I could feel the stress tears stinging at my eyes, but I knew that I had to hold them in and prove to myself that I could be an adult who deals with adult situations.
Clearly, I overestimated myself because as soon as I got to the train station and they wouldn’t let me through security since I had missed the check in window, the tears hit with full force. But I couldn’t let these intimidating French employees see my weakness, so I brushed them away as quickly as I could and made my way to the ticket booth in order to see if I could actually come back to London. I sat in the window and watched as my train left without me, but now the pain really hit as I had to buy an entirely new ticket for the next train back, my bank account crying even harder than I was.
The next battle was border control. Luckily, it was a quick one since no one wants to be up that early on a freezing Sunday morning. The man asking me questions took pity onto me and let me through with the assurance that the only person that I was threat to was myself. Yet, I knew I couldn’t relax until I was sitting on that train and comfortably passed out next to a stranger.
Finally, I was able to take a small breath of relief as I had successfully made it through security, bag checks and then the café line. I knew that if I did not have a single cup of coffee within the next five minutes, I was going to start sobbing my way onto the train. I should’ve guessed that any coffee that was going to cost me 5 euros was never going to live up to my expectations and I was going to be hit with yet another disappointment.
Then, there it was, the best sight I could’ve seen, my train sitting there in front of me and this time it wasn’t going to speed off unless my butt was cemented onto it. As I pushed my way through the crowd of people, I didn’t let it annoy me because I knew that I was going home.