So here's my tale of mixups, mayhem, and a Ring of Power.
Just kidding. I hadn't been anywhere near the Ring of Power when I was fifteen. That happened later, when I was twenty, and I got engaged.
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| An actual photo of me from last March |
Oh, I make myself laugh. Anyway.
My family is what my mom likes to call "European Mutt Mix."
Yes. That is as flattering as it sounds. And it's pretty much true. The largest contribution in my bloodline is German, though. I'm a quarter German, on my dad's side. My grandma is from Munich, Germany--the land of edelweiss, beer and pretzels, and weisswurst. And lots of other things, actually--it's a pretty diverse city. Very clean. But then, if you know Germans, you know that they are some of the tidiest people on the planet. My grandma keeps the cleanest house of anyone I know. The only places that dust takes refuge are the places she can't reach.
I had the opportunity to go to Europe when I was fifteen years old, with my parents, my aunt and uncle, and my two cousins. The plan was to travel to Belgium, where my uncle served his Mormon mission, and go to Germany from there. However, Air Travel is as like as not to turn into a Comedy of Errors, and our trip was no exception. We missed our flight to Brussels by 15 minutes, so there we were, in Atlanta, completely clueless as to the quest we were about to embark on.
We were given a choice: stay in Atlanta or catch a flight to Paris. Well, the natural choice was Paris, so we caught a flight to France. You know, a solid ten-to-fourteen hour flight that I DID NOT SLEEP A WINK DURING. I hadn't slept at all on the way to Atlanta, and everyone else around me on that Boeing was sound asleep. The only movie they played (on repeat, and I have no idea why, I accredit the French with having much better taste than this) was Blades of Glory. I'm fairly sure I dipped my toes in one of the Circles of Hell that night. I never had any desire to watch Blades of Glory in the first place, but to try to ignore as it keeps playing and playing is a Herculean feat. I think I gave up and switched the screen on the back of my seat to a map of where the plane was in RealTime, and I promise you, watching a plane inch along a screen is better than watching Blades of Glory even once--which is the first-worldiest of all first world problems, granted.
So by the time we touched down in Paris, I was already exceptionally tired, and everyone else was almost as tired from traveling and the time change. So we wandered the CdG airport, looking for the baggage claim, and we found it. But we didn't find our luggage.
Yep. Our luggage got lost. All of it. I had the outfit I was wearing and one other change of clothes in the carry-on case, and everyone else in my group was in the same state.
It felt like the minute I stepped out onto European soil, I broke out. My hormones were really off--I was on the verge of starting my first course of birth control pills to clear up my acne (and regulate things, let's not dance around it. Not awkward. Just a fact of life), but I hadn't been able to start it before leaving to go on the trip. So I was kind of miserable. We all were. We were sweaty, rumpled, sleep-deprived, and luggage-less. But we were in Paris! City of love. Light. All that.
. . . the city which we didn't end up seeing very much of. Except the metro. We saw a lot of the metro. Which was dirty and tumultuous, actually, and felt like something out of Lewis Carroll--maybe dirtier, but not any less surreal and crazy. We managed to see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, though.
Step three was to catch a train from Paris to Belgium, which we very nearly didn't do because none of us spoke French--we ended up in the wrong compartment, had to run to get in the right one. I did fall asleep then, and when I woke up, we were in Belgium.
We got our rental car, and my uncle drove us all to Brugge. If you haven't been to Brugge, GO. It's one of the most enchanted places I've ever been. Cobblestone streets, canals, tatted lace and rainstorms. Of course, it wasn't all enchantment. Without luggage we had to wash clothes every two days, and I spent a lot of time wishing I had pajamas, believe me.
We got to meet a few of my uncle's friends from his mission, and they showed us around the city. One of my favorite memories was all of us going with my uncle's friend, Yves, every morning to different bakeries and getting pastries for breakfast.
From there we went to Antwerp (a city which means Hand-Throw, and in which I had my own hotel room for two nights, fancy), and then to Brussels, the capital of Belgium (where I went to my very first H&M). And then--Munich. My grandma's home country. Still luggage-less.
We still have relatives in Munich, so a good deal of our time was spent with them. They were all really neat and clean, of course, and they treated us with all the kindness in the world. We had so many dinners with them, and explored the city with them. I can't imagine the trip being half as awesome as it was if we hadn't been able to meet and spend time with family.
Munich is a big city. If we'd had a month, it wouldn't have been long enough to see everything. And the history of it is overwhelming. The palaces--Nymphenburg, Linderhof, and of course, Neushwanstein. The opulence of those places was overwhelming.
I have so many fragmented memories from Munich. Travel tends to make things a little blurry--especially when you can't sleep because your pajamas are in a suitcase in some airport in Amsterdam. The giant clock in the Marionplatz with the animated figures. . .buying the seventh Harry Potter book at the humorously named "Hugendubel" where my grandma's cousin creates window displays. . .going for a walk in a beautifully preserved park that was more forest than park, and of course, hanging out with Loren, the cousin who was closest to my, Amy, and Eric's age. We got to see places my grandma had walked more than sixty years before us.
I remember feeling loathe to leave at the end of the trip. It felt like home, somehow, even though the city was a huge overwhelming maze and I wasn't even out of middle school yet. We walked by the river where my grandma used to play as a kid, and I remember how warm it was, but how green. In the desert when it gets warm everything turns brown. In Munich, everything was still green. Muggy, yes, but unquestionably beautiful.
I get homesick for Europe, sometimes. The culture, the friends, the family members. Munich was always in my blood, but going there brought everything to life. I have to go back there, someday. It's a physical need.
The real question, I'm sure you all have, concerns hobbits. I mean, luggage. Our luggage. Did we ever get it back?
Nearly all of our suitcases caught up to us in Munich. Except one. One got sent home, and not even to the right address.
That suitcase?
Yeah. It was mine.
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