Writing this on the way to PARIS.

Sometimes, after I plan something and it goes really well, I think that I should be a travel agent. And then part of my plan goes horribly wrong and I rethink pursuing that profession. I am currently writing this on a megabus, destination: Paris. It wasn't an easy journey ending up in this seat. I thought that I had planned exceptionally well for this trip. When we had gone to Amsterdam, I had forgotten to save directions to the hostel, so we had to go to Starbucks when we got there so that I could figure out directions. I was certain that I could make things go smoothly this time around. I stayed up late saving directions to everywhere that we had to go for the next 24 hours. I shouldn't have bothered.

One thing that I haven't shared with my roommates yet is that when people give me directions, it never makes sense to me. I have gotten OK at reading maps... but visualizing a map when someone is telling me where to go... just doesn't work in the slightest. To be safe, I asked for directions from the international ticket booth just in case my map was wrong. Well, it turns out my map was wrong. I repeated the directions to my travel mates, but to no avail. We found no megabus station. I went back to the station and asked for the directions again. They still made absolutely no sense to me (even thought they were, "Make a right and then take your second right." That should have been a piece of cake, right? Not for me.). After the four other interns were convinced that we weren't going to make it (that thought hadn't crossed my mind... apparently I have a lot more faith in myself than they do), Mallory and I finally found a lot of buses that looked like they could be megabuses. 

In the directions that the lady at the train station had given us, she had said that we won't know if we are there or not. I kept asking for landmarks that would help us know that we were at the right spot, but she said that there was no sign, no station, no way to know. We were doomed for failure from the get-go. But after 30 minutes of searching, when it was probably about two minutes away, we found it.  If that had been Julia and I, I would've been a lot less stressed out about finding it... but knowing that I am our best chance of finding things... puts a lot of pressure on me. Thank God I work well under pressure. Maybe that's why I am doing so much better this trip with not getting lost. The fact that I, myself, am my only hope. It adds that sense of urgency that I never had traveling with older siblings.

Another reason to travel by yourself: you'll find out you're capable of things that you weren't aware of... simply because you're doomed if you don't find a way to be capable of these things.