Traveling on my Own

At the beginning of March, for spring break, I bought the cheapest tickets I could find to London and Dublin. I planned to travel alone to both of this cities.

Traveling alone is one of those incredibly intimidating and exciting things that I am immensely happy to have done. Given where I am in my life, this was one of those opportunities that I had to take.

London is a great city to visit by yourself. People were super friendly and constantly helped me find places, answer questions and overall tried to make sure that I was safe and okay. My hostel was the best hostel I have stayed at, clean and with a restaurant. I was impressed. London is amongst the cities that I have to come back to. There is just so much to see that I only caught a glimpse of the British capital. Plus, hearing and seeing English on the streets after months of being surrounded by Danish was much needed.

Then, after managing to get lost in the airport in London, I made it to Dublin where I only spent a day. Although my hostel smelt like feet, it had included breakfast and someone who came to pick us up to join a free walking tour of the city. In my tour group, I got to know a pair of girls from the East Coast and a German guy. The four of us had lunch and then the German boy and I sat in a pub until I had to go to catch my train to Galway.

Galway was cute, a smaller European city, vibrant with Irish culture. Can’t say the same thing about the hostel where I spent two nights. It smelt weird, was kind of gross, with only one room, overcrowded, with people who were staying for months on end as they tried to find a job in the city. The staff was friendly, but I was not very comfortable. With this, I was glad to say goodbye to the hostel lifestyle.

While in Galway, I went on a bus tour of the Cliffs of Moher, which was incredible. Ireland is gorgeous and the cliffs are breathtaking. During this tour, I met a sweet girl from New Zealand with whom I explored the Galway night life after sharing dinner.

The next day, I was on a train back to Dublin to hopefully grab my bag before catching my flight back to Copenhagen.

Back in Dublin, I had two hours before my flight was scheduled to leave. I had to get my bag, then find transportation back to the airport with hope that I would make it. The stakes were high and so was my heartbeat.

I picked up my bag at the transportation center lost and found from a nice Irish man. Then, saw the bus to the airport leave, knowing that another was not scheduled to come for another hour.

So, I dowloaded the Irish version of Uber and was soon on my way to the airport. But, we were stuck in traffic because not only did a bus break down right in front of us but there was some sort of match in town that slowed everything down.

Somehow, I got to the airport, ran to security where they chose to randomly check my bag. And in typical Irish fashion, did so very slowly while I was panicking. Eventually, with my bags hitting other passengers, I ran through the airport to catch a glimpse of my plane leaving the gate. I cried at the gate.

I did the adult thing and called my parents. We figured out that I would be on a flight to Copenhagen the next day. Until then, I hung out at the airport for 24 hours, by a McDonald’s all night, calling friends from home and trying to find a comfortable enough position to maybe sleep a little.

After I got to the train station I realized that I left my bag on the bus. After freaking out, I was able to contact a bus driver who kindly found it for me and assured me that it would be waiting for me at the lost and found at the end of the weekend.