I recently returned from a 10-day trip to Europe. Unfortunately, my wife couldn't make it, so I was on my own. It was liberating in a way: I was free to wake up when I wanted, eat meals when I wanted, visit the sights I wanted to visit. I was free to do what I wanted, when I wanted to do it. It was so much fun.
For the record, it would have been so much more fun had my wife been there with me and we could have set our own itinerary together, as a couple. I just wanted to make that clear.
Along the way, I had several socially awkward moments, mostly small, but mostly Shane. That's one of the lovely things about travel: You learn that awkwardness transcends borders.
I wish I had written all of them down in a travel diary, but I'd never actually kept a travel diary before so I didn't even consider to bring one. Here's what I remember, off the top of my head:
For the record, it would have been so much more fun had my wife been there with me and we could have set our own itinerary together, as a couple. I just wanted to make that clear.
Along the way, I had several socially awkward moments, mostly small, but mostly Shane. That's one of the lovely things about travel: You learn that awkwardness transcends borders.
I wish I had written all of them down in a travel diary, but I'd never actually kept a travel diary before so I didn't even consider to bring one. Here's what I remember, off the top of my head:
Flying to Budapest
It was not a smooth journey from Newark to my first destination, Budapest, which wasn't totally unexpected since I've had my challenges flying internationally in recent years.
For reasons not clear to me, Newark International Airport did not have a PreCheck line. As someone who has PreCheck, I was deeply disappointed. Nothing brings me greater joy than the opportunity to enter a PreCheck line and walk right past all of the passengers in the longer line next to me. And Newark had the audacity to take that experience away from me? I couldn't believe it.
As I waited in the longer line and inched toward the X-ray machine, it occurred to me that TSA agents might actually force me to take off my shoes and belt. I had a feeling I knew what would happen next, but I asked an agent anyway, as kindly as I could: "Do I need to take off my shoes and belt?"
What I hoped he would say: "Do you have PreCheck? Yes? Well, then, of course not! You leave everything on and step right into the machine. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible!"
What he actually said: "Did someone give you a PreCheck slip?"
"No."
"Then you have to remove your shoes and belt."
So I removed my shoes and belt, alongside all of the passengers who did not have PreCheck. Sometimes in life we are tested in ways we cannot predict.
There were other setbacks on my way to Budapest. The flight departing Newark was delayed due to thunderstorm warnings, causing me to miss my connecting flight in Germany, and once I arrived in Budapest I had to wait an hour and a half for an airport shuttle to my hotel.
So I removed my shoes and belt, alongside all of the passengers who did not have PreCheck. Sometimes in life we are tested in ways we cannot predict.
There were other setbacks on my way to Budapest. The flight departing Newark was delayed due to thunderstorm warnings, causing me to miss my connecting flight in Germany, and once I arrived in Budapest I had to wait an hour and a half for an airport shuttle to my hotel.
By the time I arrived to the hotel, it was raining — light enough that I could go for a walk, but heavy enough that I knew I'd get wet after a while. I'm not the type to sit around in a hotel while on vacation, so I pulled my umbrella out of my bag and hit the streets.
A half-hour into my stroll along the Danube River, my clothes were damp. However, as I walked across the famous Chain Bridge, with hilly and historic Buda in front of me and the iconic Parliament Building behind me on the Pest side, I thought to myself, this makes it all worth it: the frustrations, the delays, the absence of PreCheck.
And then a car drove onto the bridge and through a huge puddle, splashing water all over my pants.
Iced Coffee In Vienna
I drink an iced coffee almost every day. I loved a good iced coffee. It's cool, it's refreshing. I'm a little happier in life when I'm drinking an iced coffee.
It's very easy to find iced coffee in New York City. You can literally buy one on every block, whether from a coffee shop, a deli, a food truck, etc.
Conversely, it is very hard to find iced coffee in Central Europe. It's just not as popular there. I saw several Starbucks while in Central Europe, but beyond that most coffee shops I passed didn't list iced coffee as an option.
I was really itching for an iced coffee while in Vienna, a city famous for its coffee culture. At a fancy cafe, I asked my waiter if the cafe had iced coffee available. "No," he answered, "but we do have coffee with ice cream."
OK, well, I wasn't in the mood for ice cream, but ... why not? I was on vacation, right? I ordered the coffee with ice cream.
Here's what the waiter brought to me:
That's not coffee with ice cream. That's a Friendly's sundae on steroids. And that was in addition to the chocolate cake I'd ordered, which had a chocolate candy on top of it. In summary, this was a lot of chocolate.
And a lot of sugar. This is actual video of me leaving the cafe:
via GIPHY
Honestly, consuming all of that sugar messed me up for days. And once I finally recovered, I ate the "sugar cookie" in Bucharest.
I met up with a cousin in Romania, where, I'm happy to report, we found an iced coffee at a coffee shop in Bucharest. I'm even happier to report it did not have ice cream, whipped cream or edible straws.
It did come with what I believed to be a small heart-shaped sugar cookie wrapped in plastic. It was adorable and, I assumed, delicious.
My cousin stepped away from the table for a minute. I finished my iced coffee, then tore open the plastic and popped the cookie in my mouth. It was tasty, but it had too much sugar, I thought.
As soon as my cousin returned he picked up his cookie and said, "Oh, they gave us a sugar cube in the shape of a heart."
Sugar cube? No wonder there was too much sugar in the cookie. It was all sugar.
via GIPHY
Honestly, consuming all of that sugar messed me up for days. And once I finally recovered, I ate the "sugar cookie" in Bucharest.
"Sugar Cookie" In Bucharest
I met up with a cousin in Romania, where, I'm happy to report, we found an iced coffee at a coffee shop in Bucharest. I'm even happier to report it did not have ice cream, whipped cream or edible straws.
It did come with what I believed to be a small heart-shaped sugar cookie wrapped in plastic. It was adorable and, I assumed, delicious.
My cousin stepped away from the table for a minute. I finished my iced coffee, then tore open the plastic and popped the cookie in my mouth. It was tasty, but it had too much sugar, I thought.
As soon as my cousin returned he picked up his cookie and said, "Oh, they gave us a sugar cube in the shape of a heart."
Sugar cube? No wonder there was too much sugar in the cookie. It was all sugar.
A sugar cube with an iced coffee. That was completely foreign to me. What was with this continent and the sugar?
Months before leaving for Europe, I booked tickets for a Rembrandt exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It's funny how much emphasis I put on visiting museums when I travel. I live in a city that's home to at least two of the most famous museums in the world, and I never go. I could easily walk to the Met if I wanted to, but I don't. And yet I'll fly thousands of miles to see paintings in other, arguably less famous museums. I have no explanation for it.
Rembrandt Face In Amsterdam
Months before leaving for Europe, I booked tickets for a Rembrandt exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It's funny how much emphasis I put on visiting museums when I travel. I live in a city that's home to at least two of the most famous museums in the world, and I never go. I could easily walk to the Met if I wanted to, but I don't. And yet I'll fly thousands of miles to see paintings in other, arguably less famous museums. I have no explanation for it.
I liked the Rembrandt exhibition a lot, though there were many tourists doing touristy things that I don't care for, like holding their smartphones inches away from the paintings to take a picture. For the life of me I don't understand the logic behind this behavior. For one, it was blocking my view, but putting that aside, a smartphone photo of a painting will not do the painting justice. If you really want a photo of a painting, buy a postcard from the gift shop. Or, Google the painting; the smartphone has Google, you know.
Anyway, the Rembrandt exhibition was interesting. I got a kick out of the self-portraits, in particular this one. And yes, I took a photo of it with my smartphone, but only so I could text it to my wife and make a funny comment about it.
I could relate to this piece of art more than any other in the exhibition, because I made the same exact face on many occasions during my trip: when the waiter at the Vienna cafe brought me the coffee with ice cream, when I almost missed my flight to Romania, when I needed to use a public WC but didn't have the proper change to enter the facility, when a woman winked at me through a store window in Amsterdam. (It was the first time I'd been winked at somewhere other than a text message in years. I couldn't even process it.)
Actually, other fun memories just came to mind: the basketball game in which I slipped and landed hard on my back; the spicy Indonesian dinner that threatened to light my mouth on fire; the person who talked smack about me to a friend in a foreign language on the check-in line at the airport.
Basically, the whole trip was a Rembrandt self-portrait.
Basically, the whole trip was a Rembrandt self-portrait.
