Traveling Inside My Head

I was lying in bed last night attempting to sleep, the lights off with the music turned up just a little. The Bird and the Bees’ Spark was on the iPod and I shut my eyes and let myself drown in the soothing melody. I wrote about how memories are triggered by certain songs the other day, last night was no exception.

Except I have no memory tied to this song. Not a single one. Yet as I laid there staring at the ceiling, I was reminded of countless bus, train and ferry rides across European country sides where I would plug in my iPod and listen to those similar soothing melodies to help pass the hours spent crammed into a very uncomfortable seat. I would often be thinking about my life, about my travels, how I had changed. What I wanted to do next. I chose longer methods of travel over other forms of transportation, especially when I was in Spain, not only because it was more inexpensive than flights, but because I could see the scenery pass by and have a couple hours to my thoughts.

Transportation in Europe is so much nicer than it is here in the US. I took several trains while I was in Germany, taking  them all throughout the Freiburg area to small little towns. I was forced to sleep with all my bags in Frankfurt’s train station around three in the morning on my overnight trip from Freiburg to Berlin. I read an entire book in Copenhagen’s train station as I awaited a midnight train north, feeling a little deer-in-headlights as I was about to embark on my very first solo trip.  I shared a train cab in Morocco with two crying girls, both having been kicked out of their homes–one by her husband, and another by the family who had employed her as their maid–and were being sent back to their parents homes. Every time I traveled somewhere new, I learned something new.

I took a ferry from Denmark to Norway, an eleven hour affair that I shared with a Danish Architect who kept me company. I took another from Stavanger to Bergen, enabling me to see the fantastic coastline. I made my first on-the-go iPod mix on that five hour journey. I caught a train out of London with Russell at the crack of dawn to catch a ferry to Amsterdam, a last minute trip that was spent mostly napping and had us hitchhiking (unsuccessfully) in the rain upon landing in the Netherlands. I kissed European ground when my ferry from Morocco landed in Tarifa, Spain, so happy was I to be back on soil where no guy wanted to marry me/have sex with me (or at least weren’t grabbing me in the streets demanding it) and no one was trying to sell me something.

I took buses all over Scotland, gawking at the pretty scenery even through the storm clouds and the rain. I took an overnight bus from Edinburgh to London on October 1st, just a few hours after I had gotten my nose piercing. I learned I could understand French perfectly when stressed, after having an emotional breakdown in Brussels when the bus driver didn’t want to let me on the bus I needed to catch to the airport. I also learned the kindness of strangers when an elderly gentleman took it upon himself to buy me another ticket since I didn’t have the money. (Long, long story. I DID have a ticket, I just wasn’t being allowed to use it.)

I took buses all throughout Spain, the worst of which was from San Sebastian to Barcelona over arid conditions and a horrendous American Western dubbed into Spanish playing super loud on the small TV. It might rival the time I stayed up all night drinking a bottle of wine, getting up an hour and a half later and heading to Seville’s bus station at 6am to catch my bus to the infamous Nerja. I threw up in the bathroom on that bus. I don’t ever recommend being hungover and on a five hour bus ride. NO GOOD.

Nothing compares to Morocco’s local buses though. The CTM, the nice air conditioned buses were very comfortable. I took my first from Fes to Merzouga three days after arriving in the country. I remember looking out the window at all the blackness, at all the stars and just feeling…amazed. Small. That was the last time I enjoyed a bus ride in that country though. The worst was from Marrakech to Essaouira. It was about 110 degrees on the bus, it was crowded, it smelled and the windows did not open. I really thought I was going to die of heat exhaustion. When we stepped off the bus into the (surprisingly) cool Essaouira air, I was shocked. Pleasantly so, to say the least.

Then there were all the overnighters; the ones I was scared my bag was going to get stolen, the ones where I was scared to sleep for fear of someone stealing what was on my person, the ones where I just couldn’t sleep in general. I took two overnighters in a row–one from Granada to Barcelona and then the next night from Barcelona to Paris. There were border checks and passport lines in the middle of the night, border guards shining flashlights in our faces, middle of the night snack and bathroom stops in strange towns.

In all of this the only thing I had to keep me company was my iPod. I very rarely knew anyone on these trips. After all, I was on a solo trip; while I made friends everywhere I went, even while I was moving from one place to another, I was, for the majority, alone. I had tons of time to think. I had tons of time to be alone inside my head. It was hard at first, but it was also rewarding and beneficial to me in the end. As I lay staring at the ceiling last night, the music echoing off the four walls, I was brought back to this time of aloneness, of being able to sit inside my head and figure things out. I haven’t had that since Europe, and I miss it. Maybe I need more nights in a dark room, music playing and thoughts pinging around my head.

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