some of the things that happened to me on my travels...
*Disclaimer: Please take this post with a grain of salt. There is a whole lot of sarcasm and satire hidden in every paragraph. However, the stories are based on things that truly happened to me, that probably frightened me in that very moment but are now things i can laugh about. So please, feel free to laugh with me, as I am writing this post just for that - for the sole possibility of making you smile a little.
*Disclaimer No. 2: If you have ever been in any kind of professional or work related relationship with me, or currently are, or ever plan to be, i kindly ask you not to read this as it may contain controversial information about me. Just kidding, go for it, but do so at your very own risk. You have been warned.
i almost died on a volcano in New Zealand...
Ah, ja. Meine Lieblingsgeschichte. Gut möglich, dass du das schon mal gehört hast. Vielleicht, weil du mich kennst, oder vielleicht, weil ich (Achtung, Schleichwerbung) einen ganzen Artikel über dieses Erlebnis geschrieben hab… Also ich war auf einem ziemlich engen Grat auf einem aktiven Vulkan, es hat gestürmt und es war so neblig, dass man kaum die Hand vor den Augen sehen konnte. Eine Böe warf mich um, und ich dachte wirklich, dass ich hier lebend nicht rauskommen würde (Fun fact: doch, bin ich). Ich konnte im Nebel keine einzige Person sehen, und alles, was ich hören konnte, war das konstante Dröhnen der Helikopter um mich herum. Und ich lache heute noch drüber. So beängstigend es damals auch war, mittlerweile ist es eine meiner liebsten Erinnerungen. An alle, die sich jetzt aufregen, dass ich das Wetter vor so einer Wanderung nicht gecheckt hab: Die Vorhersage war perfekt. Sonnig, klar, und eine ganz leichte Brise.
i was proposed to countless times...
Believe it or not, this happens quite regularly. I am talking about passers-by rolling down their windows and shouting „Ciao Bella!“ in my direction. Of almost causing a terrible accident while simply walking around because the Qatari truck driver got curious seeing a blonde girl walking alone and suddenly stopped in the middle of a busy street. Of the Thai taxi driver asking me too many personal questions, and the random guy stopping me on the street on my way to get coffee just to let me know that his son is around my age and that he would gladly take me as a family member. Of random people slowing down while I am on my way to wherever and asking me if I need a ride or want to go somewhere. Of the Scottish girl coming up to me in a club in Prague, looking me straight in the eyes, and, with her Glaswegian accent, said „Gosh, I really wanna kiss you right now“. Of the Moroccan shop owner trying to sell me his tagines and in the same sentence asking me to stay here with him in Fez and marry him, he would treat me well and perhaps only take one more wife, if I was fine with it. Ironically I am still waiting for the right offer… perhaps my standards are just too high. Keep it coming, boys, I‘m here for it!
i smuggled drugs into a festival...
Whoa, I can hear the crowd going crazy. What happened to the textbook-girl, always being kind and good and nice and correct and suddenly she‘s an addict? Nah, don‘t worry. The one thing I learned from this is that I do NOT like drugs at all and will most likely never try anything ever again. For the record, I was in Amsterdam, where certain kinds of drugs are legal. The ones I had obviously were - I felt like of all the people at this gig, me and my friend were the losers with the softest drugs around. Anyway, it felt so wrong and I was sure that I would be stopped and arrested, as I would be at home, so I wanted to make sure that nobody knew I had them. As you do, I swiftly stuck the drugs in my bra and smiled my nicest smile at the security guys and girls, and in I was.
i was thought to be a prostitute...
I was on a quest to find tampons. This is actually a real mission in rural Georgia. The 24/7 corner shop (why does a 200 soul Georgian village in the middle of freaking nowhere have a 2/7 corner shop??) didn‘t have any tampons, at least I thought so, judging by the shocked look on the lady‘s face as I presented her my phone with the sentence „Do you have any tampons?“ translated into Georgian. So i ventured of, and took the 20 minute walk in the blistering heat with my cramping belly to the next bigger town. I walked along a road, the cars passing me constantly honking, around cows and pigs and was at one point followed by a stray dog. I first looked in the pharmacy, with no luck. Then, the supermarket. Still, no luck, so I tried the phone trick again, and guess what? I found some! After that I went to sit down on a bench in the park opposite for a few minutes and just relax and people watch. I noticed a 50-something security guard watching me. Did I do anything wrong? Did I forget to pay for my tampons? He came over to me, and with the little English he knew, started a conversation. Very normal at the start. He was curious where I was from, why I was here, what I was doing… and then asked me if I have time to go with him. In the car. As I said I didn‘t exactly understand, he explained to me that I was obviously a prostitute and he wanted to take me somewhere and would pay me a good sum. How much? I never found out. Perhaps I should have asked… What I learned from that? Never go walkabouts alone in shorts in georgian villages.
i was kidnapped by a minibus driver...
Well, barely. This is definitely over-exaggerated. That much I know NOW. I didn’t at that moment. I was trying to find my bus at a pretty random bus station in Batumi. I was the only girl and very obviously the only foreigner around. The taxi and minibus drivers all kept yelling at me, until I said the word „ticket“ - then they started yelling at each other. I decided to find a quiet corner to wait until my bus shows up, and started walking away. The men kept shouting and pointing fingers at me and at each other. One of them followed me, grabbed my shoulder, and spoke to me in Georgian. I frantically gestured that I didn‘t understand, and was about to turn around and keep walking, when he grabbed me, pushed me in a minivan and closed the door behind me. He said something to the driver, and off we went. I had no idea what was going on. So I just sat there, in the van, trying to remember what a brain is made to do - think. We reached the outskirts of the city, and it was also dangerously close to the departure time of my bus to Tbilisi. I tapped the driver on the shoulder. He jumped on the brakes and came to a stop in the middle of the highway. He opened the door and jumped out, ran right into traffic and across the road. Mind you, the driver must have been at least 80 years old. What the fuck was going on? He was gesturing me to come over. That‘s when it dawned on me: I was at the wrong bus station, and the driver of the minivan must have forgotten to stop at the correct one. He shoved me into the van he just stopped, didn‘t accept any money, and waved the other driver off again. This van was packed to the brim with people, and I had my big backpack on. Before I could even think about how i could fit into there, one of the men got up and pushed me down on his seat. Traffic back into the city was slow, and I was rapidly thinking what I should do if i missed my bus, when the driver shouted something and waved at the bus station. I had no idea how much it would cost - I just gave him a handful of Laris, the door opened, and i rushed off, screaming „madloba“ as I ran towards my bus, just as it was about to take off. I made it.
i partied with complete strangers until 4 am...
This was the start of my very first solo trip. I was so nervous, I could barely speak. I got to my hostel at 9 pm and sat outside on the balcony, trying to calm down, when a British girl struck a conversation with me. She told me they were going out tonight, and I should definitely come along. I told her I needed a shower first, and she said they will wait. I rushed into the bathroom, showered, changed clothes, and brushed my teeth, then rushed back out onto the terrace to meet the rest of the very international crew just as they were about to leave. I was so stressed out to make it that I must have forgotten how nervous I was, and conversation flowed quite easily. Even more so after the second mojito. We were at this random piazza, somewhere in old town Palermo, surrounded by locals. After a while, a guy showed up on a motorbike and everybody was cheering. He had a bunch of speakers stuck to his bike and started blasting sicilian folk music. Apparently, there is some sort of line dance in this region, because all the locals at once started lining up and dancing in a very specific order. Me and the rest of the gang just enjoyed watching. Until… well, about 4 mojitos in, the guy on the motorbike started playing Despacito. And off went everyone. We were dancing, screaming, laughing. When the batteries died around 4 am, we decided to not just walk back to the hostel, but take turns carrying each other on the back. Why? To this day, I don’t know. But it’s one of my favourite ever stories to tell, especially to people who are suspicious about me travelling alone.
i ate canned artichokes in a haunted hotel room...
I was on a group trip and we arrived in Fez, Morocco. The lobby of the hotel was so damn posh, the room was pretty basic. The door didn‘t really lock, and there was this strange little door half hidden behind the bed. For me and my also-vegetarian room mate, the dinner wasn‘t very filling. It was obvious that the staff tried their best to deal with our special needs, but well, we were starving. We were lying on the bed, thinking about if we could order food or go out for food or just go to bed and dream about food, when my friend remembered she had a can of artichokes in her backpack. So, we sat on the bed, eating canned artichokes with our fingers, while trying to figure out what these weird scratching noises were that came from the small door behind the bed, and why the lights in the corridor kept going on and off even though ours was the only room on this floor and we couldn‘t hear any footsteps.
i broke into a forbidden beach...
As we arrived at our accommodation close to Cathedral Cove, we realized it was just about low tide, and that if we wanted to go see the beach we would have to go now. So we did, only to find out 10 min into the walk that the path was closed off. We contemplated wether we should try go around or if we felt too bad and too illegal about it, when an elderly couple did the same thing, from the other side. As I asked them, they told me it was definitely doable and winked at me before walking off. That was it - we walked around the fence, and down the path. For minutes, nothing happened, and the trail was in perfect condition. Then, another fence, still nothing. Then, a fallen tree. We just climbed over it, that‘s really not why you should close a trial - Oh, boy. We rounded the next corner and there was a whole bunch of fallen trees. We climbed over some, crawled underneath others, and walked around some more, only to find out that the next section of the trail didn‘t exist. The bridge was completely washed away, and all that remainded was the half-rotten pieces of wood meters below us. Obviously, we weren‘t the first ones doing this, as a new small path has started forming. We followed the path, scrambled over some rocks and banches and got back to the trail. Until there was no trail anymore - the last meters of trail before the beach were just gone. Nowhere to be found. Instead, there was about a 2 meter vertical drop over slippery soil, and a fence that made it impossible to go around. My friend promptly decided to squeeze underneath the fence and half slide, half scramble down to the bottom. I wasn‘t going to give up so close to the finish, so I followed her. Apart from 3 asian girls trying to capture the perfect instagram photos, we had the whole beach to ourselves. We ran around like little kids, jumping at the waves, collecting shells, laughing and screaming in pure bliss. We felt so badass.
i was shot at...
I was sitting on the shore of the bosphorus and enjoyed the silence in this bustling city. In Istanbul, you can only drink alcohol in certain areas - which is how we explained all of the broken glass in between the rocks we were sitting on. When police comes, people would simply toss their bottles and with that destroy the evidence of their illegal behaviour. Behind me a man started shouting, pretty angrily. I turned around and saw him looking directly at me - an pulling out a gun. A gun! I got up as fast as I could and started running away frantically. A young woman was watching the spectacle and shouted in my direction that I was okay, i was just sitting in the middle of the shooting range... I guess that also explains the broken glass.
i feared for my life on the back of a scooter...
I was on the Amalfi coast and about to go have dinner with a Frenchman. Good as he was, he came to pick me up directly at my hostel - with the scooter he rented. He even thought about getting another helmet. In which my head could have fit twice but it's the thought that counts. So we were cruising around Sorrento, on cobble stone streets, in the midst of the chaotic traffic, up steep hills and back down again. I didn't want to hold on too bad to my friend, but there was barely anything else to hold on to. Plus I needed one hand to grab the helmet and keep it from flying away. As we finally reached the restaurant, I needed a few minutes to gather my thoughts. The pizza was fantastic, but on the way back I decided I'd rather "walk off the pizza" instead of getting back on that scooter.
i was involved in an illegal road race...
I was in Georgia with a Friend I just met. He wanted to show me the city at night, so we drove around for hours. At one point we came to a long, straight road, close to the airport. It was a dead end, nothing there except a couple of concrete blocks. A car full of kids stopped next to ours, we were promptly challenged to a race. As my friend was trying to explain to me what was going on, the race started. I have to admit that Georgians are good driver's, even though it might not seem like it on first glance. We were I don't know how f*cking fast, I almost saw myself kissing the concrete blocks at the end, but we were far ahead. In the end, the kids took the win, obviously a staged one. "Let's just make them happy", my driver said.
