In 2019, I traveled for revenge. Here’s how it happened:   

Since I was 12 years old I wanted to design cars for BMW. I figured that speaking German would give me a leg up. So I went to the University of Arkansas and I majored in art and German. Well, in three and a half years of studying German I never could afford to go study abroad. Either because of class requirements, or due to not enough money from scholarships, or simply a lack of funds on my part, something always impeded me from going abroad.  

The whole situation was so frustrating. I chose to double major in order to pursue my goal, but I had to work full time. This meant I was stuck in school for 5.5 years. Of course, I also had to endure rejection semester after semester, where I would think “Oh, maybe I’ll get to go this time” and then I would get an email saying “Sorry, Raul, you don’t get to go.” Well, I graduated from university, and nothing ever came of it. I didn’t become a car designer, and I never went to Germany. A major disappointment. 

After graduation I was hired by a local outdoors store and I worked there for a few years. One evening in the fall of 2018, though, an exchange student from Berlin came to the store. I remember that the sun was coming through the windows, and he was wearing a gray sweatshirt with something in German printed on it. I remember asking him in German “Where are you from?” He eagerly responded “I’m from Berlin!” We chatted for just a little bit. Our conversation was mostly me trying to remember things I had learned 4 years ago, and him just encouraging me along. Although I sounded like a toddler, that interaction left me completely inspired. 

I didn’t realize it at the time, but there definitely was a chip on my shoulder about the fact that I never could go study abroad as a student. Working at the outdoors store had been a great experience for me, but it did not fulfill the desire that I had to go live abroad, and to go see the things that I had been dreaming about since I was a boy. Leaving things as they were just didn’t seem right. I didn’t want to say “Yeah, I took German for 3.5 years at university and I spent all this money and then I lost it.” No. I didn’t want that to be my story.  

Through this conversation with this kid from Berlin I had the realization that I could do something about my situation. I had already done that when I went to Iceland for the first time. On that trip, I realized that the world is actually not that far. Now I had some international traveling experience under my belt, I had the basic language skills, and I had the money to make it happen. The biggest thing that was missing was the agency, and that conversation gave me the push I needed to take the leap. It gave me the courage to finally take vengeance on the fact that I never got to go live abroad. Right then and there I put a plan in motion to go spend as much time as I could solo traveling through Germany. 

First, I needed to define the plan. There were three questions that I needed to answer: How long can I be there? And what will I do while I am there? How can I afford it? The second question was easy. I wanted to immerse myself in the language. I wanted to trial-by-fire my way into proficiency in German, and for that I needed to stay as long as I could. Which brings us to the first question. I did some research and found that Americans are allowed to go to the Schengen Area for up to 90 days within a 180 day period. Roughly, this meant I could stay in Germany and most of Europe for three continuous months without the need for additional documentation. Great. Now, how the heck was I going to pay for all of it?

Enter Workaway. Workaway is a website and community that pairs hosts with travelers who are wanting a more in-depth experience in exchange for a few hours of work. A friend of mine named Daniel told me about Workaway. He had used it in some of his travels and he recommended it as a way to travel for an extended period of time for cheap. At the time, Daniel was the most well traveled person I knew, so I trusted his advice. If I could get hired to work for a German family then I would have full immersion in the language, plus I would get lodging and food for free. Sweet! I paid the $32 fee, and I created my profile. Suddenly all three questions were answered, and my plan to take revenge on a lousy college experience was in motion. 

There was one more thing I wanted to take revenge on, though. By this point in our lives my sisters and I had all traveled abroad, but my mom hadn’t. We were missionaries. All my childhood we traveled, but the traveling we did was by no means a luxury, and it was often not to places that we would choose. Mostly we went to places only if someone invited us. My parents did so much for my sisters and me when we moved from Mexico to the USA. Finally I had something I had the ability to give something back. I was going to go to Europe and I wanted to see if there was something I could do for my mom. 

A few weeks after my conversation with that boy from Berlin, while visiting my parents, I asked my mom, “Is there a place that you’ve always wanted to go to?” She thought about it for a bit and said “yeah, I’ve always wanted to go to Venice.” Then she told us the story that when she was growing up, someone in her family had a painting of the arched bridges over the canals of Venice. She said that she thought it looked so beautiful and that she hoped to one day go see it. So I told her “well, mom, I want to take you to Europe.” 

The following months we teamed up with my sister, Leslie, who wanted to join us, to define some dates for our trip. The dates were set for early March 2019. The first week of my three-month-long trip belonged to my mom. She got to decide what we did. We decided on an itinerary that included Venice, Cinque Terre and Milan. After that first week they would fly back to the USA and I would keep going north, making my way to Germany. As for the rest of my trip I got hired to work three Workaways in Germany, one in the South of France, near Monaco, and one in Reykjavik, Iceland. 

Just before Christmas 2018, we bought the tickets for our trip. My mom was fully aware that this was going to happen, but we still wanted to make as much hype about this as possible. For Christmas that year one of her gifts was essentially a folder with her flight tickets. On the cover I wrote “We are going to Italy!” When we took a family picture of this, my mom’s smile was unforgettable. 

The time came before we knew it. I quit my job, I readied my pack, and we got on the plane. We landed at the Milan Malpensa airport early in the morning, just in time for the sun to come up. We took the train to the Milan Central Station, and from there we got some train tickets to Venice, where we would spend our first three days. The kiosk where one can buy the tickets was very easy to follow, and soon we were on our way. The day was turning out to be beautiful and sunny, until we got to Venice. This is where the adventure started.  

As soon as we walked out of the train station we were met by cloudy skies, chilly weather, and hit by brusque gusts of wind. We wanted to make our way to the AirBnB, but there was no signal or internet anywhere. As we found out, one can’t just walk into a Starbucks and bum off their wifi without paying for a drink. Though we should have prepared one, we also didn’t have an international phone plan. We tried to follow the instructions that we had been given by our host, which got us to the same district as our bnb, but we could not find the right address. So we ended up wandering about fighting the cold wind for what seemed like hours. We had not had breakfast and it was past mid day by this point. 

We kept walking past a seafood restaurant where the staff eventually realized that we were lost. They were so kind, and they let us use their wifi so we could message our host. He quickly came out to meet us and ushered us to our house. After getting settled we ended up going back to the restaurant with the people who helped us and we had a very late, but delicious lunch. Thankfully, we made it before they closed for the afternoon. It’s Italy, so they do have hours where they close the shops and restaurants. You can’t just wander into an Ihop and expect 24 hour service. After our meal we just went back to the bnb. 

We spent a lot of time at our rented apartment. Partially because we were jetlagged, but also because we underestimated the weather outside. None of us took the time to look at the weather in Venice, or in Italy for that matter. We all had seen the movies and were deeply under the impression that it’s always a luxuriously sunny and beautiful day in Italy. We forgot that, like any coastal town, the weather can change rapidly, and that it can be quite cold. In Arkansas it was already warm in March, so my sister and mom had only brought spring outfits. We didn’t plan to go shopping for coats while in Venice, but alas, that was part of the adventure. 

None of this, though, took away from the fact that we were in Venice. The city itself is incredible. It is a striking labyrinth of alleyways and piazzas, beautiful buildings and street performers, canals and gondolas. It is a time capsule that takes you back to medieval times, but in the most romantic of ways. The views from the Ponte dell’Accademia are those of fantasy. We went in March, in order to avoid the crows from the cruise ships and summer vacationers, but there were still so many people. Lots of students from the mainland come to study here. Then there is always something going on around every corner, which makes the city feel alive, which in turn makes you feel alive. 

We spent a lot of time wandering the streets with no real aim. We bought groceries and cooked at home quite a bit. We took a lot of pictures of my mom on the famed arched bridges. We were sad when it was time to leave. We were about half a mile to the train station. There are no cars in Venice, so your options are either boat taxi or walking. Nevermind the fact that we are fluent Spanish speakers. Italian is a different game. We had already gotten confused once and we didn’t want to risk going in the wrong direction again. We chose to walk, but found it takes a lot longer than we thought to walk half a mile through the narrow streets. 

Eventually, we got our tickets on our way to Cinque Terre, where we also had rented an AirBnB. The trip was supposed to take 7 hours by train, with one stop outside of Bologna. We decided not to eat lunch during the trip so that we didn’t miss the train swap in Bologna, and we had planned on eating dinner when we got to Corniglia. Well, all we brought with us was some left over Nutella and crackers that we had been snacking on, which meant we were getting a little hangry. No matter, though, we made the swap accurately and we continued on to the West coast of Italy. 

At some point on this train ride, we had the clerk come by to check our tickets. We were all sitting together, and everything was fine until a local man started arguing with my mom about her seat. It was obvious that we really didn’t understand what he was saying, so a man behind us stepped up and informed us that the man arguing with my mom had made a reservation for that seat. We didn’t know that one had to make a reservation, which meant we had to split up. But, of course, we didn’t want to do that. In the end, the man who explained this to us is the one who got up and left his seat to the man arguing with my mom. God bless the kindness of that man. 

Well we got distracted by this interaction so much that we missed another train exchange. We ended up riding one hour south to Pisa, which would have been cool, had we not been hangry and tired from an 8 hour ride. Indeed that 8 hours became 9 because we had to go back one hour to La Spezia and swap trains one last time to hop on the Cinque Terre Express. Up until this time the landscape had been mostly unimpressive. Mostly arid hills and industrial city areas. The La Spezia train station was not anything special either, so we didn’t expect much when we got on this train and entered a tunnel. But when we emerged from the tunnel we were bathed in the light of the golden hour sun hanging over the Italian Riviera. Marvelous. The Cinque Terre welcome gave us the oomph that we needed to finish strong. 

And strength we needed. When I booked the AirBnB I chose Corniglia because it had the cheapest prices. On Google Maps all five towns look like they are right on the coast, so there were no obvious differences between them. Well, it turns out that Corniglia is the only one of the five towns that does not have a beach. Rather it sits atop of the riviera, some 100 metres above the sea, and the only way for us to get to our bnb from the train station was to climb the 382-step Lardarina staircase. I think we understood Sam and Frodo when they climbed Cirith Ungol. Still, we made it to the town, we checked in to our AirBnB, where the host ended up owning her own restaurant where we had a delicious dinner that night. And thus began our time in Cinque Terre. 

Cinque Terre translates to “Five Lands”. It’s a national park where five small fishing villages are nestled in the cliffs of the riviera. Our room was part of a tall building which had a terrasse on the roof from which we could see the nearby towns of Vernazza and Manarola. All the buildings are colorful and beautiful. Every day was sunny and about 65ºF with a slight breeze. Every day we slept in. We took our time going places. We got gelato, we walked around with no aim and just took in the beauty of the place where we were. 

We visited the town of Vernazza one day by train. We also visited Manarola, only this time, our host recommended that we hike to it. There are trails up in the hills connecting all of the the five lands. In spite of the elevation the hike was absolutely beautiful. There were all these openings in the trees offering views of the Mediterranean sea below, and every now and then the trail would snake through small wine making communities complete with cute chapels, water wells, and coble stone streets. My mom told me that this was one of her favorite parts. We made it to Manarola and had dinner at the Alla Marina restaurant before heading back by train. Our time in Cinque Terre was lovely. 

To end my mom’s trip we spent one day in Milan. The beautiful city in the north of Italy is busy, and huge, but so impressive. The famous Duomo di Milano cathedral was gorgeous, and everything around it was beautiful. We spend the day mostly just walking around the city and taking in the beautiful scenery. We got coffee, we had some good dinner and we reminisced on the great trip that this had been. We went to bed early and the next morning we headed to the airport where we parted ways. My mom and sister would go back home and I would continue to make my way north to Germany. Their adventure ended and mine was just beginning. 

There were many more friction points during this trip. We all definitely got annoyed, and we missed our train more than once. There were miscommunications, and one of our AirBnBs ended up being more of a hostel than a private house. The overnight flights, the jetlag, the confusion when you have to be somewhere, but you don’t know if you’re going the right direction, all of that was there. Traveling is like that, and I could spend a lot of time talking about this, but that’s not what is important. What is important is that I got to do something that I wanted to do. 

When I was in school there was so much that was beyond my control. I was broke all through college because in spite of scholarships I still had to pay for school. I had a goal of becoming a designer, and for that I chose to do art and German, and those things required me to be in school at certain times and prevented me from traveling. If I chose to go abroad for a semester to study German, the art major would suffer. If I chose to go in the summer, the scholarships wouldn’t kick in, so even then I lacked the funding. 

On this trip I finally had control. I chose what I wanted to do, I chose where I wanted to go, I chose how long to stay. I also chose to take my mom on her first trip to Europe. The ability to choose what you want to do is one of the biggest luxuries in life, and I got to experience that for the first time on this trip. We all got to experience that kind of freedom that there is in traveling. 

These are memories that I will never ever forget and that I am proud of to this day. Those are moments that helped my mom and me bond, and that gave me confidence. I never would have experienced any of this if I had not taken the leap to do something about my situation. Meeting that kid from Berlin let me know that I can do something about this. I get it. There are times in which we can’t do anything about our situation and all we can do is endure. But there are times in which we most certainly can. It is in those moments that it is up to us to decide what kind of story we want to have. The decisions that we make in that moment are what makes life so so good. 

P.S. This post is a general overview of the first week of my first three-month-long trip to Europe. To share all of it is too long for one single blog post, so I will be posting many more stories regarding specific moments from it in the future including my Workaway experiences in Germany, France and Iceland.