What I Learned About Myself

So, after slightly less than two months traveling Europe myself, my solo journey came to an end when I met Annie in Krakow, Poland, on the first.

But what did Kevin learn about himself through so much alone time on the European continent?

I really like hamburgers. I'm comforted by the fact that no matter where I go, there is most likely a place to get a good cheeseburger. Pizza too, is a good standby.

More important than hamburgers and pizza, though, is the fact that I really like ice cream. Like, to a bizarre extent, most people would probably say. Some day's I'll have multiple ice cream cones. The guy who ran the ice cream counter near my hostel in Vienna got annoyed with me because I came so often and couldn't order in German. Or I'll get one at the grocery store as I'm wandering around and pick up an ice cream bar. It's just that ice cream - and especially fruit ice cream - is so much better here than in the states. And when it's hot out, nothing is better than a good cone.

While we're on the food thing, I would like to be one of those people who tries a whole bunch of different foods, but I'm just not. I really like food, but I like food that I already like. I had my fair share of Wursts and Schnitzels and Kielbasas and meatloaf sandwiches, which they sell in the Germanic countries, and I had Belgian waffles and fries, but I eat all those things normally (in their Americanized form). But going out of my way to try something new just isn't going to happen with me, especially if I'm fairly confident that I won't like it, because then I feel like I've wasted money and time, and I'm still hungry. I'd rather eat something I know I'll enjoy and be full and happy.

I'm not very good at taking pictures of myself. Each try there's a series of about three or four pictures of me trying to get myself with a good face in the same picture as the background, and most often it doesn't come out.

I'm horrible with languages. Really bad. I was in German-speaking countries for like, a month, and I haven't picked up any German except "Ich spreche deutch nicht" (I don't speak German) and "Hallo!" and I can pronounce a few football-related terms since I've heard so many on television. I'm not even trying with Polish. While I complained incessantly about it while in school, maybe I like the classroom type of learning languages better than the "here, struggle with this" kind, seeing as I felt moderately comfortable talking to people in Spanish, and not in anything else.

Swiss chocolate is better than Belgian chocolate. Period.

Parks are awesome. I think the first thing I did when I got to a city was scour a map for green space, or if there was no map, then I would just go wander to find something like a park. I would then return there multiple times throughout the day to run, to read, or when I had nothing to do I would just lie around and people watch.

While I like being able to have "Kevin time," traveling alone got old after a while. Mostly because I had nobody to talk to when I had witty things to say (which, lets be honest, happens quite often), but traveling with someone tends to relax me, especially when things start to go wrong.

I miss reading when I'm in the real world. Here I have ample opportunities to read, especially train rides and days when there was no football, and I've gone through like, 6 books since I've started this trip, and some of them were quite big. Throw on top of that a magazine or two a week (basically anything I can find in English), and I've been doing a lot of reading, and I love it. Plus, it's books that I actually want to read, and that I don't have to do anything with when I'm done, which makes things better. the only downside is that I have a hard time parting with them, so my pack keeps getting heavier.

I'm a big football (soccer, whatever) fan now. Hopefully it will stay with me.

Finally, the ultimate revelation: I'm not a city boy. My favorite stops on this trip have been Grindelwald (barely a town) and Bern (the smallest city ever, and not very city-like, more old-timey). Given the opportunity, I'd much rather head to the mountains or the beach (which hasn't come yet, but I'm sure it will) instead of a city. The noise, pollution, hustle and bustle, the "I need to be here now" atmosphere really isn't my thing. I like the old-timey cities with cobblestone streets and markets and street vendors and short buildings and that jazz, but not the metallic, tower-over you, subway and tram, skyscraper cities.

Alright, that's all for now, more to come later.