Europe Trip 2011 Foreword

     I was unemployed in Arizona after getting out of the graduate program in Colorado State University for an extended period. Without knowing what to do and motivation to find a job, I heard my high school friends Jeffrey and Frederick were going to Western Europe for ten days. I have decided to join in to their trip, since I have spare money in my credit union account and I am not sure what I was going to do in life and I have not seen them for a year. Also, friendship can be tested in a trip where a person will be interdependent on their friend, and it is a great place to test out whether friendship is real and genuine.

     We came up in a decision of going to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. They are easily the three most popular destinations in Europe, and are travelled but countless people. They are very tourisy, but are good destinations for first time travellers. Later we added Brussels on the list because it is located between Paris and Amsterdam, and Brussels has beer (which I will start to feel tipsy after 100 mL), fries, and waffles, and is also the de facto capital of European Union. We did not know what to expect, and it was our first time in Europe, so we played it safe and went to tourist sites mostly. I decided to travel light so I packed everything I could in a 50 L Nikko backpack.

     Since I have nothing else to do in my life and I can spend more time and money wandering around, I decided to venturing on my own in Germany and Spain after Jeffrey and Frederick would fly back from Schiphol Airport to Hong Kong International Airport. I have only loosely planned on the solo part of my trip and I planned to use couchsurfing and youth hostels as the main mean of accommodations. I originally believe it would be fun and would open my horizon to the world.

    After about a month of extended plannings on hotels and transportation, I was going to meet Jeffrey and Frederick at London Heathrow Airport in the morning of 21 October 2011 and experience different cultures in six different countries. This turns out to be a memorable trip and it kicked start my interest in traveling alone.