We are passengers on a train. Life is a train and I'm a passenger who sits backwards. Fore I'm watching the passing view, I'm actually reflecting back on what had passed.
Six months passed. It was only six months, but some other believe six months are quite a long time when important things in life happened. We most probably didn't realize it was six months that had passed without us in our hometown.
I remember someone anxiously said, "I'm afraid my friends back home are getting comfortable without my presence." But that famous six months is over and there were also six months happen in our life, here in Gelsenkirchen where we lived.
Gelsenkirchen is a small town. One small-yet-sufficient town that is located in the North Rhine Westphalian area, North-West part of Germany. Not far from where I live lies a long path with trees on each sides, an agricultural land as far as the eye can see, many farm houses, a field full of horses and another field full of cows. Further, there are many hills where you can see the whole town of Gelsenkirchen from the top of it. It is such a pleasant place to find a piece of mind. I consider this place as my "escape place", I usually ran to this place to jog :)
However, this small town doesn't keep us from other places. We were adventurous, we explored crossing countries. Name it Switzerland, Poland, Netherlands, France, Italy and Romania.
Switzerland
Everyone knows that most goods in Switzerland are expensive. Due to this we packed ourselves some snacks from home and hoping we wouldn't spend too much in Switzerland. It helps but not as much as we expected. We still spend quite a lot. However we had the chance to visit three beautiful places: Rhine Waterfall, Luzern and Zurich. It's even prettier when you visit with some friends.
France
"What crossed your mind when you heard the word 'Paris'?" Asked our tour guide.
"Eiffel Tower!"
"Triumph de arc!"
"Napoleon!"
"Love Locks!"
"Notredame!"
"Love!"
These were most of our answers.
"Funny", he said. "Usually when I asked this question to the French they will mostly answer "Disneyland!".
We had a day touring Paris. That day the weather forecast said there will be a day full of rain, but it turns out to be a total opposite. It was such a sunny day. In fact it was too sunny for me. The umbrella that was meant for the rain was used for the sun instead. Regardless, we spent a whole day in Paris walking and photo shooting. Walk to another place and again having a photo session. (The photos can be seen in Holiday in Holiday Album on my Facebook :D).
This doesn't happen when we visit Paris for the second time though. This was due to our purpose of coming to Paris, this time is for DISNEYLAND, oh yeah. It was such a dream world. I personally love the rides, extreme ones were the best. If you are planning to go there I suggest, actually insist you, to ride on Space Mountain. It's worth it! Sissy (Gloria) made a short video of our moment in Disneyland. It can be seen on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pNH19wVDVg
Poland
There is another video of our trip that can be seen on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR37v25bAMU
This time is an adventure exploring Poland! As you can see on the video from the link above. It was five days trip but what we have experienced were tons of fun. We had an Auschwitz-Birkenau tour, walked around the city of Krakow, tasted the best muffin in town, explored a dragon cave, ate a famous gigantic polish sandwich called Zapikanka, shopped cheap polish souvenirs and experienced partying in a polish club. Yet, the best part was hiking for approximately seven hours until we reached a beautiful peaceful heavenly lake at Morskie Oko. Again I have to admit, the highlight of these trips were the presence of my friends to share unforgettable moments.
Netherlands
Now, moving on to the Netherlands! I and Uni (Rachel) took a day trip to Amsterdam. There we planned to meet with our friends who currently live in the Netherlands. But before that, we took a tour around the city. After we had a short tour in the city with the student tour we searched for a place with WiFi so we can contact our friends to meet up. We meet up with my friend, Kevin, a mix of Indonesian and Netherlands which I have met few years ago. We randomly walked around Amsterdam and had a tour around Rijksmuseum that has many historical arts from statue to paintings, which I barely understood. Regardless, it still seems amazing; it was such a huge museum explore.
Italy
I had five amazing days travelling amazing cities in Italy. Me and my group of Indonesian friends from Atma Jaya travelled to Florence, Milan, Pisa, Rome, and Venice. We saw interesting and famous places such as Milano Piazza Duomo, Pisa the dome and the leaning tower, Rome Colosseum, Rome Trevi Fountain, and the Great Canal. It was the hottest days we ever spent in Europe but almost every corner in those cities has an object of fascination so we just have to bear with the heat and keep our feet moving from one place to another. One thing that we were concerned was the high level of theft, especially towards tourist. Unfortunately Sissy was one of the victim who got hit by misfortune, when thieves stole our belongings on our bus, they also took Sissy's iPad. I was blessed because I only left my tasteless snacks and cheap selfie-stick, and I don't think the thieves are interested to any of them to take it with them.
Romania
It's always good to be back; see again what you have seen, meet the people you have met and redo the things you have done.
I paid a short visit to Bucharest -- the city which I spent two years of my high school. It's so great to be back. Meeting the people who I knew live here. There were new people as well. But the most amazing thing is to know the people that I used to know remained the same and doing well.
"Reika, you're back!", How I love this reaction. It sounded like my present was expected. Even I didn't expect to come here for the second time. Work of a miracle, really.
Now, coming to all of the opportunity that I took; I had the chance to attend the ASEAN day in the Indonesian Embassy of Romania. I had another chance to go to Constanta, a city by the Black Sea's shore (this time during summer). I had the chance to attend the mass in biserica sacre coeur back in Bucharest and meet the sister and the father that I knew were serving there. I had the chance to go to the Malaysian Embassy of Romania and had quite a conversation with the Malaysian ambassador. I had the chance to meet Tantowi Yahya (one famous Indonesian country singer, a presenter and an entrepreneur). I had another chance to "tour-guided" friends from AIESEC around Bucharest. I had the chance to reunite with my best friends in Bucharest and spend some time with them in AFI mall. Oh! I also had the chance to do shopping (this was out of my plan, it just happened).
Yes, my visit was short but I think I did everything that I wanted to do. It was enough. It was sufficient. Some things changed and some other things remained. But what I learned from my short trip to Bucharest is that there will be a time when you were the one who have to make the changes, but in other opportunities you are destined to watch and learn from what you see.
Frankfurt
Those were my experienced traveling some part of Europe, outside Germany. Now to keep the story inside Germany, I had a lovely time in Frankfurt. I only had three days left. And by three days, I meant three days before I left Germany for good. Regardless, it was well spent because I stayed with a warm family, my parent's friend, who has three wonderful children named Nadira, Egi and the youngest, Andien. They didn't just let me stay in their house but they gave me a tour around Frankfurt and showed me interesting spots like seeing Frankfurt city from the 56-story of Commerzbank Tower.
Now that I'm finally back, there are many things that have to be done. And the first thing that I must do before starting the other is to accept. Yes, acceptance; accept that I am back where I used to be and to catch up some missing moments of the six months. It was actually a hit on the head for me to realize everything that has changed. It's not just few things but there were plenty and the best thing that I could possibly do is to accept it and move on, keeping up with the running time. Because once you accept the way things are then you won't have to worry of wasting more energy to regret it.
Funny how time passed so fast and made me realize that a year had passed. I'm in these days where I reflect back into the occasion that happened exactly a year ago; "This day, a year ago, I was departing from Jakarta to Dusseldorf!", "Last year, on this exact same day, we arrive in Germany!" and so on.
You see we've done so many things, but for the undone things, there are way more. Maybe sometimes I'm regretting the things that I didn't do but since regretting won't take anyone anywhere, the wisest words that I would say to my friends and also myself to remind is "Enjoy while it lasts". :)
And now the train has stopped. This is probably my final destination. Probably not. Maybe it's time to hop on another train. This time I'll sit facing forward.
