Thirteen Days on The Road
What was I thinking planning to travel to three countries for 13days?
I have always wanted to visit Paris as far back as I can remember. The ease of travelling around Europe made my feet tickle. I wan travel to Paris go find my french love
First step: In October 2021, I started thinking of when and how to plan the trip. I also didn’t want to travel alone, maybe because of my sad solo trip to Amsterdam ( probably I will share this story another time). This time I wanted a ‘travel buddy’ and I got one, a friend who was schooling in Italy and also interested in visiting Paris. Christmas in Paris seemed to be the perfect timing; me running towards Eiffel tower smiling, almost falling, and I hit my prince charming, he smiles and helps me up, oh! Love in Paris.
Paris: I took a bus to Paris from Brussels to Paris with a stopover at Lille. France looked as beautiful as I expected, and then there was Paris; but after leaving the metro station and getting to my bus stop in Paris, “Paris Syndrome” set in. Paris wasn’t all so glamorous, but it still looked beautiful. I arrived on the 24th of December; my travel buddy had arrived days ahead, so we took a stroll. The city was quiet; the air was soft. I felt the love even in the atmosphere, damn! I am finally in Paris. “Can’t keep calm”.
On Christmas Day, we had more friends visiting Paris, so we spent our Christmas walking the streets of Paris and visiting various lovely spots such as the Eiffel Tower, Palace of Versailles, Petit Palais, Pont Alexandre III, and many other places taking beautiful pictures. At night, the Eiffel tower was like a central marketplace, tourists everywhere, people taking photos on the busy road; we inclusive, I held my bag tight as this was definitely another oshodi under bridge, I nor wan hear story.
We spent four days in Paris, and I did have fun. On other days I visited Lourve museum, Disneyland, Hillsong campus church etc. and I also practised my french, Je me suis amuse.
The journey continued from Paris to Geneva, Switzerland, with a stopover at Lyon. Our trip to Geneva was the craziest. We arrived in Geneva at past 9pm and tried checking our map on how to get to our hotel, but surprisingly, neither of our internets was working, and it was drizzling, what a way to start the evening. We walked to the nearest bus stop where we met a lady; after looking around trying to read what we didn’t understand, I finally asked her for directions. She helped a bit before her bus arrived, so we followed her advice and decided to stop over at KFC and voila, we got a wifi connection, we quickly searched for directions to our hotel and off we went. We got on a bus, stopped at the hotel and walked in; my travel buddy booked the hotel, so he was asked for an ID, that’s when he realised; He had left his backpack containing his passport, laptop and some other vital documents in the bus we took to the hotel and this was almost 12:00 am. The receptionist tried checking the system to send a complaint, but it was closed to be opened tomorrow, mehn, I was just praying underneath my breath, we can’t lose the bag. He decided to walk out and see if he would see the bus or something. I waited behind, distraught and just praying he would find it.
Thankfully, he did. So we were at the second to last bus stop, the bus had turned and was returning back, so when he entered it at the bus stop we alighted at, he recognised the driver because he had spoken to the driver earlier on to confirm we were on the correct route. The bag was sitting pretty on the chair, and the driver was even happy he recovered it. That night was planning night because, no internet. We had to plan our walk around the city; there were so many lovely and intergovernmental offices like the United Nations, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, and many others we wanted to visit. So we started taking screenshots of google maps, noting directions, bus stops and even turns, just in case.
The following day after going in circles for over 30mins in the rain, we finally located our first site and wifi. We connected and marked all our routes, which made the journey way better and easier except for the rain still.
Geneva is beautiful! Whenever I stood in front of these buildings to take a picture, I would pray under my breath, “Lord, I want to work here, Lord I want to work here”. Geneva is also expensive, so the plan was to spend just one night and leave the late afternoon to our next stop; Milano, Italy. We visited all the planned sites and went for lunch 30mins before our bus departure time and finally arrived at the bus park at 02:45 pm, the driver was like, “Are you vaccinated?” we responded “Yes” and he replied saying “Covid test?” and we froze. We needed a RAT or PCR test to enter Italy, and we didn’t know buses would request that. We ran to the closest Pharmacy, 5mins to bus departure time, and the Pharmacy told us an exorbitant price and that it will take 15mins and we would have missed the bus by then. I was just staring in shock, missed my bus in Amsterdam and now missing my bus in Geneva, Damn!. We walked back to KFC thought it through (I was checking for flights or buses back home, I nor do again, but their prices were over the roof). We finally saw a bus and decided to go do the test and wait for the bus to arrive at 11:45 pm. While waiting for the bus in KFC, we just relaxed, charged our phones and tried not to think of the loss.
At 11.30 pm we were at the bus park, but surprisingly, the bus was not there, which is unusual, so we waited at 11:50 pm, still no bus. I was already panicking, my travel buddy tried to stay calm, we met some girls who turned their hotspot so we could connect as they waited for their own bus. My travel buddy just kept refreshing his mail, omo! I was already wondering where I would sleep that night because most buses, trains, and the metro stop working when it’s past 12am. At 12:15 am, the bus drove into the park; I was so pissed, I wanted to shout at the driver, but I was also tired; I just entered relaxed and was thankful. I am finally leaving Geneva to Milano, and off we went.
I Arrived in Milano very early in the morning, took the metro to Cremona, where we were to be hosted, and I slept till midday. On the 31st, we rested still, and Cremona was a tranquil city popularly known for making violins; we did our cross over indoors, but on the 1st, we visited the city of Milano, strolled around and also my travel buddy left for Rome Impromptu. I spent over 6 days in Italy, but more were indoors, just chilling and resting.
I would definitely love to do this again; spending 13days in 3 countries is absolutely thrilling.
Thank you for reading
