It’s been a long time since I blogged a travel story. All my Murphy’s Law of Transportation stories so far have been about public transportation, so today I’d like to talk about the This coming week my sister’s moving out of the apartment in Amherst, Massachusetts where she lived for her college career. I spent…
Category: Travel Stories
The Hostel in Paris (Final)
On my last night in Paris, I woke up shivering uncontrollably, my head splitting from a headache, my stomach full of nails, my eyesight blurry and my muscles weak. I had a fever. Immediately I panicked. I had to check out the next day. I had a flight to catch, and a 17-hour layover in…
The Hostel in Paris (Pt. 6)
The hotel where I spent my last night in Paris was simple, but nice. Though I had left the hostel suspecting bedbugs without confirmation, I was determined not to spread any possible infestation if I could avoid it. I left my luggage close to the door and separated my clothes into two categories: probably safe…
The Hostel in Paris (Pt. 5)
After 2 nights in the hostel, I started to notice itchy patches of bug bites on my skin. I ascribed it to mosquitos: I was spending a fair amount of time walking around outside, and a fair amount of that walking had been through the vegetation of Pere Lachaise. It wasn’t until my 4th night,…
The Hostel in Paris (Pt. 4)
When, on the 4th evening, I returned to the hostel to find that not only was bed 13 still occupied, but bed 7 now had a new occupant as well, I was not remotely surprised. Fortunately, it was in the evening during regular hours before anyone was asleep. There were only 3 other girls already…
The Hostel in Paris (Pt. 3)
On my third night, I once again returned to the hostel past 1AM—and once again, I found my bunk occupied. Without so much as setting down my bags, I returned downstairs to reception to inform them, expecting to find that my bed assignment had been unexpectedly changed once more. However, to our mutual bewilderment, my…
The Hostel in Paris (Pt. 2)
I barely slept on my first night in the hostel. I fell asleep past 4 and was woken by the clamor around the room just past 6:30. I went downstairs for breakfast only to find, to my disappointment, that they served only coffee without mugs, orange juice that tasted more like fanta than orange, cereal…
The Hostel in Paris (Pt. 1)
I stayed in a hostel in Paris for a few nights. On the day that I arrived, I checked in and paid for my stay, and was assigned to bed 3 in a 14-bed dorm. I was given sheets, so I made my bed and headed off to meet some friends. When I returned past…
The Girls Visiting Indian Boyfriends
As a teen, I would often converse with the person in the seat beside me. On two separate occasions, I met girls with very similar stories: they were in their twenties and visiting boyfriends in India that they had gotten to know over email. One was a German girl dating a Muslim boy; the other…
My Longest Flight and Longest Night
When my family was living in India and I was attending university in Alaska, I usually had to take a minimum of five flights to get from the start of the trip to the end. After my first semester, when we booked my flights around the semester and then had to pay booking change fees…