So I’m getting ready to leave Austria soon. Crazyyy. But I
was thinking the other day about something that’s changed about me since I’ve
been here. Being in this place, where I don’t know anybody and nobody knows me,
I am free to do whatever I want. I can do things that people would scoff at,
and I could care less. I love this! I have a couple of examples:
1.
Brushing my teeth in a yogurt cup:
So last week I was traveling from Germany
back to Austria. It was a long day of travel, from about 9 am to 10:30 at
night. I had brushed my teeth around 6 am. I’m kind of weird about brushing my
teeth, and usually do it a lot of times per day. So needless to say, by around
5:30 or so, that horrible feeling on your teeth when you just have to brush them was really kicking
in. So I’m sitting at the train station in Vienna after landing there, and have
to wait about two hours for the next train to Graz. I’m sitting on a bench, and
I finish eating my yogurt, when I decide to brush my teeth. I pull out my
toothbrush from my suitcase, use my water bottle to put a tiny drop of water on
top of the toothpaste, and brush away, right on the bench. A few people were
looking at me with confused faces, but I didn’t care one bit. It felt great, my
teeth were happy. I spit the toothpaste out in the yogurt cup, and threw it
away. Nobody knows me. Why not brush my teeth on the bench and spit into a
yogurt cup?
2.
Wearing jeans and running shoes:
In my normal state of mind, this is
an automatic no-no. You can’t wear skinny jeans with running shoes. No way. But
when you’re traveling with Ryan Air, the budget airline has a ridiculous weight
limit for your bag. You can’t check a bag, and your one carry on has to fit in
the little box and be less than ten kilograms. So in order to make my bag small
enough, I have to wear a lot of clothes. I’m used to it now, and it’s just part
of the deal. You put on three or four shirts, your heaviest pants, two or three
pairs of socks, a jacket and a coat, and you wear your biggest heaviest shoes. I
must have looked like a lunatic in the airport the last time, wearing a black
zip-up with a brown leather jacket over it, jeans, and dirty, muddy running
shoes. But who’s going to see me at the airport? Who cares what the security
guards think? Nobody knows me. My bag is within the limit, and I’m on my way to
my next destination without paying a fee.
3.
Sleeping on a bench on the roof:
So I moved out of Haffy on Saturday, and have
been staying in Leechgasse with Carmen for a few days. But it’s so hot at her
dorm. There is no air conditioning, and she lives on the top floor. So the heat
from the roof makes the top floor feel like a sauna. The window in her room is
right next to a tree, so a lot of bugs come in if you open the window. It’s a
tough decision, do you want some air flow at the expense of bugs in the
room? So lately, we’ve been choosing to
go for the bug-free but steaming hot room. I was trying to sleep, but was
laying there in a sports bra and shorts, just sweating. Around 3 am, I decided
to go up on the roof and sleep for a few hours there. I brought with me a
blanket and a towel. On the roof, there’s a bench next to a table. On the table
were a bunch of empty beer cans and bottles, but I didn’t think it really
mattered. I was tired, and didn’t care. I layed my blanket down on the bench,
and rolled up the towel to make myself a pillow. With the wind, it’s a lot
cooler outside than in, and I could sleep for a bit. I woke up around 8:30,
with the sun shining on my face, and a couple of people sitting in the chairs
close to me. I can only imagine what they thought of me: a girl sleeping alone
on a bench on the roof, next to a million empty beer cans. I’m sure they
thought I’d been crazy drunk and passed out. But who cares what they think? They
don’t know me. I managed to get a few hours of sleep. They’ll probably never
know that my favorite drinks lately are water and multivitamin fruit juice.
Good times.
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