Lost in Europe

Five years back on this day I wrote my first ever blogpost. So, despite the fact that I haven’t written much after I returned to India from my Euro Trip, I decided to celebrate the 5^th anniversary of my blog with another blogpost. And although it’s been a month that I am back here, memories of Europe remain vividly etched on the canvas of my mind and I fail to not reminisce them every single day, every single night.

Some of the questions I faced when I returned (and I still face sometimes) were about how much I spent on the trip, more so because I was the one who had managed to spoil three cellphones and one laptop during the trip. But besides these major damages there were minute disappearances that kept on happening with my trivial belongings. Surprisingly, I felt happier when I lost my clothing items since it implied that I had to carry less in my baggage during the rest of the trip.

Here’s a list of items I lost during the Euro Trip and the places where I lost them because sometimes such are the marks we, humans leave.

1.       Jewelry Box in Aarhus, Denmark – The first loss, of course, needs to happen in the first country I landed in. And somewhere amidst all the packing and unpacking I did to make my rucksack sufficient to sustain me for the next two months of hopping from one country to another, I lost that little box containing the best pairs of earrings I owned and had initially packed to wear at various places.

2.       Miscellaneous in Mykonos, Greece – The next loss happened by the time I had realized that I packed too many clothes and shoes,  and if I needed to take my travel seriously I needed to let go of the desire to wear “that perfect attire” for “that perfect occasion” all the time. It was before heading to the beach that I washed a few clothes and hung them outside the camp where we were staying for the night. In the evening when I returned from the beach party, I found my essentials still hanging on the thin wire but two t-shirts, one pair of shorts, another pair of trousers were all gone. I was disappointed that the last pair of item was new and I wore it only once, but for the rest of the items – I was glad.

3.       Towel in Venice, Italy – Remember how the thief of Mykonos had left my essentials and stolen only the clothes? In the camp in Venice, just the opposite happened – I had washed and hung only my towel and around 7 pairs of essentials and returned in the evening to find nothing. Albeit funny and unexpected, the incident was, my next worry was that I had to urgently pay a visit to the Supermarket. :-P

4.       Jacket in Vienna, Austria – The fourth loss was heart-breaking. I loved the jacket I recently had bought. I vividly remember throwing my jacket on the bed before tucking my blanket and going to sleep. The next morning I searched everywhere in the hostel but I couldn’t find my beloved brown jacket.

5.       Warmer in Zagreb, Croatia – I had, in Aarhus, packed my rucksack for only two months’ travel and the travel didn’t include places covered with snow. (I was supposed to get back to my luggage after two months and get warmer clothes to stand the snow). But it was when I was in Marseilles, France that I decided to visit Switzerland for which I needed warmer clothes, having lost one jacket already. So I bought a body-warmer from that place, wore it in Switzerland and then when I went to the place where I didn’t need it - Zagreb, my first stop in Croatia, I forgot to pack it in while checking out. When I was walking to catch the bus from Zagreb that was booked previously, I recalled the black body-warmer lying unowned on my bed in the hostel but there was no time or reason to go for it.

6.       Scarf in Maribor, Slovenia – It was a cold rainy night. I had my raincoat on along with a cap to cover my head and a scarf for the neck. I was walking from the train station to the students’ hostel where I was staying. Minutes later, I realized that the scarf was no longer wrapped around my neck. I imagined it lying somewhere on the pavement, getting drenched in the rain deeming it unviable to be picked up and worn again. I ditched the thought and walked forward without looking back.

7.       Shorts in Barcelona, Spain - I eventually had concluded that I had stopped losing stuffs. My bag wasn’t very heavy anymore. I had thrown three pairs of shoes in Berlin, Germany to reduce the weight. My laptop had broken already. The selfie-stick, which didn’t serve any purpose had broken already. There were hardly more stuffs to carry so there wasn’t any. But when we were about to hit the sea in Alicante and I was supposed to find my pair of shorts in my bag which I had worn the previous night in Barcelona, I realized it was no longer where it was supposed to be. It was probably the last thing I forgot to pack.

Because post this, every stuff that I did not bring home were things that were supposed to go.

#LetItGo J