Two films that taught me valuable lessons about Euro travel
There are some things that movies will teach you about travelling that are absolutely spot-on.
On the eve of my 22nd birthday, I travelled to Dublin where, led by the example of Lost in Translation, I haplessly hung out in expensive hotels hoping to eventually run into a movie star and have a grand romantic fling-turned-relationship. I never met anyone famous, but I made some rich Australian friends, met a Canadian girl or two, got buddy-buddy with a Spanish parrot, and almost got pulled into a ring of swindlers. So, definitely spend most of your time hanging out in fancy hotels. And no, you don’t have to stay at these hotels, just hang out in them.
Another important lesson I learned, from Into the Wild, is that travelling alone with almost no possessions is absolutely fine as long as you don’t eat salads. For the second half of my Europe trip, I travelled solo with so few things I could take the 25 Euro plane rides around without any extra baggage fees. I also made so many new friends because people felt bad when I told them I was there on my own. One lot of people took me to Versailles, the 96th arrondissement, and the Louvre.
