"I hope the weather is going to be nice." "It would be great if we manage to visit all the places we have planned." "I aspire to make new friends." Going on a trip always comes with its bunch of expectations. These may relate to the itinerary of the journey, or to the people involved in it. If you would have asked us ours at the beginning of June, the conversation might have been suffering from a blank, as we had none - we told each other. But experiencing life without expecting anything from it felt just like the right way to make the most of it.
As we took our first steps in Krakow, we in fact let ourselves go with the flow. Or with the planning. If having to be in a certain place at a certain time might feel restraining, for us it was more a relief. The relief of not having to think about what to do next: just follow the plan. And this plan took us to places, even cities, we might have never stepped a foot in. In a sense, this reminded us that every place deserves to be seen, discovered and admired. And this is just what we did, every step of the way.
How to spend time
If some places felt easily admirable - I mean, taking a walk in Vienna is already enough to fall in love with the city - some towns needed to be explored to let their hidden gems shine. It was the case for Katowice. If you're not reluctant for a 30-minutes bus ride, you will be rewarded by the cinematic Nizerowicz district. Built in the 1920's to be the home of 8.000 miners, this whole neighborhood seems to have frozen in time.
The time we had, unfortunately, could not be frozen. It could only be spent or lost. So in every town, we chose to use it in the best way possible: wandering around the streets, without setting any destination, just to experience the city in its most authentic way. This is how the flow of our steps took us on the top of Graz's mountain, in the cutests streets of the vibrant Ljubljana or in Olomouc's magnificent botanic garden.
During these two intense weeks of traveling, our time was obviously spent in a variety of trains and train stations. Spending a day or two in each town definitely taught us - in addition to how to use our time wisely - to be the most efficient travelers. When it comes to trains, going with the flow might seem a bit bold as nobody wants to miss their connections. But still, we managed to become more and more at ease with this exercise. From arriving at the station an hour before in Katowice to arriving 10 minutes before the train was ready to leave in Gorizia, our train skills - or trust - definitely stepped up.
Traveling is learning
So did our knowledge. In every city that we discovered, we learned. With every person that we met, we grew. In addition to knowing more about Poland's history or about Gorizia and Nova Gorica's harrowing past, we were able to witness how the European Union contributes to offer better lives to its citizens. Durable changes are made by funding a large variety of projects. From the restoration of a church in Olomouc to the creation of a wireless charging station for electric vehicles in Maribor right through to the redesigning of a pedestrian district in Vienna, EU funds seemed like making every project achievable. The truth is, most of the projects we visited wouldn't have seen the light of the day if it wasn't for EU funds, our interlocutors told us.
Our trip wouldn't have had the same taste without them, the people. Every city had its enthusiasts eagerly awaiting to tell us every detail of the EU funded project they got to manage, but, more broadly, to advise us on how to make the most of our stay in their beloved town. This is how Iker, a spaniard that fell in love with Vienna during his Erasmus, made us go to the austrian capital's best restaurant, Glacis Beisl, or how we didn't miss Ljubljana's most visible vestige of its soviet era, Trg republike, thanks to Dino.
Above all, the thing we got to know and discover the most were ourselves, and ultimately each other. At the beginning of the month three girls that barely knew each other stepped into an adventure that led to the creation of indestructible bonds. If some of this trip's stories can be told and shared, to fully understand the extent of what happened during these 14 days, you had to be there, on and off the trains.
As we reflect on this life-changing experience, a lot of thoughts and memories cross our minds, but some of them stay a bit longer than others. One of these thoughts is a sentence that Mojca Mavec, a Slovenian journalist and fellow traveler told us. She said that being a traveler means constant learning,"it's like going back to school all the time, but having the funniest side of it". This particular phrase definitely resonates with us, since we brought home an immeasurable treasure: rich experiences and eternal friendships. The EU in my Region Train Trip was the nicest school we ever had to attend, by far.
