For example, we had 2 priority cities for this particular trip. Paris (as we had both studied the French language and culture through high school and college) and Salzburg, Austria (as we were both Sound of Music junkies and wanted to relive the movie in the quintessential tourist trap of the city's official "Sound of Music Movie Tour"). I mapped out our arrival in Paris and figured we could take a train ride from central France to Salzburg in just a few hours . . . after all, it was only about 2 inches on the map. It didn't take me long after my first European train ride to realize that even though their train system is infinitely more developed than I'm used to in the U.S., we weren't getting from central France to Salzburg in a few hours.
That's where the adventure of the unknown came in. Reading through the train schedules as best as I could, I constructed a plan of about 8 separate train rides in the context of about 36 hours taking us through Switzerland into the beloved homeland of Fraulein Maria. The plan was flawless. That is until we found ourselves on train ride #6. The crowded car was so packed that we couldn't find a seat. And there we were, holding our bags, standing next to the bathroom, trying to look tough and foreboding to the shady vagrant man who kept walking in and out of the closed quarters, while desperately trying to understand the muffled train schedule announcements in a language that sounded like the speaker was yelling and coughing up a hairball every time he spoke (apologies to the lovers of the German language).
The train stopped somewhat unexpectedly resulting in the seeming thousands of passengers emptying the car all at once, making Samantha and I relieved to finally get a seat. Just when we settled down in our nice seats by the window, the conductor came by, motioning that we leave. We smiled, nodded our heads and said, "Danke" several times, insisting we wanted to stay. It was clear that we didn't have a choice and after a few more moments of "discussion," we found ourselves wandering aimlessly through the train station finding the billions of other travelers, now loading themselves into 7 different coach buses.
The bus was not in my plan. I had never read about a bus and yet I saw we had a choice: insist my plan was correct and refuse to get on the bus or, trust the conductor (and all the other passengers) and find 2 seats on the bus. Samantha and I looked at each other and without much further thought, found ourselves walking towards the bus door, like little lemmings moving en masse to our 18-wheeled chariot.
Until this point everything happened so quickly, that we didn't really have much time to consider the true impact of the unfolding events. About 5 minutes into the ride, I felt a moment of fear, recognizing that we were completely helpless on a bus going God-only-knows-where for God-only-knows-how-long. For whatever reason, however, the fear quickly subsided and we began laughing, uncontrollably, recognizing the bizarre circumstance we were in, and deciding to document our feelings of the moment by taking pictures of our fellow passengers as well as our faces which perhaps best captured our emotions. Once we got over our fear, we sat back and enjoyed a ride through the Alps that to this day is some of the most picturesque and indescribable scenery that I have ever seen.
Maybe our actions were stupid. In retrospect our trip could have gone much differently. That particular day, however, our bus took us to another train that took us directly to Salzburg. While I was reflecting on it tonight, I was struck again with how often I script out my plans for a particular day, week, or year. And while I believe this is an important step, many times I find that my travel agenda is unexpectedly adjusted, altered where I have a choice: insist that my plan is followed, or submit to the new direction of my Conductor, opening myself to the potential of inexplicable surprises and hidden delights. As I venture into this new week, I certainly have a schedule to follow, but tonight I choose to submit it for rewriting, trusting even my seeming disorientation to be guided by One more knowledgeable than I.
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