Writing, Traveling, Surviving: Four days. Five countries. 1500 kilometers.

I was in Slovenia- a tiny country that borders Croatia, Austria, and Italy. I needed to be in Spain in four days, to meet my mother, who was flying in to see me.

Due to Europe’s budget airlines, a flight to Spain would have been cheap, quick, and simple. But that’s too easy- and boring. I wanted to see more of Europe, and try new food, and meet great people. So I decided to take busses, trains, and ride-shares from Slovenia to Spain. I traveled during the day, stopped in hostels at night, and got very little sleep through all of it. But hell, you’re only alive once- I say you go for the more interesting of the options you’re given.

Day 1. Ljubljana (Slovenia) to Milan (Italy).

Ljubljana is a wonderful capital city. It’s modern, it’s clean, it’s small, and it’s a lot of fun to wander around.

Sadly, I only have three pictures of Ljubljana-

Refugees Welcome. (As they should be.)

The best travel companion you could ask for. (She gave me the last piece.)

The river that cuts through LjublJana.

I took a bus from Ljubljana to Milan. The fare wasn’t much- around 20 dollars.

Milan was an interesting city. Much more graffiti than I would have expected, and REALLY good pizza. As always, I opted for the cheapest hostel, booking it from my wi-fi equipped bus. I was let off in the center of Milan and made my way to the hostel with Milan's metro system.

When you book hostels through websites such as Hostels.com, or HostelWorld.com, or Booking.com, the hostels generally give you directions on how to get there. I’ve found that they’re accurate about 90% of the time. I once spent two hours wandering around a coastal town in Vietnam because the hostel had posted the wrong address.

Arturo

But I arrived at this hostel without incident, and found myself sharing a room with a cool Mexican guy named Arturo. And that night I dined on pizza and beer (yum…)

Day 2. Milan.

I spent the next day exploring Milan with my new friend, Arturo.

Milan had lots of touts, as I expected, and the public parks were wonderful. The architecture was also great, and the city was fun to explore. While on our way back to our hostel, Arturo and I were stopped by two Indian tourists- a man and woman. They had paid for a city bus tour but were leaving Italy and had no use for the tickets. We gladly accepted the tickets, and then rode to our hostel in style, inside a double-decker bus.

Milan Cathedral

Day 3. Milan (Italy), to Monte Carlo (Monaco), to Nice (France).

Milan had been pretty good to me, but I was excited to go to the next city. Monte Carlo. And after that, Nice, in France. I found a hostel in Nice, and decided to take a ride share to Monte Carlo, which is only a quick train ride from Nice.

Milan has lots of grafitti

I LOVE the ride-share website BlaBlaCar.com. I’ve used it a number of times, and have had really good experiences. Allow me to explain BlaBlaCar- it’s a ride-share program. So imagine that you’re driving from Paris to Brussels, and you need a little gas money. You would go onto BlaBlaCar and sell the available seats in your car- and anyone who needs to go from Paris to Brussels would buy a seat in your car. So if you have four available seats in your car, and you sell all four seats for $20 each- then you make a cool 80 dollars, and you get to drive with four nice people in your car. The website is in a number of countries abroad, but I am still waiting for it to come to America.

I met my driver at the bus station in Milan, and we were off. He was a stout, bald man who reminded me of the bar owner that had robbed me in Istanbul. He drove an old van, which was packed with 7 people- I made 8. Our driver was lovely. He was driving with his sister, mother, and father to Monte Carlo, and had sold the additional seats using BlaBlacar. Each seat costed roughly $25, which was much better than the bus ($37 - 72) and train ($50 - 65).

We hit heavy traffic while leaving Italy, but it was the best place to hit traffic. This is because the section of Italy near Monte Carlo is BEAUTIFUL. It’s honestly more than beautiful- it's a medley of rolling hillsides, covered with rocky outcrops, tiny houses, and bits of foliage here and there. The colors- luscious green and light brown and earthy orange blend together and paint the countryside- this is all opposite the rocky cliffs of a robust coastline. It is truly one of the best looking bits of scenery I’ve ever seen, and I think that only sections of western China can compare when discussing beauty of this magnitude.

No pictures for you- sorry. I was so mesmerized by it that I didn’t want to block my view with a camera.

I wanted to explore Monte Carlo more, but the traffic in Italy was so bad that we were late and had to hurry to catch our train. The last train out of Monaco is at something like 8 or 9 pm, and if you miss it there’s no other form of transportation to Nice- save for a hundred dollar taxi ride. We got there just in time to catch the train.

The ride to Nice was nice (see what I did there?), and a few of the passengers from the BlaBlaCar ride were also going, so it was fun to exchange pleasant conversation while winding through the countryside on our train. The land from Monte Carlo to Nice (the French Riviera) was truly astounding. Beautiful blue beaches nestled in between rocky cliffs. I would love to go back and visit the French Riviera- I always assumed it was a place for pretentious westerners with too much money, but it really was wonderful.

I arrived in Nice after the sun had gone down, and slowly made my way to my hostel. I stayed at a GREAT little hostel called Hostel Baccarat, and I highly recommend it. It had a fun, casual atmosphere, and was 20 euros a night (cheap for France), and it has its own kitchen so you can cook your meals and save money.

Nice was a great little city. I only had one day there, so I didn’t get much time to explore, but it just had such a wonderful feel it. The restaurants, and cafes, and the vibe of the city streets- it was really something. This is why I’m so saddened, because just a few days after I was in Nice, it got hit by a terrorist attack, which left 84 dead.

A few places I’ve visited have also been hit by attacks, such as Istanbul and Ankara, both of which I missed by a few days. Narrowly missing these attacks makes me nervous, but it does nothing to dissuade me from traveling- nor does it make me look at Muslims any differently. I have met many wonderful Muslims in my time abroad, and it’s not fair to punish a whole religion for the actions of a few assholes.

Day 4. Nice (France) to Barcelona (Spain).

I took an early morning train to Barcelona. I wanted to use BlaBlaCar, but all the available cars had been filled up by the time I searched for a ride. The train was expensive, costing me over a hundred dollars. The busses, much like my beloved ride-share, had all filled up. The train was comfortable and quick- not a bullet train- but close to it.

(Why the hell can’t America have trains like Europe?!)

Anyway, rolling into Barcelona felt like returning home, because I had already spent so much time in the city. And as I arrived, exhausted and hungry, I reflected back on my previous few days.

The wonderful little capital city of Ljubljana, with its unique architecture and fun, polite people. Milan, with its great cathedrals, rampant graffiti, and delicious pizza- and there was the day I had spent wandering around with Arturo. (I spoke with Arturo at some length about my time in a refugee camp in Greece, and he actually joined me when I returned there to volunteer. What a friend!) And then I thought of the amazing countryside in Italy, and the all too brief time I spent in Monte Carlo. And the great little hostel in Nice, and the fun vibe of the town.

As I made my way to the Barcelona airport to meet my mom, I reflected on all of this, and knew I had really had a wonderful four days.