Taking the Bus to Amsterdam

When I lived in Sweden a group of friends decided to take a trip to Amsterdam. They came back with horror stories about how it took over 12 hours by train and there were multiple places where they had to switch trains and said, in short, that it was awful. My fantastic friend Larkin decided that we would not suffer similarly. So, we decided we would take the bus to Amsterdam. We were thrilled with this solution that promised no difficult connections.

The day came for our trip. We took the city bus to the bus depot and got on the bus. When we got on the bus we were instructed that at our next stop, we were going to have to get off the bus and take a taxi to the next bus. Our stop was in the middle of nowhere by the side of a pine tree-lined road. A taxi took us to a restaurant where we ate open faced sandwiches wrapped in saran wrap and bought snacks for the trip. The next bus finally arrived. We rode on that bus for a while, until we had to get off of it, to get on the boat. After the boat, we got on another bus. And then transferred to another bus, somewhere in Germany in the middle of the night. Finally, over 20 hours later, our final bus dropped us off, where? At the train station, where we ended up taking the train to Amsterdam after all.

Ever since, "Taking the bus to Amsterdam" means sometimes, you think you've beat the system and you've only managed to get screwed. It also means those times where you learn something the hard way. I realized this morning, as I was reflecting on the challenges of dating for the first time in years, and really, dating the first time as an adult. I need to figure out what is good for me and what I need. Inevitably, I am going to end up taking the bus to Amsterdam more than once and I need to just settle back and enjoy the ride.