If you were to ask me about my worst travel experience, I would respond that there is not some entertaining sequence of tragic events that I could share. Rather, there were instances throughout my European solo travel experience that were stressful or not-so-great in the moment, which I now find to be fairly hilarious and entertaining. Little moments will flit through my brain, like when I had to sprint through Geneva, wet from the lake, to catch a TGV back to France; I sat soaking the cushioned seat for 2 hours next to an extremely unhappy seat neighbor that frowned at me for 1/3 of the ride. But that’s lighthearted compared to the extreme paranoia I felt when I got to my Strasbourg hotel, located on the perimeter of the Cathedral’s square, and there was no interior lock in the room–no sliding lock, no deadbolt, no automatic lock. This was made worse after the hotel manager asked if I was there alone, and I responded with a dread-filled “yes.” Knowing that if my mother could teleport into existence each time I did something she taught me never to do, that she’d give me a stern frown and say, “Eleanor, you are a young woman traveling by yourself in an unfamiliar place, you do NOT tell people you are alone.” I would respond, “Yes, mother, I know that. I, too, do not want to be attacked or go missing, but I reserved a room for one person; so, if I say I am not here alone, they are going to over charge me.” When I responded honestly, invisible mom gave me a hmph and evaporated. So, when I got to my secluded, dingey room on the top floor, and there was no lock, I thought, invisible mom was probably right, and real mom is going to kill me. All I had was a bizarrely large key that I could use to lock the door from the outside, which I did promptly after admiring the Cathedral through my keyhole window. I did all the touristy things; I ate sauerkraut, drank a panache by the canal, acted like I knew where I was going, and ended up back in my cramped, yellow-walled room watching France2, hyper-fixating on any creaks coming from the hallway, and fisting handfuls of candy that I got from a pirate themed store.

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