Early in the semester, my friends and I booked our fall break itinerary through a student travel group based in Florence. It was a ten-day trip to Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and Barcelona, and the group’s package included transportation, accommodations, and breakfast, all for an incredibly reasonable price. My friends and I jumped on this opportunity. As fall break drew closer and closer, it seemed like everyone else on campus was going crazy trying to plan and book their trips. But my friends and I sat back and relaxed; our break was all planned out for us. What could go wrong?
Nine days before we were supposed to leave for Berlin, our trip was cancelled. We each received an email from the student travel group expresses their regrets while we drank cappuccinos after a day of museum hopping. We were livid. We marched straight over to the company’s headquarters, but there was nothing to be done. They would process our refunds and help us figure out how to book everything ourselves, but our stress-free fall break experience was over.
That night, in the midst of midterms, we procrastinated our studies and gathered in my apartment’s living room and started planning and booking. We were determined to go to the same cities we were previously scheduled to visit, but we were worried that, booking on our own outside of a prepackaged tour, it would no longer be affordable. We were pleasantly surprised. We were able to book planes, trains, buses, and hostels for much less than we had anticipated.
The one leg of our trip we had trouble with was getting from Berlin to Amsterdam. Plane tickets were ridiculously expensive, and trains were also costly and at inconvenient times. I’m not sure who jokingly suggested we rent a car and drive, but before I knew it I found myself on the Europcar website, looking at the cost of renting a Renault. Split between the three of us, it was significantly cheaper than any of our other options. So we booked it. How hard could it be?
This isn’t to say that we didn’t have any fears or reservations about renting a car during our fall break adventure, but as we told other people what we were doing, we found ourselves getting lots of warnings about the Autobahn, Germany’s highway system. We were told time and time again that there was no speed limit and that German drivers were intense. So when we eventually found ourselves sitting in the Europcar headquarters at the Berlin central train station, I was definitely nervous. All we needed to do was make it to Amsterdam alive for me to consider our venture a success.
As it turns out, our drive from Berlin to Amsterdam ended up being the easiest and least stressful part of our entire fall break experience. We even got upgraded from a Renault to a BMW. Nothing went wrong, the drive itself was incredibly straightforward, and German drivers, while certainly fast, were possibly the best, most civilized drivers I’ve ever encountered. I never saw renting a car as a viable travel option (maybe because I’m not old enough to do so in the States; the minimum age here is nineteen), but it’s something I will definitely consider doing again in the future thanks to this experience. Plus, I’m now able to say that I drove a BMW from Berlin to Amsterdam.Early in the semester, my friends and I booked our fall break itinerary through a student travel group based in Florence. It was a ten-day trip to Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and Barcelona, and the group’s package included transportation, accommodations, and breakfast, all for an incredibly reasonable price. My friends and I jumped on this opportunity. As fall break drew closer and closer, it seemed like everyone else on campus was going crazy trying to plan and book their trips. But my friends and I sat back and relaxed; our break was all planned out for us. What could go wrong?
Nine days before we were supposed to leave for Berlin, our trip was cancelled. We each received an email from the student travel group expresses their regrets while we drank cappuccinos after a day of museum hopping. We were livid. We marched straight over to the company’s headquarters, but there was nothing to be done. They would process our refunds and help us figure out how to book everything ourselves, but our stress-free fall break experience was over.
That night, in the midst of midterms, we procrastinated our studies and gathered in my apartment’s living room and started planning and booking. We were determined to go to the same cities we were previously scheduled to visit, but we were worried that, booking on our own outside of a prepackaged tour, it would no longer be affordable. We were pleasantly surprised. We were able to book planes, trains, buses, and hostels for much less than we had anticipated.
The one leg of our trip we had trouble with was getting from Berlin to Amsterdam. Plane tickets were ridiculously expensive, and trains were also costly and at inconvenient times. I’m not sure who jokingly suggested we rent a car and drive, but before I knew it I found myself on the Europcar website, looking at the cost of renting a Renault. Split between the three of us, it was significantly cheaper than any of our other options. So we booked it. How hard could it be?
This isn’t to say that we didn’t have any fears or reservations about renting a car during our fall break adventure, but as we told other people what we were doing, we found ourselves getting lots of warnings about the Autobahn, Germany’s highway system. We were told time and time again that there was no speed limit and that German drivers were intense. So when we eventually found ourselves sitting in the Europcar headquarters at the Berlin central train station, I was definitely nervous. All we needed to do was make it to Amsterdam alive for me to consider our venture a success.
As it turns out, our drive from Berlin to Amsterdam ended up being the easiest and least stressful part of our entire fall break experience. We even got upgraded from a Renault to a BMW. Nothing went wrong, the drive itself was incredibly straightforward, and German drivers, while certainly fast, were possibly the best, most civilized drivers I’ve ever encountered. I never saw renting a car as a viable travel option (maybe because I’m not old enough to do so in the States; the minimum age here is nineteen), but it’s something I will definitely consider doing again in the future thanks to this experience. Plus, I’m now able to say that I drove a BMW from Berlin to Amsterdam.