Traveling to my Travels

7/9-7/10
After spending the morning with Colin Johnson, where we chatted about life in his ridiculously excessive house and swam at the beach (view from his house in the picture below), he drove me to the bus stop a few mins away from his house.

The bus just kept getting delayed, likely because of the huge amount of traffic along the PCH. I will just blame it on the horrendous urban sprawl (view from my flight from Sacramento to LAX in the picture below) that makes most of LA, Orange, and San Bernardino counties horrible places to live.

Colin, being the kind dude that he is, made sure that I was going to catch the bus. When it was evident that I was not going to catch it for some time, he picked me up and drove me to the next major bus stop. From there, a bus picked me up and it was smooth sailing. I took 3 buses and 2 light rails for a trip that took over 4 hrs. Worth it? Not sure. I definitely felt my usual existential distress that I feel when I am in the real world--a distress marked by the potential that so many people in low income communities and communities of color don't ever get to grow into. The disparities, largely attributable to years of structural inequality, are so ingrained in our culture that I have little hope of improvement. 
Anyways, I got to LAX and went through security with plenty of time to spare. I checked in with mom and Jay, got on the plane, and off I went at 9:50 PM on the 8th. I landed in Iceland after a 9.5 hr flight, 6 of which I was able to sleep for. Iceland was quite barren from what I saw. Then, I was off to the Netherlands! I landed in Amsterdam after 3.25 hrs and made it to the train with 2 mins to spare. Good thing I didn't get a ticket haha. It would have been €23 euro too. Everything was going fine; the views were beautiful and the train was powered by wind energy. I had to transfer in Utrecht and, when I did, I realized my train was cancelled without an explanation. Shit! I went to an info stand to ask what I should do and I was told that I would have to take buses to get to Maastricht. I walked to the area and waited for the bus. While I was waiting, a kind man introduced himself to me. He was from Maastricht and is a vocational teacher for outdoor certifications. Through the next two bus rides, which took over 4 hrs, he and his wife made sure I was doing okay and they promised this wasn't usual. Funny that my first trip in the Netherlands, a country renowned for its public transit, was my worst experience with public transit ever. As I am writing this on the bus, I will also have to walk over 30 mins from the station in Maastricht to my place. Hoping things will get better! 

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