Tomorrow, after 2.5 months, I am finally leaving Chicago and flying back to Europe. Effectively I will be travelling from North America to Europe through… Asia!

Why?

Because I can!

Hahaha no, seriously not because I can. Why then?

My best friend Justyna works for one of the airlines in United Arab Emirates and she is able to book me flights with her staff discount. It’s a standby ticket which means that I will only get on a plane if there are empty seats left. The only ‘problem’ is that all the flights go to/from Abu Dhabi, so flying from Chicago I have to go to Abu Dhabi, and that will be the longest flight ever in my life – 14 hours!! I will then spend 1.5 days in Abu Dhabi seeing Justyna and then flying from there to Frankfurt, because another ‘problem’ is that her airlines don’t fly to Poland. Don’t be fooled, I am still going to arrive in Poland in the real ‘budget traveller’ way (pol. ‘na cebulaka’) – taking a 30 euro Ryanair flight from Frankfurt to Krakow.

 

Speaking about the costs…

I am going to pay $230 for flying Chicago-Abu Dhabi-Frankfurt. Not bad, right? Having friends working for airlines is VERY helpful 🙂 (You know what you gotta do!)

 

Continuing further…

My travel does not finish in Poland. I will be home for less than 24 hours and then catching a flight to UK. To summarise: after 4 flights and about 5 days I will finally get to Edinburgh. I will be there for the whole month of August working at the world’s largest arts festival – Fringe Festival (http://www.edfringe.com)

 

Speaking about Edinburgh…

I have already been there millions of times, and actually it is one of my favourite cities in Europe. Arriving there for the first time in 2009 when I came to study in the UK, I remember getting on the bus to Glasgow (that’s where I studied, it’s 40 miles away from Edinburgh) having my eyes glued to the window – I fell in love with Edinburgh in an instant. All the 7 years that I spent in the UK I always wished I could live in Edinburgh. And now, finally, this little dream I had will come true! Even though it’s only a month – for me it still counts.

What’s the conclusion? – You gotta make your dreams realistic. Sometimes they will come true a little, but a little should be enough. Don’t be greedy 🙂

See you on the other side!

Share17
17 Shares