Trains

Our journey from New York began on July 31st. After spending a frenzied month packing, giving away 90% of our possessions, and saying good-bye to friends and family in New York and Boston, we hopped on a train bound for Florida, the first destination in our passage to China.

The decision to leave was not an easy one. After all, we had only been in our nice new apartment for 10 months, just settling in. Better professional opportunities were beginning to present themselves. New York was home. So, then, why leave?

The dilemma we faced is a common one shared by many 20- and 30-somethings who are "still young": to settle into a niche that is comfortable, or to abandon comfort in favor of an exciting, though terrifyingly uncertain path.

Plenty of people lead wonderfully rich lives without ever living abroad. I was already in an ever-changing and ever-surprisingly city. A city full of amazing people, culture, and food, and enough material for any budding writer to fill up a lifetime's worth of books. The fear that haunted me for over a year was that if I left, I would miss out on New York.

Then another realization fought back, and won. If I stayed in New York, I would miss out on the rest of the world.

And so the adventure begins.

To go from Lübeck, Germany to Copenhagen, we took a train that had to cross water. Being naïve, we thought that either there be a bridge, or passengers would disembark the train and get on a ferry. Little did we know the entire train would just roll onto the ferry. The Europeans onboard gave us a look that read, "Vat? How elz do you get a train over vater if you don't put it on ze boat?"