While the volunteer program, Volunteer for Peace, was a huge disappointment as I dreamed to make a difference in a foreign country and instead, I was just simply a Cinderella who was living under the roof of a wicked leader, I still have a meaningful moral of this trip. The first thing that I can sum up is that travelers, regardless of any kinds of trip, must be courageous and never afraid to come across barriers in a strange land. To make very last minute plans does not need to be costly even if safety is concerned. As someone who grew up in a city where public transportation is rarely used and has viewed public transportation as a dangerous commute, figuring out how to take the bus to the train station was a complete new and a ticklish situation for me. I was close to taking a taxi instead of bus, but due to the high cost of taxis in France and the weak dollar against the euros, the price of taking buses was too unbeatable to try – 5 euros. It was also a great way to experience a new and different lifestyle. As many parents say to their children, “Strangers are bad people. Don’t talk to strangers!”, sometimes we have to excuse their comments in order to save our life. Because I didn’t understand the bus system too well, I asked two high school students how to get to the train station, and they gave me the best directions. Without them, I would have emptied out my wallet by taking a cab or gotten lost in middle of another city! Then, on the train, when I couldn’t hear the announcer, I asked the other people surrounding me what the announcer just said. If I didn’t ask, I would have gotten off in Toulouse not realizing that I missed the second train and was supposed to stay on the train to head to Bordeaux, I would probably have stayed in Toulouse for several more hours or stayed over night!

Having an understanding of the country’s national transportation system such as airplanes and trains and geography also saved my life and of course, money!! While I was in Trets where the farm was located, I certainly knew that Marseilles was the closet major city where I could catch a train or an airplane. Knowing that purchasing an airfare was going to be WAAAAAY more expensive than a train ticket at the last minute, I sure did opt to take the train. An airfare from Marseilles to Bayonne would have cost me 600 euros whereas the train ticket only cost me 78 euros.

Being strong not only in my mind, but also physically made my way through. I had to be willing to let my body sweat and make my clothes wet as not only I anxiously await to get to the other side of the country, but also carrying my heavy loads of bags. Carrying a school backpack full of textbooks from home to the bus stop and then to school may be the worst case scenario. In spite of my small body, I still had the strength to carry more than just a weight of a school backpack full of books, a suitcase which fortunately had wheels, a duffel bag, and my travel backpack. I had to trek with them throughout this exile, including when I trekked a few blocks up the hill from the bus stop to the train station.

Most importantly of all, knowing the French language was a plus. Knowing French allowed me to communicate with my French friends on my cell phone, speak to the train agent and bus driver, and the best of all, STRANGERS!

Finally, the hardest part of the trip was not knowing what event was going to happen next. I had absolutely no idea how many buses I was going to take, what time I was going to catch a train or even if I could catch a train on the same day, which friends with whom I was going to stay during the next following days, and what problems I could encounter along the way. My stomach certainly did have butterflies throughout this ordeal, but at least I remained optimist that I was going to eventually reach the finishing point. While this trip was a hard ordeal to go through, it was an adventure full of lessons that cannot be forgotten. This story will certainly be told to new travelers and to my children, if I have some one day.