Touching Grass & Shaking Ass: How I Spent 16 Days in Europe Without a Phone
TL;DR I was forced to take a much-needed social media & life hiatus
Reading time: ~18 minutes
Hello, friends and enemies of A Mermaid Who Can’t Swim (AMWCS for short)!
We have a LOT to cover in this newsletter as it’s gonna be focused on (some of) the shenanigans that happened during my 16-day trip to Italy, France, and Spain.
So grab your beverage of choice, maybe a snack or two, and pop a squat somewhere ‘cause this is gonna be a long one!
Joelle, what the fuck is this title??? Why were you in Europe??? Didn’t you just move??????
That’s a lovely question, my dear friend or enemy of AMWCS, and it’s somewhat related to me moving.
I had been debating on going on an EF trip for the past two years. I had initially booked a trip with them in 2019 to Spain for the summer of 2020, but it kept getting canceled due to COVID. Luckily, if your trip got delayed due to COVID, EF let you use your credit for either the same trip but a later date, an entirely different itinerary for a later date, or credit to be saved on your account until you decide on a new trip.
But with every trip I rebooked getting canceled due to COVID, I was worried I would end up being the oldest person on my tour by the time I got on one, especially since I was booking trips for the start of the summer. I thought, “I work in higher education, do I really want to spend my vacation time being surrounded by even more college-aged people?”
I eventually got a refund for what I had paid for at that point and I saved that money for a down payment on my next apartment.
For those new here, I shared in my last newsletter that my crusty (ex-)landlords raised the rent on my Manhattan studio from $1,450 to $2,150 when my lease ended. I may not be the most financially responsible person, but even EYE knew that was a ridiculous amount. So when my parents said I can move back in with them, I took the money I was saving up for a new place and took some time to think about doing a solo trip to Europe for the summer.
But as much as I like planning trips (I had an Excel spreadsheet to plan my sister’s bachelorette trip to Maui in 2019), I did not have the bandwidth at the end of April/end of the academic year to plan a two-week trip to Europe for end of May/early June.
So, I booked a trip to Italy, France, and Spain with EF Ultimate Break.
“Joelle, how was your vacation to Europe?” “It was pretty chill”
I knew from the very beginning that this trip was gonna be one that I would never forget (somewhat sarcastic).
For starters, the first leg of my flight to Rome got canceled due to weather issues. I had checked in my luggage, said goodbye to my parents, and sat down at my gate when we got an announcement that the flight to Montreal was canceled.
This was almost an hour before boarding.
They had us go back out through security, go to the Air Canada check-in desk, and figure out how to get on new flights to our destinations. I was very lucky because while some people’s new flights were for the next day, I was rebooked onto a direct flight to Rome that would leave in a few hours from Newark and arrive the next morning. I just had to get my luggage from baggage claim and go to a new terminal, which was fine since I had about two hours before boarding.
It was pretty much smooth sailing from there. I texted my family to let them know I had a new flight, and I messaged my EF tour director Tomás via WhatsApp to let him know my new flight information since I was now coming at a new time that was at an awkward time between the first and second pick-up times for our tour group (which he affectionately called us Jellyfishes). My parents were happy I was okay, and Tomás was able to find a way to get me to the hotel with other travelers in our group.
Sure, it wasn’t the best thing that could happen on this trip, but it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. (Trust me, it really wasn’t the worst thing that happened on this trip SKSKSKSKS).
Of course, it wouldn’t be accommodations in Europe without something being wrong with the room. I’m not sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that a few of us were chilling in my hotel room when part of the ceiling fell down around midnight on our first night in Rome. Good thing as in we were all awake and no one was standing underneath it. Bad thing as in we were pretty much three wine bottles deep and could’ve gotten seriously hurt if any of us were standing just a foot in the wrong direction.
Luckily, my roommate Kim and I let the front desk know about it the next morning and it was fixed during the day. Again, not the best but not the worst thing that happened on this trip.
How To Lose a Phone in 10 Shots: a Memoir
Okay, maybe I should clarify that I didn’t take 10 shots before I lost my phone on the second night of my trip (it was more like 3 shots plus some unsure number glasses of wine plus one vodka lemon soda).
But, I will admit I was a (tipsy) dumbass and left my phone in a pocket of my bag that didn’t have a zipper. So when I was chasing after a drunk friend/Jellyfish and making sure some asshole didn’t kidnap her at the bar we were at, my phone went *poof*.
Talk about a sure-fire way to sober you up after 5+ drinks.
Was my cellphone the only electronic device that I could use to communicate with my fellow Jellyfishes and my family back in New York since I left my laptop and my iPad back at home?
Yes.
Did I frantically and tipsily call my sister in New York at like 1 am CET/7 pm EDT from a Jellyfish’s phone before getting into the first taxi with a bunch of other Jellyfishes sans the Jellyfish whose phone I used to call my sister?
Yes.
Did I tell Tomás the next day about how I was a dumbass American whose phone went missing and did he try valiantly to help me find a place in Rome and our next stop Florence to buy a secondhand phone for the rest of the trip?
Also yes.
Did I spend the rest of the trip lamenting about not being able to post on social media and enter my influencer era like I half-jokingly, half-seriously kept telling myself before the trip?
Well…
“I hate that I love you so” - Me @ Social Media Influencing/Content Creating
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Before I go back to talking about my trip, I gotta pause and say this: I have a complicated relationship with social media, TikTok specifically. At the time of writing this, I currently have about 34,000 followers, which is a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because I got to be creative in a way that wasn’t possible before (everything from #bibipov to #MafiAtePOV to all the duets I’ve posted), I met so many great people, and if it weren’t for TikTok, I literally wouldn’t have written #MafiaAteWIP, which basically owns my heart and soul at this point.
A curse because of all the attention it gave me in such a short amount of time. Most of my following came during the summer of 2020 at the height of my #bibipov duets with user @fash and since then, I received comments that range from racist to sexist to intrusive to just downright rude.
My social media influencer/content creator experience includes:
men being weirdly misogynistic to me for “bragging” that I go to Harvard Law School (note: I do not go to Harvard Law)
white people saying I, a woman of color, am being racist against them (which is not a thing and if you believe that, you should unsubscribe right now)
having people say they hate me in my own comments section in the third person as if I wouldn’t see their comment
And while the above is just a small sampling of what I experienced, it was a lot to handle on top of going back to work in person at the office during the Spring 2021 term (plus some other things which I’m pretty sure I’m legally not allowed to say in writing…).
Like a lot of my TikTok friends, I took many hiatuses and experienced so much burnout. There’s something particularly draining about being a microcreator on TikTok, with the need to be constantly posting to the fact that even troll and hate comments boost your posts and help you go viral. To have so many eyes on you in such a short amount of time can be pretty jarring, especially if you started out posting just for fun and not as a business move. I felt like I had to post every day, reply to every comment, make the best content out there with whatever I had, grow my following so I could reach the next big follower milestone, work hard so I could get brand collaborations and earn money from my posts.
And yet, part of me really wanted to be more active again on social media, especially with this trip. I was so excited to take so many photos and videos for TikTok and Instagram, I even created a template in Canva to make those aesthetic-y travel vlog-esque videos. After a surprise visit from my content creator friend Kaya @comfygirlcurls back in April and doing a few brand collaborations myself within the past few months, I could feel my motivation to be creative on social media springing back up.
But even though I had a game plan, the same worries I had when I was more active on social media crept into my mind.
“Will people like what I post?”
“Will the colors look weird in this?”
“Will I look weird in this?”
“Will people get annoyed by me for asking them to take pictures and videos of me?”
“Will anyone really care if I post about my outfits and meals and where I’m going?”
And so on and so forth.
With all these worries and my previous experience on social media laid out, was it really a tragedy that I lost my phone and couldn’t be on it for 2 weeks?
“I wanna shake some ass!!!” - me every damn night
I did what any reasonable person does when they’re on vacation and they don’t have direct Internet access: I touched some grass and shook some ass.
I was surprised by how calm and unbothered I was with not having a phone. So many of my fellow Jellyfishes were like “oh I could NEVER” or “I’d be devastated if I lost my phone”. Which, yeah, I was pretty sad that I lost my phone since that’s an expensive piece of technology and I couldn’t personally let my family know I was safe or even go to the breakfast room of my hotel without having to tell someone.
But as I reminded everyone (and myself): I can buy a new phone, but I can’t buy a new Joelle. What was most important was that I was safe, I still had all my important documents and cards on me, and I planned to always stick with at least one person who had service on their phone.
I couldn’t let a silly little box with wires get me down! I was on vacation! I didn’t have to answer any work emails or calls! I could leave my usual self behind for two weeks and do whatever I want as I gallivant through southern Europe! I could use a friend’s phone to log into my Instagram to let my sister and my family know I’m okay, but I could just live life and soak up the Mediterranean sun!
And so I did.
I ate some amazing food, drank so much Prosecco straight from the bottle, sang Whitney Houston at karaoke, chilled on a donut-shaped floatie off the coast of Cannes, steered a pedal boat in a canyon in southern France, shook ass in one of the biggest nightclubs in Barcelona, and did so many things I couldn’t even imagine myself doing two months ago.
“But be careful what you wished for ‘cause you just might get it” - The Pussycat Dolls
Of course, all good things must come to an end and this rollercoaster of a trip had to end with a bang. (This is when The Worst Thing That Could Happen On This Trip actually happened)
In the days leading up to our flights back home, we all talked about where we had to do our layovers to get back home. Some had Amsterdam, a few of us had Toronto, but what got me annoyed was that some were going to JFK for their layover or even their final destination. Friends and enemies of AMWCS, I complained the most about this on the trip because my final destination was Newark (EWR) and JFK is the most convenient airport near me.
“Ugh,” I kept saying on the day before our flights, “can I trade flights with one of y’all? I’d rather go to JFK than Newark.”
Welp, the universe heard me and went, “Oh, you wanna go to JFK so badly? Fine, see you tomorrow morning.”
When I went to check in my luggage at the Air Canada desk at around 9 am the next day, the attendant scanned my passport, looked at me funny, and said, “You don’t have a ticket to Toronto.”
And when they told me I couldn’t buy a ticket at the desk for that same flight because 1. it was sold out and 2. I could only buy a ticket for a new flight online, I went into panic mode. I didn’t have a phone or any type of electronic device to just buy a ticket for a new flight right then and there. How the fuck was I supposed to get back to New York?
Luckily, I was with a small group of Jellyfishes doing the same layover in Toronto and they had all waited for me after they checked in. I told them the bad news and as I crouched on the floor to hide my crying and control my oncoming panic attack, they whipped out their phones and got to work on finding a new flight for me.
By the power of teamwork and international data plans, they got me on a direct flight to JFK, leaving at 5:10 pm that same day. With tears in my eyes and an hour for them to go through (which I would later learn) not just one but TWO security checks, we said our goodbyes and parted ways.
Even though I was drinking coffee every morning for the past two weeks (note: I don’t drink coffee AT ALL back in the States due to it making me jittery), the six hours I spent waiting to get on my new flight were my most anxiety-inducing moments the entire trip. I felt like I was always on the brink of another major fuck-up that would make me stay in Barcelona: from almost checking in at the wrong desk to waiting nearly an hour at the correct one to finding out that after I got through security I still had to do a passport check to get to my actual gate.
But the most anxiety-inducing thing throughout this all? Figuring out how to tell my family that they had to pick me up at JFK around 8 pm EST instead of Newark around 8 pm EST.
These two airports are about an hour away from each other based on Sunday evening traffic aka I SOMEHOW had to let my family know that I’d be flying into Queens, NY and not Jersey. As I shopped for last-minute souvenirs in the duty-free stores of BCN Terminal 1, I kept telling myself, “Just find someone on the same flight as you and ask if you can use their phone to message Ate (“big sister” in Tagalog and what I call my oldest sister) on Instagram since that’s the easiest way to contact her with her knowing it’s actually from you.”
Yes, friends and enemies of AMWCS, I was desperate enough to ask a random stranger if I could use their phone to log into Instagram.
And by some miracle/me getting over my social anxiety, I did find someone on the same flight as me who lent me his phone! Just a few minutes before we were called to board our flight, I asked the guy waiting in line behind me if I could use his phone to message my sister on Instagram. I had to explain to him that I lost my phone in Rome and he was pretty sympathetic and let me borrow his to let my parents know I was actually flying into JFK instead. After quickly logging out after my sister confirmed that she got my message, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders and focused on finally going home.
Friends and enemies of AMWCS, when I tell you I CRIIIEEEED when I saw my mom and my sister waiting for me in JFK at 9 pm, I swear my eyes lubricated themselves in .00005 seconds after spending hours in dry af airplane air just so I could shed all those tears upon seeing them.
Final Thoughts on My Trip
Despite the flight issues to and from Europe and losing my phone, I had a BLAST on this trip! It was a much-needed break from my everyday life and I was quite literally forced to live in the moment and soak in every second of my trip.
If you’re between the ages of 18 and 35 years old and looking for a safe and fun way to travel to a new country, book an EF Ultimate Break trip. They do all the planning for you from the flights to the hotels to travel between cities and countries to the tours and excursions to even some of the meals. Everything is planned out for you, all you have to do is pay and show up.
And while some people were traveling with friends, significant others, and family members, a majority of the people on my trip were going solo and ready to make friends. Yes, I was on the older side at 26 years old, but there was a good chunk of us who were 25-29 years old on my trip and I pretty much got along with everyone.
I’m telling you, if you ever considered going on an EF Ultimate Break trip just once and you’re in the age range, book it now. I promise you won’t regret it (no, I’m not sponsored by them (yet)).
*Edit: I’m now an EF Ultimate Ambassador! You can get $100 off your first EF Ultimate Break trip by using my link here, which you can use on top of the sales they run every year!
Shoutout Section!
I told my Jellyfishes to follow my newsletter since I would talk about the trip in this one, but there are a few special ones that need a shoutout for letting me mooch off them and their phones making sure I was okay the entire trip and taking photos of me for my mom and the ‘gram (pssssst you should definitely follow them):
Kim (@kim_gira) aka Aunty Kim for being my Day 1 roomie and always being down to party no matter what time it was
Mikayla (@mikayladoughney) for letting me use your iPad to contact my family after I lost my phone and for being a great Instagram girlfriend
Briana (@bria_nana) for keeping it together and making sure I got on a plane back to New York while I was crying in front of the Air Canada check-in in BCN
Ryan (@ryan__vo) for letting me use your phone to get on a new flight back to New York (and for somehow always being the first one to get the Ubers and taxis every time we had a night out)
Grant (@instagrant12_) for frickin paying for my new flight back to JFK and for being a great Instagram boyfriend
Also a special shout out to the guy standing behind me in line for the Iberia 2627 flight from Barcelona to JFK on June 12, 2022, I am forever grateful for you
Thanks for stopping by! If you have any suggestions on what you would like to see next (writing updates and snippets, life updates, ramblings, etc.), feel free to leave a comment! I hope you stay around for a good time AND a long time.
Yours truly,
Joelle Thérèse, A Mermaid Who Can’t Swim
This was the most entertaining newsletter ever 10/10. But also, wow what an adventure like I don't think I would have been able to handle all that travel stress!