A Skip in Time

Alright my avid readers (and those who mistakenly got suckered into opening this page). I know I owe you all about 18 days of travel stories from my last adventure to England, Scotland, Ireland and Paris, but I am going to skip into the future (really the present) and give you an update on my journey.

Being away for the holidays is a very hard thing. You don't always realize how much you take your friends, family and food for granted on those days. Missing Halloween with friends was difficult as it is one of my favorite holidays. Luckily for me I had a great time in Budapest with Matt and Edit at a party where we did dress up, but it still just isn't the same as the Mountain Dewds Halloween party where my friends go all out for their costumes each year.

The second holiday I missed was Thanksgiving and this was much harder. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. You get all the benefits of Christmas (Family, food, fun +football) without any of the holiday stress (presents, shopping, etc). I was very blessed though as my roommate in Budapest, Matt Shaw, has parents living in Germany right now. They drove all the way (12-hours) to Budapest, brought a full Thanksgiving feast they bought on a US military base (food imported from the States) and then cooked the feast for us. So I got to have Thanksgiving with Matt, his parents, Edit, her brother Bobby and later Rozie who joined us after work. (Oddly enough they don't give Thanksgiving off in Europe....silly Europeans!)

It was a great time, but I still missed my family. I missed the cheesy potatoes, the pies, the jokes, the second cousins I see once or twice a year, I missed it all still. I thought, at least I will still be home for Christmas though.

All the while, Matt, Edit and his parents were talking about Matt and Edit's wedding on January 7th. I have been pretty bummed that I will be missing it, but money is running low and my visa expires before then. Matt and Edit have been sad too. I have been living with Matt for 3 months in a foreign country and I leave shortly before the wedding. He jokes that I am staying, whether I know it yet or not.

The more I listen the more I realize what I am really missing by not being there. Matt has become one of my closest friends these past three months. I have gotten to know Edit much better too and in her own country, where I am the foreigner instead. I have developed relationships with both of their families as well. Some friends are coming into Europe just for the wedding and let me tell you, this wedding is going to be crazy-awesome. I have seen the plans, it's going to be good.

Letting this all sink in I realize I do have a choice. Go home for Christmas or stay for the wedding. I can always leave the Schengen Zone - where my Visa has only 90 days - for a a few days and travel to some new countries, extending my visa back in Hungary. Also, but traveling less the last month and just hanging out in Hungary where it is much, much cheaper I can prevent my self from going completely broke.

So now I have two viable choices. Go home or stay an extra month. I feel so torn between the two. I am starting to really miss my family, friends, American food (seriously, don't take chipotle for granted people) and making money compared to just spending it. But Matt is a close friend, it's going to be an amazing wedding and other friends will be coming in for it.

On Thanksgiving I end up Skyping with my entire family while they celebrate the day. I got to talk to my family, and cousins and aunts and uncles. It was great and reinforced my desire to be home for Christmas, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that if I went home and missed the wedding I would forever regret it. It was that same feeling I got when I thought about choosing to keep my job and not travel to Europe.

So I did the only logical thing, called my parents and asked for advice. You may be thinking, "Asked your parents, come on man." But here is the truth, my parents are awesome, smart, experienced and honest. They give me real feedback, even if it goes against their own interests. I can really trust the advice they give me they have thought about.

When I explain my dilemma the first thing my Mom says is, "You should stay, you will regret it if you don't. I will miss you for Christmas, but we will have lots more Christmases. Figure out the cost of staying, if you can afford it and then decide, but I would stay." My Dad echoed the advise. They told me to live life, avoid regrets and take advantage of unique opportunities like this. I have the rest of my life to do average things, take the opportunities to do the unique.

I call US Airways, which I have had terrible customer service experience with before and ask about flight changes. They person I got was awesome. She found a flight leaving a month later from the same location, no additional cost past the change-flight fee ($250) and she waived the fee to change it through the customer service line. I told her what I was doing and we had a great 10 minute chat about how she did the same thing at my age and its the best decision she ever made.

With that I changed my flight, added a month to my journey and was able to give Matt and Edit an awesome wedding gift. It is the wedding gift because I can't really afford another now. And it came with the condition that they had to keep housing me up until the wedding. Not a problem luckily.

So now I come home on January 12, instead of December 14th. I will miss Christmas with my family and my cousin Kelsey's wedding. (I am sorry Kelsey! you won't notice my absence, so it is okay, you will be having too much fun) But I get to explore some new countries, be there for my friends wedding and act as a tour guide to my friends that are coming into Budapest.

A hard choice, but one with out regret. I can only hope to keep that up the rest of my life.