Wesley Hamilton: Flowing through Florence

“No good, you at wrong place. This train ticket,” said the German bus controller as she scanned my ticket in Berlin.

Panic struck me as I looked back at the ticket and read the departure time, which was 15 minutes away. In that split second, my whole adventure and lifelong dream of traveling all over the world seemed to go up in smoke.

Backing up a little, my name is Wesley Hamilton and I am a Business Management major who is pursuing a career in international consulting. When trying to decide what to do for my breakaway, I realized that studying internationally would not only look good on my resume for graduate school, but also provide valuable experience for my future. Right before Christmas break, I decided that I was going to study abroad next summer. 

Usually the process takes around a year and I was trying to do it in less than six months, which meant everything had to fall perfectly into place.  

The first step was to choose where I was going. After doing some research, I decided on Florence, Italy because of the rich culture and business depth. Things that had to be done included: doing my break away proposal, applying to the school, getting their classes to count for Lander classes, funding, getting plane tickets, and a list of numerous other things. I knew that it was going to be a very busy semester, especially with all my other responsibilities already on campus. 

It started rough at first with my breakaway proposal being denied three times, but then things started clicking. I was accepted into Florence University of the Arts and all my classes that I wanted to take were counted. The day I went to buy my plane tickets there was a sale and I got them for $300 less than I had budgeted them for. I also received two scholarships that I hadn’t been planning on, one from Lander, and one from the program which greatly helped to pay for the trip. Everything came into place and before I knew it the spring semester was over and I was leaving for Italy in two weeks in high spirits and thinking nothing could go wrong.

The first part of my break away was studying for six weeks at the Florence University of Arts where I took two classes, Restaurant Management and Fashion marketing, both bring classes that are not available at Lander but are specialty items of Italy.  

While there I really got to immerse myself in the culture and I realized how different their lifestyle and culture was from America. Here in America we all seem to think that we need the newest thing and over there most houses don’t even have air conditioning. Here we are always rushing to do the next thing and over there they stop to enjoy the simple things in life. For example, family dinners in America are a rare and special occasion; while in Italy however, it’s not a surprise to do it several times a week and each meal lasts easily three hours. It was a very different lifestyle but yet it was very refreshing to learn from another culture how they live and interact with each other.

My love for traveling with the addition of seeing other cultures, made me want to go a step further than required from breakaways. I added in weeks of traveling all over Europe because I wanted to see the world. I also wanted to see some of the most iconic sights in the world such as the Berlin Wall, Big Ben, Eiffel Tour, and Acropolis. The route that I chose had me going to 8 cities and going through about 12 countries and using a variety of transportation which included planes, buses, taxis, and trains. That didn’t include planning where I was staying, what I would eat, and what I would see in each different city. The planning for it was tremendous but it was part of the fun and excitement.

By the time my six weeks had come to an end in Florence, I had a detailed plan of action which included every detail of my trip, or so I thought. Extra luggage was put into storage, my boarding passes were printed, my hostel reservation numbers were written down, and all my train and bus tickets were carefully filed. During the first part of the trip everything was going as planned. Sometimes I would be running late to my next place to visit which would just push my day back but it wasn’t anything major.

About halfway through my trip I got to Berlin, Germany, I was scheduled to stay for two days visiting numerous places from the Holocaust memorial to the modern city center. Everything was going great till the end of my stay and I was trying to leave to go to Prague.

*      *       *

I remember leaving my hostel around 8 AM because my ticket said the departure time was 9 AM and the hostel people said it was about 30 minutes to the bus depot if I took the metro. Sure, enough I got there around 8:30 and thought that I had plenty of time to grab breakfast. By the time finished it was around 8:40 and I decided it was time to find my bus but I couldn’t find the bus number or right departure time and so me being impatient decide to ask a bus controller. Who said in broken English “no good, you at wrong place. This train ticket.” My heart sank when I heard this. My first two stops of this tour had been flights and the rest had been bus and I thought that this one was as well, but it turned out to be a train ticket. All the other tickets that I had were written in English and I could read them, but the one I was currently holding was written in Czech. 

After another minute of talking I came to find out that the train station was 20 minutes away and by subway it would take 30 minutes. The only other way to get there would be by taxi. I immediately ran out of the bus station only to find several taxi drivers who had no idea what I was saying because of the language barrier. I felt my heart racing as I realized that time was running out before my train departed.

Finally, I found a taxi driver who understood a little English and where I needed to go when he looked at my ticket. But by this time, it was 8:48 and I was sweating and panicking. I had to make this train because if I didn’t, I had no idea how I would get home because I was on a strict deadline for my flight home. I drive fast and crazy, but that taxi driver scared even me because he read my ticket and understood how quickly I needed to get there. The adrenaline pushed through my veins as I seem to cling to my life and hope I made it to the train station on time and alive. Somehow, I did make it in the nick of time but I learned a valuable lesson through it.

I used to be a spastic child and just have a go, go, go mentality.  Every second was planned out of how my day would look and where I would need to be at a certain time. I was always a man with a plan of what to do next and hated it when things didn’t work out. I fit the typical American stereotype of rushing everywhere and not taking a minute to stop and smell the roses. I didn’t appreciate life at the fullest, which I really learned in my time in Florence.

When I reflect back on this story, I realized that I want to have power and control of my life and that has kept  me from experiencing life at times. Sometimes it’s better to go with the flow of life. This experience in Berlin taught me life doesn’t always go according to plan and when it doesn’t, I must go with the hardships and work hard to overcome it and everything will work out. I made it back to the United States, right? When life throws you problems just understand you will overcome it because it’s part of the adventure of life. My grandmother use to say “Life is not a race but an adventure.” I learned to love the adventure and not to stress the little things, because I can’t determine what life has in store.

Wesley Hamilton is a Business Management major with an emphasis in marketing/management. He did his breakaway in Florence, Italy during the summer of 2016. After graduating from Lander in spring 2018 Wesley plans to go to grad school for International Business Law to hopefully start a career in international business consulting.