January 2012.
“Oh gosh! I’m fed up with books and assignments! I want my holidaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”
“Let’s find cheap tickets then..”
“Okay, what’s your passport number, your birthday date, and your name in visa? So once we find cheap ticket, we can buy it at that time.”
Nah, it was January, our full of exams month. So exhausted like always. And we planned our first trip at that time hoping the cheapest airlines in Europe generously give us its good prices.
February 2012.
“R*an Air offers cheap ticket to Brussels, 7 euro! How??”
“Take it!!!!”
Then we rushed to our friend’s house. She didn’t go with us but she has credit card, something that we don’t have until now. Hahaha..
“It (R*an air website) asked us whether we want to have an insurance or no.”
“Just click no.”
“And it asked us again ‘are you sure you won’t take the insurance??’ hahaha!”
“Just say YES we sure! we’ll pray harder from now..”
Just like that, we finally had tickets to go to Brussels for 5 days and we also had a plan to go to Paris from Brussels by bus, so we searched for cheap tickets (again!) and luckily we found bus ticket discount! Woohooo! Seemed like the world told us to go around it!
March 2012
We still had exams from January until March and we had our holiday right after that! But we still should found some places to stay. We tried to find cheap hostels, but Paris and Brussels are so expensive. We couldn’t find hostel below 19 euro/nights even the room is for 8 persons. So we tried Couch Surfing. We sent 20 applications and waited everyday for the reply. Most of them said NO (hahaha), some of them replied: I think you didn’t read my profile! You didn’t follow my rules to send an message. (Yeah! Why should make something complicated if you want to help other people?).
2 weeks before our trip, I got a message from CS member, and she said that she wanted to help us, willingly to pick us up from the airport, and she knew that we would use R*an Air (so the airport wouldn’t be at Brussels but Nivelles). And I wondered was it really clear from my picture that I’m a kind of the limited budget traveler?
So it just left Paris, we still didn’t get anything. I tried to ask a help from my friend, Gema, who stays in Paris, but his apartment is really restricted and small. One room is just fit for 2 people max and we should pay 10 euro / night. Oh. No.
4 days before our trip, “we finally found someone who wants to help us in Paris!!!” Her apartment located 20 minutes from Eiffel by train. And even her room is small and she just have bunked bed (the under bed can be folded and made as a large sofa), she’s nicely offered us her place.
So here it comes, the D day!
By the way, who were we? Emon, Me, and Unyil. And also Udi and Henny (but we separated once we arrived in Nivelles, and met again in airport when we came back to Italy).
Our plane was in the afternoon, but because we live quite far from the nearest airport (Lamezia Terme) we left the university at 10 am (we live in university). My ‘grandma’, Eka, accompanied me until Centro, and she checked my bag. “Where’s your passport? Permesso di sorgiono? Plane and bus tickets? WHAT IS IT???” She founded white flour in the plastic glass in my bag. “Oh, it’s flour to make Bakwan.. We promised our friends in Nivelles and Paris to make something Indonesian,” I replied.
“But really, you’ll bring it?? You’ll be arrested at immigration because this thing looks like heroin. So, I’ll throw it away. You buy flour there.”
Okay it was my first trip lesson: don’t ever bring anything looks like narcotics. Seriously.
Because of her I landed in Nivelles and met Ilham and her sister. They’re Maroccan and have really good house. Ilham and her siblings are very friendly and nice, and not to mention their parents who are really generous. Her mom can’t speak English but she sat next to us in the living room tried to communicate with us.
Ilham and her sister asked us to go around Brussels at night because they knew tomorrow we would go to Paris. Suddenly her mom said something to me. I didn’t get it and just stared at her. She replied with gesture, “Ah, pray? Okay, I’m going to pray now. Hehe..”
In the next morning we rushed prepare for our next trip to Paris. Yes I know it was a really short trip in Nivelles and Brussels, but we had to follow the cheap tickets, and we still had another 1 day to wander around Brussels at the 4th day of our trip. Ilham’s mom called us to have breakfast with Maroccan tea, baguette, many kinds of jams, and Ilham’s big sister who was really panic about our next trip to Paris. “Most of Frence can’t speak English. Can you speak France??” We shook our head, “how if you guys get lost??” She chewed her bread faster, “okay, so, you should bring this and show it to the Metro officer when you get there. Okay?” She wrote our French friend’s address on a piece of paper. Hahahaha.
So that how it went. We jumped to the bus from Brussels to Paris for 5 hours and we arrived at 6pm and felt soooo hungry.
By the way, our favorite food during our Brussels – Paris trip was: 1 euro burger from M*D. We ate it almost everyday. And after we arrived in Italy we felt so fed up with that food. Hahahaha..
And our favorite drink was: free water! From everywhere as long it’s free!
It was tuesday and Amelie (our French friend) already went to her office. We were ready to see Paris! We jumped to the train and felt so excited. When we looked up to the window, Eiffel! We could see Eiffel!
Then we wandered around Paris by walking. It was the cheapest way and also the most efficient way to see whole Paris. We went to Sorbonne (but we couldn’t enter the university because only students who have the id card can go inside), Notre-Dame, Musee de-Louvre (we thought the ticket would be very expensive, but actually it’s free for students until 25 yo who have European stay permit card, and sadly we didn’t know about that..), Versailles castle which has a very large and beautiful park, Seine river, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, and many other places until our thumbs got painful. Hahaha..
We stopped at M*D for lunch (again) and Emon asked me whether he can drink my water or not.
“Just drink it.”
He drank and his face got weirder, “Where did you get the water?”
“From toilet.”
“That’s why it tasted like toilet water! I felt dizzy now and I think my stomach is not okay.”
“Ah, don’t be so spoiled. I drink it almost everyday and I’m still healthy.”
At night we went to the bar, hung out with Amelie’s friends until midnight. Oh don’t worry, I just bought a glass of juice.
I also met up with my senior high-school friend, Gema. So here’s the funny story about us: he was my classmate in 12 grade. Then we went to the universities in Bandung, me in University of Padjadjaran and him in Institute Technique of Bandung. We just met once at that time, at our first year in Bandung. Then we never met for almost 5 years. 2 months before I went to Italy, he found me in Indonesian students group mail. He said to me he accepted on Erasmus program and would be in South Italy also. Then we met in Italy after that and after he moved to Paris, we also met there. What a small world.
On wednesday we prepared to go back to Brussels again, another 5 hours in bus. Huft! At first, our plan was: we will wander around Brussels then go to the airport at the night because we should catch the plane at 7 am on the next day to go back to Italy. But everything was change. After wander around Brussels and went to the chocolate stores just to taste them without buying (ok, it was me and Emon, Unyil bought some for her families in Indonesia :p), we went back to Ilham’s house and she asked us to go to her other sister’s house. We had dinner there with Maroccos noodles, sooo tasty! And we made them bakwan, and thanks God they loved it! Once we finished cooking and serving them at table, they gone. Then we cooked again, and gone again.. hahaha..
We slept at 1 am and Ilham’s sister got so busy prepared everything for us; pajamas, aromatherapy lotions, pillows, blankets. She was an angel.. Then we woke up at 4.50, ate breakfast (Maroccan Kebab!). With Ilham and her sister, we went to airport to meet Henny and Udi who spent a night there.
My second trip lesson: prepare Indonesian food for your new friends, they might love it!
The flight went smoothly, no turbulence at that time, and we arrived tiredly at 10 am.
It was a really nice trip. We found new friends and family in other countries 
