I Cried On My First Trip to Europe

Joseph Rivera
Jul 30, 2017 · 8 min read

I still remember exactly my first trip across the pond: it was in March during my sophomore year of high school when I went to London, Paris, Florence, Pisa, and Rome.

In the beginning I didn’t feel any different than being at home in Miami, FL. Even as the trip went on into France and Italy, I didn’t feel a thing. The flight over was horrible. I’m 6'5" (1.98 m) tall, so the economy section of any flight is never a nice one; my knees are always playing tag with the seat in front of me while I’m constantly trying to make myself comfortable. On top of that, I can barely catch any sleep while on a plane. I’ve never been able to sleep more than 45 minutes to an hour while on a flight. It’s most definitely a curse. Luckily, being an avid J. Cole fan, I was lucky that the then new album “Forest Hills Drive 2015” was on the airplanes music list. (We’ll put that album into another post, it changed my life).

In the bus on our way to the city center.

Once we landed in the Heathrow airport, I remember telling myself “I’m in Europe.” But this didn’t really matter because nothing felt any different. We got on our bus and immediately started our tour and headed to London. One of the most striking things to me about London was the gray. All the gray. Everything. Was. Gray.

We got to the city center and I couldn’t take my eyes off the architecture. One thing to know about me is that I am an avid fanatic of symmetry. Northern European architecture has a sweet spot in my heart. Along with neoclassical architecture; another post on that later.

Walking around London from Buckingham Palace to the British Museum was an interesting experience. For one, I think I found instances of communist ideology in front of the palace (there are to two statues of what I remember to be a man and a woman, one holding a hammer and another holding a sickle. It just might be a coincidence, but I’m all for conspiracies theories). And the British Museum. Man, you really don’t expect for the interior of a British Museum to look like that.

I also just so happened that a protest against bigotry and racism was going on just as we were passing by. Little did I know it was against UKIP, the political party that spearheaded the Brexit movement. What a small world.

Just look at that. Really. That’s amazing.

The rest of the UK treated me to fish and chips, a cop cursing at me to get off the road, and an old lady calling me a “fucking zombie” while I was standing in the freezing cold waiting to buy a hot chocolate (don’t ask me what that means, I don’t and will never have the slightest clue).


The second stop in the trip was Paris, France. Oh, Paris. I want to get back to visiting you, I don’t feel like I got all that you could’ve offered.

Look at the guys laughing in the bottom left corner. I love looking at this picture and thinking about what they were talking about. I wonder what made them laugh as much as they did.

We arrived at Paris on train from London (first time I’ve ever been on a train that goes underwater: not that exciting). I remember there being military squads patrolling every popular location. Keep in mind that I went in March of 2015, only a few months after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, so it was just the beginning of all the subsequent events that took place in France.

Remember about how I said I love symmetry? Yeah, this city is definitely on my favorites. Wandering around this city is something everyone should try to get around to doing. I really enjoy European streets, much more than any American ones (I still have to visit New York City), and I think this city is what made me believe that.

View from the Eiffel Tower. Typical tourist shot, but there’s definitely a reason why.

Although perfect weather always seems to find me on my travels, it didn’t find me in Paris. I was on a boat tour on the Seine when it started to thunder. I could only hope it wouldn’t rain, but low and behold, the rain came. What made it worse was that I happened to be wearing my then two-year-old vans that had the soles worn out. Imagine walking on cold, wet cobblestone in the pouring rain with the wind blowing cold winter air in your face with a light jacket. Not enjoyable. Not one bit. That rain ruined a hat hat I bought on Montmartre that I ended up losing going from France to Italy. I guess it was meant to be.

The Louvre was a very interesting place. What’s more intriguing to me is that I enjoyed the place itself more than the artwork that was on display.

Just look at these pictures.
These pictures are just as beautiful as the artwork in them.

Exploring the many different hallways of the former royal condo was way more fun than “admiring the artwork” and basking in its perfection. Nope. Not me.


Now to the third and final stop in the trip: Italy. Before we continue, I need to disclose something. Italy and Italian has and always will have a sweet spot in my heart, so expect this to be the longest part of the . By the time of the trip, I was in my second year learning Italian and it was the year my school began its program of bringing Italian students to our school for two weeks to get to know America (although Miami is a very skewed version of America; especially in Hialeah, where the school is located. More on that later).

We took an overnight train from Paris to Milan. It was me and my four other best friends in one cabin barely big enough to fit a family sleeping in beds barely big enough to fit a teenage child, but we didn’t care. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but there seems to be this weird euphoria when travelling to somewhere like Europe with friends that makes you forget about everything but the now. We passed through Switzerland and I was way to tired to stay up at all that night to see the Alps. Although, in retrospect, I should’ve tried to pull an all-nighter or set an alarm to get some of that Swiss eye candy.

My first time in Italy. I wish I could’ve filmed that experience because it feels like it came strait out of a movie. When I woke up I found the daylight in our cabin and I immediately knew we were in Italy. I stood up and ran to a fellow friend’s train car. She was also in Italian class, so we had the language in common. We started speaking in Italian about how excited we were.

Picture of the Tuscan countryside on the train from Milan to Florence.

I was so desperate I couldn’t even wait until we got off the train; I immediately opened the nearest window and stuck my head out. I just wanted to take in as much Italian air as possible. It was a foggy morning in Lombardy. We took a train from Milan to Florence. I figured that I was in Italy, so I might as well practice speaking as much as I could. So I bought three water bottles on that train ride from Milan to Florence just so I could practice speaking.

The view in Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo was completely amazing. You can see the entire city and its most important monuments.

View from the Piazzale Michelangelo. You can see il Ponte Vecchio, the Medici Palace, il Duomo di Firenze, and even the Uffizzi gallery if you know where you’re looking.

The hotel in Florence was also very cozy. The owner of the hotel was from Napoli, so a Neapolitan friend that was also on the trip hit it off with her. A few of us that also speak Italian started speaking with her and she ended up introducing her to the entire staff. She lined up all the waiters and waitresses and we went one by one shaking and exchanging a “piacere.”

After Florence, we went to Pisa. I’ll spare to the pictures and details of the city since we were only there to see the leaning tower and church, but just know that it started to hail. Umbrellas don’t do well against hail.

Then, finally, I arrived at Rome. Italy has this thing with making me fall in love with it every time it’s my last day or final destination. When I arrived in Rome, just look at what greeted me.

Sunset in Rome. This just isn’t fair.

It really wasn’t fair to show me such beauty and know that it would be the last time I experience that for a while. But I’m an optimist, so I can only say I’m glad I had the privilege of seeing such a beautiful sight.

The day after arriving in Rome, we did the typical tourist run through the eternal city: the Colosseum, the Vatican (I almost saw the Pope that day, I missed him by a couple of hours), etc. In between all of that I did eat spaghetti alla carbonara, a dish typical to Rome; you have to have it. Along with the ice cream, but that’s a given. Also, I now have an obsession for Italian Fanta. I don’t know what they do or how they make it over there, but it literally tastes like they freshly squeezed an orange and carbonated the juice that came out of it. I brought some back for some friends to taste and they didn’t think much of it. Too bad I don’t think much of them (that was a joke).


But now, let’s move on to what the title of this post says: I cried on first trip to Europe. It was our last night in Europe before flying back the next morning and I was heartbroken. I had grew an attachment to the continent although I had only been there for 10 days. I had my window open and I was staring out into the night streets of Rome while listening to Milky Chance and I couldn’t help it, I just started crying. I was remembering all the good memories I made in the previous cities with my friends and I didn’t want any of it to end.

That trip definitely changed my life, there’s not one single doubt about it. I’m still not 100% sure exactly what happened that the trip had such an impact on me, but that’s what happened and I can only move forward from that.

I hope you enjoyed the story of me crying in Europe after having the time of my life. Keep up with me on my Instagram and don’t forget to check my blog to see where life is taking me now.

Thank you.

Joseph Rivera

Written by

An Entrepreneur living in Miami, Florida trying to be successful without college, so I founded Minimal Thrift, my E-commerce store. Let’s see how this goes.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade