Category: Austria

I assumed renting a car in Europe would require loads of paperwork, questions like why five American girls want to rent a car, and maybe at least a warning. Instead, it took a three minute online booking, five minutes in person, and cost less than a round-trip train or plane ticket. The man behind the counter barely asked for identification, no passport, just proof of license and that at least someone knows how to drive a car. Contrary to laws in America, you have to be 21 to rent a car in Austria, not 25. He handed us the keys like we were borrowing a pencil and we were on our way to find our Toyota Aygo in the parking garage. Automatic, not manual of course. That’s how four students with varying levels of driving competence ended up in control of a vehicle, twice.

Driving nine hours to Paris went smoothly until we met the highway tolls. We drove about five hours to Strasbourg, which is right on the border of France in Germany, and found a perfect hostel fit for three with an included breakfast in the morning. We immediately fell asleep upon getting there and were ready to continue driving first thing the morning. Driving on the Autobahn was a driving experience I will never forget. There are speed limits in theory, but they aren’t the part people pay attention to. The left lane isn’t democratic; it belongs to people with both experience and no fear. The tolls appeared, each offering an array of unlabeled lanes covered in symbols that did not feel intuitive to anyone in the car. But of course, there was only a slim chance everything would go perfectly, so we got stuck at some tolls dialing for help in broken English. Most gates opened. A few hesitated, which made us consider whether we had just committed toll fraud by accident. If a bill from France ever arrives, I’ll know exactly why. Once we found an overnight parking garage, which not only required a longer conversation with street signs than with the rental employee but also driving through the city of Paris, we walked through the beautiful and culture filled streets. Very few people can say they saw the Eiffel Tower and survived a toll booth system designed for locals with patience. On the way back, we decided to commit to driving the whole nine hours in one day. Unfortunately for me, I was hit with a mystery stomach bug the night before and was up all night sick. I was laying in fetal position in the back the entire way with a trash bag next to me. I gratefully bought my friends coffee and drinks for days after to show my appreciation for not making me drive. Nonetheless, Paris was incredible and one of my favorite cities. I took my time in the Louvre, ate delicious meals, and hung out with friends – what could be better! Returning the car was a different story. In no way, shape, or form, were we allowed to take the car outside of Austria—a rule that absolutely no employee mentioned to us, nor was it in the fine print. We ruled it a miscommunication with an employee who seemed to find it more humorous than worrying and left with a relieved smile on our faces.

The second rental car took even less effort to obtain. Within 15 minutes, we were on the Autobahn again. Luckily, Munich is only an one hour and forty minutes which made the drive 10x more enjoyable with some good music and company. We were more skilled in finding a parking garage, but this still entailed driving through the city streets of Munich. We enjoyed the festive Christmas markets under the Glockenspiel and celebrated with a brat and hot chocolate. It worked perfectly as a day trip: manageable, lively, and rewarding. Yet, coming back to Salzburg I realized nothing will beat the true Christmas markets here — up in the Fortress or in Residence Platz, they are arguably the best.

So, was driving worth it? Yes, and a million times over, yes. Not because it was efficient or logical—it wasn’t—but because we earned every market and historical sight we reached. We navigated toll roads without instructions, respected and adapted to the Autobahn, and found parking in cities that seemed determined to hide it.

Trains take you somewhere.
Driving abroad makes you understand where you are.

I bought a postcard for you, Home. It had the fortress printed on it, the one that sits above Salzburg keeping watch. There must have been a break from the rain the day they painted this postcard because the sky was impossibly blue. I thought about writing Wish you were here, but it felt too small for the kind of missing I was doing, and I didn’t want my thoughts to be mistaken for a Pink Floyd metaphor.

So I slipped the 4″ x 6″ in the inside pocket of my bag, where it’s been living between going to class and traveling new cities. I keep finding it by accident, a paper ghost of everything I meant to say to you and didn’t.

Dear Home,

You’d hardly recognize me. I enjoy hot coffees now, I walk everywhere, even in the rain. I say Grüß Gott to strangers like its natural. But I still count euros like dollars, and sometimes I forget where I put my keys and where I usually keep them — because I still think of them as house keys, not hostel keys.

You’d laugh if you saw how many pictures I’ve taken of windows, trees, and the hills. Something about the way the light lands here feels like you: soft, familiar, but just out of reach. I keep trying to capture it and relive that feeling, the way I used to take pictures of sunsets from your back porch, always thinking the next one would finally look the way it felt.

I thought the distance would make me miss you more. But instead, you’ve started to blur around the edges as I live my new life here. I can’t quite remember which stairs creak when I come down them, or which cabinet holds the mugs. You’re becoming more of an idea than a place.

Sometimes I try to recreate you here, Home.

I turn on one lamp instead of two, to try and imitate that comforting lighting in my bedroom that I love. I make pasta in a pot that is too small and pretend the sauce tastes the same. I tell my friends stories about you— how you’ve been there through all stages of my life. They nod politely, but they don’t know you.

There are moments, though, when you surprise me. You show up disguised. You’re in the café down the street, when the barista knows my name and how I don’t like my lattes too sweet. You’re in the comfort of my pillows, in the natural beauty of the mountains, the steam of my lemon ginger tea, and you’re in the hum of the washing machine when the whole hostel is quiet. I realize, suddenly, that I’m not lonely, just still.

I used to believe home was a noun, a solid thing with an address and a doormat. But lately, it feels more like a verb, something I do and something I carry. I find pieces of you in the rhythm of the streets, in the laughter of people who didn’t exist in my world three months ago. Maybe home doesn’t always have to be a place we go back to. Maybe it’s something we learn to build again and again, wherever we land.

There’s a strange freedom in that. It means I can miss you and still belong here in this chapter of my life. It means I don’t have to choose. It means that when I go somewhere new, I won’t be starting over. I’ll just be adding another room to the house I’ve been building all along.

I found your postcard again today. The edges are ever so slightly curled now, the ink beginning to fade from the raindrops that got in my bag. It doesn’t look like something meant to be sent anymore. It looks like something meant to be kept.

So I’m keeping it.

Not because I forgot to send it, but because I think I finally understand why I never could. You were never supposed to be on the other side of a message. You were supposed to be in the spaces between, in the things that don’t fit on paper.

I used to think that a postcard was created to prove something, that it said Look, I made it, or, Look, I’m fine. But now I think it’s the opposite. Maybe not sending it means I don’t need to prove anything anymore. Maybe I’ve stopped trying to translate what this place has made of me, because some parts of change don’t need to be mailed home; they just come with me when I return.

So consider this my letter anyway, Home. Not stamped nor sealed, but written all the same. I’ll see you soon, though probably not as the person who left. You’ve changed, and so have I— and I think that’s how its supposed to be.

“Wish you were here.” But then again, you always are.

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