Lessons from traveling abroad: "beer tasting" is a nice way to say "pub crawl"

Here's the thing.  A beer tasting is not like a wine tasting.  I mean, it can be and perhaps there are some that are, but the one I took in Brussels certainly did not wind up that way.  The night certainly could have gone in a lot of directions, and maybe this would be better titled "Your tour guide should not be automatically trusted.  You don't know him.  He could be a giant creeper."  But I'm getting ahead of myself…

Lessons from traveling abroad: negotiating your way out of a bad situation

By far the worst hostel I stayed in during my travels was in Northern Ireland.  The accommodations weren't particularly awful, but the environment soon turned out to be bewildering and unsafe…

My first night I went to bed before any of my roommates, despite it being well after midnight.  There was quite the ruckus outside the window from a group of guys partying in the courtyard.  Eventually the ruckus died down and I was hopeful to finally get some sleep…until the ruckus came in my room.  Clearly the group of guys from the courtyard were my roommates.  I lay still and hoped none of them would notice me, remembering what I'd learned from previous nights in hostels where I had all male roommates.

No such luck.

One of them shushed the others suddenly and another exclaimed "Holy f*** is that a girl?"

Lessons from traveling abroad: how do you know when you're in danger?

My first full day in Paris I spent the morning on a tour and the evening watching the Tour de France.  It was amazing.  I saw the Louve.  I saw the Eiffel Tower.  I saw the Pont de l'Archeveche (the Love Lock bridge).

And in between all that, I spent almost an hour being silently terrified.

Lessons from traveling abroad: unwanted sexual attention

The first hostel I stayed in was in Zagreb, Croatia.  It was a mixed dorm with 4 bunk beds.  The first couple nights there were a couple other girls in the room, as was the hostel's policy to try and ensure there was never only one girl in a room.  However, a few nights in, I went to bed unaware that I would be the only girl that night.  A couple of the guys were sitting in their beds reading when I climbed into my bunk and pulled my eye shades on to block out the light.

Just as was falling asleep, a group of boys speaking a mixture of English and another language came in, loudly laughing and clearly drunk.

One of them shushed the others and I assumed pointed at me sleeping as there were then several hushed remarks of "Oh shit, it's a girl."

At this point I was annoyed but still drowsy and hoping to fall back to sleep as soon as they shut up and passed out.

Suddenly one of them started singing "Rape me."  At the time I did not know this was a real (obviously disgusting and horrible, regardless of how Cobain intended it) song by Nirvana, and thought the boy was simply making it up on the spot.

My heart was pounding as I started making plans about what I would do if they came near me.  I was on a top bunk so I figured I could swing out and kick them in the head, but there four or five of them and one of me.  I was also in a sleep sack.  I panicked, fully awake, long after they had turned out the lights and were snoring.

Luckily they all left the next day and a group of brothers and sisters stayed in my room the next night.

Lesson #1: Sexual harassment is real and it is everywhere.

Review: Personal protection alarm