Every year the Europe Area has a conference where all fields
gather together. It is a time of praise and worship. Fellowship and camaraderie. Inspiration and motivation. And a time to create and share goals for the
upcoming year.
The location: Schwäbisch Gmünd,
Germany.
In attempt to save money 8 of us (the Bishop Family, Danika, Katie,
and I) decided to pile in the 9 person van, the BLemon, and drive to conference. Surely this
would be exponentially less money than it would cost for 8 plane tickets.
The plan: take a ferry from Durres, Albania to
Bari, Italy. Drive from Bari, Italy to Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany via Trento,
Italy. We had 2 drivers. It was infallible.
...or so we thought.
So off we went. We left on a Thursday night and took an overnight ferry from Durres to Bari.
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| our little room on the ferry |
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| I claimed the top bunk |
We woke up in Italy, bright eyed and bushy tailed for our 8 hour
trek to Trento, Italy for the night.
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| Ready for the road-trip, unaware of what the future held in store. |
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| pulling into Bari, Italy |
4 hours into the trek the van started to make noises. 4 hours
and 2 minutes into the trek the van was making louder, more consistent noises.
4 hours and 10 minutes into the trek we were slowly coasting into a VW
dealership in Seniqallia, Italy, only to find out the dealership was closed for
another 30 minutes on lunch break.
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| Lunch break at the VW dealership |
Approximately 5 hours into the trek we were informed that it was a broken
piston in the van and we would have to leave the BLemon at the dealership for
the week.
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| the BLemon |
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| Emptying our luggage, leaving the BLemon in Italy. |
Have no fear there was a train station down the road.
Go with plan 2. Take a train from Seniqallia, Italy to
Stuttgart, Germany and a bus to Schwäbisch Gmünd. Problem: all trains were
booked for 2 days.
...Plan 3. Take a bus (or multiple buses) from
Seniqallia, Italy to Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. Problem: all buses were booked
for 2 days.
...Plan 4. Rent a van and continue the drive. Problem:
rental vans are outrageously priced.
...Plan 5. Rent 2 economy rental cars, split group
between 2 cars – 3 people and 1 driver per car. Continue the drive. Problem: none. Activate plan 5.
As you can imagine it took a few hours to get plan 5 in
place. So while Ken and Dawn Bishop were figuring it all out, the rest of us
sat in the train station with all the luggage for 4 hours trying to pass the
time.We kept ourselves busy by playing estimation games and taking shifts walking around town.
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| The lovely train station we sat at for 4 hours. |
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| trying to keep busy |
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| random photoshoot |
After our 4/5 hour setback we were on the road again. With
only a few wrong turns we arrived to the hostel at 1:30pm. Thankfully Katie studied a semester in Italy and was able to get out and ask for directions in Italian to get us back on track.
The next morning we woke up early so we could spend a few minutes in Trento before hitting the road again.
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| Early Morning, Trento, Italy |
At 8am we were good. Starting new. Back on track. Leaving Trento,
Italy at 8am we would surely be in Schwäbisch Gmünd by 1pm. 2pm at the latest.
Well it might have been 1pm, or 2pm at the latest if the whole
continent of Europe wasn’t on holiday the same week. We ended up getting
caught in standstill traffic for 3 hours. But we pushed on and made it through.
We endured the traffic and were back on the road again continuing our game of
follow the leader.
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| playing follow the leader |
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| a castle on a hill in Austria. |
…until traffic picked up again and we got separated from our
leader and made a wrong turn… with no map in the car or an exit off the highway
for 100km.
Thankfully there was a rest stop where we picked up a map
and were able to navigate our way to the conference center. Arriving around 7pm and
only a half hour after the first car.
To Be Continued: Part 2: the conference, and Part 3: the
adventure home
