The Scenic Route Through Hell

Graphics by Maria Masek

Last semester, I had the incredible privilege of studying abroad in Strasbourg, France. A charming little city near the border of Germany, I had infinite access to travel with my friends wherever my heart desired. Naturally, one of the first places me and 3 of my friends wanted to go was Nice, France. Sun, swimming, white wine on the Mediterranean Sea… what could be better? 

As broke college students often do, we scoured the internet for the best deal possible. We discovered that for only 50 dollars, we could take an overnight bus from Strasbourg to Nice. 16 hours didn't sound great, but in the grand debate between having enough money for food and taking a flight, food won. We bought our tickets, excitedly packed our bags, and met up on a chilly Thursday afternoon at the bus station. 

When the bus pulled up, we noticed something immediately felt…off. It did not look like the pictures we had seen, nor was it from the exact company we had bought the tickets from. Apparently, the company sent another model for this trip and sent a far-too-casual email letting us passengers know. No matter, I was armed with 9 seasons of The Office and a ziploc bag of melatonin.

I was getting through this trip. 

The first alarm bells sounded off in my mind when I went to sit down. The seats were incredibly cramped (and for a 5’2 woman, that's saying something), and my laptop physically didn't fit on the tray table in front of me. As we all looked at one another, we realized this may have been a bad idea. 

As we settled in, my two friends in front looked over and noticed the ultimate horror. Something so terrifying, so shocking, they could barely form the words. As they motioned for me to look, I braced for the worst. 

And there it was: the worst. 

A woman had completely taken off her shoes and socks and put her feet up towards the middle of the aisle. Bare dogs. We had not even left the city, and I was already googling flights with open seats. Everywhere we turned, another freakshow popped up. Whether it was the couple making out right in front of us (gross), a woman yelling at my friend in indiscernible French, or the constant jolting out of my seat, it was shaping up to be the worst travel experience I have ever had. The kind of clientele you imagine taking a bus 16 hours was on this ride in spades. 

We realized quickly that sleep was no longer an option as the bus driver whipped and sped through the French countryside. He drove about as tactfully as a 15 year old who just got their learner’s permit going on the highway for the first time. I turned on a podcast and resigned to my fate. A few hours later in the cold, desolate middle of the night, I heard a sound. A familiar sound, yet chilling and haunting. My friend and I glanced over and there it was: a man had vomited into his jacket. Immediately I knew what would come next. The smell began to radiate through the less than functional air vents. I’m an empathy vomiter, so I knew I had to look away. What was worse though, we knew our friend in the front would immediately run off into the night if she knew what had happened. She was fast asleep, and we did not dare wake the beast. The minutes took lifetimes to tick on my phone, but little did I know the worst was yet to come. 

I’m not even sure how long later it might have been, when you’re in hell you lose all sense of time and purpose. But as the bus stopped again for what seemed like the millionth time, I had had enough. As we got back on the bus after some much needed air, we noticed a terrible odor. This was different from the vomit guy. This was worse. This had quickly devolved into a DEFCON-5 scenario, but we couldn't put our finger on it. 

And that's when the stench hit us. 

Like a fiery inferno, a man with the worst BO in the history of recorded man got on the bus. It was so potent that it masked the smell of the vomit. In an effort to be kind and break the stereotype of the American girl abroad, we kept our jokes to our WhatsApp chat. This moment also proved to me one thing: nose blindness is a lie. As I’m giggling at the absurdity of this whole trip, my friend pulls out her tried and true Sol De Janiero blue perfume and offers it to us. It might as well have been an oasis in the Mojave Desert. 

A few hellish hours, a bus transfer, and a sleepy cappuccino at Starbucks later, we finally made it to Nice. All of us, a band of brothers, explored the city like old war buddies laughing at the experience. We were strangers before coming abroad, and now we had an unforgettable shared moment in time. Nice was a gorgeous city and yes, we did swim and have white wine on the Mediterranean. We still laugh about it to this day. The best stories you have are usually the ones that were painful at the time, and I made friendships on that ill-fated trip that I know will last me a lifetime.