By The Numbers: A European Adventure
By Katie Devine
15,852: Number of miles flown
12,000: Number of gravestones visible at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov, Prague, where as many as 100,000 people are buried, 12 layers deep, from the 15th to 18th century
8,800: Hungarian Forint still in my wallet (about $37)
7,445: Number of words I edited, over and over, in Budapest
5,000: Number of people on the Charles Bridge at any given time in Prague (please note this number is in no way factual, but represents how unbelievably crowded Prague was)
1943: Date seen most frequently as the year of death on the pictures of prisoners lining the hallways at Auschwitz; later arrivals and deaths were not documented with photos but with numbered tattoos instead
19:00: Time that Rusalka, the Czech opera by Dvorák, started in Prague; also the time we arrived and begged them to sell us tickets
1,000: Number of hippies living in a commune in Copenhagen called Christiania
120: Turkish Lira spent visiting the major historical sites of Istanbul
108: Dollars spent on a meal in Stockholm
97.3: MB of data used, mostly on Google Maps to help get me un-lost, most of those times in Istanbul
33: Estimated number of miles walked or biked throughout the trip
30: Ballpark number of eye rolls and/or exaggerated sighs at the tourist groups blindly following their umbrella-wielding leaders and blocking paths at every popular tourist attraction
26: Combined number of churches, synagogues and mosques I visited and photographed
25: Approximate number of times I said, “Bye-bye Förbifarten”, a political slogan I saw almost that many times on posters in the subway in Stockholm
21: Number of languages spoken at Auschwitz-Birkenau; also, the number of plaques, in those various languages, inscribed:
FOREVER LET THIS PLACE BE
A CRY OF DESPAIR
AND A WARNING TO HUMANITY,
WHERE THE NAZIS MURDERED
ABOUT ONE AND A HALF
MILLION
MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN
MAINLY JEWS
FROM THE VARIOUS COUNTIRES
OF EUROPE.
19: Number of days overseas
18: Estimated number of Tinder messages received across all cities, not one resulting in a meet-up
14: Dollars spent, total, on two meals in Krakow
13: Number of times I was sure I was going to crash while biking around Copenhagen in the rain
12: Number of castles and palaces visited or photographed
11: Number of flights taken
10: Approximate number of times I got lost in Cihangir, Istanbul; also, approximate number of tantrums thrown after getting lost
9: Times I cried, most of them at Auschwitz
8: Movies watched on flights throughout the trip
7: Number of countries visited; also, number of countries it rained in while I was there
6: Number of books brought with me, plus one purchased in Prague
5: Number of books actually read
4: Number of cemeteries visited
3: Number of naps taken in Budapest, where I crashed after a writing deadline and a morning of walking in the rain
2: Number of Turkish yoga classes attended; one with “elbow” and “low lunge” the only English words spoken in 75 minutes
1: Suitcase, carry-on
Also:
1: Night, spent visiting friends in London
1: Birthday celebrated, my friend’s, in Stockholm
1: Mermaid viewed in Copenhagen
1: Shot of absinthe drank in Prague
1: Nun, photographed, and invisible in the resulting picture, in Krakow
1: Apartment of my European dreams, a penthouse with views of Parliament in Budapest
1: Underground cistern, whose definition I learned while there, in Istanbul
0: Part of me that is left unchanged by this trip
In a trip made up of moments, here are a few of the most memorable.
This post originally appeared at Confessions Of An Imperfect Life.