As Good as Reality TV

The MT3 (Manila Team 3) at Plaza San Marco, Venice, Italy

The past two months I’ve yet another opportunity to travel to Europe. This time with six more people. This isn’t Big Brother, but it might have been for all we know. We were a bunch of new hires for a startup company that were sent to Europe for a two-month training. We were basically strangers, we’ve only met each other twice at the embassy: when we applied, and the time we got our Schengen visas.

We were whisked to Europe (yes, whisked, because my first day with the company was the day of my flight), in Budapest to be exact and stayed together in the same apartment complex. It was like we were forced to live with each other and discover our own differences and similarities in the span of two months. The differences between us and Big Brother? We can go out of the house whenever we like, and there were no cameras that we know of (except for our phones, that we often use to take pictures and group chats on Facebook).

At Buda Castle grounds in Budapest, Hungary

Living with strangers is challenging and interesting at the same time. We don’t know each other’s behaviors and at first, it felt like walking on eggshells as we were still trying to figure out one another. But there are also people in the group that we immediately clicked with, like we knew each other forever.

Zurich Central Station in Switzerland.

We had trainings, demos and exams during weekdays but we got to travel around Europe during weekends. It’s not much time but we managed to make it work, albeit with tiny sacrifices.

There were times that we got on each other’s nerves, especially during our weekend escapades when we were only running on two to three hours of sleep on a bus (with just a square foot legroom) and a cup of coffee.

While waiting for our bus to Milan in Verona, Italy.

But the good times surpass all the not-so-good. Seeing lots of interesting and magnificent places is just a bonus. One thing that sure stuck with me is the experience of living in a foreign land with complete strangers and eventually building a bond that I am sure will stand the test of time. And when we’re old and gray, we can say to each other “We’ll always have Europe”, to refer to the whole two-month experience that would plant smiles to our faces that other people would never understand about us.

If I would be asked if I want to do everything all over again, I would say yes in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t change a thing even including our hunger-induced spats (and heartbreaks?), as those not-so-good stuff made this experience a lot better.