“Sorry, we decided to go to Budapest instead,” the boys told me. It was the class’s last day in Vienna. Our course abroad had come to an end.
They were close friends. I was their fellow student, age 18, who wanted very badly to go to Prague. I didn’t care about traveling alone, but my parents did.
To keep my folks from worrying, I’d asked these two if they would join me on a train ride to Prague after the course in Vienna ended. They’d given a yes — but now I was in a jam.
I couldn’t quit just because these two quit. But, there was one thing I knew: I could not tell anyone back home what I was doing until it was done.