I am not a type of person that fancies traveling. That said I like having new experiences and forcing myself into new challenges. A year ago I challenged myself to travel to another country, just to experience it. Due to some personal issues I couldn’t accomplish it last year, however I kept it on my mind till this year.

This summer I finally decided to start planning and go for it. I asked Alvan to join me on the trip. We planned visiting London, UK to explore the city and also meet with co-workers there. However things didn’t went as planned. I booked a consulting session from a local travel company to get help for preparing documents for my visa application. It turned out that due to my non-existent past travel experience (empty passport) and my current profile, it is going to be unlikely for me to get my a tourist visa issued. After some discussions they suggested me visiting Europe cities instead by applying for a tourist visa for France. They were more likely to issue a visa given my current state. The plans to visit UK were cancelled.

Two months passed by and I decided to try applying for Schengen Visa via France Embassy as the agency suggested. Unfortunately, Alvan couldn’t join me this time due to changed plans of his, he was waiting for a response from university to study abroad. At first I wasn’t feeling confident enough to travel alone, to a place I have never been. I managed to change my own mind and decided to go for it and figure the rest out as time goes without thinking too much about details. After a few weeks of document preparation and waiting I finally got my Schengen Tourist Visa issued and was ready to step out of the country borders.

Given the chaotic nature of my goals, I didn’t had anything in mind regarding my travel itinerary. Since I got 16 days permit on my visa, I decided to visit at least 2 cities while being there. I decided to use train to travel within Europe because of the suggestions from friends and acquaintances. I purchased multiple day Eurail Youth Pass for riding trains. It seemed a bit cheaper than purchasing individual tickets for my route. After finally deciding on exact route I started looking for hotels and booking them. My plan was: 3 days in Paris, 4 days in Amsterdam, 4 days in Berlin, then 3 days back in Paris and go back to Baku.

The travel day

Finally it’s 13th of October, my flight is scheduled to depart on 14th of October around 4:30am. I started packing up my stuff to get ready. Then I got an email, that my flight has been cancelled. After discussing with friends and a few calls back and forth with the Airline company, they moved my reservation to another flight on the same day, they told me that I have to go to the airport right now because the flight will depart in about 3 hours. I picked up my stuff and went to the GYD airport.

It wasn’t just my first international trip alone, but it was also my first ever flight and first ever experience of border passing. Well for whom who already have done it multiple times, this may seem boring, but for me I had literally no idea what to do in airline, I was just following instructions and signs to move around and go through checks. I would like to write detailed process for people who may benefit from this, because I had myself had to learn this from my friends to not get anxious.

Airport experience

The first step after entering airport was to finding a counter for check-ins. You can either look for counters by the airline logos of ask for assistance from airport workers, they are generally helpful in that regard. They will help you find the counter for completing check-in. Then you either wait for the flight check-in to start or if already started, wait in line. When it’s your turn, the airline representative will ask for your passport and optionally may ask for your ticket details (in my case they didn’t). After checking for your reservation they will issue boarding tickets and will ask for your baggage. If you want to take baggage to the cabin you let them know there. They will stick a label to your baggage and backpack if you are going to take it with yourself to the cabin. If not they will issue a tracking label and will stick it to your baggage, and put it on the conveyor belt.

After checkin has been completed, meaning you got your boarding tickets, now you need to go through border check. You can again ask for airline workers at the checkin desk, or other airport workers to give you instructions. Some airports also have clear signs which you can easily follow through. On the border check stage you will have to put all the electronic and metal stuff alongside with your bags on a conveyer belt. Some airports may require you to remove your belt in case it triggers off metal detector. Then you pick your stuff up from the other side and follow along.

On the next stage you will go through passport control, the state representative may ask you some questions, will check your passport and optionally your ticket, will put a stamp on your passport and let you leave the border. You will then enter duty free zone (I am not sure if that zone has a specific name); There you are free to do shopping, sit and wait for your flight. I was suggested to find my gate first and then spend time there. The gate number would be written on the ticket, but it’s recommended to check displays for your flight to find the exact gate number, sometimes gate numbers may change after the ticket has been issued. There too you may find some information stands where you may ask for assistance if needed. After finding the gate, you wait for the gate opening, and wait on the line. Some airlines will ask for back row seated passengers to stay in front of the row or they may form multiple rows depending on different policies. In case you stand on the wrong line, they will surely help you to get into the right line. When it’s your turn there, an airline representative will check your passport once more, will take your boarding pass for the flight, cut a side of it and return one side of it alongside with your passport. Then you can enter through the gate to the plane, find your seat, put your stuff on the baggage area, sit and wait for the take off. Within approximately 30 minutes the airline will start moving and finally take off.

Connected flight

I couldn’t find a direct flight from GYD (Heyder Aliyev Airport) to CDG (Charles de Gaulle) airports, so had to book a connected flight through SAW (Sabiha Gökçen) airport instead. After landing in Istanbul I just had to follow the signs to the international transfer area. After going through security checks, I entered the Istanbul airport’s duty free zone, purchased some food there and walked around to pass some time. SAW had the the biggest duty free shopping zone I had seen on my journey so far. I checked my gate number from the displays and found my gate then waited for my departure time. Then after going through the ticket and passport check I entered the airplane, found my seat and waited for the take off.

One thing I would like to recommend for first time flyers is to download some movies on the phone before the flight. No matter how excited you would be, the time doesn’t really pass when you are flying, there’s nothing much to see from the window for the most part of the flight. I learned the importance of having something to kill time off the hard way - having to kill it off without anything to do.

Paris

The very first thing I noticed was the distinct smell of the city from the very first moment of entering the airport from the plane. It is not as disgusting to make you feel uncomfortable but distinct enough to cause slight discomfort on the first a few days. It was almost afternoon when I arrived at airport, after going through security checks and border control, I picked up my baggage from the conveyer belt and followed the signs to go to the taxi stop. Along the way I saw a stand with a lady selling SIM cards branded as “Orange Holiday”. The SIM card plan was costing around 40 euros providing 30GB of data service within Europe and 100 minutes of calling to anywhere from Europe. I purchased a data plan, put the SIM card on my phone and continued my way to the taxi stop. I was aware that Paris have one of the extensive public transportation network in Europe, however I couldn’t find a way to the metro or didn’t know where I can get tickets, so I decided to use taxi instead since it was getting late and I didn’t wanted to arrive late to the hotel in case there’s some issues with check-in there. It costed me around 50 euros to take a drive from CDG to the hotel I booked at Saint Mande, Montreuil. The hotel reception was not available on weekends after 2:00 pm. Instead they provided me door codes and a safe box with my room keycard to use. I fetched the room keycard and was able to get inside without any issue. Since it was getting late, I decided to spend the rest of the day at the hotel room.

The next day I packed my camera and backpack up and left the hotel for some walk. I walked around the neighborhood, took some photos there (todo: pics). It was quite nice, quiet, good looking and cozy suburban place. The first thing that I noticed was the extensive use of bicycles. It was quite unusual for me since in Baku, the city is very dangerous for bicycling, roads are mostly car centric and a few places where there are bike lanes they are designed without proper planning - a mess in short. However, in Paris almost everywhere I visited was bicycle and walking friendly. As a fact I walked from a side of the city to another side on foot without having to go through any underpass, or having to put my life at risk by crossing uncontrolled roads.

I had a light breakfast at a cozy cafe near Saint Mande. At first I had some issues talking to locals in English, but more touristic spots mostly had English speaking staff to help with. Or on the worst case I could communicate with simple phrases and use phone to translate signs and restaurant menus when necessary. Despite in the past spending around 5 years to learn French, I forgot almost all of it and only remembered very simple phrases which was fortunately enough to start the conversation and transition to English if possible. After having my breakfast there I walked to the nearest metro station. There I asked an officer to help with ticket purchase, after consulting with him, I got myself an 3 days “Paris Visite” pass for zones 1 to 3, which costed around 26 euros at the time.

I used an app called Citymapper to navigate around the city using public transit. If you’ve never used it and saying why not just use Google Maps or Apple Maps, Citymapper provided more detailed step-by-step instructions for navigating the city, from which exit to use on stations, to which carriage is preferred when using trains. I almost never had to use other navigation apps there.

I decided to visit some well known spots at Paris starting by the obvious one - Eiffel tower. I didn’t climbed up the tower because there was a long line, also I wanted to leave a few things off for my next trips ;) Then I visited some other spots, and sometimes just wandered around within the city walking random roads to take some photos from different spots (todo: pics).

The next day almost went similar - ate some breakfast, went for a walk, visited city centre, walked around, had lunch & dinner, went back to my hotel. On the forth day, I had a train trip to Amsterdam, so I prepared to pack up my stuff and checked out from the hotel. I used metro to ride to railway station “Gare du Nord”. There I had a direct train trip to Amsterdam which took about 3 hours in total.

Amsterdam & Berlin

It’s been quite a while since I took a break from this article, I originally started writing on 13rd of November, 2023 but took some break to continue later on. Well it’s now 11st of March, 2024. I really took my time to be prepared for this. If you feel any difference in writing style that’s the reason.

I was looking forward to visiting Amsterdam for quite some time. I unexpectedly had some high expectations of the city. I really enjoyed my time there if we ignore some minor issues like the fact that I didn’t bought any umbrella or a raincoat and had to bear with the rainy days. However, even those days felt quite special to me, having to rush in another city far away from your home, trying to find a place where you can stay in and wait for the rain while eating some pizza & reading a book. At least that’s what I remember of those days.

One surprising thing to note is I didn’t really felt like an outsider in Amsterdam. I am not totally sure why, but I felt like I can easily integrate in with the people if given some time. It was way more easier for me to talk to people since there were a lot of English speaking people around, comparing that to the experience in Paris which really made me feel someone who doesn’t belong there.

There’s nothing much to go in depth about my experience in Amsterdam. I spent most of my time in city walking around, trying to explore places I find interesting, sometimes running to cafes or restaurants to have something to drink or eat. I took my chance to visit Rijksmuseum. It was an amazing experience. A note for future self: do not wear any or wear a light backpack when visiting museums to walk around easily without disturbing anyone. Also security will be thankful as well.

My next stop was Berlin. I decided visiting there after discussing my plans with a friend. She suggested some places & activities to check out there. The experience were similar to the previous 2 cities. With one more addition that I attended a city tour event called “Berlin on Bike”. Our guide Anna (from Sweden) and the tour group were all amazing people. It was the most memorable moment of the entire EU trip in my opinion. It was also saddening to get back to Baku and realize how immobile the city is compared to other cities which I didn’t had any issue biking, walking, scooting around.

I would like to conclude this article here. In case you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop me an email. I am looking forward to explore more places and share my experience here.

In the mean time you can take a look at some photos I took during my trip. These are just a few select photos for now, I have many more on my gallery, though I don’t have the time necessary to filter them out, edit and publish here for now..