I don't know how it came up but I was just reminded of when I was traveling with my good friend, Karin, in the Netherlands. We were boarding a train that was pretty packed. Because of that and the fact that we were carrying our luggage, we got separated. It wasn't until i sat down did I realize that she was holding our train tickets. Oh and, by the way, even though we were in the same car, there was a separate door that was fully transparent that split the car in half. So I couldn't awkwardly, in my loud American voice, ask if I should get my tickets from her.

But then when the doors close and I see the guys that check your tickets walking around, I immediately panic. I was tired, I didn't speak the language, and I just can't deal with situations like that. I poke my head up to look for Karin and we finally see each other. She gives me an adorable little smile and gives me a thumbs up. I smile back to be polite but I have no idea what she meant by it so I nervously await my turn.

The doors open and the passenger start showing their tickets. The guy finally gets to me and I start to stutter. He quickly realizes that I'm the guy that Karin was talking about when she explained the situation and reassures me. He gave me a big ole smile and went on with his business.

We had a good laugh about it when we met up at our train journey's end but holy crap, was that an emotionally draining 5 minutes for me...

Karin's side:

"I tried to describe you as 'the guy with the black hair' before realizing you were wearing a hat and made my own fool of myself. Then I corrected myself with 'the guy up there that looks scared and doesn't understand Dutch."

Yup... that was me!