Some say it was stupid, some say it was reckless, some say it was awesome, but one thing for sure was true: Don't tell mom until after you do it.

So into the story! It all started with my first day in Europe ever. The first time I ever traveled. The first time I was all alone in a foreign place with no one I could call. My plane arrived at a military base in Western Germany around 2 p.m. I ended up meeting a guy from the same school as me and we decided to travel from Ramstein to Stuttgart together. Not realizing the awful adventure that was about to unfold.

So picture this air base. It is in the middle of nowhere and it takes us an hour to walk our way to the train station in the nearby town. We buy our train tickets and it ends up being almost 5 hours to get to Stuttgart, we would arrive around 9:45ish. Didn't seem like too much of a problem at the time.

It’s around 10 p.m. when we arrive and we have no place to stay for the night. Starbucks was closed and we needed Wi-Fi and power. My phone is quickly dying and my MacBook was on its last leg. We sit right outside the Starbucks and milk some Wi-Fi while it lasts because we could only use it for an hour. We soon realize that there are very few hostels in the city. Not sure what to do we start walking around.

While walking we ran into this very rough looking man. He told us he could take us to a hostel that should have vacancy. Since we were both much larger than him we did fear much so we went with him. He must have been deranged because he ended up taking us to an apartment complex in a real crappy part of town. To put it lightly it was real shady. We stop at a hostel on our way back that we found by luck alone. They told us that the city had no vacancy what so ever due to a conference in town. The employee wished us luck and sent us on our way. By the time we get back down into the center it was near midnight. The guy I was with got a hold of his brother in Spain earlier in the night and decided just to go see him earlier than planned. So he left me for the airport and I was now alone!

After he left, I had no connection to the outside world since both my phone and laptop were dead. I was alone and I had no idea where to go. I was so pissed at myself for not planning better and kind of wished that I never started this “stupid trip” in the first place. So I ended up just sitting for a while on some stairs looking up at the stars.

In a last ditch effort I started to wander around. I asked some random taxi driver where the nearest hostel was and I set out for it. It was up on the hill that looked over the center of the city. When I arrived it was around 1.00 a.m. The man at the front desk confirmed the worst and they also had no vacancy. Feeling bad for me he said I could stay for an hour and use the Wi-Fi to make a plan. Over the next hour I found a bus ticket to Munich at 6 a.m. and I would have to take the train a few stops to get to the bus stop. Only on problem I had nowhere to stay for the 4 hours till the bus left.

Wish me luck the guy at the front desk kicked me out at 2:00 a.m. As I made my way into the center of town and the main square of Stuttgart I found myself extremely lost, upset and in a nut shell I was hating my life. I ended up sitting on a bench looking out into the park area. So this stupid American college boy decide to just sleep on the bench holding his back for dear life. Praying to God that during the on again off again 3 hours of sleep that no one would come up and steal my stuff.

What I learned - You are more resourceful than you think!

Despite having a terrible first night, this is probably one of my fondest memories of my travels. Looking back it is almost hilarious that I was dumb enough to just sleep on a bench. The point of the story, however, is not the fact that I slept on a bench but what I did when I was faced with probably one of my life's first major obstacles.

Going into this trip many people told me it was stupid for going alone, you are going to be so bored by yourself, watch you are going to get yourself into trouble that you can’t get yourself out of, etc. etc. By midnight on that very first night I was starting to believe they were right.

As most college kid are I was stubborn enough not to prove my parent, in particularly, right. So I had to calm myself down and figure out how in the world I was supposed to survive the night in a city half way around the world with no place to stay, no internet, and no battery power.

This single moment taught me that nothing is ever as bad as it seems. That as one night looks bleak the sun will rise on a new adventure. That even when you think you are stuck that you if you just keep calm and think through the task at hand you will be successful and you will get through it.

So as I slept on that bench I learned something from my travels that I could take with me throughout the rest of my life. Let it be at school, let it be while traveling for maybe even and probably more importantly during my military career soon to come. There will be times in my life far worse than this but if I can keep that cool and apply myself to the task at hand I know that I can and you can solve any problem set in-front you.

"The views expressed, That Night I Slept on a Bench reflect personal opinions of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Naval Academy, the United States navy, any federal agency, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.”