Last winter, I studied abroad in Greece. I spent the bulk of my time in Athens, so a few of the other girls and I decided to stay an extra few days and island hop. I wanted to see the windmills, white houses, and Stavros from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

Mykonos was absolutely beautiful, but we went off season. In other words, we were just about the only Americans on the island. I didn’t think we would stand out too much, but I felt like a Kardashian in a convent.

We then hopped on a flight over to Santorini, where we checked into a cute little hotel by the water. The lady who worked at the front desk was relentlessly hospitable, making sure we each got a fresh white robe and french toast for breakfast.

Our plan was to take a bus to Oia to visit the Red Beach and watch the sunset. Little did we know, the bus we took would also be transporting the teenagers of Santorini home from high school. For clarification, being packed like sardines on a coach bus between a dozen 14-year-old Greek boys is as comfortable as it sounds.

After watching the sunset – and taking approximately one million panoramic photos of said sunset – we decided to head back to the hotel. We all wanted to experience the nightlife in Santorini, and excitedly started discussing what we were going to wear. As I contemplated which of my 17 crop tops I should try on, one of the girls started reading an email to us out loud.

“Our flight has been cancelled…” she said. “All of the country’s transportation is going on strike.”

Long story short: everything from taxis to airplanes would not be operating, and we would not be making our way back home.

All of us started calling our parents to let them know that we were now stranded in Santorini. Once I reached my father, I asked him what to do.

“It doesn’t seem like there is anything you can do,” he said. I was immediately helpless. My dad has a solution for everything, and this was the first time he truly did not have one.

Rough time for a learning lesson, eh?

We decided to pack our bags and get to the airport to try and make the last flight out. As we were waiting for the cab to arrive, the sweet front desk lady asked us if we wanted french toast in the morning.

We explained to her that due to the strike, we had to check out early. There would be no delightful brunches in bathrobes, because we would not be coming back.

“The country strikes on Thursdays,” she snickered. “You’ll be back.”

In that moment, my frustration boiled over. The fish out of water vibes I had been getting for the past month were no longer charming, they were exhausting. I was sick of feeling eyes on me wherever I went, and feeling like I wasn’t fit to be there.

“We’re not coming back,” I said, in a stern voice I definitely can’t pull off.

“Sure you will.”

“You know, this would never have happened if the whole country didn’t decide to go on strike,” I quipped.

I knew I should not have said that the second the words left my mouth. The lady whipped around and glared at me like I was pure evil. She went on and on about how the country is in financial ruin. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t their fault, who was I to blame them?

I felt bad for taking my stress out on this woman, as if my needing to get to class on Monday was anywhere near comparable to her country’s economic state. I was suddenly more eager to escape this uncomfortable exchange than the country itself.

When we finally got to the airport, we found out that there was one flight back to Athens… with four seats left. There were five of us.

We were going to have to pull straws to decide who would be making it on the plane. As we went around in a circle, pulling our fate, I had already accepted the fact that I would not be on that plane.

Pulling the short straw is kind of my brand.

Lo and behold, I was not one of the chosen ones. We decided that two would stay behind so that no one was left alone. The three other girls dashed to catch their flight, and my friend Lili and I sat at the gate on standby.

After about 10 minutes passed, the attendant at the gate received a call from one of the attendants on board. I ran to the desk like every girl in a rom-com who has tried to stop a plane from taking off with the guy she just realized she’s in love with.

He shook his head and told me there was no room for us, and I all but collapsed onto his desk.

“Sir, I don’t know what to do,” I said, my head resting defeatedly on the counter.

“There is one last ferry leaving tomorrow before the strike.”

“How long is that going to take, like a couple hours?”

“It’s 14 hours long, and it leaves at seven in the morning.”

I think I stared at him for about a full minute without saying anything before I accepted the fact that we needed to get on that boat. We would go back to the hotel, take a cab down to the dock at 5am, and hope for the best.

French Toast Lady was delighted to see me when I walked back into the hotel an hour later.

“I told you you’d be back,” she said. I had no comment.

Lili and I then briefed our parents and the girls, who were already in Athens at that point.

Right before we got in that cab to the dock the next morning, I sent one text message to everyone: “if you don’t hear from us for the next 14 hours, we made it on the boat.”

If there were to be an award given out to the most dramatic text ever sent, I would beat Meryl.

In the pitch black, we got on the last running ferry in Greece. And for 14 painfully Wi-Fi-free hours, we waited.

It was a stormy day and it was a rough ride. I was extremely seasick and hideously bored.

We considered buying a travel size Scrabble game from the little newsstand on the boat, but we realized it was all in Greek. Lili realized she had Pitch Perfect 2 on her laptop, which a group of elderly Greeks nearby did not enjoy one bit. I guess Anna Kendrick isn’t for everyone.

Eventually, at around 9pm, we made it. We quickly sprinted off the boat and into a coffee shop so we could jump on the wifi and tell everyone we were okay.

All transportation was shut down until midnight, so the girls had to hire a private limo to pick us up. They all burst into the gyro shop we were waiting in and hugged us like middle school girls who hadn’t seen each other since homeroom.

On the ride to Athens International, the girls told us that they were worried sick all day.

Apparently, there was no record of the ferry ever leaving the dock. For all everyone else knew, we were in danger. They begged the police to find out if the boat had left, but it took hours for any of them to provide a concrete answer. One of the girls even had a prayer circle going for us back in America.

That night, while staying at the Athens Holiday Inn, I ordered room service. When my cheeseburger and tall Heineken arrived at the door, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I was fine, everything was fine.

After we landed in Philadelphia, we did what anyone else would do: immediately met everyone at the bar. My friends told me that they laughed when they heard what had happened, because that would happen to me.

And after I clocked all of their heads together, I laughed, too. For someone who was struggling with the fact that I would soon have to graduate and become a real person, this series of unfortunate events felt like a triumph.

It sucked, but I did it. I could not believe I did it.