Leavin on a jet plane...

It's official: my european adventure is over as of midnight tonight. 24 hours from then I will be in my house. Wow. It's really weird to think about. After packing all day today it's really hit me how much I will miss this place. I'll probably post about my last two weekends once I'm home and really get "europe sick." 

That's all for now, au revoir Europe! :)

Paris- City of Lights!

After toussant we went with my English class to Paris for 5 days. That was rough, mostly becuase I was worn out from travelling for 10 straight days, and then I only had 4 days in Lux. At first, it was cold and rainy just like Ireland so I wasn't so fond of Paris. But after  few days it definitely grew on me. I really enjoyed getting to spend a solid amount of time in one city. Travel was easy cause we just took a bus to get there, so I wasn't worried about train times. Dinner was provided every night by the hostel, and even though it wasn't exactly delicious, it was still something I didn't have to pay for. And Paris really is beautiful. Besides the fact that every street corner looks exactly the same. I honestly got so turned around because every building is a tan building with 5-6 stories and little black balconies. No joke.

I liked going to Paris with my class too cause we had amazing tour guides. Not only was my teacher's wife just the sweetest woman, but we had the same guides for all of our stuff so it was really consistent. The Musee D'Orsay was probably my favorite museum, although we saw the Louvre as well. Versailles had a Jeff Koons exhibit in it which might have been the WEIRDEST thing I have ever seen. I think I took more pictures of his artwork than anything else in Versailles. I thought Versailles was kind of boring as well, every room looked the same, it just was a big open room with a ton of ornamentation. The gardens were nice, but I could tell that they're way better in the summer. There weren't really any flowers, and none of the fountains were on either :( So I guess that means I'll just have to go back during the summer :) haha. 

The Eiffel Tower was totally worth it though. They have it decorated to look like the EU flag because the president is from France. And every hour it sparkled and lit up which was BEAUTIFUL. The first night we tried to go up on top of it, but we got there too late and by the time we would have gotten through the line it would be closed. So instead we sat underneath it and drank a bottle of  2 euro champagne. Which might have been better than actually being on top  of it :) haha. But we went back a few days later, and it turned out better because the sky was perfectly clear and we were practically the only ones up there. 

I think my other favorite thing was the Rodin museum. We just randomly decided to go after Invalides to this little museum cause The Thinker was there. I could have spent forever in that building. I never knew how much I liked Rodin. His sculptures are absolutely captivating. It definitely made my day :)

The UK/Ireland- Lots of Crac!! (don't worry parents, Crac means fun in Irish)

So I feel as though I have a lot of catching up to do. For Toussant break we went to London, Edinburgh and southern Ireland. I loved all of them, however the weather was less than cooperative. But I guess that's what you get when you go to the UK. 

London was a little chaotic. It was raining, 40 degrees and 30 mph winds. Not exactly condusive to sight seeing. And since we went on a weekend, the museums closed early on Saturday and weren't open Sunday, and we had to leave by 2 on Monday. So I'll definitely have to go back to London because there's so much really cool stuff I just didnt get to see at all. BUT I did get to see the Westminster Abbey, the Eye of London, Buckingham Palace, and we saw The Lion King. So it's not like we sat around and did nothing. We also went to Portobello Road in Notting Hill and saw the bookshop from the movie Notting Hill, and the open air market there. They had lots of cool antiques and shops. Lion King was good, except the kid who played Little Simba was god awful. I mean just horrible. But the rest of the cast was really good, and it was fun to refresh my memory of the show cause I'd forgotten how they did a lot of things. And all the actors had British accents haha, so that was cute. We took the underground a lot, and it wasn't as scary as everyone made it seem. maybe we were just used to undergrounds by that point. But this one time, the oxford circus station was closed and they kept saying "Oxford Circus station is closed due to person under the train". GROSS. They said it over and over and over again too, so of course way to many nasty images came to mind. 

We took the train to Edinburgh (which we thought would be like 50 pounds.. turns out it was 100... major ouch). I LOVED Edinburgh. I think it was the first place I could actually see myself living. The people were so nice, and the area is just gorgeous. It rained a little bit here, but most of the day was sunny and beautiful. We stayed in this hostel that was an apartment, but it turned out to be really nice cause the guy told us exactly where to go. We went to a pub that had authentic scottish folk music. There were just 7 or so people sitting in the corner, drinking beers and playing fiddles and whatnot. We met up with my friend Tom at this bar the first night and it was open mic night. absolutely hilarious! this guy with crazy curly hair called himself "Love Juice".. but his real name was Peter. He was god awful, and he knew it, which made it even funnier. 

Then we flew to Dublin. We did this 3 day bus tour of Southern Ireland which turned out to be the coolest thing! I got to kiss the Blarney stone (now I can flatter people with my words... supposedly haha. I don't think it actually worked). We made a wish in a real Irish wishing well (if it landed in the water yo got your wish, if it landed outside the water you got the opposite. yikes!) Mine landed in the water :) haha. We went through Cork, Kilarney, Gallway and eventually back to Dublin. Our tour guide was really funny, and the entire tour was Aussies. Most of them were around our age too, so it was nice to meet other kids traveling like us. When we got back to Dublin we went to the Guinness and Jameson factories. The Jameson was really cool and they taught you a lot about whiskey in general. I also fell in love with Bulmers Cider. 

SORRY!

So sorry I haven't been keeping up. I've been out of Lux for 20 of the 24 days of November... yeah. A little crazy, to say the least. Since Berlin I've been to London, Edinburgh, and Ireland (for a week long break), and then Paris for 5 days with my English class, and then to Zermatt Switzerland to "ski"... long story there. Anyways I'll do my best to post things about these before I leave.

BUTTTTT before I go....

 Larry Atwood , here is your request ;)

Berlin

So I had no idea what to expect for Berlin. I heard it was a huge city (and last time I encountered a huge city it was with a class, and not to mention a little intimidating). I heard it stays up all night. And something about a wall...? haha. Well, I didn't really know what to expect, but maybe that was better, because it completely exceeded my expectations. I absolutely loved it. We got there after a long day of train rides (as always), and the main station is huge. 3 or 4 levels, big glass on the outside. There were 20 of us, and we had only a slight clue how to get to our hostel. And we were always worried about losing someone, so we each had a number haha. We might have looked like a bunch of middle schoolers on a field trip but it was practical. Basically we left it up to a few people to figure it out, and although it finally worked out it was kind of frustrating. It was moments like this that I wondered why on earth I agreed to come on this trip. 

The next day made up for it. We had heard a lot of good things about this free tour that they offer (4 hours long!). So we decided to try it out... best decision EVER! The walking tour showed us everything in Berlin, and we had the most amazing tour guide. The guides are paid entirely on tips, so they really do a good job. Colin was from Edinburgh and clearly should have been a theatre major cause at the end of the tour he told us the story of how the wall fell. We walked over the place where Hitler's bunker was (where he killed himself), and tons of other important places that I didn't even know about. I really felt like I understood the history of Berlin and way more about WWII and what happened afterwards. It was one of those times when it really hits you that you're actually IN the places where history was made. I got tons of pics of the Berlin Wall and the cobblestone lines they've put in the streets where it used to stand, saw Checkpoint Charlie, and tons more. 

The other thing I really liked about the tour was that it made me realize that even though Berlin is huge, it doesn't feel like a big city. The streets aren't super crowded, there are plenty of big squares and things. It wasn't at all like NYC where there are always people pushing you and stuff. It felt very open and free. 

Well after our sweet tour, we walked around a little market that we'd passed, then went back to the hostel for a quick rest. The free tour company also sponsors a pub crawl, where you go to 5 bars for 11 euros and a bunch of free drinks. All of us, except Emily cause she got some sort of flu earlier that day and was miserable :(, went on it with 100 other people. It was great cause we would have had no idea where to go since the city was so big. We got to see a lot of the different kinds of nightlife that Berlin is known for. 

The next day was a very long train ride home, which was not so conducive to studying for my midterm on Monday. But altogether, traveling with 20 people turned out just fine. I wouldn't do it again, and I might have gotten annoyed at certain members of the group but that was to be expected. 

(pics taking too long to upload, dumb internet connection. i'll try later)

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary in Style

So this past weekend we stayed in Luxembourg for the first time. It was the 40th anniversary celebration week for our European Campus (MUDEC), so the school hosted a dinner/dance on Friday night. Dave was my "DU Replacement date" for the evening, haha. The weekend overall was really fun, but this definitely was worth staying for.

First we took a river boat cruise down the Moselle. It was breathtaking... yet more than slightly boring. There was literally nothing for us to do but play cards and sit there... for 2 and a half hours. Needless to say we were all pretty restless by the time we got to the actual party at around 7. The bottomless champagne combined with the fact that none of us had eaten since noon (and wouldn't be fed til 10) made the party get pretty rowdy pretty fast. The food was great though (haha Katie). Laurant, the IT guy at the Chateau, was the DJ for the evening. He started the evening off with "YMCA" and ended with KC and JoJo's "All My Life".... enough said :) It was rockin. The dance floor consisted of ALL us 20 year olds, and absolutely NONE of the alumni. They were being lame. Although we did meet one guy who graduated in the late 70s and is now a professor of marketing at James Madison (I think) he was really cool. And had decided to come the day before, just dropped everything and flew to europe.... god I hope I'm cool enough to do that when I get older.

The next day we headed into Lux city to do a little shopping, and then went to the city bars at night. We gave in to American temptation and ate at Chi Chi's...totally worth it. I don't care if it was a cop out. It was delicious :) 

This weekend we're off to Berlin. Should be interesting considering we're traveling with a total of 18 people. Thank god we'll be able to split up.

Zurich... Just can't get enough of those cities with rivers :)

Sorry these pics have taken so long to go up. I've actually had school work to do haha. 

Who knew?!

Zurich was absolutely gorgeous in fall. I don't think we could have picked a better weekend to go. The colors were changing in the trees, it was 70 degrees and sunny... and drumroll please.....

THE DOLLAR WAS 12 CENTS STRONGER THAN THE SWISS FRANC! :D YESSS!

The first night we were really livin large. We stayed in the Marriot with Emily's mom's business partner. She just happened to be in Zurich that week for business and offered to put us up for the night. We had some drinks at the bar, then ate dinner at the Thai restaurant there (cause it was 10 pm and no places in Switzerland are open past 9... lame). So we snuck into her hotel room, and had to sleep on the floor, but who really cares cause we were in a Marriot. Not to mention it had a great shower (a rare find in the usual hostels). 

The next day we scoped out the city a bit. It basically has an "Old Town" district that's bars and restaurants, then there's shopping along the river. We found a lookout that looked over the city, it was really great. I wish we'd stayed there longer. We shopped (I finally got a coat!! It's so Euro, i love it!) Then we went to the big art museum there. I think i was more into it than Katie and Emily, but i really enjoyed it. It was kinda nice to just wander around by myself, and I was shocked at how many artists I knew. Not only had heard of, but could recognize their style without even reading the names. Picasso and Monet were probably my favorites. I took pictures cause other people were doing it too so I didn't feel so bad :) haha

Then we had to leave Zurich cause our hostel was in an outlying town (about 20 minute train ride). We got to Winterthur, and apparently our hostel was above a club.... which might have been cool but the cover was 10 Francs (aka yeah right) and the bumpin music was really annoying when we were trying to sleep. 

So we went back to Zurich for dinner. We had real Swiss Fondue at a table outside on the main street. It was really cute. The three of us just talked and ate cheese fondue :) 

So that's pretty much the extent of Zurich. The next day we just walked around Zurich a little more. It was really different from most of our weekends cuase it was just the three of us, but I thought it was an interesting change of pace.

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you...

Vienna.

"Slow down, you crazy child you're so ambitious for a juvenille...."

I think I built it up a little too much in my head. After listening to the Billy Joel song for so many years, I may have romanticized Vienna a bit. 

Although it was a neat city with lots of old buildings with copper domes and pretty views, I think it would have been better in the summer. But I did have a great time, and my class was really fun and we all got along very well considering all the things we went through (15 hour train rides, oy ve)

Getting there and home was an adventure in itself. There, we got on the first train at 2:30pm and arrived in Vienna at 8:45 am. Ouch. We were on a sleeper car for most of the night, however not much sleeping went on due to extreme uncomfortableness of the cabin. 6 beds in the size of an average bathroom is not condusive to a good night's sleep. 

So we got there and went to Haydn's birth house a little outside the city. Random fact #1: ME AND HAYDN HAVE THE SAME BIRTHDAY. sweeeeeet. Only he's a little bit older.

Then we went to a castle in another town outside the city. This is where Haydn worked so we went on a tour of that house too. 

Next day we went on a tour of Mozart's house (seeing a pattern here...?) Then the next day we went to Beethoven and Schubert's houses..... it got a little old. Not to mention, most of the things were not authentic. At the end of our Beethoven tour, the guide said "We're not sure if he actually lived here, but this is the area and what kind of apartment he would have lived in."... Seriously? Not to mention she was a total bimbo. She knew about as much about Beethoven as I did. But our professor thought she was a disaster too, so it was funny watching his reactions. And then during the tour, my friend Steve turns to me and whispers "Just think everything she's saying as if she were talking about the dog..." From then on it was quite entertaining :)

Our hostel was decent, but the cool part was that it looked out over Vienna. Absolutely gorgeous, especially at night. 

On the last night we had dinner at a nice restaurant, with bottomless wine and authentic Austrian food. It was a good time. The accordion player was an added bonus. That was for sure the best part of the trip. I really liked our group, and since there were only 25 of us we were all able to get a lot closer. Now when I see them at the Chateau we actually have things to talk about and it's not just "Oh, you're in my music class..."

That was pretty much the extent of Vienna.

They weren't kidding... the hills ARE alive!

I've had the Sound of Music soundtrack running through my head for a solid 72 hours. 

And  I love it :)

It was magical. I seriously felt like Julie Andrews for 4 hours. We learned a ton about the city of Salzburg and it's history, not to mention saw numerous sights from the movie. And we sang the entire day :) I don't even know what to write cause it was so cool. So i'll go with some random facts I learned:

• Edelweiss only grows on the very top of mountains, so in order to show their loves how they were the one for them, young men would have to climb to the top (and many of them died) and bring it back for their sweethearts (how freaking precious is that?) Or it was the mark of a true soldier if they got to the top of a mountain and put it in their breast pocket. But personally I like the first significance better.
• The door on the glass gazebo is locked because twenty years ago, an 85 year old woman broke her hip while skipping across the benches. I'm just gonna put it this way: I hope i'm that cool when I'm 80.
• They still find bombs all over Salzburg from WWII, one just blew up a playground a few years ago (but no kids were hurt!). They call half the city "new town" because it was so destroyed that it had to be rebuilt.
• The lake they used for the backyard in the movie is nowhere near the house they filmed at. The scenes were cropped to make it look like it was in the backyard... but it wasn't :) My movie nerdiness was in full gear during this tour.
• Yes, that's me doing a bell kick in the same row of trees Maria ran down to get to the Von Trapp house (I have confidence in sunshine... I have confidence in rain... etc etc :)
• The dwarf statues in the gardens are actually portraits of real dwarfs that worked at the Mirabell Palace. The one with the glasses and tongue out is the one the children pat on the head during Do-Re-Mi.

Ok that's some randomness I picked up. If i figure out how, I'll post the video of me and Emily Strzlecki jumping up and down the steps in the Mirabell Gardens singing "do so la fa mi do re..." Because it's awesome :) 

I'm so excited for Vienna on Wednesday! I can't wait to get back to Austria! :)