Europe Tour

Well then. This is embarrassing. It's been a while. Let's see, what is new.

Oh, yeah: EUROPATOUR.

Of course, there have been tons of other new things, but this is the biggest so I'll fill you in on this one and (hopefully) post again next week regarding the other things.

So, where to begin? The tour started on March 23rd in Wiesbaden, where we all met each other! I knew about half of the other exchange students because they were from my rotary district, but I got to meet everyone else, including the wonderful group of girls from the US who I ended up hanging out with for most of the time, but more on that later. :) We spent the night in Wiesbaden, and then started our journey with a trip to Trier the next morning.

Trier was really cute, but I didn't get to see much of the city because we were only there for a couple of hours. After looking around Trier, we got in the bus to go on to Luxembourg, but we couldn't leave yet because one of the guys had injured his foot! He was stuck in the hospital and we were stuck on the bus. We weren't able to go to Luxembourg, but luckily he was allowed to go on the rest of the trip. After he got a pair of crutches, we made our way to Brussels. Brussels was adorable. :) We bought an expensive, but tasty, Belgian Waffle with whipped cream, chocolate, and strawberries.

After Brussels we made our way along to Paris! This was my second time in Paris, but is was just as beautiful. And the Eiffel Tower was just as breathtaking. For some reason, I never expected it to be so big. Maybe I am crazy, but it is just a wee bit shocking. We also climbed the Eiffel tower, visited the Louvre, ate amazing crepes, and went to the Palace of Versailles.

After France was Monaco! A beautiful, but expensive city. We took a tour of Monaco and then continued on to Italy.

At the beginning of our time in Italy we took a stop at the leaning tower of Pizza! It was really amazing to see, but not at all how I expected it to be in person. I guess I have a problem with my expectations of monuments.... Anyhow, it was beautiful! And in a small town, surprisingly.

We made our way along to Rome, where we spent three days. We were in most of the cities for only one day, so this was a nice "lengthy" visit. We started out our time in Rome on Easter Sunday with a visit to the Pope! It was really a great experience, and pretty amazing to see. After that, we had free time and we checked out the colosseum. Another amazing sight, although we didn't realize it would be part of our tour the next day... whoops. During said tour, we saw TONS of things including the Trevi Fountain and the colosseum.

We also visited Venice, which was GORGEOUS.

After venice we went to Vienna. Finally a place where we could speak the language! We took a tour of Vienna and went to the Opera at night.

We traveled on further to Budapest, where we ate in a REALLY good market. Authentic food! Delish.

And our last destination--- Prague.

It was so hard to say goodbye to all of the exchange students. For those in the other district, it was probably that last time I will see them. (Except for the group of the american girls!):

But I will see those from my district again in June. That being said, that was our last trip together and we will all be going back home in three months or less! AH! I don't want to leave yet, that is for sure.

Beth