So starting the list of travels is Germany. On the Thursday before Easter ( Easter holidays in the Czech are from Thursday till Tuesday) my host mom, her friend and I headed to Dresden Germany for the weekend. We arrived on Thursday later in the evening, so I called it a night and went to sleep. The next morning we woke up early and walked all around Dresden. We saw many famous landmarks, and all in all it was a really good day.I thought Dresden was so beautiful so many nice buildings and churches. For those of you who don't know Dresden was bombed flat in WWII and they still rebuilding the city. The next day we had really horrible weather , it was raining and just really cold in general. So I took this as an opportunity to go shopping. I spent most of the day down Prague Street which is a big street full of shops in the center of Dresden. That night we headed home. The train ride to the Czech border is one I will never forget. That afternoon in Dresden was a football game. Well let me tell you those German are very passionate about there football. We ended up in a wagon with all the Danamo Dresden fans. They started off really funny, they were drinking, singing and cheering. As the train ride continued on the mood changed and they started to get angry. By the end of the trip the wagon smelt horrible and was completely destroyed it was disgusting. We arrived late in Hradec that night and then went to bed. The next day for Easter we went on a castle tour and then out for lunch at a restruant where I had a typical Czech Easter lunch. That evening I went with a few of my friends to a dance competition of my other friend and then after we went to a pub for a drink. So this was my Easter weekend, which was a lot of fun .
Typical East German stop light
Host mom and I
Me
Zwinger
Football Fans
Fan and I
Okay now on to the next weekend! On Friday morning (April 13th) my friend Emily and I hopped on a train and headed to Austria for the weekend to meet with some of my extended family. I can not sum up in words of how much I love these people. They are amazing in every way, so kind and loving. When i arrived I instantly felt loved.
Now back to what we did while in Austria. So when we arrived we were met at the train station by a member of the family and from there he drove us all around Vienna for 2 hours. We finished our tour at the top of a hill where we got a sky view of Vienna. From there we headed to Traufmanadorf, which is 30 minutes from Vienna, to my family's home. Emily and I received our own private flat for the weekend, it was so beautiful. That night Emily and I finished LOTR ( which we started on the train) and then went to bed. The next day we spent most of the day just hanging out with the family eating and what not. Then in the afternoon we went to an outlet mall in Parndorf. My family actually owns a store in this mall, so we hit up some store with our last stop being there store: Mustang Jeans. I was showered in gifts that I didn't deserve and walked away from the mall with almost a entire new closet of clothes. That night we went out to dinner. I have never ate so much in my entire life. Both Emily and I received half a chicken, salad , a plate of rice to share and dessert, it was a crazy amount of food. After a good night sleep Emily and I woke up early and spent most of the morning riding around in sports cars and just loving life. That afternoon at four my family drove us to the train station and Emily and I headed back to the CR. It was a great weekend I had so much fun with my family and Emily it was unreal.
Emily and I on the Train
Emily and I
The Store
Hini and Terasa
The dinner
Family!
Me in the Ferrari
Emily in the Ferrari
Family
More Family
From April 21st till May 4th I had my Euro tour. These two weeks were probably the most amazing weeks of my life so far. I can not tell you how much I loved it or how much I love all the people I was with. So below I wrote you a full version of Euro tour, pictures are at the end so if you don't want to read it all you can just go look at pictures.
So it all started on April 21st, I
hoped on a train and heading south to Slovakia (Bratislava to be exact).
Accompied by Alejandro and Fernanda we took the train from Hradec to Brno where
our friends Jennings and Estaben joined us. We continued on our journey, in
Breclav we ended up having to stop the train because two of our friends other
train was running late and they needed to catch ours. After a ten minute delay
we finally were on the last stretch of our journey to Bratislava. We arrived at
around 2 and headed out for pizza. At 5pm we hoped on our bus and started the
19 hour journey to Monaco. It was a very long way. I slept maybe four hours
thanks to my lovely friend Russell who took it upon himself to sleep on me the
entire way making it nearly impossible for me to sleep. We arrived in Monaco at
9:30 in the morning. We then went on a full day of site seeing. First to the
museum of oceanography, then just walked around the entire country, seeing many
big land marks. We saw the prince of Monaco’s palace, then Monte Carlo casino
and just walked around. We ended the day soaking up sun rays at the beach. Let me tell you Monaco is defiantly the play
ground of the rich and famous. Tons of yachts (giant yachts) personal
helicopters, sport cars were the only cars and at Monte Carlo everyone was
dressed to the nines! We then travelled form Monaco to Nice France were we
spent the night.
The next day we woke up rather early and jumped back on the
bus for a full day of travelling to Barcelona Spain. We arrived at our hostel
late afternoon and were allowed to look around a bit till 10pm. The next day we
had a guided tour of all of Barcelona in the morning. We started at the top of
mount Jupiter, and then continued to the FC Barcelona football stadium, which
was actually pretty cool. After we hope on the bus and went around the city. We
saw bull fighting areas, the Gouti house, the Dragon house (by Gouti) and then
we stopped and got out at Sagada Familia. We didn’t go inside the first day but
we look at the church from the outside. Sagada Familia is probably the most
interesting and beautiful church I have been in since being here which is
saying a lot as you will see later on in the trip. After Sagada Familia we head
to the Olympic villa for lunch and a 1 hour relax break. My friends and I
grabbed a quick sandwich and headed straight towards the beach. After our break
we went and saw the statue of Christopher Columbus and then to park Guell which
is also a work of Gouti. It was fantastic. Gouti was an amazing artist and was
really wild. He was really cutting edge which we found out later was because he
like to eat magic mushrooms. After park Guell we head to La Rumbla, which are
these huge streets in Barcelona where rotary gave us free time till 10 pm
again. It was all good fun walking around and seeing things, then one of my
close friends Juli was getting kind of angry and sad so I decided to cheer her
up with some shopping. We started with a group of 8 and the other really didn’t
want to come shopping. So Juli and I asked them to come back and get us in 30
minutes and we would go into some shops. We pointed out the exact shops we would
be in and then split up. Juli and I shopped later than expected but we thought
it was no problem since the gang hadn’t come looking for us again. We waited in
the little ally was for a good 20 minutes and still no sign of them. We tried
calling but no answer so we thought we would go back to the La Rumbla and
hope to find someone since we had no idea where the hostel was. We made it back to the La Rumbla as it was getting
really dark. We bought some ice cream and waited a bit… Well men in Spain are
really aggressive and gross so we were a tad scared and decided to ask someone
where our hostel was so we could go back alone. Our hostel was in a super
crappy part of town so it was the longest walk of our lives because we didn’t
want to look foreign so we didn’t talk to each other at all. Any ways we made
it back safe and sound and got a tad mad at our group but then continued on.
The next day we woke up and went on a tour of the old gothic centre. We saw
many interesting things and even saw the art school were Picasso studied. At
around 12 we were let go from rotary and then went on with free time. We went
for lunch saw more of Barcelona on our own and then being bored I went and got
a piercing. We went looking for a clean place and ended up down this super
gross back ally where a tattoo parlor was.. At first I was like there is no way
in hell I am going in there. When we got closer the place actually looked
really nice and in fact was super clean and the piercer was really nice as
well. That night we had dinner with rotary at an all you can eat buffet and
then after was set free again till 10 pm. My friends and I headed out for a
night time stroll through Barcelona and ended the night with ice cream on the
beach. Our last and final day in Barcelona we had a pretty full day. We started
off at the old Spanish town; it was very touristy but really beautiful, lots of
hand made things and orange trees all around super beautiful. After the Spanish
old town we went to an art museum. Which I found boring until one of my friends
and I decided to analyze the crap out of the pictures making it a lot more
enjoyable. After the museum we had more
free time till 6pm when we had to be at the bus. During free time we did
nothing to exciting. At 6 we went to the bus which then we all went to Sagada
Familia again to visit the inside of the church. The inside was just as
beautiful as the outside and I took soooooooo many pictures. At 7:30pm we headed
to the ferry which was taking us across the sea to Rome.
FC Barcelona
Sagada Familia
Beach in Spain
Guell Park
Gothic Tour
Spanish Old town
Inside Sagada Familia
The boat was rather boring and it was kind of a long trip.
We spent one night and one whole day on the boat. We had a joke wedding the
first night where we jokingly married two exchange students and then after went
to the disco for the “reception”. The next day we relaxed and did absolutely
nothing on the boat. We docked in Italy around 5pm. So we got back
on the bus we had a two hour drive to Rome. We then stopped for Pizza 30 mins
outside of Rome which last about two hours. So we arrived in Rome late and then
went straight to our hotel. The first day in Rome we woke up at 8 and headed to
the Colosseum first thing in the morning. After the Colosseum we walked around an
old part of Rome which archaeologist had to dig up out of the ground. We even
saw the place where Julius Ceaser was cremated. After that we went and saw parliament
and finished our guided tour at the Parthenon.
After we again then received free time and me and my friends went for
lunch and explored Rome on our own. At 6 we met up with the whole group again
and walked to the Spanish steps and then to the trevi fountain. We didn’t stop
at this but continued on to a pizza restaurant and ate pizza and rotary allowed
us to have a glass of red wine each. It was fabulous. After dinner then gave us
the option of free time or to go back to the hotel because the next day was
going to be long and a lot of walking. I chose to go back to the hotel with
some friends and wash some laundry. I started by washing my underwear and when
I finished my friend Russell came in and asked if he could wash some t shirts
and underwear. Well since he is a boy and had no idea how to hand wash clothes
guess who had to wash them.. Yeah this girl did. But I did make him blow dry my
underwear so I guess it all evens out.
The second day in Rome was crazy. Rotary had the bright idea to take us
to The Vatican on the last Sunday of the month. Which means the Vatican is free
to enter and not to mention the Pope appears and sings a hymn for the people.
So we waited in line for an hour with a huge angry mob that hated us because
two students and a Rotarian went a head of the group and saved a spot in line…
there were 40 of us who arrived after them… It was not fun. Once we finally got
into the Vatican we were given 3 hours to look around. The Vatican was
beautiful but there were too many people. It was to the point I wanted to get
out as fast as possible… I saw the Sistine Chapel which was pretty but I wasn't amazed by it. At 11:30 the group who I was with decided they wanted to see the
pope. So we made our way out of the Vatican to St. Peters basilica square to
see him. We were running short on time so they decided to run. I ran a bit till
I almost got hit by a bus and decided there was no way I was running. Alone
with no phone I thought I would easily be able to find my group again. I was
wrong.. In the square there were probably 6 thousand or more people. I
literally froze and had no idea what to do.. I forgot where the meeting point
was to meet with rotary at 1 I was alone and had no phone.After being alone for about five or so minutes I
looked over my shoulder and saw a group of my exchange students hoping over the security
fence. I was so relived. After we saw
the pope we wait for rotary and our tour guide, then wait FOUR hours in line to
enter the Basilica. It was terrible.. No one had eaten since 7 in the morning
we were hungry and tired and when we finally got to go inside they gave us a
total of 30 mins to look around. I was so angry. After the Vatican we went to a
castle in the middle of Rome and then to a nice square where we finished the
guided tour. That night my friends and I ate dinner and then toured around we
spent some time at the tervi fountain again and then went to a little Italian
coffee shop to finish the night. All in all Rome was beautiful but there were
way too many people.
Me in the Colosseum
Vatican musuem
The Pope
Inside the Basilica
Tervi fountain
Throwing coins
The next day we hopped back on the bus and drove to southern
Italy. We arrived in the afternoon and then spent the afternoon hiking up the
volcano Vesuvius. It was pretty cool a tad bit hot but really nice view of
Naples and the sea. That night we went into Naples and went to a pizza
restaurant where we were able to help make our own pizza with some Italian men. After pizza we walked around for a bit then headed to our hotel. The next morning
we got up early and went to Pompeii an ancient city that was destroyed by
Vesuvius. I was really interesting, a little funny because we went to an
ancient roman whore house which was hilarious. After Pompeii we got on the bus
and drove 7 and half hours to Florence.
View of Naples from Vesuvius
Vesuvius
Making pizza in Naples
Pompeii
sex house in Pompeii
Florence was beautiful. We spent two nights and one day
there. During the day we went on a seven
hour walking tour of the city. We saw many museums and churches. It was truly
breath taking. After the tour we had free time where we were allowed to walk
around until 7 when we were supposed to meet for dinner. My friends and I ended
up in a street market where there was tons of jewellery , leather products , shirts
etc . After we went for ice cream and sat in a park. At seven we went
back to the hostel for dinner and then after dinner swimming and to the disco.
The next morning we woke up and hopped on the bus to spend
the last day of Euro tour in Venice. I
LOVED Venice. I heard it was suppose to smell bad but I think because it wasn’t
too hot yet that the smell hadn’t arrived yet. We had a great day looking
around Venice. Taking pictures and walking around. I finished off the night at
a nice Italian restaurant with my friends and ice cream. At 10 we all got back
on the bus and headed back to Bratislava.
And that concludes Euro tour and also concludes the month of April!!
