Euro Tour

On the 11th of last month I caught a train to Paris to embark on a tour of Europe with about 50 other Rotary Exchange Students that live in France. We had a couple hours of free time for lunch so a small group of us walked to Notre Dame to cross the bridge with all of the locks on it. It was the same thing as on the Great Wall of China. We had a quick tour of Paris and spent that night in Reims. The next day we went to Strasbourg, which I found to be a beautiful city. I compared all of the cities we visited to Paris, so when I arrived in Strasbourg I noticed how clean the city looked and how wide the streets felt. A group of friends and I ate lunch near the magnificent cathedral and afterward I ate Italian gelato and shopped for little souvenirs. This city was very unique because it looked like a German town with a pop of Italian, but it was in France. Loved it! We shared our hostel that night with Belgian firefighters.

The 13th we drove to Nuremberg in Germany. Our chauffeur (who comes from the south of France) found a carnival so we were allowed to spend our lunch time there. We filled up our two hours of free time with eating wurstchen and pretzels and riding carnival rides that made us light headed. It was great! We had a bus tour of the city but it was difficult for any of us to pay attention to the tour guide because we wore ourselves out at the carnival. We had half an hour of free time later in the afternoon and we spent that night at a hostel with a group of Australians.

We arrived in Prague on the 14th. It's a beautiful and colorful city full of different architecture. It was fascinating and one of my favorite cities of the trip. After lunch we split into two groups and had a four hour tour of the city. This was also the day of my friend, Miranda's 19th birthday. She was ecstatic to be in Prague for her birthday! We stayed in Prague on the 15th and continued our tour of the city for another three hours before lunch. In the afternoon we had five hours of free time which I spent with Sydney and Victoria. It was interesting to order lunch and listen to the waiter's accent. During the whole trip we recognized that we felt as if we had restarted our exchange year again, in the sense that we couldn't understand anything the locals were saying around us. That night everyone was hanging out in the hallways of the hotel and I had an incredible amount of energy so I began doing cartwheels. A couple others joined me and I ended up learning to Irish dance. Those nights at the hotel were shared with Italians.



On the 17th in Austria, we had some free time before our tour in the afternoon. Vienna was absolutely gorgeous, another one of those cities that I preferred to Paris. The next morning we rode nine hours to Lido Di Jesolo in Italy where we stayed in a hotel on the beach. We weren't allowed to swim, but it was nice to run around on the beach. I haven't done that in a while; in Tacoma I have the sea and the mountain on either side of me, but Bourges is landlocked and completely flat.

The morning of the 18th we took a boat to the sinking city, Venice! It was extremely hot, which was nice because we had grown tired of the depressing winter weather in France, but the sun wore on us quickly. Our tour lasted two hours but we all complained how hot it was. I ate lunch in a restaurant with Miranda, Sydney, Victoria, Zac, and Andika. We ordered pizzas and all had the same reaction with the first bite; we didn't know what to do with ourselves or what to say. The pizza was incredibly delicious, better than anything I've ever tasted before. Every ingredient tasted so fresh as if a pig was slaughtered that morning and the tomato picked minutes before to make this pizza. No doubt about it, Italian pizza is the best in the world. Later Miranda and I ate real Italian gelato, which was also delicious beyond description. I bought a journal with a map of Venice on the cover that I'll ask everyone I've met on my exchange to sign. I've already read the entries of the students I met on this trip but I will wait until I'm on the airplane home to read what others will write. We did the typical touristy thing and rode the gondolas through the city, which I believe was definitely worth it, and we finished off our visit with a flash mob in the main square. Some other people joined us and many recorded it. That day was pretty close to perfect.

On the 19th we visited Milan. I thought that there as much to see, but maybe that's because we had just come from Venice or I was used to visiting a bunch of grand places at this point. The cathedral was magnificent though! It was very hot again so I believe our tour was cut short because we were too exhausted and overheated to be able to focus and listen for too long. I had pizza for lunch again but the pizza in Venice was much better, and of course I ate gelato a couple more times. You can't eat enough pizza, pasta, nor gelato when in Italy.

We arrived in Geneva, Switzerland on the 20th but only saw the United Nations. I recently realized that I am interested in Human Rights, but I still don't have a great interest in politics. I did find the books in the shop there interesting so I'd like to start reading more about human rights and politics when I return home. We stayed that night in Annecy.

Our last destination was Chamonix in the Alps. We were going to see the frozen sea but unfortunately it was closed because of the weather. We spent our final night in Dijon and returned to Paris the following morning.


Upon arriving in Paris, a lot of the students were emotional. A lot have them had made great friends with one another in a short time but had to say goodbye and didn't know when they would see each other again. I keep trying to imagine what it'll be like for me to leave my families and friends here and go back to my life in the USA. Je n'arrive pas. I can't imagine it. I leave my current host family on June 2nd, that'll be incredibly difficult but I hope to see them again a couple times before I leave. I fly back to Washington the 27th of June. How I'll step through security separating myself from my loved ones here for who knows how long, I have no idea. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly anxious to see my loved ones in the states, it's just that I'll always think of Bourges as another home. When I try to imagine the first time seeing everyone after 10 months, I imagine lots of hugs and kisses and tears, but then I'll probably just sit down and cry. I honestly don't know how I'll cope.

Too many emotions!!!