Paris Day 2

Today was bittersweet since it was our last day in Europe. We did many fun things and took our last looks of the city and what Paris had to offer.  We had the opportunity to see some of the most beautiful and well known art works, like the Mona Lisa, and we were able to walk through the halls of the magnificent Notre Dame, which will soon reach its 850th anniversary. After, we had a few hours of free time to do a little shopping and some eating. My friend and I both decided to try Foie Gras, which is duck liver, with toast. What can I say? We're adventurous eaters ;) although it wasn't my most favorite meal, and I probably wouldn't order it again, I'm glad I got the chance to try it at least once. After free time, we got the choice of going to either another art museum or climbing the Eiffel Tower. I chose to climb the Eiffel Tower, which I have no clue why because I hate exercise and I'm extremely afraid of heights. But I did it and I'm so glad I did. Although the trek up was tiring and gruesome, the view was worth it. It was absolutely breathtaking. Thankfully, the climb down was much, much easier.

After meeting with the rest of our group and eating dinner, we went on a boat tour and got a beautiful view of the city on the river. After seeing the tower all lit up, I can end my trip with a huge smile and many memories to last a lifetime.

-Brianna

Today could be seen as both one of the most enlightening days of the trip, but also one of the saddest. Amongst short lived complaints such as " I've literally gotten five hours of sleep this entire trip" and  " My feet have been reduced to stumps" was the obvious wonder of being in one of the most beautiful and renowned cities in the world. Today started off with us being extremely tired due to a late night on Thursday. However, we could not sleep on the bus because there was no bus; we took the Metro. 

       Ah the Parisian metro. Busy, extensive, and complicated. Orange line, green line, this stop and then that stop. But in the end, we all arrived in one piece at the Louvre. It was simply breathtaking; even people who do not love art have to appreciate the works of genius hanging in the beautiful rooms of the Louvre, which was, in itself, a work of art. No words can describe the utter beauty of the pieces housed in this museum. 

     Then was lunch which ended in delicious Parisian desserts: crepes, mousses, tarts with cremes and fresh strawberries topped with copious amounts of powdered sugar. Free time was given then.

     Paris at night is much different than Paris in the morning; it turns into a city of light once the sun goes down. This day was ended with the group eating freshly cooked crepes filled with Nutella  and fruit looking up at the twinkling Eiffel Tower. The air was cool which contrasted with the pipping hot crepes we all clutched in our hands. And as we looked up at the tower, it finally hit us that we were leaving Europe; our trip was over. We had made great friends, laughed till we cried, seen beautiful art and fell in love with the country in the process. We were able to have a wonderful opportunity, and have experiences we won't forget. Looking back at the Eiffel Tower as we were leaving, there were many voices saying what was on all of our minds. The simple statement of  " I don't want to leave."

-Serena

Paris Day 1

For months I've been fantasizing about Paris, about cute little streets romantically lit by dim street lights, decorated by cute little boutiques.  But anyway, it was really nice seeing such a historical city that has been such an important place for people around the world. It was surreal seeing the Louvre, and the Palace of Versailles and places I've only seen on postcards.  Although I enjoyed the guided tours, I really enjoyed the free time. I loved walking around the little streets looking at art and tourist gift shops,and lunch was delicious. I had a steak because I thought Paris was not the place to hold back, and it was the most tasty piece of meat I've had in a while.  I don't really know how to describe Paris thoroughly because there's so much of it and there's so many things to describe, from the historical places to the graffitied outskirts, but anything else other than beautiful. It just is in its entirety. 

Teodora 

Howdy everybody, Joey here. 

Today was a late start, but we were able to pack the day with fun from start to finish. We started off with a quick but excellent breakfast of croissants, baguettes, and cappuccinos. In fact, a few even said that the croissants were the best they've had in their life. After waiting for our new bus driver in the lobby, we jammed into the smokey-smelling bus, complaining about how our old bus driver, Kurt, was gone. (As a side note, everyone loved Kurt, and I actually ended up marrying him in a game of MASH). 

Anyway, we drove into Paris, where the Eiffel Tower was hiding behind some buildings, but we won't be visiting there officially until Friday (if workers stop their strike). We did, however, have 15 minutes to take pictures from a location not far away. 

Our morning tour was not necessarily the best, considering the smaller bus, rain on the dirty windows, and inability to see most of the points of interest completely. It's a shame, really, because Paris is such a beautiful city bedecked with classical equestrian statues, incredible stone buildings, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower. 

After that, it was off to Versailles, the palace of King Louis XIV. The massive château covers over 65,000 square meters, and has 2,300 rooms. In 1682 King Louis XIV decided to move into the large palace in the small country village. From Versailles, the "Sun King," would rule France with an absolute monarchy, in which a monarch has absolute power over a country. (Makes sense, right?)

At this time, France was the richest country in Europe. This was because everyone else was in debt. France had no central bank, and was still very poor. The Palace at Versailles crippled France's economy for many years, leaving Louis XVI (not XIV) to deal with the debt of the palace, XIV's wars, and even future support of the American Revolution.  Louis XVI then replanted the gardens at Versailles, as he fancied a morning walk and enjoyed the beauty of nature. This was also to change to a more English-style garden. Now, modern Italian art fills the yard. 

Enough facts. Versailles is incredibly opulent. Baroque masterpieces plaster the walls and ceilings, gold covers the gates and roofs, and amazing stone statues bedeck the halls. As a first time visitor, my breath was taken away when I saw the hall of mirrors. There could not have been more elegance in a single room. At the time, mirrors were rare, hard to produce, and expensive, so something of this size was nothing short of awe-inspiring. 

Anyway. After the tour of the palace, we went to lunch and had a variety of foods. At the meal, there was pasta, salad, steak, and sandwiches. Then we took off back to Paris, the capital and largest city in France. It has 11.8 million inhabitants in the city and suburbs or 105,000 inhabitants per square mile. 

Personally I'm loving France, and I also love learning, so it makes sense that I'm going to tell you some French  info and statistics. The current president is François Hollande and the constitution was signed in October 1958. The total population is over 65 million. 50 million are White, 6 million are North-African, and 3.5 million are Black. It was primarily catholic, and still is, but France has a particularly large atheist population estimated around 35%, and about 45% are catholic. 

So there we go. Joey out. 

Paris...

The group had a wonderful first day in Paris.  Tomorrow, Joey and Teodora will tell you all about it!  We had a late return to the hotel after a fun night on the town after dinner, not to mention some problems uploading photos on out current wifi connection, so for now just know that we are all having a wonderful time!

Strasbourg & Arrival in Paris

Today we got to say hello, or bonjour si vous voulez, to France.  The day started like most with a hotel breakfast (one of the better ones in my opinion), and then a multiple hour bus ride.   Although we were excited to finally get to France, we were saddened because this would be our last bus ride with the world's best bus driver, Kurt.  There were many goodbyes, and one last, final photo op with him.  Anyways we were in France, at last, and we were already having problems.  Our tour guide had been delayed for some reason, and we were sent to take any early lunch brake.  Overall it seems everyone enjoyed their first lunch.  After our quick lunch, we toured Strasbourg.  The town has a lot of history, and a sort of mixed identity due to its flip flopping between Germany and France over the years.  Since we no longer had Kurt and his bus, we were set to travel to Paris by train.  On a side note this was my first time ever traveling by train (it was pretty cool).  The first step to traveling by train is, of course, to enter the train station, and boy did we have quite the welcoming party.  The French are rarely subtle in their ways, and security is no exception.  As we entered the train station, we were greeted by a group of French soldiers armed with assault rifles.  It is not very comfortable being stared down by men with large guns.  Luckily we made it through without incident, and we were soon departing, for Paris, in our high speed train.  The ride was mostly uneventful, except for learning of Mr. Hannigan's mad card skills.  I'm now convinced he runs an underground card game joint out of his basement.  After the two hour train ride we were in Paris.

In the now typical French train station way, we ran into another group of French soldiers.  Following another awkward stare down, we boarded a new bus just for the afternoon.  It was not as nice as Kurt's bus.  The new bus took us to the dinner spot for the night.  We had quiche, chicken, and apple tart.  So far Parisian food is pretty good.  After dinner we went to the hotel, which is wear I am now as I write this blog post.  France is quite awesome, and I expect it to become even more awesome as the week comes to a close!

-- Jamie

The Black Forest & Heidelberg

Out of all the days spent here in Europe, today was the hardest day to get up. 6:00 AM alarm and 6:30 AM breakfast: rough morning. I thought we were supposed to sleep in during summer vacation. On the bright side, today's itinerary was a great one. After a delicious breakfast consisting of croissants, jam, and cereal for the second day in a row, we got on the bus headed for Rhein falls. I have to say that Rhein falls is nothing compared to Niagara, but it is still a magnificent destination for an average American tourist. After walking around this wonderful waterfall where we were blinded by the sun's reflection in the water,we hopped on the bus headed for the Black Forest. All I can say is that we didn't even go into the forest, but looked at some pretty creepy coo coo clocks for about an hour. Food wise, fries were solid, Black Forest cake was unreal, but the bräts were pretty meager. 

Then, after the Black Forest experience, we were soon headed for Claudia's birthplace: Heidelberg. Only one word can describe this city: majestic. (By the way, Claudia must have had the best childhood). The castle in Heidelberg was destroyed so there was no "wow" factor to it, but personally, I liked it. After seeing a huge, empty wine barrel and some broken walls, we travelled to the city center to go and explore this wonderful city. My friends and I decided it would be fun to go to a 400 year old coffee shop; it was a great choice. Now energized and feeling "alive" after a cup of espresso and some chocolate, we went to dinner. No one was truly hungry except for me. I'm used to this because I am always willing to eat another meal; food is my life (Mr. Hannigan knows this). After eating some delicious schnitzel and mashed potatoes, we departed for the hotel. All in all, today was tough for me because it was one extra day from seeing Paris for the first time in my life. 

-Adam

Lucerne & Mt. Pilatus

Here's Marianna and Abby's recap of a gray day in Switzerland:

        For the first time this trip, we were faced with weather different than the hot sun and humidity that we've been used to, and instead woke up to pouring rain and cold temperature. We boarded the bus and headed down to the beautiful city of Lucerne, driving past green pastures and the amazing view of the Alps surrounding us. We took a bus tour and saw a beautiful carving of a lion, and finally drive into the city to explore. Lucerne pushed us to the brink of our wallets, because it seemed that wherever we went there was Swiss chocolate on sale or shopping to be done or coffee to be bought. We finally made it out of the town and headed by boat to Mount Pilatus.

       We took a tram up the mountain where we saw rain all outside our windows. As we got higher and higher we even started it see snow built up on the ground and we entered a huge cloud of fog where we could barely see. At the summit we started to trek up the stairs bad climb to the very peak, and as we looked out into the abyss of fog we felt cleansed and at peace. We went back into the building at the top where we sat in a cafe and drank hot chocolate and looked outside the window as the fog cleared up and our classmates had a snowball fight. Finally the fog had moved and we could see with clarity the beautiful city below us. We felt free and on top of the world, and for me, sitting with my feet dangling over the skyline of Switzerland, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

      Finally we headed back into the town where we had dessert and strolled and shopped, coming down from our high of being in paradise. Despite the weather we had one of the greatest days just walking around and seeing the beautiful town of Lucerne with smiles on our faces. Best day ever.

-Marianna

Today in Lucerne, we didn't let anything stop us. Even though the cold and rainy weather wasn't too fun, everyone still had a positive and excited attitude to go explore Lucerne. We first started off the day with a walking tour throughout Lucerne visiting places like an old monastery, a Catholic Church, and the lion monument that memorialized the soldiers that died in the French Revolution. After the walking tour, we all had some free time and went for some lunch and roamed around. During this free time, we got some Swiss chocolate which was delicious. It makes all other chocolate taste lame in comparison. 

After our food filled free time, we boarded a water taxi and took a nice long boat ride to Mount Pilatus. It was nice and relaxing to be inside a boat away from the rain and cold. Once we disembarked the boat, we got some pretty cool matching tourists hats, and we had to load onto a tram to ride up one of the steepest inclines up a mountain in the world. It was frightening, especially because there was so much fog. You would look outside the window and see mountains and fog but not the ground. Once we got up to the mountain we climbed up the little hill that was left. I am not going to lie, I am really afraid of heights, and the walk up the slippery stairs in the freezing rain with only a shaky wooden hand rail for support was terrifying. After the trek up the stairs and you reached the top, the view was all foggy, but then the clouds cleared and the view was beautiful. You were able to see everything down below, and it was breathtaking. After the walk down it was time to board the gondola to return to the bus. It was tightly packed on the huge gondola, but then we got into groups of four in smaller gondolas and finished the journey. We boarded the bus again and had some more free time in Lucerne. Lucerne was a cute town that had a lot of watch stores. I am so happy I was able to Lucerne because it was definitely a fun time! 

-Abby

Verona and Arrival in Lucerne

After Leaving Venice and spending a few hours in the bus,  we finally arrived outside of the town wall in Verona.  Our first impression of Verona was a good one because the weather was gorgeous and the old stone wall gave the town a very medieval look. Once we went inside however, we realized the town also had a very upscale vibe.  Our first stop was the famous balcony of Juliet from the story of Romeo and Juliet. On the way to the balcony we passed several shops and gelato places that we made mental notes to stop by after visiting the balcony.  When we finally arrived at the balcony we were surprised to find the names of couples written all over the walls on the way into the balcony and around the balcony.  Inside there were crowds of people who also wanted to see the famous balcony and take pictures with the statue of Juliet that was also in the courtyard. We were told that touching the statue of Juliet would bring us love in our futures, so we all of corse had to touch the statue and take our pictures with it. 

After the balcony, we all went to local pizza places to have our last tastes of authentic Italian pizza before departing for Switzerland. After eating our pizzas we browsed in the high end Italian stores before getting some gelato. The most popular flavor was strawberry which was described as " A strawberry. On a cone. Seriously." (Adam)  After our gelato, we took a picture in front of the fountain in Verona, then got on the bus, and departed for Switzerland.

- Hayley