Eurotour!

Okay this is a little late, but in my defense I've been really sick since Eurotour so I've just been relaxing and laying around.

The first day of Eurotour we went to Prague. We had a guided tour around the city, then had a bit of free time. It was raining sooo hard and none of us were really prepared for it. Annika and I went together during our free time and bought some things, which led us to a liquor store where the shop owner was giving us free samples of different stuff, which was super funny. We also went to souvenir shops and tried to haggle with the people working there but none of them would accept it. That night all of us went to the five story club (biggest in central Europe). We danced and met people from Tennessee and danced. There weren't many people there so some of us left at around midnight. I think the problem was that we were there before midnight, when most people are still getting ready to go out. We went back to the hostel, then Maddy from Australia and I led Alex, Alayna, and Gabby to get some McDonalds. We didn't find one, but instead found a gas station, where Maddy and I shared a lovely chicken nugget sandwich, a Kinder chocolate bar, and a green tea with strawberry. When we got back to the hostel, we found that my room was locked and the only key was inside the room. We banged on the door from about 2 in the morning to 4:30 before we finally gave up and I just slept in Maddy's room.

The second day we traveled to Cologne, Germany. We got there in the evening and had dinner at the hostel. After dinner, Alayna, Alex and I went to a bar and hung out there for a bit. We were on our way back to the hostel when we passed by one of those guys on the bikes with a little carriage behind them (I don't know how to else to describe this!) and decided to take one. The guy driving us was really fun and gay and so we told him to take us to the coolest gay bar in Cologne. On our way there, some guy started running next to the bike. We told him to get in, and I think he eventually did but I'm not 100% sure. We all went into the gay bar, realized it was a REALLY gay bar, and left. We talked to the guy and it turned out he was a Rotary student in Mexico two years ago! I ended up going with him and his friends to a club and stayed with them for most of the night. On our way back, we ran into Annika and Arthur and a lot of my other friends. We all started hanging out and made our way to McDonalds, where we stayed until about 5 in the morning because Arthur kept making friends in there.

The third day we went into the touristy part of Cologne and went to the big church they had there. We also went into a souvenir shop and looked around a bit then waited in Starbucks because it started raining. After Cologne we made our way to Amsterdam, where we arrived in the afternoon. We had dinner at the hostel and there was a cat that hung out there!! After dinner we had free time so we walked down to the red light district then broke off into smaller groups. We went back to the hostel pretty early and didn't do too much.

The fourth day we had a guided tour around Amsterdam in the morning, then a boat tour through the canals. It was really cool getting to see Amsterdam like this! After the boar tour we had some free time, so a group of us went to the I Amsterdam sign and took some pictures. When the free time was over we got on the bus and headed towards Bruges, not Brussels.

We got to Bruges not Brussels in time for dinner, then as always had free time in the evening. A group of us walked down the street and found a really nice square and took pictures and such. I ended up going back with Jill and Madison because I was really tired. We went to the bar next to the hostel because they had free wifi there, and about an hour later everyone else showed up there too. We hung out at the bar with them for a little, then Jill and I went to bed. The showers at this hostel were the best showers ever! They had a lot of privacy and were really spacious and ah they were great.

In the morning we left Bruges not Brussels and made the long journey towards London. We stopped after we got out of the tunnel at a sort of small shopping center to get lunch. I got McDonalds (a common theme on Eurotour) and it took me awhile to order because I was so thrown off by everything being in English. I felt a LOT of culture shock being in England because of the way everyone spoke English. When we had free time, we went to King's Cross which was very very close to our hostel and took pictures at the 9 3/4 sign like in Harry Potter. We also tried to walk down to Oxford Street, got very close and distracted, and went back before we even got there. We went back to the hostel and hung out in the hostel bar/club and met some nice Germans.

The next morning, we had a guided tour around London. We saw all the major touristy parts and went to Buckingham Palace, where we got to see the soldiers practicing for the parade for the Queen's birthday. After our tour we went back to the hostel, where Madison and I were in charge of taking Jill to her surprise Birthday dinner (which in the end, wasn't very surprising at all). We ate some awesome Indian food and Jill got a giant muffin and some small cupcakes. Our waiter there was really cool and it was so weird being able to communicate with the people working there! Later that evening, Jill and I met up with Bence, who is a Hungarian living in London now and he was an exchange student a couple years ago. It was really cool getting to see him again since I hadn't seen him since September! We hung out with him and a couple of his friends, then went back to the hostel.

That morning, we left London and headed for Paris. The hostel in Paris was horrible... our room was on the fourth floor and there was no elevator, so we had to carry our things up the stairs by ourselves. Alex and Annika and I went to McDonalds to find internet, then Annika went back to the hostel so Alex and I found a Starbucks to sit at. After Starbucks, we went back to the hostel to put Alex's laptop away. Alex and I went back into the city to try and find a bank. When we found the bank, it was still early, so we decided to keep walking around. We ended up stumbling upon the Louvre and took some really cool pictures of it by night. There were some guys selling Eiffel Tower keychains and little figurines and we bought 9 total for less than 10 Euros. We looked at our map and saw that we weren't too far from the Eiffel Tower, so we walked towards there. By the time we reached it, it was around midnight. We got there right when the lights started sparkling and it was beautiful. We took a couple of pictures then took a taxi back to the hostel. That night, we were woken up by the Mexicans asking where Annika and Terry were. It was super hilarious because Alex and I were really asleep and they were saying funny things.

The second day in Paris was spent on another guided tour, where we went to a lot of touristy areas. We also went to the Eiffel Tower and took more pictures. After the tour, we took the bus to Luxembourg. Once in Luxembourg, we went on a guided tour around the city. Then we went to our hostel which was the bottom of a big hill/mountain/I don't know. At the hostel we didn't do very much except hang out and talk. I got to see videos from graduation going on back at home, which made me really sad but I'm glad I got to see it!

In the morning in Luxembourg we had a guided bus tour (I think? Or maybe I'm thinking of the one the day before..) After that, we went to Stuttgart, Germany and went to the Mercedes Benz Museum. It was pretty cool but also kind of boring because I'm really not interested in cars at all. After the museum we headed to Munich. After dinner, Annika, Alex, Bianka, Terry and I went into the city. On our way home it started POURING rain, and luckily we had umbrellas with us. All of our legs and shoes were soaking wet by the time we got home. We put on pajamas and then decided to go down to the hostel club/bar. We were all dancing a lot and no one else was so we grabbed people to dance with us. Annika met two random Finnish boys so we decided to hang out with them and some of their friends and go find a cooler bar. When we got there, they were asking for IDs to make sure everyone was 18 and not everyone had one, so we went back to the hostel. There were people monitoring the hallways to make sure everyone was quiet and we got yelled at quite a few times by them!

The last morning we had a guided tour around Munich. After that, we had a bit of free time to walk around the city. The bus ride home was very long and quite sad. As soon as we hit the Hungarian border, everyone started crying because we realized we'd all have to say goodbye to each other soon. When we got to Budapest, I said my goodbyes to Alex, Annika, and Terry and it was literally the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. I already miss them so much :(.

Overall Eurotour was so much fun! I would go again and again if I could. I leave Hungary on Wednesday so I'll probably blog tomorrow with some reflections of my year.