EUROPE!!!!
I'm back! Obviously. Well I certainly did have the time of my life.
Well. In short, it was amazing. We all met at the airport, and I met David, who also has lj! He came from another part of TN but somehow got to go on the trip with FHS. So I talked to him a lot while waiting for Susanna, and after she got there she, her mother, David and I all stuck together for a time, and after 2 planes and about 10 hours, we were in Paris. We met our guide, Lucia, at the hotel, and she was so cool. She spoke Italian, French, Spanish, and English (obviously), and she was such a sweetheart. We went through Paris with her and it was just...awesome is the only word. It was a great place to start. One of the things I found throughout the trip was that the people in each country tended to make or break the experience, and in Paris the people were not all that friendly. They tended to not like Americans very much, although we did have a few exceptions. But overall it was really great. On the night before the last day in Paris Ms Taylor made a comment to me that kinda ruined the whole next day, but I got on with my life. I think I did a bit of growing up on this trip; I had a few days like that but I was able to see that it wasn't the end of the world and made it through, and had an excellent time anyway. Then we went on the overnight train to Barcelona, and if you've never been in an overnight train, they are literally hell. on. wheels. It was at this point at the trip that I realized how claustrophobic I really am, because there were 4 beds in a room smaller than my bathroom. I roomed with Susanna, her mother, and Mrs Walker that night. Susanna and I talked with Walker for a while before we ventured out to the restaurant cabin of the train just for an adventure at midnight, and we found Ms Taylor and Lucia having a conversation. They filled us in on a few of the plans we had for the next few days, and then we went back to the hellhole compartment. It was REALLY hot in there, and Susanna made the comment that she wished she'd worn shorts. It was at this point that Mrs Walker, who neither of us knew was awake, decided to inform us that she'd already taken her pants off and suggested Susanna do the same.
Yes. Lovely, I know. And actually it became quite the inside joke with our group, as I told Ms Justus about it and she thought it was funny, so...it got around. And Susanna and I had to pretend that we WEREN'T disgusted, because it got back to Walker. Yeah. Great. Barcelona was pretty cool, I got to speak Spanish a lot, which made me happy, and the architecture there was awesome as poke. Oh yes, you heard me right. There were a bunch of cool shops there and that was where I ended up doing most of my shopping. We learned about the architect Gaudi, and as we were touring his house Victoria suddenly exclaimed, "Wait, so Ghandi lived here? I thought he was Indian!" The sad part was someone else had made the same mistake...oh well. Oh, and while in Barcelona, Susanna, Samantha and I all tried some Sangria, which was like fruity red wine. It wasn't something I'd like to have all the time, but it wasn't bad. I have lots of pictures of us pretending to be drunk.
I don't really remember much more from Barcelona...at some point we took an overnight train to Nice, this one having 6 beds in one room, where I roomed with Susanna, Samantha, and Lauren Holmgren. There were 2 other people in the bottom beds. Oh, we had to drag our suitcases up about a gazillion stairs to get to the train station, too. At this point Lucia's infamous words of, "Oh, it's just a 10 minute walk! Just a couple of stairs and a tunnel..." So nearly 45 minutes later we all made it through the train. And I don't know if you've ever had to drag a 60 pound (27 kilogram-ish) suitcase through a baskillion stairs, but it's not pretty. And that was neither the first nor last time our suitcases were dragged up stairs. After the train we went to a perfume factory and a candy factory in Nice, which were both a bit expensive but I bough something small from each. Okay...well I spent about 120 Euros in the perfume place, cause it was really good for gifts. After that we took a bus to Italy, which was, if I absolutely HAD to chose, my favorite.
In Pisa where we started, we experienced a lot of looks from older Italian men that were less than pure in nature, and they didn't stop until the airport home. Apparently statutory rape laws don't exist in Europe. So we're walking around Pisa and I duck into a tourist trap shop to get away from some of these creeps, and the lady working in the shop really liked this pin I had on my purse, so I gave it to her. She came running after me and gave me a keychain from her store for free. At the end of the day I saw her and we exchanged emails...so I made an Italian friend!
The next night I had a rather unpleasant experiance...a group of us went to a nightclubish place in Florence that Lucia considered relatively safe, and a couple of the teachers as well as Lucia went too, so we were all pretty protected. But I ended up feeling like such a slut. Apparantly I danced with more guys than anyone (4), and one of them kissed me. That was probably the the single worst part of the trip for me. It was some 30 year old Italian man who was slightly drunk...he held my face and wouldn't let me pull away. After that I sat out until it was time to go, and when we were waiting for some of our group to pay, I noticed the man who'd kissed me standing right next to me, and I knew he knew it was me, but I was too scared to move. Susanna absolutely saved my life by pushing me away from him, into the crowd, so thankfully I made it through the night without getting raped or anything. I just felt like the biggest slut ever.
The next day I don't remember much of...there were a lot of bus rides and we went to Sienna, and after that we took another bus to the hotel. Then the next day we went to the Vatican. Oh, boy. So it's, what, a square mile, making it the smallest independent state in the world, correct? Well, guess who managed to get herself lost there! Like cattle, we were hustled through a bunch of rooms with cool statues, and I stopped for not 15 seconds to look at one, and I got separated from the group. I walked through the whole place for about 20 minutes and couldn't find the group. I was near tears by the time I came out and realized that I was lost in the middle of Italy. So I took a minute and gathered up a LOT of courage, then approached 3 security guards who were standing at the exit. I asked if any of them spoke English, and the two older ones pointed at the apparant youngest. Frightened though I was, I couldn't help but notice how attractive he was. I told him that I had been separated from my group of 37, that I hadn't seen any of them in at least 20 minutes and was worried they had already left. He calmed me down a bit and told me he'd help me find them. At that point I wasn't sure if I was going to cry or have a panic attack first. We got back in to the museum, but only after he was asked to remove his jacket, because apparantly he was too overdressed to be allowed to enter the museum. So he took off his jacket and messed his tie (hottest thing ever), and explained to me that he was going to have to pretend to be a tourist. As we entered he reached for my hand, but when I tried to take it we got separated a bit in the crowd. *grrrr*. But anyway. He found a few museum workers inside the place, and they were able to call Lucia, whose mobile phone number I happened to have. The other workers calmed me down too, and they helped me find Lucia. The security guard led me back to where she said she would be, and I began to thank him profusely. He smiled and said it was nothing; that he was glad to get away from his post because his job was basically standing around all day. He said it had been exciting. So on the way to meet Lucia we ran into the group, and boy, you should have seen the looks on the faces of all the girls in the group as I came downstairs with the hot Italian. The word "jealousy" took on a new meaning. So he was about to leave me with the group and I asked him his name (Stefen), gave him my name, hugged him and thanked him again, and left. I came back a bit later and gave him my email address. After I left him all the girls went crazy, and Pat gave me a rather disgusted looking thumbs up on my accomplishments. Most of them weren't aware that I had been lost and were like...so what was that hug about? And all were jealous. Not that I cared, but it was funny. Although I did get made fun of quite a bit for getting lost walking in a straight line. That was our last real day for touring.
This morning we woke up and waited an hour for a bus that didn't come, then ran to the trainstation to wait around some more. At least this train had space-it wasn't an overnighter so there were lots of seat and even-*gasp*-room to move! So I got a seat, but I was one of the last on so I ended up sitting next to a lovely Italian. He looked sad, and I was going to ask him if he was okay in Italian, but as I don't speak a word of it and my dictionary didn't even have the word "sad", I just sat there. But after a few minutes he asked me in English if I was with the group that was sitting a bit ahead of us. I said yes and proceeded to have a conversation with him. He updated me politically a bit, which made me REALLY happy as I've been starved for news for 2 weeks. We talked about other random things, like how much he hated starbucks, the environment, blah blah blah, and then when we got off I gave him my email address too. 3 Italian friends for Caroline! Woohoo!!!
Oh, and today was my birthday! Last night a bunch of people stayed up and sung happy birthday to me at midnight, and then because of the time difference in the flights my birthday lasted a really long time. I bought a bunch of candy for the plane from Chicago to Nashville and I passed it around the whole plane. Claire and Victoria and her possy made me cards and stuff, and it was really special. *sigh*. All 37 of them really became like a family. I don't know how I'm going to eat breakfast tomorrow without hearing stories of Eric prancing around his room naked, Jess making fun of someone, David and I being crazy, Audrey and her weirdness, Max and his insomnia, or...anyone. I did manage to get quite a few emails from everybody, so I think we should stay in touch, but it's a bit sad. I miss them all so much already. Some were seniors who I'll probably never see again. But I guess we were all ready for it to be over. Oh, and the plane almost crashed, long story short.
My overall opinion-I definitely would not have had as much fun if I had stayed at home on LJ. That was the time of my life and I'm so glad I went.
Now off to bed so I can wake up bright and early for Biology tomorrow morning...I'm so sorry LJ friends, I didn't have the chance to read my friends' page, but as soon as humanly possible tomorrow, I shall. I hope you're all well and doing wonderfully! But for now, Ciao, Au-revior, and Adios!!
Well. In short, it was amazing. We all met at the airport, and I met David, who also has lj! He came from another part of TN but somehow got to go on the trip with FHS. So I talked to him a lot while waiting for Susanna, and after she got there she, her mother, David and I all stuck together for a time, and after 2 planes and about 10 hours, we were in Paris. We met our guide, Lucia, at the hotel, and she was so cool. She spoke Italian, French, Spanish, and English (obviously), and she was such a sweetheart. We went through Paris with her and it was just...awesome is the only word. It was a great place to start. One of the things I found throughout the trip was that the people in each country tended to make or break the experience, and in Paris the people were not all that friendly. They tended to not like Americans very much, although we did have a few exceptions. But overall it was really great. On the night before the last day in Paris Ms Taylor made a comment to me that kinda ruined the whole next day, but I got on with my life. I think I did a bit of growing up on this trip; I had a few days like that but I was able to see that it wasn't the end of the world and made it through, and had an excellent time anyway. Then we went on the overnight train to Barcelona, and if you've never been in an overnight train, they are literally hell. on. wheels. It was at this point at the trip that I realized how claustrophobic I really am, because there were 4 beds in a room smaller than my bathroom. I roomed with Susanna, her mother, and Mrs Walker that night. Susanna and I talked with Walker for a while before we ventured out to the restaurant cabin of the train just for an adventure at midnight, and we found Ms Taylor and Lucia having a conversation. They filled us in on a few of the plans we had for the next few days, and then we went back to the hellhole compartment. It was REALLY hot in there, and Susanna made the comment that she wished she'd worn shorts. It was at this point that Mrs Walker, who neither of us knew was awake, decided to inform us that she'd already taken her pants off and suggested Susanna do the same.
Yes. Lovely, I know. And actually it became quite the inside joke with our group, as I told Ms Justus about it and she thought it was funny, so...it got around. And Susanna and I had to pretend that we WEREN'T disgusted, because it got back to Walker. Yeah. Great. Barcelona was pretty cool, I got to speak Spanish a lot, which made me happy, and the architecture there was awesome as poke. Oh yes, you heard me right. There were a bunch of cool shops there and that was where I ended up doing most of my shopping. We learned about the architect Gaudi, and as we were touring his house Victoria suddenly exclaimed, "Wait, so Ghandi lived here? I thought he was Indian!" The sad part was someone else had made the same mistake...oh well. Oh, and while in Barcelona, Susanna, Samantha and I all tried some Sangria, which was like fruity red wine. It wasn't something I'd like to have all the time, but it wasn't bad. I have lots of pictures of us pretending to be drunk.
I don't really remember much more from Barcelona...at some point we took an overnight train to Nice, this one having 6 beds in one room, where I roomed with Susanna, Samantha, and Lauren Holmgren. There were 2 other people in the bottom beds. Oh, we had to drag our suitcases up about a gazillion stairs to get to the train station, too. At this point Lucia's infamous words of, "Oh, it's just a 10 minute walk! Just a couple of stairs and a tunnel..." So nearly 45 minutes later we all made it through the train. And I don't know if you've ever had to drag a 60 pound (27 kilogram-ish) suitcase through a baskillion stairs, but it's not pretty. And that was neither the first nor last time our suitcases were dragged up stairs. After the train we went to a perfume factory and a candy factory in Nice, which were both a bit expensive but I bough something small from each. Okay...well I spent about 120 Euros in the perfume place, cause it was really good for gifts. After that we took a bus to Italy, which was, if I absolutely HAD to chose, my favorite.
In Pisa where we started, we experienced a lot of looks from older Italian men that were less than pure in nature, and they didn't stop until the airport home. Apparently statutory rape laws don't exist in Europe. So we're walking around Pisa and I duck into a tourist trap shop to get away from some of these creeps, and the lady working in the shop really liked this pin I had on my purse, so I gave it to her. She came running after me and gave me a keychain from her store for free. At the end of the day I saw her and we exchanged emails...so I made an Italian friend!
The next night I had a rather unpleasant experiance...a group of us went to a nightclubish place in Florence that Lucia considered relatively safe, and a couple of the teachers as well as Lucia went too, so we were all pretty protected. But I ended up feeling like such a slut. Apparantly I danced with more guys than anyone (4), and one of them kissed me. That was probably the the single worst part of the trip for me. It was some 30 year old Italian man who was slightly drunk...he held my face and wouldn't let me pull away. After that I sat out until it was time to go, and when we were waiting for some of our group to pay, I noticed the man who'd kissed me standing right next to me, and I knew he knew it was me, but I was too scared to move. Susanna absolutely saved my life by pushing me away from him, into the crowd, so thankfully I made it through the night without getting raped or anything. I just felt like the biggest slut ever.
The next day I don't remember much of...there were a lot of bus rides and we went to Sienna, and after that we took another bus to the hotel. Then the next day we went to the Vatican. Oh, boy. So it's, what, a square mile, making it the smallest independent state in the world, correct? Well, guess who managed to get herself lost there! Like cattle, we were hustled through a bunch of rooms with cool statues, and I stopped for not 15 seconds to look at one, and I got separated from the group. I walked through the whole place for about 20 minutes and couldn't find the group. I was near tears by the time I came out and realized that I was lost in the middle of Italy. So I took a minute and gathered up a LOT of courage, then approached 3 security guards who were standing at the exit. I asked if any of them spoke English, and the two older ones pointed at the apparant youngest. Frightened though I was, I couldn't help but notice how attractive he was. I told him that I had been separated from my group of 37, that I hadn't seen any of them in at least 20 minutes and was worried they had already left. He calmed me down a bit and told me he'd help me find them. At that point I wasn't sure if I was going to cry or have a panic attack first. We got back in to the museum, but only after he was asked to remove his jacket, because apparantly he was too overdressed to be allowed to enter the museum. So he took off his jacket and messed his tie (hottest thing ever), and explained to me that he was going to have to pretend to be a tourist. As we entered he reached for my hand, but when I tried to take it we got separated a bit in the crowd. *grrrr*. But anyway. He found a few museum workers inside the place, and they were able to call Lucia, whose mobile phone number I happened to have. The other workers calmed me down too, and they helped me find Lucia. The security guard led me back to where she said she would be, and I began to thank him profusely. He smiled and said it was nothing; that he was glad to get away from his post because his job was basically standing around all day. He said it had been exciting. So on the way to meet Lucia we ran into the group, and boy, you should have seen the looks on the faces of all the girls in the group as I came downstairs with the hot Italian. The word "jealousy" took on a new meaning. So he was about to leave me with the group and I asked him his name (Stefen), gave him my name, hugged him and thanked him again, and left. I came back a bit later and gave him my email address. After I left him all the girls went crazy, and Pat gave me a rather disgusted looking thumbs up on my accomplishments. Most of them weren't aware that I had been lost and were like...so what was that hug about? And all were jealous. Not that I cared, but it was funny. Although I did get made fun of quite a bit for getting lost walking in a straight line. That was our last real day for touring.
This morning we woke up and waited an hour for a bus that didn't come, then ran to the trainstation to wait around some more. At least this train had space-it wasn't an overnighter so there were lots of seat and even-*gasp*-room to move! So I got a seat, but I was one of the last on so I ended up sitting next to a lovely Italian. He looked sad, and I was going to ask him if he was okay in Italian, but as I don't speak a word of it and my dictionary didn't even have the word "sad", I just sat there. But after a few minutes he asked me in English if I was with the group that was sitting a bit ahead of us. I said yes and proceeded to have a conversation with him. He updated me politically a bit, which made me REALLY happy as I've been starved for news for 2 weeks. We talked about other random things, like how much he hated starbucks, the environment, blah blah blah, and then when we got off I gave him my email address too. 3 Italian friends for Caroline! Woohoo!!!
Oh, and today was my birthday! Last night a bunch of people stayed up and sung happy birthday to me at midnight, and then because of the time difference in the flights my birthday lasted a really long time. I bought a bunch of candy for the plane from Chicago to Nashville and I passed it around the whole plane. Claire and Victoria and her possy made me cards and stuff, and it was really special. *sigh*. All 37 of them really became like a family. I don't know how I'm going to eat breakfast tomorrow without hearing stories of Eric prancing around his room naked, Jess making fun of someone, David and I being crazy, Audrey and her weirdness, Max and his insomnia, or...anyone. I did manage to get quite a few emails from everybody, so I think we should stay in touch, but it's a bit sad. I miss them all so much already. Some were seniors who I'll probably never see again. But I guess we were all ready for it to be over. Oh, and the plane almost crashed, long story short.
My overall opinion-I definitely would not have had as much fun if I had stayed at home on LJ. That was the time of my life and I'm so glad I went.
Now off to bed so I can wake up bright and early for Biology tomorrow morning...I'm so sorry LJ friends, I didn't have the chance to read my friends' page, but as soon as humanly possible tomorrow, I shall. I hope you're all well and doing wonderfully! But for now, Ciao, Au-revior, and Adios!!