Week Ten & Week Eleven

Hola! Hallo! Bonjour!

I am currently on spring break and traveling throughout Europe. Blog entries may be few and far between from now on, but believe me when I say that even small and scarce entries are hard to write.

The hardest part about this particular entry is where to start! When I left off I was describing Dave’s visit. I have a ton of pictures of our visit so the pictures can speak for themselves. I got just a few pictures of the protest that went on in London the day we were there. Yes, Dave and I accidentally got ourselves stuck in one of the biggest protests/riots London has ever seen. Oops. We only saw the protest when it was peaceful and calm, so we were out of harms way. At night, however, we went to Picadilly Circus and saw the aftermath of the rioters. We walked around some extremely posh streets only to see almost every single front window of the stores bashed in and shattered. We saw graffiti (usually the anarchy symbol) everywhere and police lining the streets. I don’t care if this sounds dumb – but I was so emotional seeing London torn up that way. I have loved London since my first visit a few years ago and have grown to love it even more with every trip there. There is just something about it that tops all the other cities I’ve been to. Seeing a city I love so much and enjoy being in so greatly was so saddening. I was getting choked up walking around observing the destruction and as Dave said, we were able to feel the hate in the air, which is not at all a positive experience. Hopefully I can go to London soon and my lasting impression of London can be a positive one.

On to happier and more positive stories, after Dave left London and went back to Chicago, I had one week before spring break. I got a bit of my work done but was too anxious for spring break. Spring break, for the University of Leicester students, is five weeks long. FIVE WEEKS! For the regular, British students, this means time to write essays and study for finals. To the study abroad students, this means traveling around Europe with friends and having the time of your life. I’m about a week and a half into spring break and it still hasn’t hit me how lucky I am to be able to do this. I’m going to eight different countries and just flying by the seat of my pants. This is probably one of the greatest opportunities I’ll ever be given. I really hope I can take advantage of it in all the right ways.

Now since I’ve been traveling for about 11 days now, we have been to four different cities and I obviously have many many many stories to share. First, a brief outline of the spring break route…
April 2-3: Madrid, Spain
April 4-7: Barcelona, Spain
April 8-10: Interlaken, Switzerland
April 11-15: Paris, France (with day trips to Versailles and Normandy)
April 16-18: Berlin, Germany
April 19-20: Prague, Czech Republic
April 21-22: Salzburg, Austria
April 23-26: Rome, Italy (we will be in Rome/Vatican City for Easter!)
April 27-28: Florence, Italy
April 29: Pisa, Italy
April 30 - May 1: Venice, Italy
May 2-4: Athens, Greece
May 5-8: Santorini, Greece
May 9: Fly back to Leicester

As of right now, we are on our second day in Paris. I have been to Paris before and I don’t think I’ll be doing anything new on this trip, but I am still pretty excited to be back. Seeing the Eiffel Tower is a bit surreal, and tomorrow we are going to Notre Dame and the Louvre. Today we did a day trip to Versailles to see the Chateau de Versailles. It was amazing and so beautiful. All we kept saying was, “Can you imagine living here?!”

But to backtrack a to the beginning of break, Spain is just as great as I thought it would be. I wanted to spend a week in Spain split evenly between Madrid and Barcelona. We ended up doing a bit less than that, but I’m so glad we gave more time to Barcelona. Madrid was nice – there were some Cathedrals and Palaces that we saw – but as Megan said, “Barcelona has that wow factor Madrid lacks”. Barcelona is simply unforgettable. From the loud yet still breathtaking Gaudi buildings, cathedrals and park, to the beaches with clear blue skies and water – Barcelona is one of my new favorite cities, hands down. My favorite things about Barcelona were probably the Gaudi buildings, and if you are not familiar with his work, google these few things: Sagrada Familia (pictured), La Pedrara, and Casa Batllo. Words cannot describe his style and how much I love it. His name, pronounced “gow-dee”, is where the word gaudy originated from. So even without seeing his work, you can imagine what his buildings probably look like.

 

The next place we went to was Switzerland. We stayed in a small town of about 5,000 people and were right in the mountains. It was a total pain to get there, but we came to Switzerland for the mountains, so we got right to the mountains! I had every intention of skiing, but my mother thought it best if I did not, knowing that I am not the most athletic type. This actually worked out quite well because we had less time than originally planned in Switzerland. This was due to us confusing the train stations in Barcelona and going to the wrong one, therefore, missing our overnight train to Switzerland. We got there late at night instead of early in the morning (it took 17 hours) so we had to cram. The first day we hiked up a mountain that was 1,355 metres (heck yea!) and the second day we took cables cars up to the top of a snow covered mountain. People were skiing, snowboarding, paragliding, and all sorts of other activities. We just ate lunch and took pictures :) It was really beautiful and even though it was a horrible experience getting to Interlaken, I loved every moment of being there.

Now back to the present moment, we have three more days in Paris and then move on to Berlin. I can’t promise that I’ll be updating very often, or get into much detail when I do. I’ve resorted to writing in a journal so I can remember all that we do and still write without having a computer. So this blog may not get too much attention, but I will try my best.

- Lauren