APRIL 27TH:
Every one assembled at Gardemoen Airport. I took the bus from my town that goes directly to the airport. There were 22 exchange students from Norway and we were joined by a boy who is exchanging in Iceland. We had 3 chaperones; Tove (or Mom), Morten and Gunter).The plane that we took was not very big and most of us did not sit together. The first stop on our tour was Berlin so the flight was not relatively long. We hopped onto the bus that would be with us for the rest of the tour. The first 2 nights was spent in a large youth hostel. I had 3 other roomates which was good except that our room was ridiculously small.
APRIL 28TH:
We toured around Berlin this day. Our tour guide was an American who is living in Berlin. It was mostly a bus tour. He took us past the remains of the Berlin Wall, the Bradenbug Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, and other monuments around Berlin. We were allowed to get out of the bus for a short will. We walked passed the Reichstag, the Bradenburg Gate, a Frank Gehry building and a Jewish memorial. We were given free time after lunch, which Noellen and I used that to walk around and did a little bit of shopping.
APRIL 29TH:
We left Berlin that morning and drove to Dresden. Gunter gave us a walking tour (and since Gunter's walking is basically running) we were able to see most of the old town in 25 minutes. After lunch in Dresden, we continued driving to Prague. The landscape of the Czech Republic is full of trees.We arrived late at our hotel, and went straight to dinner.
APRIL 30TH:
This was our tour day in Prague. She began our tour in at the Prague Castle and worked our way down the hill to the clock tower. We pasted by St. Vitus Cathedral, and Charles Bridge along the way. Since it was still Easter week, Prague had many Easter markets. They were full of painted eggs and Prague souvenirs. There was one really good bread thing which was a chunk of bread that is wrapped around a metal tube. After that it is dipped in sugar. In the Czech Republic, they use their own currency which was somewhat of a pain because all I had was Euros and most of the clothing boutiques would only take Czech kroners.
MAY 1ST:
We had another morning free in Prague. Weather-wise, it was the worst day of the whole entire tour due to the fact that it poured rain. Noellen and I (as per usual) did a bit of exploring (since we did most of our shopping the day before). We hopped onto the bus and drove to an outlet mall near the Czech-Austrian border to eat lunch. We spent the night at an modern hotel in Vienna.
MAY 2ND:
We had a guided tour of Vienna. She took us around St. Stephens Cathedral, little walkways, by the place where Mozart lived, and the Austrian Royal Palace. We were given 1 hour of free time, which was dedicated to power shopping. They had an amazing H&M which is in this amazing old building. After that, we drove to Salzburg. We had dinner theatre that evening. They sang Austrian folk songs and ones from the Sound of Music.
MAY 3RD:
Morten lead an running expedition up to the castle before breakfast. The morning on the bus was spent sleeping. Our rest stop was way up in the Austrian mountains, we were so far up that they still had snow which was not good for me because I was wearing a summer dress and sandals. Since we drove through the belt of mountains between Austrian and Italy, we drove through many tunnels. It was ridiculously warm at our pit stop in Italy (actually it was just me who thought it was warm, it was a total shock stepping out of an air conditioned bus and into the hot Italian weather). We were staying the beach town of Lido de Jesolo. It was filled of typical beach side hotels which were pretty much empty due to the fact that it was just the beginning of the season. Everyone changed into their bathing suits and ran down to the sea. It was somewhat wavy and very salty (which was totally normal for the Austrailians). Supper that evening was served in a strange way, first lasanga, then meat and that was followed by salad and dessert.
MAY 4TH:
Hannah, Nina and I thought that we would go swimming before the day begun but it was freezing out. The group took a bus (that was jammed with tourist) to the docks. From there we took a boat. On that boat was Victoria (a girl from my district back home who was on her Eurotour). Our group was given a tour of Venice. She took us through St. Marco's Plaza and cathedral as wall as some back alley ways.Noellen and I decided not to take a gondola ride, so we just explored the alley ways, did a bit of shopping and ate gelato.
MAY 5TH:
This day was our longest driving day. We drove 7hr 30min to Lyon. Most of the day spent sleeping on the bus.
MAY 6TH:
We drove from Lyon to Versailles. We were given free time to explore the Palace. For me (being a fan of the Marie Antoinette film), it was very exciting. A bunch of us went around giving names to the statues around the castle. The garden was absolutely stunning. We continued onto Paris. A bunch of us decided to go see the Eiffel Tour at night. It took one our of walking but we finally made it to the tour. It is so much more beautiful at night. On our way bunch from the tour, the funniest thing happened. Noellen had a nose bleed and since we had no kleenex so she used a tampon. The best part was a passing car seen here a started laughing.
MAY 7TH:
We did not have a guided tour around Paris. Instead they took us around the town, quickly on a bus and then all the way up the Eiffel Tower. The lines there were crazy. The view from the Tower was fantastic. We took a boat down the River Seine and it passed the Tower, state buildings, and the Notre Dame. (It actually passed by more but it was so warm that I fell asleep on the second half of the tour.) We had some more free time after lunch to do more power shopping (though the shops were pretty busy, making it hard to do any serious shopping). After dinner, a bunch of us went and sat outside the Louvre.
MAY 8TH:
We left Paris that morning and drove to Calais. We hopped onto the ferry that took us from Calais to Dover. It was strange to be surrounded by English speakers again (they spoke so fast that it was hard to understand them). We were staying near Nottinghill. A bunch of us decided that we wanted to see platform 9 3/4 from Harry potter. We took the tube to Kings Cross.
MAY 9TH:
Our tour guide gave us a bus tour of London. We droved by Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Tower Bridge and Tower of London. She took us out of the bus to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The Australians and I found an Canadian/Australian store. They had Labatt Blue, Kool-Aid, Timmies Coffee, Mars and Kraft Dinner. We did some more shopping along Oxford Street and took the tube back to the hotel. The last night of the time was spent dyeing my hair, packing and trying to pull an all nighter (there wasn't really any point in sleeping because we had to be up at 430am).
MAY 10TH:
We were dropped off at Garwick Airport to take our flight back home. There was many goodbyes at the airport.
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| the gate in Berlin |
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| Tower Bridge in London |
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| St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague |
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| just chilling in vienna |
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| dinner theatre in salzburg |
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| st. marco's plaza, venice |
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| place of versailles |
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| outside the louvre |
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| eiffel tower |
"t actually passed by more but it was so warm that I fell asleep on the second half of the tour"
ReplyDeletehahahaha ohhhh kate <3
i never really figured out what you guys actually did, so this was neat to read :)
Thanks about the nosebleed comment, Kate. I knew you were going to add that in xD
ReplyDeleteI have a video of you falling asleep by the way... hehehe ^^ Miss you!!! xoxo