After everything was said and done

I'm just going to start out stating this - I am (mostly) not sentimental. It goes against my moral being to show any type of emotion other than happiness, excitement, or my occasional rant. It's uncomfortable and otherwise my forbidden topic.

But for this one time, just this once, I am going out of my comfort zone.

Exchange teaches you many things. It prepares you for things to come later on, and builds your confidence. Out of all of the things it prepares you for, saying goodbye is never one of them. Growing up, I never had to say many goodbyes. No friends really moved away, and I never moved away. Everything was constant and all very familiar. And then my sophomore year I was chosen as a Rotary Youth Exchange student. I soared through it, wishing my time away, counting my days out of anticipation until I left for Denmark. And then the last day of school came, and that is when I got my first taste of a goodbye. It actually got me pretty down for a couple days. I was expecting it to be bittersweet - the anticipation of what was next to come, Denmark of course, but also a little bit of reminiscent sadness in saying goodbye to my friends. Instead, it was just sad. Once I was finally over that goodbye, I still kept thinking about what goodbye really is. I do still think about that.

I wrote this once after my first goodbye, but never shared it anywhere. Heres a little excerpt. "You know how sad it feels to know the people you say goodbye to are likely the people who had the greatest impact on your life, and you also know that although you may always cringe at the memories of them, your life wouldn't be so incredible now if it wasn't for the mark they left behind on your mind, your future, and most importantly your heart."

(Okay, maybe I'm a little deeper than a kiddy pool.)

The people that I said goodbye to on the last day of school were likely some of the people that greatly changed my life, had some of the greatest impact on what was next to come, and I realized after I said my goodbyes that when I came back, the relationship I had with those people would likely be changed. It was very sobering and made me wonder, first of all, how is it possible that you could actually meet someone who literally changes your life, and then you never see them again. Or you rarely see them again. Or when you do see them again you can't possibly think of what to say, or how to get it back to normal.

I had many people tell me after my first real goodbye, "well, you're only gone for a year, you'll see them again." Here is where I come in with my corrections. I am not saying goodbye to the person per se, but rather the memories and the current relationship I once had with the person. There was an abundance of unknown left and unsettled about whether or not anything would be the same once I got back. As the months went on, I left for my exchange year, and things got better. The goodbye lost its power. The memories of the people I met and the things I did in my sophomore year began to fade.

In December, I was hit again with a powerful reminder of how hard goodbye is. Another thing exchange does - or at least the Rotary program, is gives you three wonderful families. The thing is though - sometimes four months with each family is just not enough time. I knew my families had been there long before I had, and had experienced many things and made many memories before I ever came into their life. The approximate four months I spent with each family created an infinite time frame, and so I forgot my time with them was ever limited. When I walked out of those houses on those afternoons, I was leaving something significantly special to me behind. Just as they had began without me, they would continue without me, as I without them. Their future was unwritten, and so was mine, but we were no longer directly entwined in each others.

It is of human condition to say goodbye, however it is also just like all of us to make the promises to each other that we will never forget the time we had together. This includes the empty promises we make to "think about each other." We tend to better remember and reminisce about things that have happened more recently. Therefore, our "thoughts" of each other become clouded, and fewer and far between. As time moves on we find things to eventually take up the space that we promised we would never forget, because we tend to remember things that more directly impacts us. A part of saying goodbye will always be, in a sense, a dismal tone of simply "moving on." It is never of our intentions, rather a matter of fact conclusion drawn about from living.

I have found but one thing that hurts more than a goodbye. That is knowing that the people you say goodbye to, likely some of the people that were most special to you, don't know how much, or recognize how much they did for you. They may not recognize how special they are to you, either. The motto, it seems to be, is that gratitude is always a good thing... only in moderation. Too little is ungrateful, however too much has the potential to alienate someone. In my opinion... as if gratitude is a bad thing. I wonder how there could ever be too much gratitude. Perhaps the reason I think so fondly of the people who helped me, or so nostalgically of the people who helped me, is because I was never able to fully express my gratitude or how I felt about them when the time was right. It's as though I have taken half the gratitude ahead with me and held onto it, and given them half of it. That isn't fair to me, or to them.

There is always a little bit of "save the world" in everyone. You can't do that though. One cannot help everyone. One cannot change everyone. For that reason, I believe whoever it is that helped you should know just how much they helped. To the world they may be one, but to one, they may be the world. It doesn't matter how much one does, it simply matters what one does. I will never be able to "rest assured," thinking of someone if I think there are things left unsaid, or unknown after a goodbye is said, especially if it's my thanks to them.

As one of my host dads once told me the night before I switched, "they say once you close one door, you open up others." Once you close the door to one home, you open the door to another. With each goodbye you're opening and closing doors to new homes, new people, and new things to remember. Goodbyes will always leave you with a relative sense of where home really is, and will always contain such a bittersweet kind of sadness, one that can in turn only make you happier for the times you once experienced, while reminiscing what you left behind.

With ultimate discomfort set aside, I would like to give the most profuse thanks to everyone that has been apart of this incredible year of mine. I would like everyone to know how much they did for me, or impacted me, and more importantly, I'd like for them to accept how much I feel it helped, regardless of their actions.

To Rotary, you have given me honestly such a bundle of opportunities, experiences, and lessons to have been learned over the past two years of this exchange experience, and it means a great deal to me to have been chosen for such a wonderful and one of a kind opportunity. It's been an eye opening experience to see how others live, and given me much insight into what shall come next in my future. 

To further support systems, from my parents, to teachers, to any others, whoever you might have been, I appreciate it all so much. Your encouragement and support truly means a lot regardless of how it was given or shown, and I truly wish I was able to express it properly. I hope you know that. 

And to my host families, my three wonderful host families. I thank you all profusely. You have done me the favor of letting me into your house, and given me a home, in not just where you live, but in your family as well. You have allowed me to get to know you all, one by one and month by month, and allowed me a place to learn to feel comfortable when I was so many miles away from what I've known for so long. Eleven months ago I left familiarity for your country and families, and in two days, I'll be returning. I can't imagine it will be nearly as familiar as what I came from in the first place however, as I've learned in this past year to let go and place trust in those who I lived with, though it may have been ever changing, and as a result, it's given me homes and families in some of the most giving people, and has wound up as my ultimate familiarity.

Perhaps the hardest part of this goodbye is not the goodbye itself, but the people and the things that I am saying goodbye to. I have found that a goodbye will always hurt the worst for the people and things that I have come to love the most.

Danmark, med de bedste minde, altid i mit hjerte.

Mange tusind tak for i år.

Farvel. 

A year in perspective

Today I did my end of the year Rotary presentation, so I figured what better a day to post this when 1/4 of my closing remarks have been made.

Here goes:

I've now been in Denmark for nearly a year.

It blows my mind to think that it was already ten months ago that I was sitting on my aisle seat to Amsterdam, sitting back in my airplane seat cuddled with my black blanket, thinking "you still have a whole year! You have so much time, it's just beginning!" 

I am ready to come home to my family, and to see some of my greatest friends again. This year has helped me better realize who my greatest friends are, just by those I kept in touch with. In a couple weeks I will walk out of customs in SeaTac airport, and will see my parents undoubtedly greeting me with open arms, and one can only hope for a box of cheez-itz. 

I will try to surprise some of my friends when greeting them, although one has already told me she'll switch it up on me, surprise me sometime in the morning. *Cough, Makayla, Cough.* First times will feel refreshing, and there will be plenty of meet and greets. There will assuredly come the excitement of reacquainting myself with surroundings that were all so familiar only eleven short months ago.

I will be able to go into my own kitchen and open a bag of goldfish crackers without feeling slightly uncomfortable taking food from another family's cupboard. I will be able to sing, no matter how crappy my voice may be, to my music on high blast. I'll even be able to use my own bathroom, and I will no longer need to give in or stand up to peer pressure regarding partying, drinking, or clubbing.

In reality though, I cannot only think of the firsts, of the meet and greets, and surrealism of being home again, because it doesn't even feel as though I left in the first place. I have thought beyond the firsts. The "normality" is what will be the hardest part of readjustment. There is always a nice dose of happiness in the excitement that lies within returning. Excitement will eventually die down, however, and in the following weeks it will be replaced with a sense of realization. The adventure that drove me for nearly two years, and formed essentially a new life for me, is over. Something that had always had a future and present tense to it will now be simply over, and it will only have a past tense. 

I will go back to school come September, and it will come with the realization that while I've been gone for the past year, my classmates haven't. Life has continued for them just as it has for me. I do not know wha they've done, and they do not know what I've done. It's likely not even something they can imagine, as my experience is likely as foreign to them as the place I lived. Some may not realize I left, and some may think I've left for good. Some may not recognize me, and some may not care I'm back. I can't expect them to know what this experience was like for me though, and I can't expect them to remember the details of my exchange. They shouldn't remember I went to Denmark, or what language Denmark speaks. I simply cannot hold them responsible for remembering the details of my exchange.

Just as the year seemed to stand still in still such an ironically fast-paced way to me, the year back home to the others probably felt the same way. The only difference is that even though our years moved in the same time, we were living in different worlds. While it feels like nothing changed for me, and nothing changed for them, I will undoubtedly go home and see that everything changed, in the same sense of it having stayed the same. I'll pass by the same streets, I'll walk into the same house as if it was just yesterday that I walked out of it. Yesterday was nearly a year ago, though, and whether I realize it or not, I will be different than the person I was August 9th when I ate half my eggs, shoved oreo's in my bag, and packed up my life for a year. It's hard to notice change while you're living it, but it's easy to notice it when you return to it or return from it. I have come to terms with that (I say before I've given myself the chance to experience rebound life).

Unlike when I quit gymnastics in my freshman year though, I refuse to let myself think of this as an end. When I quit gymnastics my freshman year, I let myself fall, and took a year to watch as my self esteem and self confidence plummeted from 100 to 0 for a couple months.  I figured that as long as I could no longer do what made me happiest, then I would have a hard time finding anything else.

My year of prep for exchange is over, and it has been long over. That was a hard goodbye. The time I wished away, and all of its impact on my newfound self esteem and confidence, hit me hard when it was over. I never expected it to end, and I viewed that year as endless in a sort of breathtakingly fast way. As the days neared the ending, it still didn't feel real. So when all was said and done those last couple days in June, it was a serious reality check, one that when I come to think of it, I hadn't ever had before. I gave myself a couple days, and that was all I could give myself, because I had to re-find my excitement for my exchange year that I somehow misplaced after my first goodbye. I reminded myself to listen happy music and to leave the house once in a while. Eventually, it worked. The memories still came and went, but it never prevented me from having a good time.

On August 9th, 2014, I got my passport stamped for the first time, and the man at security did a quick up and down and said "Amsterdam, huh?" I explained that I was studying abroad in high school doing a year abroad in Denmark. I continued onto security, went through the procedures, and the next thing I knew I was on the other side of the security gate. No going back, I looked up, and saw my parents standing across the airport waving goodbye to me. I waved back, we exchanged our last remarks, and then I turned around. I looked back one more time, and the next thing I know I was standing on the opposite side of a glass wall. I followed the signs, alone, that took me to my flight gate. I was off for a year. Although the year of prep was over, the year of exchange and experience still stretched on in front of me.

That year is now three weeks from finished, despite me telling myself practically three minutes ago (or at least thats what it feels like), "you still have your whole year ahead of you!"

So although now both years are nearly done, I need to remind myself that it was just a beginning.

This year I learned a lot about myself, and what I want to do. It helped me broaden many of my perspectives, and interests. This year I learned a language to fluency. I can, at the risk of sounding vain, say that I am bilingual. I learned as well that I don't want to stop there. I don't feel like English and Danish is enough. I feel oddly limited having grown up speaking such a universal language. I want to try, at least, to finish off the French I started two years ago and paused on this year to learn Danish. In my opinion, it doesn't make sense to start learning a language and just stop. What you could use your skills for after two years, you could use them for so much more after a couple more years of learning.

Dutch looks interesting to me. The whole double vowel system and the j's in seemingly random spots, for some reason, interests me. Nobody ask how I'm going to go about learning all these languages, because I don't think leveling up through duolingo will really get me anywhere. I'm currently an unemployed 17 year old high school junior living off of a currently fleeting bank account that I stopped building nearly a half year before I left for Denmark, gladly accepting donations from the bank of mom and dad as my new source of income. I'm not really, in any shape, ready to do more years abroad to learn all these languages I desire.

Right now, as of three weeks from my departure, my ultimate plans are all over the place. I know what I want to do in my future, however I don't know how long it will take me to get there, or how I will get there. Immediately, I have (I believe) one year left of high school, plus a gap year to tie the ends on my SAT/ACT, college applications, and one final chemistry class. After that I will be off to university (I feel so European calling it university now, not just college), and I'm not sure where after that.

I would like to major in international relations or business, because I would love to travel and work with different languages as a job. Although, for a good five years or so, I was dead-set on being a lawyer. Look at me now! That's not even in the cards.

I (think I) would like to do another year abroad in college. Where I go, I'm not sure. I woke up a couple weeks ago and decided I was going to join the peace corps and ship off to South America (I'm not kidding, I woke up and spontaneously became excited about the prospect for a day), but then realized that saying hola and counting to ten doesn't quite qualify you in Spanish. Which brings me back to French where I'd like to go to Geneva for a year, so I can bring my French back up to par. The only problem is, my French disappeared when my Danish prospered.

I will of course be coming back to Denmark to visit, I intend on keeping, and even growing the relationships I have with my host families and friends here.

I am thinking about keeping a blog to mark my rebound experiences, however I'm not sure yet. If I do, I'll let you know and it'll likely be linked through this blog URL. It will essentially be your own responsibility if you really want to keep up on it though, because I won't be sharing the links on facebook. If you don't see anything by September, you probably won't see anything at all.

I have one more blog post, and it's going out on a really positive and uplifting note (I say very sarcastically), so I hope you look forward to that.

But for now, it's nearly a wrap. Tuesday marked ten months here in Denmark, and in three weeks I'll be back where I began, just a week shy of eleven months in the third happiest country in the world. 

EUROTOUR

Hello!

As you all may have seen on facebook, I have just returned from the BEST three weeks of my life, touring much of Western Europe with a whole district of other wonderful exchangers!

I don't want to fill my blog up with ten different posts of all the cities, or group the cities together in each country they're in, because I'd still have 8 different posts on my blog. So what I've done, is written one blog, but with a nice bolded line in between each city, so like ten blogs in one post. You of course don't need to read the whole blog at once, or at all, just pick whichever city you're most interested in, and read to your hearts content.

The report will remain just as spectacular regardless of the amount of views ;-)

The following cities are listed below, and are in the same order in my blog, so it'll be easy for you to find whichever ones you're most interested in reading.

1.) Berlin, Germany,
2.) Prague, Czech Republic, 
3.) Vienna, Austria, 
4.) Lido Di Jesolo, Italy
5) Venice, Italy,
6.) Verona Italy, 
7.) Monte Carlo, Monaco, (this was a day stop)
8.) Avignon, France,
9.) Paris, France,
10.) Brussels, Belgium, (one day stop)
11.) Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (We stayed about an hour out in a town called Doorwerth).

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Berlin, Germany: 

We pulled into Berlin on Monday at around 7 in the evening, after driving nearly 9 hours (side note- Google says it only takes 4 hours to gets to Berlin?), and ate dinner after we got all our luggage lugged upstairs.

After dinner we all went out until curfew at 11, and wandered around for the hour and a half we had. Three of us (me and the two other girls) went out wandering and ended up at a park, where we heard an accordion player who made us feel very much like we were in Paris (second side note- we didn't see any of what made us feel like we were in Paris, in Paris). 

The second day we went and took a tour on the bus until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, where we also got to see The Berlin Wall, Brandenburger Tor, a holocaust museum, and Kaiser Wilham II church. 

We had time to wander on our own after that, so we went out and got some delicious Thai food, and then went into this place called Primark where everything is/was just so blissfully, wonderfully cheap, I walked into heaven. Until I tried everything on and decided never again until I get back and exercise all of this “middags kaffe” exchange weight off. 

Wednesday we took off from Berlin at 8 in the morning to head off to the Czech Republic. Everything was going smooth, I was having a nice conversation with the two girls I wandered Berlin with, when all of a sudden the bus stopped. I presumed we were not moving because we were at a red light, and I thought we were, but I suppose I’m also not too observant because I later saw the light was green and our main predicament was not the color of the street lights, but the fact our bus was dead. Being stuck on a dead bus in Europe is not as adventurous as it sounds, let me be the first to say ladies and gentlemen. 

We sat in the dead bus for our fair amount of time, just making jokes, sleeping, listening to music, and passing time. After a while one of the tour leaders came back with donuts, and I ate a Berliner in Berlin. We later went and sat in a park for five hours while we waited for the bus we had to dismantle to be fixed by a mechanic. 

The time finally came to board the bus, and we were happily weaving through Berlin’s traffic, on the way to Czech Republic, enjoying ourselves once again and ready to conquer Prague. And then our bus hit a car only a couple meters from the highway, and we had to swing around, trade insurance, talk to police, do that whole shebang before shuffling through Berlin’s traffic all over again. I honest to god felt like I was in the Bermuda Triangle of Berlin, once you go in you never come out. 

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Prague, The Golden City, Czech Republic. 

Prague stole my heart. 

It was only our second stop on eurotour and I had no idea what Venice or Paris or Amsterdam would look like, and it still just stole my heart. 

When stepping out of the subway in Prague, it was everything I could have imagined and better. Prague lived up to every one of its expectations, and even more. The more I wandered and saw, the more I fell in love with. Gosh I could just talk about Prague forever, I love(d) it so much.  

If I had to do an exchange year in college, I’d want it to be Prague. I guess I’m just drawn to places with languages that are harsh and difficult to learn and currencies that no matter how many conversions you do, still make everything feel ridiculously expensive. 

Anyway- to the tour. 

We took the subway in the morning into Prague, and toured until about 12 when we were set off on our own to go adventure. We went and got lunch, two people got goulash in a baked bread bowl, I got traditional Czech pancakes, and one got a Caesar Salad. 

After lunch we walked around the city more, saw some street performers, and then went into a café to mooch off their wifi for a couple minutes while we rested ourselves after walking all day. We ordered hot chocolate, until we finished and didn’t want to get up, so another girl ordered a second hot chocolate. After we finally conjured up the courage to leave our limited wifi and warm blankets we went into a souvenir shop, and then walked around more. For dinner, we got Mexican food. I was, for the first time in eight months, satisfied with my Mexican food experience. We went home at 10:00 to meet curfew, and the next day we went to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Czech on the way to Vienna, Austria. 

It was a little bit unreal to experience someplace that only 70 years ago was occupied with the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. 

I didn’t really realize until a couple hours after we left that the place I just visited was a real relic from the holocaust, not just a museum with artifacts. I suppose I’m so used to seeing museums and “memorials” with recreated artifacts, it took some time for it to set in that Theresienstadt isn’t the Holocaust museum in D.C, or another memorial/museum with recreated, re hand crafted artifacts- it’s the real deal. 

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Vienna, Austria:

Well, to be honest, Vienna was very rainy. It rained the whole time we were there. The city was beautiful though, despite the pour, and I had a good time the one day we were there. 

We spent all day driving, and then got there about 5. A bunch of us went out afterwards even though the rain was sprinkling and mostly everything was closed. We were in a suburb of Vienna. 

The second day we went sightseeing during the day, and then came back for dinner. My friend had one of her Austrian friends with her, and so the whole group went out to an event called Eurovision contest. Perhaps you are familiar with Eurovision, perhaps you aren’t. It’s, from what I know, basically like American Idol only the European countries are competing. (For example Phillip Phillips won an American Idol, in this case it would be a country winning the title.)

It was going pretty good. The crowd was huge and we were squished, but I decided to leave the crowd for a couple minutes to try and find a bathroom. I was thinking "no problem, I'll find my group," until there ended up being a slight problem. I spent the next hour and half trying to find the people I was with, to no avail. I paced the street, and hyperventilated literally every time I tried to weave through the crowd. At one point, I stood in a corner of McDonalds to mooch off their free wifi. I tried to try and contact anyone I knew from the tour that could be possibly be at Eurovision as well, but couldn't get in contact. When I had officially gone insane, I messaged my mom. Because, you know, my mother, who is 5000 miles away, could do a lot for me. Then I left her hanging to panic about her lost daughter.

I finally decided to use a strangers phone who was really proud about his international cellphone service plan. Coincidentally, while I was on the phone with the Eurotour guide, I saw the group I was with. So I guess now I can say I got lost in a crowd at Eurovision, in Vienna, Austria. 

The next day I woke up in the hostel next to my own things, still relieved I wasn't continually pacing the streets of Vienna, and got ready. We all drove to Italy afterwards. We drove entirely though the Alps, and it was breathtakingly stunning the whole time. I loved it so much, I just love the Alps. Both winter time with the snow caps and summer time with the green trees and flowing rivers they’re wonderful and I’ll never get enough.  

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Lido Di Jesolo, Italy: 

Lido is a small little beach town about an hour from both Venice and Verona. The sand is perfectly soft and although the water is bit cold, I still loved my beach time. 

We got there in the evening after driving from Austria and went to the beach before dinner, and then went to the beach again after dinner and got some delicious Italian Gelato. 

Our second day in Italy we were still in Lido, and had a whole beach day to ourselves. I went to the beach in the morning with my group of friends, went and bought a bikini around 11, ate some Italian pasta around noon for lunch, and went back to the beach later. I had some gelato again (much gelato consumed over the past three weeks) and then it was dinner time again. After that Rotary took us all to a club and gave us each a free soft drink. The club played a lot of songs that was like a throw back to my middle school dances, and I had to wonder "why the hell am I listening to 'dynamite' by Taio Cruz in 2015.'" 

A friend and I left the club about an hour early, and went to sit on the beach and talk while it was dark, but still a little warm. There was a thunder storm, and it looked kind of cool on the beach.  

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Venice, Italy: 

Venice is a beautiful tourist trap. This city is, what I am convinced of, built for the tourists. I believe there are probably more tourists there than there are actual Italian residents. 

I’m glad I had my day there (even though I ended up getting sick for most of the day). We toured for a while until it started pouring, where we went inside to eat lunch (which was Italian pizza with tiramisu afterwards), and when the rain finally stopped around 12, we went back outside. We took a gondola ride which was beautiful, just weaving in and out of many of Venice’s bright green and blue canals, with a spirited Italian steering our gondola. 

We met with two of my friend's friends, one that lives in Venice that is my friend's friends' friend (an exchange student from California), and one that is from my friend's Rotary district back home in Florida. We talked for a while, wandered, got some more gelato (have eaten so much gelato whoops), and then the whole group of exchange students went back home. I went back up to the room and slept, went down to eat a tiny portion of dinner, came up and finished writing this blog entry about Venice, and then went to sleep so I didn’t have to pay attention to the fact that my head and neck felt like it was on fire.  

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Verona, Italy: 

Verona was a “stopover city” as we started to refer to them - we visited on the way to the other cities where a bigger tour would happen. 

We arrived in Verona around 11 and were there for about two hours. We saw Romeo and Juliet's tower. It was very crowded, which made it hard to get pictures. So, unfortunately, I took pictures for the “memories” but not really to post to Facebook or my blog. 

We also saw the arena in Verona. I do have pictures of that, but we just walked right by it on the way to Romeo and Juliet’s castle, so I can’t write much about how that was. My group of friends and I got our first and last real Italian pizza that was delicious. The Italians do it right. We went shopping around for a bit after that. 

We boarded the bus later around 1:30 or 2 and were off to the San Remo area which is on the Italian Riviera. That is where we would spend the night before driving to our stopover in Monte Carlo and tour destination: Avignon. 

The Italian Riviera was beautiful and looked very expensive, though we were only there when it was dark out, so I can’t say I experienced much to blog on there. If you’d like a report - the hotel was good and the spaghetti they served us was perfectly cooked, topped off with chocolate ice-cream cake, which Claire and I got two pieces of, because in the group of four, two of them are lactose intolerant. 

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Monte Carlo, Monaco 

Trying to get to Monte Carlo was really just an experience in itself. 

Just to give you some background information if you skipped the Berlin post- our last day in Berlin we were trying to get to Prague when our bus broke down and we couldn’t get it started ourselves. After it had been repaired, we were only meters from the highway when we got in a car accident. 

And now, on our way to Monte Carlo, we’re cruising up high and winding cliffs on the Riviera when we slowly start to realize that the roads are thinning and soon will not accommodate the size of our tour bus. 

We get to the top of the cliff, and are trying to take a turn to go further, and realize we literally can’t. We had to back down the cliffs of the Italian Riviera and take a completely different route so as to not back 46 exchange students over the rocks into the Ligurian sea. (Using slight hyperbole there). Our bus driver had a smoke break after that.

After a while though, we were back on track and before we knew it we had crossed the border from Italy to France and were cruising on the French Riviera, heading for the principality of Monaco. 

It was beautiful there, however you could really tell that it was expensive and meant for the wealthy and upper class. Bright blue oceans, huge houses over looking them, boats in the water, cruises on the coast, and nearly everyone I noticed seemed to be driving a motorcycle too.

I loved it, and looking out over the water was great. It was endless, literally endless. You could look over the cliffs and see nothing but bright blue ocean ahead of you. Simply amazing. It feels kind of cool to say I’ve been to the French Riviera.  

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Avignon, France

Avignon is a small medieval town in Southern France, a ways away from Monaco.

It is famous for the Pont Du Gard aqueduct bridges, which is primarily why we went - to visit the bridges. 

The first night we checked in to where we were staying, ate dinner, and then walked into town and came back at 12, which was our curfew. The second day we woke up early (but late for most mornings on this trip), and drove to Pont Du Gard. We were there for about two hours and some of us hiked up to find the best view of the ancient aqueducts. Some of the boys went swimming, and then once we returned to the hotel we were free for the rest of the day. 

My friends and I went out and ate lunch, and after looking around for a while we decided our cheapest and probably best place was a little hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurant. It was definitely worth it. My duck with spicy sauteé was delicious. I almost ordered pho soup, however I decided I was going to save my pho soup experience for when I come home.

*Believe it or not Mom, I have indeed thought about that on multiple occasions this year and do look very much forward to a nice, hot, small (yet still very large) pho number 5 chicken soup from T&N. 

Anyway - after we ate lunch we came home, and I went swimming with Kelsey. Then, we went into what we referred to as the “wifi café” (the only place you could find wifi in the hotel). 

We ate dinner, and then after that I went out with a friend and got champagne. We walked around Avignon, and then came home a little bit before curfew and talked further in our room. 

We all woke up the next morning, and at 7:30 we began our nine hour adventure to PARIS.  

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Paris, The City of Romance, France

Oh Paris. Je t’adore. 

Gosh I loved Paris. Prague and Paris honestly are the cities on eurotour where I felt withdrawals after leaving them. 

The first night in Paris we arrived in our hotel, and we all got ready and went out to eat. The group of people I had been hanging out with all eurotour and I went to an Indian place a very short walk from our hostel. After going out to eat, we went to a canal tour along the Seine River. 

It was so beautiful, and so cool to be able to take a canal tour in Paris. It was in the evening, and so when the canal tour was ending we sailed by the Eiffel Tower all lit up and beautiful. 

After the canal tour we went to the Eiffel Tower, and as we were walking there it started to sparkle. It was lit up, and sparkling, and just so incredibly beautiful. I loved it there. We were there until 12 when we went back to the hostel. 

The next day we had a free day to ourselves, so I and my group of friends hit the Louvre first. We all shoved through many people and made it to the world famous Mona Lisa, which is impossible to see or get pictures of because everyone wants the same thing you do. We conquered the impossible and got both normal pictures and, lo and behold, the inevitable selfie with the Mona Lisa. 

After going to The Louvre we went and walked across hell’s half acres to find a classic American Mexican restaurant; Chipotle. It was delicious, even despite walking in the drizzle for ages. When we were finished with our Chipotle, we went to the Eiffel Tower. We went all the way up to the summit, and then back down to the second floor when we had seen the view from the very top, and then we went back down completely and finished off our day at L’Arc De Triomphe et Champs Élysées. 

The next day two of the friends from our group of five started the morning early and went to Notre Dame de Paris. I stepped on Point Zéro, which, so I’ve been told, is supposed to bring good luck and/or guarantee your return to Paris. We went inside Notre Dame, where we heard the most beautiful choir singing. We then walked back to the Louvre to meet our group before Disneyland Paris, with a stop for crèpes and Starbucks. 

So much for "good luck," from point zéro though, because on the way back to Le Louvre, I was swindled, the last (100) euro in my wallet. The money that was supposed to go to escargot actually went to fund a fake petition or something, but I don't know, maybe that's the plot twist, an incentive to return after all? 

Disneyland cheered me up though as soon as we entered, and it proved to not be a bad thing (until two weeks later when I found out the child's hat that I tried on happened to be the one harboring head lice?) What they say is true, it is the happiest place on earth and I will admit to having a fantastic time in a glorified, over expensive kid park, despite the fact that I’m turning 18 in a month. 

Shout out to the Peter Pan ride, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and It’s a Small World. Peter Pan’s ride made me feel like Santa Clause and we waited in line for a good half an hour for a minute long attraction, but let me just say the attraction was worth every second, even if for only 60 seconds. 

(Needless to say though, I will not be stepping on point zéro again, nej tak, non merci, no thank you). 

And then the next day we were off to Amsterdam, our last stop on Eurotour, with a small one hour stop in Brussels, Belgium.  

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Brussels, Belgium: 

We were in Belgium for only about an hour and a half, however Brussels is a beautiful city from what I saw. 

It is home of the EU Parliament, Mannekin Pis (literally a peeing sculpture), and of course world famous Belgian Chocolate, Waffles, and French Fries. 

The first thing we did when we got into Belgium was walk down to Mannekin Pis, took a couple pictures, and then went and bought a delicious Belgian Waffle. 

We went to a book store after a while of aimlessly wandering around the city, and were in there for a while before walking back to our meeting place. 

We then got into the bus and drove to Doorwerth, The Netherlands, where we were staying which is about an hout outside of Amsterdam. 

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Amsterdam, The City of Sin, The Netherlands

Amsterdam was dank. That's how I could sum it up. The dankest city in Europe.  

We walked around Amsterdam for quite a bit, with the tour even going through The Red Light District, before being set off on our own. Many people went to eat lunch in the Red Light District, I did what I've been wanting to do I was 12 and read her diary- went and finally saw the Anne Frank House. 

The line of one and a half hours was considered short, on the weekends during high tourist season the line can reach five hours. 

It was worth every minute of the wait however. While I was 15 minutes from the entrance and could see the end of the line, I was looking at pictures from a brochure handed out to me and was just mind blown that in only about 20 minutes I would be inside the place that I have read so much about. 

When I finally got in we stopped to look around the various quotes and relics in the downstairs "museum" area, and then climbed the steep first flight of stairs. There were more relics and pieces of information there that we read, and then when we were finished in that area we walked through the infamous bookcase and climbed the stairs further, up into their kitchen that doubled as a living room, Anne and Fritz Pfieffers bedroom, the bathroom, and into Peter Van Pels bedroom, which was the attic. 

We couldn't climb completely up into the attic, it was blocked off with glass. I'm curious as to why, I'm not completely sure why it's no longer possible, but maybe I'll look it up. 

You really never realize how small the living quarters were in the Secret Annex until you realize how short time you can make it through the Anne Frank House, even while reading the various quotes from her diary and taking time to stop to really look around. 

Anne's posters of celebrities and movie stars were still hanging on her wall, and her first red and white checkered diary is still being preserved downstairs under a glass case. Her further diaries have also been preserved, as well as Margot's flashcards that she used to learn elementary Latin. 

The church bells that Anne wrote about so much in her diary rang loud and you could hear it through the Annex. The old willow tree she looked at fell down a couple years ago and so is no longer there, however the black out curtains that they could not open "even an inch during the day" were still on the wall, shut tight. 

On a canal tour of Amsterdam later after I left the Anne Frank House we were told that many houses in Amsterdam are built on wooden platforms on the water, that are beginning to sink. They call them "dancing houses." 

When we went back to Doorwerth we bowled for an hour all together, and when we came back to the hostel we had a bonfire from almost 11 to 2 in the morning, when the majority of the group had gone inside and the few left started to disperse as well. 

And then, the day actually came where we packed up everything and got ready to sit on the last bus ride of the tour, that would take us back to Denmark. 

And that was eurotour, the last hoorah of our exchange year. 

Vi ses! :-)