Endlich....EUROPAREISE!!

So...finally after over a week of procrastinating I am finally going to post a blog over my Eurotour!! Let me just start out by saying that the 2 1/2 weeks I spent on Eurotour were probably the best 2 1/2 weeks of my life, and it truely was a trip of a lifetime...well, with that being said, onwards we go...

Day 1 Berlin-Dresden

We met up in Berlin Ostbahnhof(East station) at 10 and headed off to Dresden, Germany. When we got there we were given a tour in English, by some guy that seemed to make a rant against America every 5 seconds. After this, we went back to our Mexican styled hotel, ate, and then headed out to discover Dresden for the night.

Day 2 Dresden-Prague
After getting up we did one last thing in Dresden and that was seeing this computer modified Dresden from the 1700's, I don't know how to describe it other than saying that it was pretty legit. After that we drove to Prauge in the Czech Republic, and we were in what appeared to be the sketchy part of Pragug. We were actually in a 4 star hotel, but to the rest of the worlds standards it would be mabye a 2 star hotel. After room assignments and eating some awful food, we went into the legit parts of Prague, which was also pretty legit! Also something interessting about Prague is that people either know German and English....or nothing!! We couldn't even ask the police how to get back...

Day 3 Prague

Before we did our city tours, we were greeted with the news that one of our exchange students had spent the night in the hospital. Fortunately they were back before we got up, and they were going to be able to make it through Eurotour, but it was just a little bit of a shock seeing as it was only the 2nd night. Aside from that we did a city tour by foot, English and German like always, and hardly anyone was in the English group so all the English native speakers had to join...it became quite the irritating pattern. After the tour we ran into another German Eurotour group and so we went shopping with them and drank a couple legit Czech beers with them too. Then we ate disgusting Czech food again, watch a Black Light Theatre group perform, and roamed around Prague that night again. O, and I also made the Prague Drinking Team...that's just an inside joke with literally no referrence to alcohol at all...so please don't be concerned!

Day 4 Prague-Vienna
The bus ride took up most of the day,and it sucked because I was sick...we did stop at some little Medival-Themed amusment park but there was literally no where to eat, other than sit down resturants, or you could buy from a French Fry machine...so needless to say we went hungry. But it was all worth it because when we go to Vienna we had the best schnitzel ever, as well as one the most entertaining dinners ever. Afterwards, we sort of just walked around the city and chilled.

Day 5 Vienna
We had another city tour today, but this time it was a bus and walking tour and finally only in Germany!! I loved the ladies accent by the way too, it was not so evil sounding like the Berlin accent...now I can't stand my evil Berlin-German accent or my Nasily American-English accent. But Vienna was just an amazing city in general, the accent was just a plus. We got to eat legit Apple Struddel too! Well only I did because I got the last with out realizing...anyways, after this we had freetime and we went shopping like usual. Then we headed back, changed into nice clothing and headed to a classical concert, which was suprisingly good. I personally think I would move back to Vienna in a heart beat if I could...


Day 6 Vienna-Venice
Once again another long driving day. We arrived in a city outside of Venice just in time to take a quick look at the beach, then go back and eat like Italians. After eating, we all changed and the temparture had gone down quite a bit, but we still when swimming. Then we played some soccer and just chilled on the beach...

Day 7 Venice
We got up relatively early to catch a boat that would take us into the city of Vennice. We made it there on time and the boat ride just made me feel sick. After about a half hour we arrived and I must say, Venice is absolutely beautiful! It is clean and there's not waiting for bikes and cars. Only boats and people there. We were immideately given freetime and we roamed, ate ice cream, ate pizza, ate ice cream again, and then 4 hours later we met the group and took boat taxis to the opposite side of the city and we walked back from there with this real cool tourguide lady. She did it in German, and she kept calling us her kids. She also had us stop at this once place to buy the worlds best ice cream...it was literally the best. After the tour we headed back on the boat, when we got to the hotel we had schnitzel again and then headed back to the beach for probably the funnest night on Eurotour!! Except for the fact that my camera received sand damage, and made a personal choice never to open up again...


Day 8 Venice-Rome
It was another really long driving day today. We arrived in Rome, and today we were only allowed to take our backpacks with because we had to travel with the Subway instead of going with bus. We actually got off one stop to late, so we got stuck walking 30 minutes thru the dangerous streets of Rome. We walked past the Vatican, and 5 minutes later we arrived at our hotel. Then we had really good Italian food again, and afterwards headed out and saw the Vatican at night...which was suprisingly open, and it was amazing!


Day 9 Rome
We did another tour today, and it was in German! It really sucked not having a camera to take picutres, but I think I managed to steal enough from people anyways. After the tour we had pizza and wine, and then we headed to the Colleseum which was suprisingly dissapointing. Rome was actually a small city, and we had really nothing left to see and a day left, so we literally went back and slept because we couldn't take the sleep deprivation anymore. It was suprisingly a somewhat lame day.

Day 10 Rome-The Vatican City

On this day we literally got to go see the Pope! We had to wake up at about 6 and then we had like 30 minutes to eat and get ready. Everyone was late except for a few people, so she just let us go early. We ended up waiting for 2 hours, and of course the pope came in the Pope-mobile, which was very cool...then he took a seat, and from that point on, the ceremony just got extremely boring. He read really long texts in 7 different languages, which was quite impressive, except his English accent was bad, and I understood his German better...they also forgot to mention our names, even though they were supposed to.

After the ceremony we went and viewed the Vatican property...we went inside of the Basilica, which was the coolest church that I've been in, and I've seen many since coming to Germany. Once we were done looking around in there, we headed out to grab a little more Pizza and ice cream, and later headed back to the hotel to eat and head out for our night ride to Innsbruck...

Day 11 Innsbruck

We arrived early in Innsbruck, then just went straight to our hotel, and afterwards headed to the Swarovski Crystal World. It was just some interesting factory, where everything was made out of Crystals and was just sort of strange. After this we headed into the city for some freetime, and Innsbruck turned out to be a really amazing city. It is located right on the Alps, and it was just beautiful, and very authentic Austrian. Later that night we tried to explore the night life of Innsbruck, but that was sort of a failed attempt...

Day 12 Innsbruck-Nesselwang

Today was one of those really relaxed days that we had all been waiting for. We drove about 2 hours and crossed over from Austria to Germany finally, and then we visited a castel called the Linderhof Castel, and it was extremely tiny, but everything was convered in Gold! Unfortunately I was stuck in the English group again...but I was sort of feeling English by that point anyways...afterwards we headed to our hotel, and we were the only people there, and then we got passes to go to this big swimming place, where I lost my key, so there was something else I had to pay for!

Day 13 Nesselwang-Schloss Neuschwanstein
Once again, today was a very relaxed day. We got to see the Neuschwastein Castle, which is meant to be the Fairy tale castle...it is what disney uses as its basis for the castel at disney world. This was all the we did for the day, but the castel was very interessting and where it was located was just astounding. After visiting the castel we went to a ski resort and road up to the top to just chill in the snow and eat. Then we went back down and we all got to go riding on these slide things, I don't know how to explain it, but it was alot of fun! We actually did end up staying in the same hotel that night, so we headed back to the swim place again, except for this time some of us hit up the Sauna, which was one of the most relaxing things of my life, and if my parents do read this, I did take my pants off...

Day 14 Munich

Well we got to visit the famous city of Munich today. To start out we go a tour of the Olympic region of the city, and then a little bit longer tour from the bus of the rest of the city. Munich is suprisingly a really cool city. After finishing our tour, and visiting the hostel, we headed to the main part of Munich. There we had free time and of course everyone went to the main Brewery of Munich, including our Rotarians. Then we headed over to the Hard Rock Café, and we ate legit American cheesburgers and ice cream, then once again we headed to another Brewery to try Augestien Beer because our tour guide said it was the best beer in the world...it was only alright. I really wish we could've had more time in Munich, it was too much of an amazing city for so little time...
I also ran into Hunter too that night at the Hostel...he was my really good friend from my district back in the U.S., and we live in Neighbouring towns in the U.S. So it was sort of strange running into him in Munich as he was doing his Eurotour with his French District. I wish we could've gotten a better picture though...

Day 15 Regensburg

We headed to Regensburg today, which is also a Bavarian city, with only about 100,000 residents, but at one point it was actually the 2nd largest city in Germany. We made a quick stop first at this one thing called the Vahalla, and it was just a bunch of busts of old German people, and other Europeans. But Regensburg was a very nice authenic Bavarian town, that was hardly destroyed in the war, unlike most German cities. We did once again a city tour, and once again in English. The guy was very funny, but very creepy at the same time. We ran into some famous Australian chef, I did go up and meet him, but all the Austrlians were freaking out about it. So after the tour was done, we went back to eat sauerkraut and sausages from the place that he was filming his show, which was unfortunately already over. Then we met up with the group, had dinner, and then we all finally hung out together for the night, which was one of the first times since Venice. It was a great night chilling at the water...

Day 16 Regensburg-Berlin

We arrived in Berlin somewhat late this day, and the only thing planned was dinner. So of course we went and bought döner, and you don't even know how amazing döner tastes after not have eaten it for 2 weeks. I had enough of it though, that I couldn't eat the Dinner provided at the hostel, then we headed out again and chilled on the bank of the spree for the night...

Day 17 Berlin

We expected that this day would be extremely boring seeing as a good 2/5 of us live in Berlin or at least close enough that they're there once a month. But it actually wasn't at all. It was refreshing being back in a well known enviornment, plus there was a boat tour of the city planned for us, which was something the most of us had never done before, and probably never were going to...but it was still interessting. Then once again we didn't have anything planned for the rest of the day except for dinner, so we took a quick group photo in front of Brandenburger tor, then some people when to the Jewish Mueseum and the others had freetime. So went to Zoologischer Garten and got Döner...what else. Then we walked through Tiergarten, and found a good place and just slept.

After our nap, we walked back to the Hostel and there we met everyone for dinner. It was some place with a stage, and coaches, and it was just sort of chill. When we arrived, all the rotarians were there from our past meetings, including our head guy who didn't come with. We had to perform a song for him, that we had been learning, and he pretty much just bashed us, but we've never really gotten along with him, so it didn't really affect anyone, plus we already knew that it sucked...but after we got done arguing with him, people started breaking out in random singing, and it wasn't really too sad, but more just fun. After we stopped sing around 10, Kerstin told us the plan for the next day, and then it was just sort of over...but we all talked and we wanted to spend our last night together, so we met up infront of Reichstag(on Hitler's Birthday??), then we headed over to a little open area by the Spree and just chilled and had fun together for the last time! That's where the tears began, but it was an unforgetable night...

Day 18(The last) Berlin

We all rolled out of bed at about 8, and ate breakfast together for the last time. Then we walked to Hauptbahnhof as a group, where we watched people go one by one. Kerstin made the announcement that anyone who attended Eurotour was invited to our last conference at the end of May, which made the mood alot better...so leaving wasn't necessarely so hard, and we went home earlier than expected to just sleep!! When I got back only my host sister was there, and I just went back to bed, and rolled out at like 5 to eat dinner and meet up with friends who came by about 8...even though I missed my friends, I just wanted to sleep! But in all honesty that was the greatest feeling in the world, that I had German friends that card enough about me to show up and make sure that I was doing good...

Like I said, those were the best 2 1/2 weeks of my life, and I don't think that I'll ever quite get the opportunity like it again...that is of course until Eurotour Reunion!!