Goodbye.

Well, I’ve reached the end. It feels so surreal, but my four month stint in Europe is now over. I’m actually writing this on the plane ride back. I think I’m at 7 hours down, 3 to go. Until Dallas at least. 

I spent my final days in Paris mostly cleaning and packing during the days and hanging out with friends at night. I wandered some, and just tried to take it all in. This has been such an incredible experience all around. I don’t think I would trade it for the world. 

It’s a little weird writing this. Well really, it is a lot weird. I’m kind of at a loss for what to say. I’m not sure it’s possible to sum up 4 months of living in a place into a blog post. I talked about this last night with a friend, or somewhat did. His university was making him write a 10 page paper on his experience studying abroad; a pretty ridiculous feat. 

I am excited to get back to LA and the sun, and family and friends, but I feel like I really meshed with Paris as a city. That sounds pretty ethereal and silly, but it’s true. I love LA, but I’ve never felt like it was necessarily my city. Maybe it’s too big, maybe I haven’t explored enough. But I’ve always imagined myself as more of a northern California girl. I guess I vibe with it better. That being said, I feel so at home in Paris. It is my type of city for sure. Though I couldn’t possibly quantify why. 

I was pretty sad to be leaving. I hope to have the opportunity to live in Paris again someday, or maybe just Europe. It is just such a different way of life. I think people are more relaxed and just take life a little slower. Which took me a while to adjust to. It actually frustrated me a fair amount for a while. I’m used to such a faster pace of life, and learning to slow down is difficult. But seriously, most people here get 5 weeks of paid vacation. What do you even do with that much time off?

Either way, I had an incredible time abroad, an amazing experience, and I’m really so so grateful for getting to do this. I’m sad it’s over, but can’t be anything but ecstatic over the whole experience. 

However, this was my abroad blog, and now that I’m not, I believe I’m done with writing. Thanks for all those that read and kept up with these. 

Au Revoir.

thinking back and looking forward

Things I'm going to miss:
• the metro!
• having no commitments in life
• having travel be so quick and easy
• walking to get groceries
• making dinner every night
• baguettes.
• the warm pan au chocolate I just got from the bakery
• macarons
• the school bar (with 2.50 euro pints)



Things I can't wait to get back to:
• my bike and bike riding
• mexican food
• real breakfast food
• the beach
• really warm weather
• sushi
• all my friends and family



Things I could do without:
• Traffic
• having to pack up this semester's worth of crap into tiny suitcases

Venice and Prague

I think all of my photos from Venice can be divided into one of two categories: photos of narrow roads (I suppose more corridors) or photos of Canals (which can be subdivided into bridges, just water or  gondolas). But seriously. It's true.
Venice was really beautiful and I spent most of my time there just wandering around. Unlike Rome, there really isn't that much that one has to see while in Venice. There are some cool churches and plazas and what not, but I think you really get more of a vibe of the city by wandering the winding streets. I would get lost, find myself and get lost again.
The weather in Venice was absolutely gorgeous and I think I actually wore shorts and tank tops both days. This made the wandering even nicer. Besides the few important sites, there are a TON of shops in Venice. Mostly selling the famed Murano glass, but many selling Venetian masks as well... and pastries. Lots of yummy food.
There really isn't too much of note from my time in Venice. It was lots of fun to be there and I loved the winding narrow streets. Definitely plan on going back at some point... assuming it doesn't entirely sink by then.

After 2 days in Venice I traveled on to my final leg of my trip: Prague. It was a pretty perfect way to wrap up my abroad experience. I got to just hang out in another cool city with my best friend. I had been to Prague once before, about 5 years ago. This meant that we could spend more time hanging out and just browse the various historical sites. We did make it up to the castle and across the Charles Bridge, we also went to see the clock tower, etc. but I also got to see Julia's neighborhood and spend time there, see where she goes to school and eat at some of her local hangouts.

 The weather in Prague was also really nice the first day...  until it wasn't. Julia and I got absolutely soaked when caught in a pretty epic downpour. I personally really like thunder storms, especially when the weather is on the warmer side. I think that's a result of having grown up in Texas with storms being a pretty normal part of life, but I was pretty stoked on being in the storm.














I made sure and had a few different types of Czech beer, which is entirely necessary. I also got to meet some of Julia's friends from BU who just happened to be visiting as well. It was pretty cool to put faces to names of people I had heard about.

Prague was great, and a really great culmination to my time abroad. As I'm typing this, I am sitting in my room where I can hardly see the floors. I am definitely in the throws of packing.

I have about 2.5 more days in Paris, and of my abroad experience. It's pretty surreal that it is already over. I'm still not completely ready to leave, but I know I'll still be very happy to get home.

When in rome...

How cliched can a blog title get? 

Anyways, I'm currently writing this on a train from Rome to Venice, a train I'm not positive I'm even on the right car on. I got to the train station (which was about 5 steps from my hostel) nice and 45 minutes early being paranoid and enlightened with the fact that while traveling in Europe I have had to run through airports too many times to count. Anyways. Got here early and my train was on the boards but didn't have a spot in the terminal yet. Time kept ticking away and when it was 10 minutes until my train was supposed to leave I started getting concerned. I met a nice British man who was supposed to be on the train with me. We both figured the train was late. A few minutes after the train was supposed to leave, it vanished from the departures board. Which is never a good sign. I went to the nearest kiosk and it turns out they routed the train to a different train station. A totally logical option. So I missed my train but the guy quickly wrote something on my ticket and was like go to the next train and ask for a free seat. I did as he said and the conductor said go to car 4 but there aren't probably seats... I found a seat, but I'm not questioning whether I am actually in train car 4 or not. I guess I'll find out when they come to collect tickets, which makes me nervous. I don't like getting in trouble with authority. 

I got into Rome late on saturday night (more realistically sunday morning) and took a shared bus thing from the airport to the train station. In another last minute running excursion, I managed to get on a bus and went to an open seat at the back and sat down. A few minutes later the girl sitting next to me asked if I had an Italian SIM card, which I didn't. We then naturally struck up a conversation and ironically, turns out she graduated from the same high school I did, but two years earlier. Naturally this happens. This is really why Canada gets the reputation for being so small. Oh you're from Canada? I have a cousin in Toronto, do you know them? It gets asked too much, but it occurs too much as well. We talked for a while and she had lead a pretty absurd life but it was cool to meet someone so randomly that had such a close connection. 

I got to my hostel in Rome which was by far the least fun/cool/nice hostel I have stayed in so far and the most expensive one as well. But I suppose that's the way of Rome. I crashed pretty hard and was woken up nice and early by the lovely girls in my room. I figured since I was up I would get a start on my day. For the day I planned to walk to Coliseum, Palatine Hill, Forum etc. I ended up walking all over most of Rome, which seems to be a theme of my trips thus far. Not only did I go to the old ruins of Rome, and take the obligatory "I'm a Trojan in the real Coliseum Fight On Photo" but I also made it to a whole bunch of other famous places like the Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish steps, etc. etc. But seriously, Rome is filled with old stuff to see. As eloquent as that was. The map made Rome look a lot bigger but literally everywhere you wander you can run into something. 

I took a class on Rome back Freshman year which made the trip pretty cool, but I wish I had come back then and remembered all that I learned about Caesar and Augustus. At one point I really knew a lot about that. Though that may have just been the temporary point before midterms and finals. Hard to know.

My second day in Rome, I deemed my Vatican day. So I suppose it wasn't really spent in Rome. I think it would be badass if you got a passport stamp when you went to the Vatican, but I suppose that would be a little difficult and pointless. Either way, the line to get into the Vatican museums (the only way to see the Sistine Chapel) was absurd. I had read up some stuff online before hand where it said that there are tour guides who will walk up and down the line saying stuff like It’s a 3 hour line, get out now, take our tour and you’ll cut the line. They all also said that the line is only usually an hour or so. But I managed to pick the day that was an exception. May 1 is a holiday in Italy so all the Italians were on holidays, and the Vatican was closed. Meaning the only day people could go was the same day as me. Big Mistake. Sure enough, I had been in line and tons of guides had come around offering their 45-50 euro tours. I scoffed and turned away. Until I started hitting the 1.5 hours in line marker. When the people in front and behind me sent a scout to the end of the line and immediately decided to give up, I realized my prospects were dismal. When I was contemplating hopping out of line and giving up myself when a young tour guide I had seen before came over. He said “You are still here?” obviously shocked. Then started with the well how much can you afford business. I told him that honestly I could probably pay 20 euro and that was it, which I knew was an absurdly low price. He thought about it then said okay and pulled me out of line. He took me to the ticket office wrote something special on a card, handed me 10 euro out of his pocket and sent me on my way. I still don’t know how, but I managed to get a tour guide promoter to pay me 10 euro to take the tour. Awesome. The Vatican was as much of a Zoo inside as out. The guide said that he hadn’t seen it like this in 10 years, since they re-did how people waited in the lines. 

It was cool to see all of the amazing art in the Vatican, as well as the Sistine chapel. It was really beautiful and intricate. After that we went to St. Peter’s basilica and the huge square outside. 

  

Rome was pretty and cool, but I think I would have enjoyed it more had I had more time, and had there not been so many people. It was pretty insane how crowded places were. Sorry for the novel, apparently I shouldn’t write these when I don’t have anything else to be doing with my time, as this is the result. Now I’m off to the canals of Venice. I figured I needed to see it before it sank into the sea.