Just a Trip

Three week European Tour... Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Monaco, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Germany.

Where do I even begin??

I guess I'll just see where this blog takes me.

First off, I had been looking forward to this trip my WHOLE exchange.... the whole time I was thinking 'next year I am going to have a once in a life time experience'. It was just always "next year". And now it's done.

I'll fill you in on how it was. 

amazing.

Reuniting with some of my best friends in the world was a great feeling.

Seeing everybody was absolutely AMAZING of course... it's not so often when the whole group meets up! We also met another distrikt... we both were going together. So 50-60 exchange students crammed on a bus...

That's perfection. <3

The bus rides hold 1000 memories in itself. There was just always something happening.

• stupid, hilarious jokes being told
• annoying people yelling when the majority were sleeping
• crying about leaving
• laughing at all the memories we've had together
• singing/dancing
• everyone sprawling out wherever there was room
• watching movies and screaming at every 'scary' part that came up

House of Wax... just weird.

Altogether, it was a perfect start.

And lemme tell ya, that perfect feeling never went away.

Except for some of the places we stayed at. ;)

The first two hotels were awesome... like Goddesses really... then the whole 'student hostile' kind of stuff sort of killed some of us... I mean, we can handle ourselves... but living in a place that used to be a hospital or having a shower literally less than a foot away from the toilet without a shower curtain takes you back a bit.

But it was still awesome!

We actually ended up with a couple hotels right on the beach.... so those were some crazy fun nights.

What was really cool... was when we were in Vienna...... all exchange clubs in Europe do a EuroTour just like we did... and it just happened that a distrikt in France was doing theirs'. Best friends were found... it was so cool to see... yet it got me super jealous. d: But some of the best memories throughout this trip was GIRLS NIGHT! Just about every night, some of the girls and I would get together and meet up in a room... just talk about anything and everything and have some fun :) It was classy, yet crazy. d:

These are some of the greatest friends I will ever meet in my whole life. Leti, Leka, Anilu, Ingrid, and Bianca. I love you girls!

What I absolutely loved about this trip was not knowing what day of the week it was. We treated every day and every night as if it were a Saturday. (even though we had to get up at like 7 AM all the time). When we did realize what day it actually was, it was sort of sad. It just kept getting closer and closer to the end... and no one wanted to think about that one bit.

There were some specific things that just made the trip awesome.
But first I’ll start with Paris.

STORY TIME! “Lost in Paris”…

So after a wonderful day of site seeing in Paris, we were headed back to the hotel. (our goal being there at 10 or 11)… so as always we just took the subway.
--Now, I’m still not sure what went wrong, but we somehow ended up in the wrong place?...maybe? In any case, we had to wait and get directions on where to go. Finally, we were placed on the street, saying that our next bus was coming in 35 minutes.

Okay, not so bad…. Even though we had to wait outside quite a bit.

So we waited.

And waited...

And realized it had been 45 minutes…. Then an hour.

Oh, we were just on the wrong side of the building? Awesome. So we walked to where we actually needed to be. 

You'll never guess what we did then!!!

...

We waited.... with a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower... as you can see.

Buses passed , some stopped, but that didn’t help – they said they couldn’t do anything for us.

Our personal bus driver was drunk this night, so that didn’t do much either….

Finally, a bus stopped and our French exchange students (God bless their souls) talked to the bus driver and tried to convince him to bring us home.

SOOOOO we waited on the BUS.

Until 

he 

said 

...

no.

After he felt our anger as we walked off the bus, he called someone and finalllllly said we could be on our way!

I would like to say we were excited, but we were just plain exhausted.

We ended up getting back at 2:30 or 3:00.

^^ Even THAT was perfect.

{{memories}}

Every little thing that happened, every little glitch, was just perfect. Just because a group of best friends were together.

The other things that just made this trip amazing…

-Hanging out by the Eiffel Tower with some friends…

     -Seeing the Pope on Easter,

          -Swimming in the Rhone River,

           -Exploring each city and finding the most beautiful sites ever.     
 -Being in the biggest club in Europe in Prague :)

Oh, and pretty much seeing Kermie Worm... that was awesome.








 The greatest gift of all was just goofing off with what has grown to be my family from all over the world. ;)

It was sometimes hectic going from city to city, but this trip is just unforgettable.

• When it came to an end, an exchange student actually had to say goodbye. She was leaving the week after to go home to Taiwan. Things were getting hard at home, so on the bus on the way home, she did her ‘goodbye speech’……. And I never want to have to do that. Hearing her say goodbye was one of the hardest things to listen to. It made me realize how much I care about all these people, and how lucky I am to actually be here. I don’t want to leave Germany….. because, really… it’s not like I’m just leaving one country. I’m leaving Brazil, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Venezuela, Argentina… I’m leaving all these wonderful people from all over the world.

And what’s sad is… now that the Euro Tour is over, the next thing I’m looking forward to is our last official meeting – the meeting where we say goodbye.

I’m looking forward to saying goodbye. And that just doesn’t feel right.

It almost seems unfair that we have had to watch each other grow from Gemersheim with our Sprachkurs up until now… a year later. I’ve seen so many awesome changes in everyone, and we have just simply grown as a family throughout this year. And now we are going to have to go our separate ways.

Emotions are hard to control right about now. I’m way excited to see my friends and family at home, but I’m super sad  to have to leave my family and friends here.

...I always wonder what it’s going to be like… I mean, I know I’m different. I’m not sure how, but I just know.
I actually watched some old videos of myself, and woah. Seeing myself and hearing myself… was just bizarre.

Who are my friends going to be when I get back? 

I want everything to be the same, but I just don’t know if that’s possible. Whatever the case may be, my senior year is going to be huge… and awesome.

And I’ll make the best out of whatever life throws at me. – That’s what I’ve learned during my exchange.

I’ve done a lot of ‘self searching’ this whole time that I’ve been here. It’s hard to say what it’s going to be like in July when I’m surrounded by what’s "normal". Even though normal just isn’t normal anymore.

But let me tell you this, Amerika… you better get ready... because before you know it...

Momma's comin' home!