Europe Tour Part 1

Hey again! I have been extremely busy the past few weeks having the Euro tour and then changing host families so this is the first chance I've had to properly sit down and write. And just a warning in advance, in order to explain how incredible the Europe tour is, this post may end up being extremely long but we'll see how it goes. 

I keep repeating this sentence but the past three weeks between the 3^rd of April until the 25^th of April have been the best of my entire life. Over these three weeks I travelled in a double decker bus, for over 6000 km, through Luxemburg, France, Spain, Monoco, Italy, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, eighteen different cities along with 63 exchange students from all over the world. I find the very fact that people, who were merely strangers coming from the all different sides of the world can become like family members in a matter of weeks absolutely astounding, and this is exactly what happened with the group of people I travelled with. I am struggling to find the words to describe how wonderful this experience has been, no words could ever describe how perfect the time spent was. The entirety of the trip still feels like a dream, as the places I have seen previous to the trip were merely pictures on postcards and now I have seen them in real life.  Every city I visited was breathtakingly beautiful in its own way, the food was absolutely amazing and it was great to try some of the local delicacies such as escargot in Paris and Paella in Barcelona.

 03/04 HEIDELBURG

The Europe tour began in Heidelburg, a town that is only an hour away from Landau. There we brought our suitcases into the hotel and were promptly met by all of the exchange students that we would be spending the next three weeks with. We were in by 10:30 pm as the next day was going to be super long.

Ana, myself, Lindsay and Sav  

04/04 HEIDELBURG --> LUXEMBURG --> PARIS, FRANCE

Our bus arrived in Heidelburg at approximately 9am in which we began our journey to Luxemburg. I was beyond excited as this was the beginning of something I had never experienced before, physically driving to another country! And to make it even cooler, I was sitting with three of my best friends. The bus ride felt like it took forever as I really wanted to get there quickly as I wanted to start exploring as soon as possible. As we entered Luxemburg I was shocked to find that nearly everybody walking the streets were wearing suits and dresses, it was so classy and cool! Once we left the bus we were allowed to sightsee the city by ourselves and quite frankly we had no idea were to go or what to do! So our time in Luxemburg was just following our instinct. After a few in Luxemburg, we hopped on the bus for a 4 hour journey headed for Paris.

Ana, Sav, myself, Jesus and Lindsay

Luxemburg streets 

We arrived at our hotel in Paris at around 7:30pm. After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we walked straight to an Italian restaurant for dinner. We didn’t see much of the city today, but catching a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower as we were driving was exciting!

At the Italian restaurant 

05/04 PARIS, FRANCE

Today was a very full on day. We began by walking around Paris and seeing what Paris is all about. I had no idea what to expect of the Eiffel Tower, but once we were up close, I was blown away, it was so much larger than I expected and it was so cool to see in real life. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Gui and I in front of the Eiffel Tower

Lindsay and I

Eiffel Tower 

Girllllllls

After a bucket load of picture taking we made our way to a boat cruise on the River Seine. This was a whole lot better than I expected, as we were able to see many stunning old buildings from a different perspective.

Once we had a few hours of free time, where a large group of us tried escargot for the first time in France, we met the entire group again and visited the world famous Louvre. The walk to the Louvre museum was so beautiful. We took the typical tourist photos in front of the Lourve and moved on.

Later in the evening we caught the train to the Moulin Rouge.

Moulin Rouge

06/04 PARIS, FRANCE 

Today we had to wake up early as we had to pack our bags for leaving this evening. Once we had packed the bus, we were given some free time to explore by ourselves. Previous to the Euro tour it was suggested that we visit the Paris Catacombs and thats exactly what we did today! After waiting 2 and a half hours in a long line, we walked down a thousand spiralling stairs straight into the Catacombs from where there is estimated to be between 6-7 million bodies dating back to 1786. It was truly fascinating to see in person. 

In the evening all of us met under the Eiffel Tower to either walk up or take the lift up. I chose to walk up with a few others and it was truly beautiful to see Paris from above. 

It's taking a lot longer to write these blog posts then I expected so I'm going to do the Euro tour in parts so this concludes this one. Additionally to this half of the original blog post deleted so I will have to write it again, so apologies!

Tchüss for now!

Jasmine x