1 Backpack + 1 Eurorial pass + 10 Days = European Adventure!

(Get ready this one is going to be a long one!)

This year for my Fall Break 2009 i traveled to 4 different cities (in 4 different countries) with 2 of my good friends (Maggie and Alex)! We each had a Eurorial pass which got us almost everywhere and we were all ready for an adventure :)

We started Thursday night and got into Paris, France Friday morning (via overnight train)! The moment we got off the Metro and found ourselves in the middle of the city we all fell in love. Paris is beautiful! We stayed on the Ave des Champs Elysees (76-78) which is one of the main streets that runs through the city. The place we stayed was really nice! It was a sort of flat, with a small kitchen, 2 pull out beds, a bathroom, TV, internet, and phone. Natalie also joined us on this leg of our trip and for the 4 of us this flat was perfect! (Note: Jenny and i will be staying here when we both graduate and take a trip to Paris after college. Anyone who wants to come visit us are fully welcome!) Of course the first thing we did when we got to Paris was find the Eiffel Tower! I have been able to get pretty good and reading maps and ended up designated map girl in all of the cities. It was fun! Every time we got to a city i found a map and we conquered the city :) The tower is beautiful. As beautiful as all of he pictures make it. We also saw it at night and that was even more spectacular! In these next few months Paris is putting on a light show, decorating the Eiffel Tower with all different colors and patterns, for its 120th anniversary. It was soooo cool! Especially for the technical lighting nerd inside me :)

Saturday we spent first at the Louvre. Which of course i LOVED! It really is way to big to see in one day but we managed to get around and see a lot of what i really wanted to see. I have a million pictures of all of the pieces that i love. I only put a few here to show you.

























































The rest of our time in Paris was devoted to exploring. We went to Notre Dame and passed by the Moulin Rouge. Did some shopping and sat at cafes everywhere enjoying huge cups of cappuccinos and hot chocolates! While were were in the Louvre we happen to run into 4 other Kappa's! It was really funny and we had a mini reunion right there in the middle of the Louvre! We ended up meeting up with them and bunch of other Santa Clara students for dinner that night, we had a party of 16 sitting at 2 large, loud tables: there was a lot of catching up to do :) Then the next night we randomly ran into one of Maggies friend from SCU and his buddies. Its amazing how Big Europe is and how Small it can feel!

I guess because i am more of an arts person i love learning with my senses. That sounds odd i know but it came in handy during this trip. I had this idea to, at the end of our trip to each city, write down how we felt through our senses. So here is our list from Paris: Smells like a City, Feels Clean, Looks Grandeur, Tastes Fresh, and Sounds Alive! We also had a sixth sense for the people, who we described as Out of Their way Nice! Yes not the stereotype you were expecting right?! But really the French people proved us very wrong, they were not rude as some might say, they were quit literally out of their way kind and helpful to us :) Paris has proved its self to be one of my favorite cities!

Our next city was Brussels Belgium! It was not far by train but compared to Paris it was very different. Much older, very Gothic style, and a lot less busy. But it was also beautiful, in its own way. The main square had these amazing buildings that i really liked, i cannot really explain them but the picture shows it well. The streets were all very small and very old cobble stone. After finding our hostel (which was really nice, surprisingly) we met up with Alex's roommate at a very famous fountain in Brussels. It is of a peeing boy, im not joking. It is a tiny little fountain of a peeing boy. The story with is is something to affect that this peeing boy brings water to the city: funny huh!? Well when we heard about it, we thought it was going to be this huge amazing fountain in the middle of a square surrounded by tourists. But no, in reality the Belgian chocolate statues of this fountian are bigger than the actual thing. And it is on the corner of a small street, not the center of any major area. Do not get my wrong, it was really funny, and a very cute statue but it was not what we were expecting, haha. Brussels surprised us. We all liked it a lot but in a different way from Paris. Brussels is a small and very 'chill' city. With very old architecture and the funniest little streets. We met up with a friend from Santa Clara and he took us out to dinner at a great place along a small street filled with all types of restaurants. Then to a street filled with all types of bars! It was so funny to find everything in one place. This is the bar street. This is the restaurant street. This is the chocolate street. Hahaha.

Before we left on our last day we went to this structure called the Atomium. It looks like a space ship, but really. You can go up inside of it and see a panorama view of the city from each of the 9 steel round rooms that make up the structure. Its in the shape of an Iron Crystal but 165 billion times bigger. It was build for the Brussels World Fair in 1958. Basically all you Engineers would have Loved it! I liked it too :)

To conclude our time in Brussels we had waffles in the morning, Yumm! For Brussels senses list: Smells Sultry (aka Chocolate), Tastes like Waffles and Beer, Looks Quaint, Feels very Chill (in the slang form for the word, aka relaxed), Sounds Quiet, and for the People they are polite and all tri lingual.

Next on our adventure was Amsterdam, Netherlands! We arrived late Tuesday night and got up pretty early on Wednesday morning to explore the city. As we were walking around we found the original Heineken brewery so we went on a tour. We ended up there for about 3 and half hours! It was soo much fun! And we got 2 free beers at the end: even better! Over our free beers we met two Australians who had been traveling around the world for the past year and had another 6 months to go. I deffinetly enjoyed the week backpacking but i do not think i could do more than a month, its hard. They had some great stories for us!

I found a cool looking park on our map so we headed that way and it ended up being the place where the famous 'I AM-STERDAM' sign is. The park was also full of these elephants that had been decorated by different artists. They were all over the city in fact! They were beautiful and turned out to be part of a major project to help the city. They were going to be sold and all the profit went towards the city. It was really cool seeing the city decorated like that!

We also came across the Van Gogh museum! He did a good majority of his works in Amsterdam so it was even cooler to see them in their original setting. You were not really allowed to take pictures... but i couldn't help it, and i didn't have the flash on, so its all good (that explains the pictures being at odd angles because its hard to hold the camera in a none suspicious way, making a clicking noise and then casually putting the lens cap back on, hehe).

The next day we tried to blend in with basically all of the Amsterdam people, who ride bikes. They are super environmentally conscious there! The bike riders are just like LA car drivers: totally chaotic only thinking about themselves! We rented bikes and had a blast weaving in and out of random streets and over the beautiful canals. We road through the red light district, only during the day the lights are green... I found that sorta funny. Overall i do not think Amsterdam gets enough credit for its beauty. Its a lot like Venice with its boats and canals and antique houses. Since we were there in the fall all the leaves had changed but not fallen off yet so everything was yellow and orange.










Amsterdam's senses: Looks Beautiful, Smells... well lets be honest... it Smells like weed, Feels a bit Chaotic, Tastes like Heineken beer, Sounds Vivacious and alive, and the people were somewhat indifferent. Overall definitely a fun city to stop at on our trip!

Prague, Czech Republic was the final stop on our adventure. First things first, it was cold! I did not have enough layers for that type of cold. But we all made it work. It was also the last city on out trip so we were all a bit tired. We did however meet up with more friends for dinner both nights we were there which was soo much fun, because none of us wanted to be outside, so we had wonderful long dinners. Our first day we did our usual walk around the city, getting a good feel for the people, public transportation, and sights to see. I bought an awesome/really dorky hat to keep my head cozy. Then some gloves that have the fingers cut out (like ho-bo gloves) so that i could stay warm and use my camera: both very important! We saw the famous clock tower in the center of the city. Then walked up to the castle to see the amazing view of the entire city! It was beautiful, very clear and cold haha. On our way back we crossed over the Charles Bridge which is the main bridge of the city and very pretty. It is full of art and artists doing cartoons, paintings, and making jewelry.





















Maggie and Alex are not really cold weather people either but we stuck it out and had a good time! Saturday we took a boat ride up and down the river that runs through Prague and saw the city from a different point of view. It was also an enclosed boat: a warm boat!

Prague senses: Looks Aged, Feels Cold, Smells like Heaters (or maybe something else but our noses were frozen so we couldn't tell you what it really smelled like), Tastes like Coffee and Hot Chocolate, Sounds Quiet, and the people like to die their hair funny colors. Overall a funny city that definetly felt Northern European and was a good meeting spot for a bunch of people traveling around!

Sunday was a day totally devoted to travel. We woke up at about 3am and took a train to Nuremberg where we caught a plane to Rome and then another train to Florence. Whew... a long travel day. By the end of the trip we were all ready for a good shower and home cooked Italian food! It was a very successful trip overall and i am sooo glad that i was with Alex and Maggie! I learned that in Europe public transportation ROCKS! The majority of our plans were not set until a day or two before and that was plenty of time. Hostels were easy and cheap! Trains were pretty regular and fun to take. And having 3 people traveling together was the perfect number. I loved running into friends all over Europe, sometimes planned and sometimes not :) I have not decided yet if Europe is the place where i want to live for a long period of time, but it definetly has its perks and is an awesome place to have a great ADVENTURE!

LOVE you ALL!