One Month

One month from now I will be boarding a plane headed to Newark, NJ International Airport.  One month! Craziness...can't believe that the semester is winding down already.  These next thirty days are going to fly by.  In fact, I only have 8 more days of classes here at the chateau accompanied with three days of final exams.  The reason for this is because I will be going to Cracow, Poland with my history class for a week and then after that I have my final break, Easter break, where myself and about six of my close friends over here will be flying to London and then onto Ireland for one last hurrah.

We're going to be in London for three days and plan on doing as much as possible (not sure whats on the agenda yet)...then we're flying to Dublin where we'll be for about four days.  After a couple nights in Dublin we're taking a "Paddywagon Tour" of Southern/Western Ireland.  The tour is an all inclusive site seeing, pub crawling, hotel and accommodation included gig.  So all we need to do is sit down and enjoy our final ride.  Needless to say, I'm very excited about this trip.  More to come later.

Cheers

Interlaken, Switzerland

This past weekend I took a long train ride up into the Swiss Alps to the great little town of Interlaken.  Interlaken is a small ski town, but big enough to have lots to do for all of the tourists that swarm it.  My friends and I all decided that we should do the one thing that everyone who had gone there recommended...canyon jumping.  Canyon jumping is essentially bungee jumping but instead of a bungee cord, you jump off with a normal climbing rope and when the free fall ends you swing through a canyon like a big rope swing instead of bouncing up and down on a bungee cord.  Standing at 280feet up on a little platform on top of cliff with a small canyon in between two rock faces I jumped off and had a 3-4 second freefall before swinging from this 80 meter long rope.  This is one of the coolest things I have ever done.  Definitely one of the most fun things I've done since being abroad.  If I could, I would go back and jump again in a heartbeat.  Pictures are from the professional photographer.


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Paris

Sorry for the long time without any posts but I've been a tad busy lately.  Anyway, this past weekend my friend and I went to Paris for a nice relaxing weekend seeing the sites.  I had already been to Paris when I went in high school for a week but it was just as fun to go back.  My buddy had not been before so it was a great time going all around with him.  Here's a quick rundown on what we saw and did...The Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral, Basillica Sacre Couer, L'Arc de Triumphe, the Eiffel Tower, and Versailles on Sunday.  I took a few pictures, but definitely not as many as I should have...maybe I'll post a few later.  As well as doing a lot of walking around the city eating crepes and doing various other things that are French.  Saturday night we went to a highly recommended classic French bistro where I had a delicious steak which came with a side of beef bone marrow.  I've never had beef bone marrow before and was a little apprehensive about it because they serve a section of bone from a cow that has the marrow cooked inside of it.  Sounds disgusting.  Its amazing.  Definitely a new favorite thing that I'll be trying when I can find it at restaurants.  Overall it was a great weekend and quite nice to just be traveling with one other person for once.

This weekend I will be going to Interlaken, Switzerland with big group of friends.  Interlaken is a small mountain town that has tons of outdoor activities and things to do.  My Saturday is going to consist of jumping off a cliff and swinging from a 100 meter long cable through a canyon.  Canyon jumping as its called.  Don't freak out too much, its safe.  I'll take a bunch of pictures and hopefully get a video of me doing it!  Until next time, stay classy USA.

Halfway Point

Hello readers, first of all I want to apologize for my lack of posts lately.  Apparently we have papers and midterm exams over here and they actually count for something?  Who knew?  So that's what has been taking up the majority of my time the past week or so.  I decided to lay low in Luxembourg this weekend and take it easy catching up on sleep and school work.  As for posting some big entries about the rest of my carnival break in Lyon and Barcelona...yeah that's just not going to happen, but I'll give a quick recap.

Lyon was awesome because I got to see a Champions League soccer game where Lyon played one of the top teams in the league, Real Madrid.  It was a pretty amazing experience and the game ended in a draw, which was great for us because it was a super entertaining and fast paced match.  Also the hospitality and FREE place to stay at the Marguet's house made it well worth the visit.  As for Barcelona...I've already told a bunch of people since going there and I'll say it again, Barcelona is one of the coolest cities I've been to.  Although I was only there for two nights and three days (for sure not enough time), we tried to make the most of it and I think I can safely say we definitely did.  It helped that we knew a bunch of other American students studying there that were able to take us around the city and out with them at night.  Barcelona is actually the city that never sleeps...sorry NYC and Vegas.  Two nights out until the sun comes up makes it a little tough to do all the tourist attractions but we managed to the best of our ability and saw some of the top spots as well as thoroughly enjoying ourselves at night.  Because of our American comrades studying there we were able to hit up the best of the best that the nightlife has to offer, and I'll leave it at that.

Halfway point...yep, true story.  I've been in Europe for two months now and I have two months more to go.  Time is flying and I'm enjoying every minute of it.  Some travel plans for the rest of the semester include a weekend trip to Paris in two weeks, Poland with my history class, London and Dublin for my Easter Break, and hopefully some other random weekend trips mixed in there somewhere.  Canyon jumping in Interlaken, Switzerland perhaps?  Guess we'll both have to wait and see.

Me and the guys at the game in Lyon.  Our seats were just a bit above where this was taken!

Carnival Break Part I - Nice, France

Carnival Break was a very relaxing and fun filled break which began in Nice, France.  Nice is located on the south east coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, and needless to say we spent the majority of our time in Nice hanging out on the beach and enjoying the sun.

Getting to Nice was a little more than we all bargained for.  As I mentioned before in my last post about Munich, my friends and I had the brilliant idea to "sleep" in the Brussels airport the night before our flight because we didn't want to spend money on a hostel/hotel for what would amount to less than 8 hours.  Let's just say that voluntarily sleeping in an international airport is one of those things that I don't regret doing but I will never again do in my life...ever.   Around 4:00AM I finally was able to fall asleep...at 4:30AM I was awoken by about fifty fellow travelers asking me to sleep elsewhere so they could sit at the cafe chairs I had put together to sleep on.  Needless to say I was a tad tired and out of it.  So much so that when going through security I left my cologne, hand sanitizer, and a half filled water bottle in my backpack.  Of course anyone who knows me when I travel I go through security lines like George Clooney did in the movie Up in the Air.  After a nice little strip search and going back through the long line with my friends unhappily waiting for me we finally made our way to the gate and were off to Nice.

After checking into our eight person hostel room we dropped our things off, grabbed some baguette sandwiches and made our way to the beach.  The beach is Nice isn't a nice sandy beach, its actually all stones but that didn't stop us from laying out and catching some rays.  Anyway, back the original reason we were in Nice for Carnival.  Supposedly Nice has been celebrating Carnival since 1294 and from the looks of the place they seemed to know what they were doing.  Carnival is basically a beginning of Spring/two month long Mardi Gras...at least that's how I thought of it.  We saw some parades of really goofy floats and some "euro fireworks" as we dubbed them because we couldn't help but make fun of the confetti popping off everywhere.  Oh, and all the French couldn't help but spray silly string in our faces every chance they got...it's ok though because we're Americans and they're French. Ha.

On the last day we rented bikes and road down the coast catching all the pretty sites and ended up in the harbor where some very impressive yachts were hanging out.  Oh yeah, we also hit up the casino one night...only a few of us actually gambled and those who did didn't last long, I passed on the tables and slots this time around.

Hopefully you like reading because I probably have about 20 pictures total from my ten day Carnival break...oops.  Part II - Lyon will be coming soon!

Nice beach.  Not too bad for the end of February.

Munich Recap

As I was on the long seven-hour train to Munich I had a few goals in my mind for the weekend.  These goals were all accomplished in the short time that we had to spend in the big city.  When we arrived on Friday night after checking into the hostel we headed straight to the famous Hofbrauhaus.  We stayed here until closing drinking one-liter steins of amazing German beer.  The following morning we arose, of course just minutes after the hostel stopped serving the “included” breakfast and made our way the BMW World and Museum.  This place was amazing, especially for me because I am a big fan of BMWs.  We spent most of the day walking around the city seeing the various sites and what not.  That night we went back to the Hofbrauhaus but this time we planned to eat there as well as drinking.  The food was amazing classic Bavarian cuisine.

Before leaving for Luxembourg we decided to make our way outside of the city to the smaller town of Dachau.  Obviously we did this to visit the Dachau concentration camp.  Dachau was the first and one of the largest concentration camps of WWII.  I’m not going to attempt to describe visiting Dachau because it really is one of those things that cannot be put into words.  I think the only word that could be somewhat adequate to describe the visit would be “intense.”  Although it wasn’t the most fun way to spend the last day in Munich, my friends and I were all glad that we took the time to visit this iconic site.

Seven or so hours later we were back in Luxembourg and ready (haha) for another week of school.  Side note – I’m writing this from the Brussels airport where I will be spending the night before my flight to Nice, France tomorrow to kick off my Carnival break, followed by Lyon, France to see a Lyon vs. Real Madrid Football game, and ending with a few days in Barcelona.  Another break you ask?  Why yes.  We’re calling this our spring break 2 of 4.

New pictures will be up soon!

Rome and Italy Tour

Three days in Rome and another five days traveling through Italy has been the highlight of the semester so far.  Rome was one of the most amazing cities I've ever been to.  I'm not even going to attempt to describe all the great things we did over the past week but the highlights of the trip were the Coliseum, Roman Forum, The Pantheon, The Trevi Fountain, Vatican City including the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica and St. Peter's Square, leaning tower of Pisa, La Scala Theater in Milan, and some spectacular Italian cuisine.  Italy was too beautiful to put into words so I'll share some pictures instead.

Coliseum

St. Peter's Square w/ St. Peter's Basilica in the background.

Swiss Guard

Saving money on dinner by eating salami, prosciutto, and cheese and drinking cheap wine in the hostel in Rome. 

Random lake in Lucca, Italy

Beautiful day in Pisa.  This tower...is leaning.

Was offered to drive this Lamborghini for 200€ an hour in Milan.  Unfortunately I had to decline the offer.

La Scala Theater in Milan.  Most famous opera house/theater in the world.