I know it’s been a while and I’m trying to get the Eurotour posts under my belt so I can post about more current issues since it has almost been a month and two weeks since then. Craziness. 

So after Rome, we spent some time in some smaller Italian cities getting to know them and eating pizza and other activities of that sort. This part of the tour just kind of seems like a blur to me so here are a few pictures. 

Sienna: 

Florence: (the weather was pretty bad here)

Podova:

Those were all pretty cool but not as cool as Venice! Unfortunately Venice was all kind of rainy which forced me to buy an umbrella after not wanting to repeat Florence. To get to Venice we had to take a little fairy and in about 15 minutes we were there. It was pretty exciting for me because I really wanted to go explore all the little alleyways. 

We started off getting free-time before having a tour so I went off with a group to find a place to eat. After some searching and going through some stores we found a quiet little restaurant. It was really nice cause we were the only ones there. 

We explored a bit more and eventually went back to the meeting point to start the tour. A lot of us were kind of dreading it because we had already done a bunch of tours before and they were starting to get boring. But this one was actually interesting so it was okay. 

We saw some of the more important sites of the city, including the church, this bridge: 

and we saw Marco Polo’s birth house which was pretty cool. 

When the tour was over, Kennadi went exploring again and got lost a bit. We were walking down this alleyway and hit a really weird dead end. It was literally a little square with a tourist kiosk and two guys standing next to it. Nothing else. Just that. So we got a little bit scared and hurried away. But we were really confused. Because there wasn’t anyone else around; that was probably the worst place possible to put a kiosk. It was a literal tourist trap. 

After that we found some other exchange students from France. They were also doing a Eurotour. When we got back to the meeting point again to leave there were even more exchange students from France and we talked and then, all of a sudden, I hear “Dooouggg!” and I look over and Christian Gray is running at me. We hugged and were completely confused at the chances that happened to be. It was pretty crazy. We only saw each other for about 10 minutes before having to go. But that was nice. 

After our little over-night at the beach, our next destination was Rome. 

But first: we made a stop in Pisa. I think one of my fondest memories of the tour was Pisa, but not because of the leaning tower and the church and stuff. Instead it was the street handlers. When the bus arrived to the parking lot, there was about 18 people all waiting outside. They had the whole thing surrounded. I was already laughing at how extremely weird the situation was, but then someone likened them to a hoard of zombies and I about died from laughter. We actually couldn’t get out there because we new it would be a disaster and they would try to sell us stuff, that we drove to the other side of the parking lot. When they realized we were moving, they all tried to speed-walk after us. When we got out there was already a few there, and it wouldn’t be long until the rest showed up so we had to move to the shuttle as fast as possible. Luckily we made it without buying anything. 

So Pisa was cool but we didn’t have a lot of time so we just went through the church really fast and then saw the leaning tower of Pisa. 

Not much else happened until we made it to Rome which was cool because right off the bat we saw a Blockbuster’s which was really weird. 

The place we were staying at was like a campsite with little mobile rooms everywhere. They were kind of small though. It was also cold and the showers were pretty bad but other than that, I liked it. 

Our first day in the city was actually Easter sunday so we went to the Vatican for Easter mass. We got pretty up close which I was really surprised by. 

Aaaaand the Pope 

After that I got in a group and we went off to explore the city a bit. The first thing we did was search for a café that wasn’t too crowded nor expensive. It was tough but we eventually found one and discovered Italian pizza. I can’t remember how many times I got pizza after this but I know it was a lot. 

After the delicious food we decided to give ourselves a goal and just kind of wander in that direction. We ended up walking along the river by some stands where I got a poster and we then crossed a bridge to the other side. After losing some people and finding some fountains we eventually landed on a big fountain with too many people where we found some people and decided to go to our meeting place where we would all brave the pubic transportation services, reach the campsite, and call it a night. 

The next day we went back to the Vatican first thing and got there to go inside St. Peter’s Basilica. I can honestly say that that is the most amazing churches I’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely massive and there’s so much going on that when you go inside you get overwhelmed. The inside was grand and beautiful but what I really thought was cool was going up to the very top. 

The stairway leading up actually had to bend to the shape of the dome. 

But after moving at a snail’s pace and generally being uncomfortable due to the ridiculous amount of humans, the view made it all worth it. 

Rome.  

After that, I left with a small group and we of course found a place to get delicious pizza. We found one and then headed to a square where we would meet and take a city tour. The tour was nice and we saw a good portion of the city but I would have rather explored a little bit more. When the tour was over we visited the Colosseum. 

Right after that we went back to our campsite and the next morning headed back to the hostel from before.

After leaving Paris we spent the whole day on the bus pretty much. Which was nice, but really nothing happened except reaching our next hotel in a small city. 

But quite a lot happened the next day. First, we stopped here: 

That thing is Pont du Gard, a really old aquaduct that the Romans built. I had fun running around on those rocks in the background.

After that we kept going and eventually reached Avignon, where the weather started getting a bit better. 

That is the Pont d’Avignon the most famous part of Avignon. I’m not really sure why it’s only built half way though. 

After walking together as a group onto the bridge we of course took some group pictures and walked farther up a hill and into the city square. At this point we were told to have an hour to eat and then we would regroup and leave. But the bus was broken so we had another two hours. After walking around and getting ice cream, I learned we had 1 more hour because the bus still wasn’t fixed. And after that hour was up, we had another hour. At this point I was just sitting in the grass with a bunch of people. Waiting. And then the bus showed up!

And we were so behind schedule that the restaurant we had reservations for was staying open just for us which was really nice. Of course we had to book it to get to Nice and of course everyone forgot to go the bathroom when we weren’t taking a rest stop. We got to the restaurant and the bathrooms immediately filled up. 

In Nice we were about to experience one of the more unpleasant hotel experiences. The rooms were tiny. And for three people, it was even tinier. The windows couldn’t open, so after one night of heavy breathing, it smelled bad. Plus the only way to get out was to use the elevator which took forever. The whole place just felt cramped. 

Despite the hotel, what we saw from Nice was amazing. 

This day was also probably the best weather we had the whole trip. 

After passing through Nice, we were shortly in Monaco, which is a small, beautiful country/city. A lot of people say Monaco was one of their most favorite stops on the trip because of how beautiful it was. 

The thing I liked about Monaco were the gardens along the cliffs on the sea. They were all beautiful and I wanted to explore them more than I did. I also like walking along the racetrack they were getting for the F1 race. Monaco was just extremely beautiful. 

After we left Monaco, we were back in France on our way to Italy when we get a call from an exchange student still in Monaco. We had forgotten her. Apparently there was a bad miscount but what I didn’t understand is how her friends didn’t notice. It’s not like there a lot of places she could have been in the bus; wouldn’t the person sitting next to her have noticed? As the bus was sitting about 400 feet from the Italian border, I realized we had almost left her two countries behind. Eventually she got back to us by taking a taxi and we were back on our way. At this point the weather started to get bad. We all thought Italy would be sunny and warm but we really got cold and rainy, unfortunately. 

This wast the hostel in Italy that apparently used to be a hospital during the second world war which was kind of creepy. 

One of the first things that comes into mind when I think about being in Paris is actually how nice the hotel was. I’d have to say that hotel was the nicest. The room was huge and the beds were nice and we had key cards which are a lot better than the large keys with which we’d quickly get well acquainted after Paris. 

The only thing about our hotel though, was the location. It was in the outskirts of the city and, in any other occasion, staying in the outskirts of any other city wouldn’t be a problem. But seeing as we were a group that traveled as 57+ people with one of most unpleasant public transportation services I’ve personally ever experienced, it was a problem. 

The first time travelling to the city was much nicer because at this point, we had just arrived at the hotel, got settled in, and got in our own bus to reach the inner city for an evening in Paris! Our primary destination was the Louvre. We got there and quickly that we had approximately 20 minutes to explore and then leave. So we were a bit rushed. But being rushed didn’t deduct from the over-all coolness of the museum. 

When we had all rushed through the museum and made it back outside, we went back to our bus to see a bit more of the city, and of course the Eiffel Tower.

That’s about as close as I got to the tower though. 

After that we had dinner, saw Moulin Rouge, walked to a church on a hill and made our way back to the hotel. 

Which wasn’t so easy at all. Taking the trains was a mess because we didn’t really know where we were going. After about an hour we finally made it to the station where we were supposed to take a bus or two back to the hotel. But, do to some stupid stuff, the buses never came. We waited at a bunch of different bus stops for hours until we finally found a bus that was nice enough to go out of it’s way to take us to our hotel so we didn’t have to walk 3 kilometers. Walking into the hotel at around 2:30 in the morning I declared my hatred for Paris’s public transportation services. 

The next morning we started off taking even more buses and trains to get to the palace of Versailles outside of Paris. Although we only saw the gardens due to time constraints, it was amazing. The size of the gardens is enormous and there’s quite a lot to see. 

Getting to the inner city was relatively easy this time around. We walked to a train station not too far away and took a train directly to another station, where we took the subway directly to Notre Dame, where we would start our tours. 

We went inside the church with our tour guide and walked around inside for a bit. Afterwards, some of us were talking about it and we reached a mutual agreement that the insides of churches are far less interesting than the outside. By this time on our exchange, we’ve already seen a bunch of old churches and cathedrals and it starts to get repetitive once you’ve seen so many because they’re all so similar. Not to sound pretentious or anything, but that’s just how it seems I guess.  

During our tour we saw a lot of typical Paris streets and buildings as well as alleys and parks. We all liked but towards the end we started to get really tired and weren’t paying attention very much, which I felt bad about. 

When the tour was over, we split into two groups. One group went to see the Eiffel Tower again, while another group, the one that I was in, decided to walk around a bit more. We walked down some streets and I got some ice cream. When we started heading back to meet up at Notre Dame we walked along the river where there was a bunch of stands selling posters and other stuff. 

After that we braved the subway system and it made it back to the hotel. 

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It’s been a while since my last post. And a lot has happened since then. 

Namely the Eurotour that Rotary set up for my district and the neighbor district 1820. So altogether there was 57, I believe. Which was quite a big group. 

We all met at a youth hostel in Wiesbaden on March 31st, where we would get settled before we took off the next day. It was good time to mingle with the other district as well as finally seeing my own district, which is always awesome. The whole time I was just wishing it would be the next morning. 

When the next morning did come around, it was finally time to go. After months of waiting and thinking this moment would never come, none of us could believe we had made it to this point in our exchange, which seemed like such a far away point in the future not that long ago. 

Well this was our bus: 

Yes, double decker and with quite the hideous paint job, but we still loved it. 

When we all got settled into the bus, we took off towards Belgium but stopping first in Trier, then in Luxembourg. 

Trier was neat even though we were only there for about one hour. We saw this big Roman structure, which is the main attraction of Trier: 

and then basically left to get to Luxembourg City. We walked through the city and then got some food, while simultaneously noticing how expensive everything was before going back to the bus and taking off again for Brussels.

Brussels was cool but we really weren’t there for too long. The city was beautiful and I got to see some of it before going to dinner, but unfortunately, didn’t get to try any waffles or chocolate. After dinner we went back to the bus and then to the hotel outside of the city. 

So last weekend I went to London with my host dad!

London was awesome all in all. Everything about the city is cool and the people are nice. Some guy called me “mate.” 

On Friday afternoon we drove to the airport and flew to London a little bit after six. We got there at about seven. We took the Heathrow Express which is a train from the airport to Paddington Station and back. Then we took the Underground to Euston Square where our Hotel was. We checked in and then went walking around parts of the city. We went to Oxford Street, which is like a really large street with a bunch of shops. Then we went to Piccadilly Circus which isn’t too far away. Piccadilly Circus is basically a square with a few statues and a large screen with lights and ads on it. Kind of like London’s version of Times Square. 

Then we walked a bit and reached Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar Square is a famous square in London with streets leading directly to Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. It has two big fountains with Nelson’s Column in the middle and steps that lead to the National Gallery. 

The next day we started off going to Westminster Abbey. When we got out of the station we were right next to Big Ben which was surprising and cool at the same time. Just down the street is Westminster Abbey so it’s a short walk to there. It’s really beautiful inside. There are a bunch of tombs of important people from England such as Charles Darwin, A bunch of Kings and Queens, and Isaac Newton. There’s a really cool cloister in the middle with a bunch of old monk housing and praying rooms around it. 

We then walked directly back to Big Ben, across the river, and to London Eye. London Eye is a famous Ferris Wheel which is really cool because it’s basically a rotating observation deck. Instead of seats like a regular ferris wheel it has capsules which can hold up to 60 people and have a bench in the middle of it. You get one of the best views of London because you can see in all directions and almost everything of the city. 

When the ride was over we ate lunch and walked back over the bridge to see Downing Street. 10 Downing Street is where the Prime Minister, David Cameron, lives. The street is actually blocked off by a large gate and a couple of guards with guns so you can’t get really close but you can still see a bit of it. We continued down the street so we could get to St. James’ park. The park is really pretty and filled with a bunch of cool ducks and other birds. Eventually we reached Buckingham Palace which was also a surprise. I didn’t expect it to be right there so it was pretty cool just like Big Ben. We walked around the front of the palace in front of the gates for a bit before deciding to walk towards Hyde Park. 

We eventually reached another smaller square with a famous arch there (I forget what it’s called) which is just before Hyde Park. We learned that there was going to be a Syrian demonstration any minute there because it’s just up the street from the Syrian Embassy which is across the street from Hyde Park. We watched them demonstrate and do their thing a bit before going through Hyde Park. The park is huge so we only saw a little bit of it before we reached one end of it. We walked along the Serpentine, a pond in the middle of the park, which was cool because there were a bunch of awesome ducks again. 

We then took one of the iconic London double decker bus’s to Oxford Street and then took the Underground from there to St. Paul’s Cathedral. St. Paul’s is another famous church in London which is really famous for its architecture and its dome. We got there kinda late so we could just walk around a bit before leaving but we went into the café which is underneath the cathedral. There’s also a gift shop and I found a cool poster for 1 pound. 

After that we went to see Monument, a monument dedicated to the Great Fire of London. It’s pretty close to the Thames, so we walked there and from the river we got a good view of Tower Bridge which was awesome. We then went to Tower of London but it was already closed so we decided to just go the next day. Then we took the Underground back to Oxford Street and found a classic London pub called the White Horse. I ordered a charbroiled chicken burger and chips which was really good. We decided to check out the huge shopping mall on Oxford Street before going back to the hotel. 

The next morning we started off going to Tower of London which I found really cool. It’s basically a castle and fortress and used to be the Royal Palace but now it’s just a large museum. You can go through all the towers in the fort and it’s really cool because there are still carvings on the wall from people who lived there. One guy carved a large and detailed astronomical calendar on the wall. The best part for me was the crown jewels vault. They’re really amazing to see in person because they’re just magnificently and ridiculously over the top. They have a bunch of crowns and they all have huge diamonds in them. There’s also a huge tableware set made completely out of gold. The best part was the “Royal Punch Bowl” which looks like a miniature gold bath tub. 

Yeoman Ward at Tower of London

After eating at the restaurant in the Tower of London, we walked over to Tower Bridge and visited the museum. We took an elevator to the top and there you can walk across the walkway that goes between the two towers. It’s really cool because they have a bunch of posters and things to see as well as a great view of the city. After we walked that, we went back down and out of the bridge, and walked to the boiler room to see how the draw bridge used to be operated. It’s operated now by electrical operation of course. I bought another poster in the gift shop of the boiler room as well as a few postcards. When we were done with that we walked along the other side of the river. We decided to walk over to the Shard, which is supposed to be the tallest building in Europe but it’s still under construction.

We then walked back to the river and over a cool bridge where we then walked to another station and back to the hotel to get our suitcases and leave for the airport. The trip was really awesome although I think a weekend is too short to really see such an amazing city. We saw basically just the important landmarks which was nice but I’d like to revisit sometime to explore the city a little more. 

February was, unfortunately, not my favorite month so far. 

It’s been a long time since I last posted. Almost a month, I believe. But really, not much happened. Mostly school. 

At school, I switched into the Advanced English 12 course so now I can get grades for English. I really like it because it’s more interesting. We’re reading a book right now called “A Streetcar Called Desire.” In school, we started Art class, which I really want to work in and get grades as well. We only have it on Friday but it’s two hours long. We made a timeline of architectural history and then talked about Greek architecture and it’s influence on other architecture. 

I also finished reading Atlas Shrugged. That took me about two months but I really liked it. Now I’m reading The Devil in the White City as well as my National Geographic magazine which is in German. My German is always slowing getting better. I can break down words a little better now so if I try really hard I can figure out what words mean without a dictionary. I think I need to learn more verbs though. 

I’ve also been hanging out with Philipp a lot. Last Tuesday, Philipp, Tobi, and I went to see “Ziemlich Beste Freunde” in the movie theatre. It was pretty good. 

The weather’s been incredibly cold here recently. I really want Spring so much. I’m tired of cold weather. I think it’s because it’s the Siberian winds that make everything so cold. Luckily we haven’t had a lot of snow though. 

In January, I went to a Mainz 05 soccer game. It was pretty fun. Mainz won against Freiburg, 3-1. Mainz scored all of their goals in the first 20 minutes which was pretty crazy. I also saw Justine, the French exchange student there. Heli from Finland was there too but I didn’t see her. On the way back from the game I found Dr. Pepper in a store in the train station. It was really weird because I haven’t had anything except for cola, Sprite, and Fanta, for the last six months. There was also Mountain Dew but just Code Red. I would’ve gotten Mountain Dew if they had regular. 

I haven’t gotten any new music in over two months so I’ve been going through a bunch of my music I’ve had, but haven’t really listened too. I really got into Sleigh Bells and now I’m just waiting for the new album to come out the 21st of February. 

I’ve been really busy working on my Rotary presentation over Dayton for the last week which is why I haven’t gotten around to posting this. I presented it on Thursday which I think went pretty well. I talked a lot about the Air Force Base and the Wright Brothers and so on. 

I’m looking forward to two really big things coming up:

1. I’m flying to London for a weekend with my host dad. It’ll be from the 16th to 18th of March so we don’t have a whole lot of time but still enough to see a lot. I really can’t wait.

2. EUROTOUR. I’ve gotten signed up, turned in all the forms, payed the money, and now I just wait. We’re going to Brussels, Paris, Avignon, Nice, Rome, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Würzburg. It’s going to be from the 31st of March to the 21st of April. 

I want Winter to end. 

So, I went to Switzerland last week. 

Juan, Ingrid, Chirag, and I went with Heinz Hollweg, a Rotarian from our club, because his business was helping out with a Ski Goggles test in Saas Fee, Switzerland, a little ski town in the Alps. 

On Friday the sixth, Ingrid, Juan, Herr Hollweg and Herr Wolf, and I drove to Saas Fee. It was a really drive because once we reached the swiss Alps we had to take a train to get through the mountains. It was basically a train for cars, so you just drive your car on and ride. Most of it’s through tunnels but otherwise it goes alongside huge cliffs and it has a great view from there. The drive lasted a little more until we were really close to Saas Fee but the road was blocked due to Avalanches. 

So we decided to go get something to eat in an American themed restaurant. It was really funny because it was like a western themed saloon and they had a bunch of Hamburgers to choose from. I just got the “Original” and it was pretty good. 

After that we drove to Saas Fee and into the big parking garage where you unload and little taxis from the hotels come and pick you up and take you back to the hotel because they don’t have any regular cars in Saas Fee. Once we got to the hotel we went to our rooms and got settled in before taking the taxi to the other hotel where the others were staying for dinner. It was good but I was already full from the American restaurant. Then we walked back to the other hotel to sleep.

The next morning we walked back to the other hotel and then went to rent our equipment. We then went to try out the smaller slope. I had to relearn a little bit how to snowboard but it came pretty quickly. We rode for a bit before taking a break and getting something to drink. We went back out a little but then we finished. Then we went back to our hotel and got ready for dinner. We ate dinner at the other hotel again.

The next day we got our goggles to test and they came with three different lenses to try out. When we got to the slope again, I found out the goggles didn’t really fit with my hotel and they pushed down on my nose so I didn’t wear them too often. But it didn’t snow very much so it wasn’t a big problem. We skied/snowboarded before finishing and went back to the hotel. This time was nice because we didn’t have to walk to the other hotel for dinner as it was in our hotel. They have a nice restaurant in the basement. But we had to pay for water but it was really expensive so Juan and I secretly filled up a water bottle in the bathroom. 

The next day was awesome because we went up to the very top of the mountain. The weather was completely sunny and beautiful. To get there you have take a huge gondola to a metro station and then ride through a mountain to get to the top point. It was really awesome. I think that was at about 4000 meters high. We all rode around the slopes there and it was really fun. Then we stopped for drinks at a restaurant at one of the gondolas. After that we rode some more before deciding to go down the whole way. But we took the difficult ways which was a “Black” slope which are the most difficult slopes. It was really steep and narrow and difficult but I made it to the bottom alive. So that was good. After that we got hot chocolate and did the Olympiade, which was a relay race between two teams of our big group. First we had to blow two Swiss horns and then carry some bells, walk in snow shoes (which ended up in my shoes being filled with snow), throwing potatoes at buckets to hit them off a buoy (I used my American baseball skills to destroy the bucket and the potato), waving flags, throwing rings and sledding down a hill. Then we were finished and I asked if I could go to the hotel because I was scared I would get frost bite on my feet. Once I got there they were extremely numb! But now they’re fine. Before dinner we watched fireworks which was cool. Then dinner was Swiss themed and we ate Raclette which is basically heated up cheese and potatoes. It’s also very filling. We had a competition to see who could blow a Swiss horn the best (like the “Ricola” horn) which is very difficult. I got second place though. 

The next day we rode again to the very top of the mountain and went to a couple other parts we hadn’t been to before. We rode down all the way twice and then a group of us went up to another part where we sat in a restaurant and had some drinks before riding down all the way again. Then we had Italian dinner which was pretty good. Then after dinner we went to this other place to go sledding. It’s basically a long winding track that is a lot of fun to ride down. Once you figure out how to turn and slow down it’s awesome. It’s also really fun to race. 

The next day we rode A LOT. I think we went down the whole way about 3 times. After we were done we did Curling which was difficult in my shoes but I got at least one point. It’s difficult to slide the stone because I kept falling on my knees and not throwing it hard enough. But it was still a lot of fun. We had dinner again and then Juan, Chirag, and I played some chess before going to bed. The next day we ate breakfast together and then drove back to Deutschland. It was really awesome. The Swiss culture is interesting although the accent is not my favorite and everything’s insanely expensive. I loved it!