I've been back from Europe for just over 2 weeks now. It's weird... I spent half my summer traveling. I left my house 4 days after school let out for summer and got back home with only a month of summer vacation left.
It's amazing how many places I've been to. Everything I look at reminds me of places I've been to. I miss looking forward to seeing some of the most famous sites in the world.
On a different note - have you ever had those moments where you imagine your life as a movie, well I had one coming home. Here's one possibility of what the end of my trip would be in a movie.
The shot would be my car pulling into our driveway and us getting out. My parents would go inside but I'd stay outside for a moment. The camera would come down on my face and I would look ecstatic. Then my mom would call me inside and the while I was running inside the narrator's voice would say "She was finally HOME."
Anyway I had a great time in Paris. It was funny on our first night there we were going to eat at this restaurant with another family on our tour group. We decided on one our tour guide had pointed out on our way to the meeting point. We sat down (which in itself was an accomplishment with the language barrier) and the menu was completely in French. We recognized only a few words including escargot, or snails. The adults knew that none of the kids would eat this food. So we politely told the waitress (who was smoking a cigarette) we were leaving. Then we ended up getting slightly lost trying to get to another restaurant.
Then it started raining really hard and I was wearing flip flops. The sidewalks were really slippery and flip flops have very little traction. By the time we got to the restaurant we only had 40 minutes to eat. (We watched the two families who had gotten there earlier than us eat fabulous looking desserts.)
I had the vacation of a lifetime and it was awesome.
On another note I now have to read
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen for honors English. I also have to do an essay on it before school starts. My mom loves anything written by Jane Austen. I on the other hand think it's tedious to read (but what do I know, I'm only 100 pages in.)
Here's the final count on my vacation:
- 11 hotels
- 6 countries
- thousands (and thousands) of miles
- 49 nuns (in Rome alone)
- 33 days (away from home)
- 24 hours on a plane
- 5 flights
- 4 metro systems (Washington DC, London, Rome, and Paris)
- 3 buses (London, Rome, and the Heidebloem tourbus)
- 2 gondolas (Venice and Switzerland)
- 1 train and boat (Venice and Switzerland)
- Infinite memories made
Also here's some of the best pictures I took in Europe...
St. Pauls and Millennium Bridge in London.
A cake at Kennisington Palace where we had English Tea.
The famous Trevi fountain in Rome.
The Coliseum in Rome.
A view of Florence.
A gondola in Venice.
A swan in Germany.
Another beautiful mountain in Switzerland.
Sunset in Burgundy, France.
Sunset in Paris.
The Eiffel Tower.
So that's it for my vacation. Next time I write on this blog will be before the first day of school. It's a new year, and anything can happen. 8th grade here I come.
