From Little Swan to Busy Bee

Something that people always warn you about when going abroad is that you probably won’t have much time for yourself to sleep, workout, keep in touch with people, … and, of course, update your blog. Between my classes during the week and traveling every weekend, I regret that I have not had the “me time” that I would like. Here’s what a typical week looks like for an abroad student:

Monday: Classes start up again. Thankfully for me, my first class isn’t until 3:30 pm on Mondays. This gives me some time to catch up on sleep from the weekend and grocery shop for the week. Mondays also include scrambling to complete all of the homework that I didn’t do over the weekend due to traveling. It’s also time to start thinking about travel plans for the next weekend….

Tuesday: My longest day of classes. I start at 11:00 am and go until 6:30 pm.

Wednesday: Only one class today at 12:30 pm, but it’s time to start really thinking about plans for the weekend. Transportation and lodging must be booked by now. I need to start packing and/or doing laundry. Not to mention, the majority of my homework is due on Thursdays, so I’m trying to finish that.

Thursday: Another long day of classes from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. After classes, I’m either packing for the weekend or already off to my weekend destination.

Friday – Sunday: Traveling, site-seeing, walking, eating delicious food and… not sleeping.

Now, I’m not complaining. This little swan loves being a busy bee. However, many things fall through the cracks, namely this blog. I’m going to start working a lot harder to update this blog as quickly as I can… stay tuned for lots of posts! I dated all of them correctly, so they will appear earlier than this post on my blog 🙂

Rome, Italy

On our first day in Rome, we decided to visit the Vatican City. Technically, the Vatican City is a separate country, but I don’t count it in my total number of countries that I visited… it feels like cheating. Our hostel gave us great advice to buy tickets for the Vatican Museum ahead of time, so that we could cut the lines once we got there. It was especially nice because I was able to buy them online using my memorized credit card number that I hadn’t cancelled yet in case it showed up. (I had been monitoring my credit cards to see if any funny and suspicious purchases showed up, but none had and none ever did.) We were so thankful to have bought tickets for the museum ahead of time. The line to buy tickets and enter wrapped around the block! The museum is beautiful with many courtyards, painting, sculptures and tapestries. The Sistine Chapel is also a part of the museum. Our friend Lachlan had previously taken a tour of the Sistine chapel with his family many years ago. Apparently, the tour guides tell when you to enter the museum near the altar, keep your head down and walk to the back of the church. Once there, turn around and look up. This was by far the best way to do it. The magnitude of beauty is seen all at once. The chapel itself is very small, overcrowded with tourists and noisy from guards yelling at people to not take pictures. Due to selfie cameras, we were able to take a few secretive pics of the ceiling of the chapel. Shhh, don’t tell anyone ;).

After finishing at the Vatican museum, we walked around the corner to St. Peter’s Basilica. St. Peter’s Basilica is by far the most beautiful church I visited in Europe, and rightfully so. This great basilica and square were first built by Constantine in 324, but later rebuilt by Michelangelo, Bernini, Bramante and many other Renaissance masters starting in the 16th century. It stands on the original site where Peter, one of the apostles, was crucified and buried. His tomb lies under the main altar in the basilica. The cathedral sits at the back of the square, bordered by two curved colonnades symbolizing arms welcoming the world into the Catholic Church. On top of these colonnades are hundreds of statues of the various saints. The Egyptian obelisk, a tall four-sided monument with a pyramid at the top, stands in the center of the St. Peter’s Square. On either side of the obelisk are identical fountains by two different artists, Carlo Maderno in 1613 and Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1677. To the right of the basilica and above the colonnade, one can see the papal apartments. Unfortunately, we did not get to see the pope himself. The interior of the basilica is even more grand than the exterior. I was awestruck. It is considered one of the two largest churches in the world and houses more than 100 tombs (some of which have bodies on display) along with many statues, altars and works of art. I couldn’t even begin to describe everything in this church. One of the most famous works of art in the basilica is Michelangelo’s Pietá, a marble statue of Jesus in the lap of Mary after the crucifixion. To this day, I am still amazed by the magnitude and magnificence of St. Peter’s Basilica. My pictures don’t even begin to do it justice.

Our second and final day in Rome was packed full with activities. This was an exceptionally stressful day for me because I was supposed to register for my spring classes at Vanderbilt during the middle of the day. Because we were so busy, I wasn’t going to be able to go back to the hostel and use the wifi there, so I had to find a restaurant that provided wifi. In the morning, we visited the Colosseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre. Today, there is not much to do there other than walk around. They have pulled out the floor of the Colosseum and you can see the tunnels where they used to keep all of the animals. One thing that struck me was how vertical and steep the seating areas looked without any of the seats. After the Colosseum, we headed across the street to the ruins of the Roman Forum. It was very interesting walking around and observing this ancient city and marketplace. I wish that we could have taken a tour, so that I knew what everything was. Being unable to take tours was a constant bummer about studying abroad. Most of the time tours were too long and too expensive for us to consider doing them. However, there were many free tours of cities that I would highly recommend. After all of that walking around, we stopped for some pizza for lunch and so that I could register for classes. Unfortunately, that ended up being a nightmare due to poor wifi at the restaurant, having to do it on my phone, and Vanderbilt’s system crashing from too much activity. I ended up having to call and wake up my parents and explain how they could do it.

After exploring the Colosseum and Roman Forum, we headed towards the Pantheon passing by the Piazza Venezia with the Altare della Piatra, a national monument for the tomb of the unknown soldier. We also passed by the Trevi fountain, which was under construction, so we only got to see a picture of what it looked like. I also didn’t get to throw a coin in so that I could find love and return to Rome, or so the legend goes. Like true tourists, we had gelato after our long walk to the Pantheon. It was definitely one of my favorite gelatos I had while in Italy. We were able to get into the Pantheon quite easily and see the beautiful interior. Based on the outside, I was definitely not expecting it to be as pretty as it was. Everything is beautiful marble and the dome is huge.

We celebrated our last night in Italy together as a group, by going to this authentic Italian place in Rome recommended by our hostel receptionists. I had the most delicious homemade pasta I have ever had there. I made a mental note to ask locals for more recommendations. Rome was a huge city full of amazing culture. Two full days was not nearly enough! Even though I didn’t get to throw my coin into the fountain, I will be back!

Pisa, Italy

Pisa is only an hour west of Florence via train, so we decided to make a quick stop in Pisa to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Let me tell you, there is not much in Pisa other than the Leaning Tower, a few museums and a lot of tourists! I am very glad we did not plan on spending much time there. We took a very small, almost commuter train out to Pisa, snapped some funny pictures with the tower and had Pizza in Pisa for lunch. However, the pizza wasn’t very good. I was quite disappointed.

The tower itself was also anticlimactic. Yes, it is a leaning tower, but that’s pretty much all there is to it. I would say my favorite part about our trip to Pisa was the entertainment provided by all of the other tourists. There are people everywhere trying to get pictures where it looks like they’re leaning on the tower, pushing the tower up, kicking the tower, sitting on the tower, and many other inappropriate things I won’t mention. My friend Mike got the most hilarious picture where it looks like he imitates Miley Cyrus to knock the tower over “like a wrecking ball”. It was so funny. He definitely got the award for the best picture. Most of the pictures that I tried to take were complete fails, but I think that makes them funny in their own way.

Florence, Italy

Warning: Studying abroad isn’t always fun and games. Accidents and bad things do happen, but you learn how to deal with it on your own and in a foreign country. The trains from Venice to Florence require a seat reservation, meaning we had to pay extra money on top of our Eurail passes to be able to legally take that train. Unfortunately, we missed the train that we had reservations for, but thought it would be okay if we took the next train that was an hour later and still try to use our reservation. That didn’t work at all. We were able to find unused seats, but got fined by the conductor for not having reservations for that train. The fine ended up being more than a new reservation would have been, which was a bummer. Anyways, I took out my wallet to pay the fine to the conductor. Later into the train ride, people kicked us out of our seats because they actually had reservations. So, we had to get up and move to stand by the door of the train, which wasn’t a big deal. We made it to Florence and went to go walk to our hostel.

On the way, we were talking about how Florence was a big city for pick pocketing and how we had to be extra careful with our stuff. At that point, I noticed that my purse felt sort of empty, so I started to rummage through it and couldn’t feel my wallet. I started freaking out a little bit, but tried to keep my cool. I asked my group of Carolyn, Anna, Lachlan, Mike and Keval to wait one second so I could take a better look through my purse. Unfortunately, the wallet was no where to be found. I didn’t really know what to do, so I told my group that it was fine and we should just keep heading to our hostel and I would deal with it once I got there. Thankfully, I had paid for the deposit of this hostel, so I already covered my portion of the cost. I immediately called my dad (ok, so I didn’t figure it all out on my own…) and told him what happened and asked him not to be mad. Thankfully, my dad and I are the logical type, so we reasoned through how I was going to get myself out of this situation. I had lost my wallet which included my credit card, my debit card, my health insurance card, my driver’s license and some cash. I was so unbelievably grateful that I didn’t keep my passport in my wallet and that I had less than 20 euros of cash on me. I was originally planning on withdrawing around 200 euros before this week-long trip. This situation could have been infinitely worse.

My dad advised me that I should go back to the train station and talk to the police there to report my missing or stolen wallet. The only possible situations for what happened were that I didn’t put my wallet back into my purse after paying the fine on the train or someone stole my wallet on the train while I was sleeping (although my purse was in my lap the whole time). Unfortunately, the police at the train station weren’t able to help that much, and weren’t very easy to get to talk to! One of them did speak English, but Mike and I spent a long time trying to get them to open up the doors and let us in. The train I was on went all the way to Rome and the wallet wasn’t found once it got there. I did file a police report though. I also called Chase Sapphire to report the missing card and see if they could send me a new one. They were so nice and said they could get the card to me within two days. Unfortunately, I wasn’t staying in one place for more than two days at a time, so they had to ship the card back to Metz instead. This left me without cash or cards for the rest of seven days we were on break. Thankfully, other people in the group had Venmo, a banking app where you can transfer money to other people’s accounts, and I was able to pay people back instantly.

Back to the hostel, this was probably one of my favorite places that I stayed in Europe. We had a room for all 6 of us together set up almost like a flat. All the beds were in that room but then there was also a nice couch and sitting area. It was really fun to be able to hang out with everyone. We also went out to a club that night, which helped me take my mind off of everything. Although, the club was annoying and you paid the cover fee on the way out the door instead of on the way in, so you had no idea how much it was going to be. Additionally, you paid the cover fee at the bar and they gave you the receipt to get out. By that point, people are drunk and don’t realize that the receipt is actually their ticket out the door and throw it away. Then, they have to pay for the cover all over again. It was nightmare. The club itself was very fun, though!! Mike and Keval managed to find a way into the VIP section. I got snapchats of it the next morning.

The next morning, we got up and went to the Pizzale Michaelangelo for the most amazing view of Florence. It was so beautiful up there. Then we headed to one of the nearby bars for lunch. Our hostel owner told us that the best places to eat lunch in Florence are at the bars because they usually have special deals. Boy was he right! We had a two-course meal for so cheap! We also met this wonderful American couple who gave the boys their leftover pizza. Next, we headed more into downtown Florence and saw the Ponte Vecchio bridge on the way. We headed towards Santa Maria del Fiora, aka the Duomo. It was so beautiful and so massive. I couldn’t fit the entire cathedral in one picture! Unfortunately, because it was a Sunday, we couldn’t go to the top of the dome. We did, however, get to go inside. It is so spacious inside, with high ceilings and grand marble floors. The interior of the dome is stunningly painted various scenes from the Bible. Next, we had more gelato (what else is new…) and explored more of Florence. We tried to see Michaelangelo’s David, but the museum was already closed by the time we got there. We did get to see many similar statues in the square outside of the museum.

Florence wasn’t at all what I expected. Yes, yes, I didn’t expect to lost my wallet, but the city itself was also a surprise. From pictures I had seen, I expected it to be more rustic and surrounded by wine-country. However, Florence is a very bustling, urban city. The size of the city was also perfect; not too big, not too small. We were able to walk everywhere and not have to rely on any sort of public transportation. I really enjoyed my time in Florence and wish we had been able to spend more time relaxing and hanging.

Venice, Italy

Halfway through the semester, we got a week off of school! It ends up coinciding with breaks for many of the other schools in Europe. Remember, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and have time off then. For our week-long fall break, I decided to embark on a trip down through Italy and then out to Greece. Throughout Italy, I traveled with Carolyn, Anna, Lachlan, Mike, and Keval. The plan was to spend two nights in Venice, one night in Florence, three nights in Rome, and two nights in Mykonos. We were booked solid and busy, busy busy!

We spent ~15 hours traveling by train from Metz to Venice, stopping through Munich on the way where we of course had some Bratwurst. We ended up staying in an airbnb on the mainland and not actually on the island of Venice. This meant that we had to take short train onto the island everyday, but that wasn’t a big deal considering the money we were saving. Although, maybe our airbnb was so cheap because the renter was rather strange… His name was Abu and the running joke was “Abu going to get you”. He had a tendency to hover around us whenever we were back at the airbnb and especially during breakfast. Imagine being at a restaurant where you are the only table and their is one waiter constantly waiting on you. Basically, it was just a little awkward. Thankfully, we didn’t spend too much time in the hostel.

On our first day in Italy, we spent a lot of time just walking along the sidewalks and canals. Wow! It was so easy to get lost in Venice. The island itself doesn’t allow any cars on it, so all transportation is done either through the canals or alleyways. We knew that we wanted to do a Gondola ride at some point while we were in Venice, and it ended up being one of the first things we did. On our way to San Marcos Square, we saw this hilarious gondolier named Alex taking funny pictures with Asian women tourists. We decided we had to do our gondola ride with him, and boy were we right! The entire time he was dancing, singing, posing funny for tourists and greeting the locals. He had all of us laughing so hard. The canals themselves are beautiful. The water is so blue and each house on the canal has a little garage door in the water where they park their boats.

After lots of twisty turns and getting lost, we finally made it to San Marcos Square. As would be the case for much of our trip throughout Italy, San Marcos Basilica was under renovation so we couldn’t appreciate the outside in all of its beauty. However, we did get to go inside. It was so beautiful! The ceilings and walls were all gold mosaics with depictions of people from the Bible and the floor and pillars were all marble. Then, we wandered around and saw the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal and the Bridge of Sighs. We also ate our first of many gelatos. American ice cream just doesn’t compare to Italian gelato. Actually, in general American food just doesn’t compare to European food. My mouth is watering just thinking about it all.

On our second day in Venice, we did a three-island tour of Murano, Burano and Torcello off of Venice. A boat took us from Venice to each of these three islands where we got to get off and explore for a bit. Murano is known for its world-famous glass. On this island, we got to go to a glass-blowing factory and watch a glass blower create the most beautiful horse, and so quickly! I bought my sister and I matching glass beaded bracelets from here. Then, we went to the island of Burano, famous for its lace and brightly painted fishermen houses. No two houses next to each other were the same color! We ended the tour on the island of Torcello where it is rumored that Ernest Hemingway spent time writing. This was my least favorite island, but maybe it was because I was so tired. It was very small and creepy, seeming to have no actual occupants. There is a very old cathedral on the island that was interesting, but again slightly creepy.

I loved Venice! It is so beautiful and quaint despite the numerous tourists. We got to hang out, see many sights, do some shopping and most importantly eat delicious food! We also spent the perfect amount of time in Venice. I would have liked to relax more, but we were able to see all of the sights in the short amount of time that we had.

London, England

Next stop: London, England, the country that represents half of my heritage (thanks mom)!!! This weekend was my first experience with Ryanair, the discount airline that operates within Europe. My flights to London were so cheap! It cost me only 40 euros ($50) for round-trip tickets from France to England. You definitely get your moneys worth with Ryanair. I had heard many horror stories with Ryanair so I was very nervous about traveling with them, especially by myself. Yes, they have poor customer service. Yes, there is practically no leg room with the seats. However, they weren’t as stingy with carry-on bags as I expected them to be, which was a bummer because I paid a lot of money to check my bag just to be safe. I did get pretty worried on the flight when I experienced probably the worst turbulence of all time. I tried to remind myself that hopefully these were still good pilots and not discount pilots. Either way, I made it to London safely on Thursday night!

En route to London!

My friend from home, Lili is studying abroad in London, so I was able to hang out with her for the weekend. On Thursday night, we went out to a ski lodge themed club, which was a lot of fun! I even got to take the tube and ride a double-decker bus to the club. While we’re talking about the tube, it is famous for a good reason. This is by far the best underground metro system that I experienced in Europe. It was amazing. At the club, we randomly met the CEO of Jägermeister (confirmed by his business card and the Internet)! It was a great night with Lili and all of her study abroad friends.

Bodo Schloss!

With the CEO of Jägermeister!

The next day we did some shopping and site-seeing throughout London. The first stop was TopShop in the Oxford Circus, a great store that they don’t have in America unfortunately. Then, we went to Harrods and saw there Christmas section, which was just heaven. We then walked through Green Park to see the Buckingham Palace. From there, we went to see the Big Ben and the London Eye.

Lili and I at the Buckingham Palace

The Queen’s Guard

Big Ben!

London Eye!

I was loving London so much! It is a really great city that still has a lot of great historical sites. Plus, they all speak English! Honestly, after 2 months in France and traveling to other foreign countries, I was so ecstatic to have English be the first language in a country. I was so happy to be able to read everything (yes, even the advertisements), talk to everyone and listen in on everyone’s conversations in the tube hehe. The transportation is also fantastic.

Double-decker bus!

That night we went to a different nightclub in London. It had so many different rooms with so many different themes. The club even offered free face painting! I couldn’t resist.

Face paint!

On Saturday, we went to the Portobello Road Market near the Notting Hill district of London. There were so many different kiosks with all sorts of cool things. However, the best part was definitely the food. I had a yummy middle eastern sandwich of sorts. I have no idea what it was called, but it was so delicious. Then, I had a smoothie out of a pineapple! It was a great day at the market. I felt like a real Londoner 🙂

Notting Hill!

Yummy yummy!

So fresh!

That night, I went to go see the Tower Bridge! It was so beautiful. I didn’t walk all the way across it but I did walk across part of it and see the whole bridge from the side of the River Thames. I also ate delicious fish & chips that night.

Tower Bridge by night!

On Sunday, I went back to the Tower Bridge in the morning one last time to see it in the light and then headed off to the airport to catch my flight. I wish I had more time in London, so I could have gone to see the Crown Jewels, which are housed in the Tower of London right next to the Tower Bridge. I guess I’ll just have to go back (and bring my mom)..Thank you London for one of the best weekends!

Tower Bridge by day!

Tower of London where the Crown Jewels are kept

Berlin, Germany

I got to return to my favorite country thus far!! It must be that inner (very very miniscule portion) of German in me. This weekend marked my first overnight train. It wasn’t terrible… Unfortunately, I made my reservation too late and had to sleep in a reclined chair instead of a couchette, what the French call sleeper cabins. This made for not a very restful night, but it was at least better than sleeping on a real train.

What the seats look like… they recline at least 45º backwards

We arrived in Berlin at around 7:00 am… very early! My friend from my program, Renata is German and previously did a summer program in Berlin. We met up with her friend at the train station and then headed to our airbnb for the weekend.

(Side note: airbnb.com is a great tool to use to find a place to stay. Locals open up their home to you for varying prices. These tend to be cleaner, nicer, more central and sometimes even cheaper than hostels. Furthermore, you can really feel like you’re living in that place for a couple of days.)

We really lucked out with our airbnb this time. We were staying in the top floor of the apartment building really close to all of the sites.

Beautiful views from our airbnb

Another view where you can see the top of the Berliner Dom Cathedral

After quickly dropping off our bags, we headed out to eat the most amazing German breakfast. We walked through the Tiergarten Park to a little restaurant situated along the river. Our delicious breakfast consisted of chai tea lattes, cheeses, cold cuts, quark (German yogurt), assorted fruit, breads, assorted jams, hard boiled eggs and many other delicious things I’m forgetting. It was the perfect meal after a long overnight train.

Breakfast heaven ❤

After breakfast, we headed to Museum Island to check out some of the museums and sites. We saw the Berliner Dom and went the the DDR Museum. The DDR museum is an interactive museum showing what daily life was like in communist East Germany. It was pretty cool but smaller than I thought it would be. However, I didn’t know very much about the history of East Germany, so I learned a lot in this museum.

Berliner Dom

“Driving” the car inside the DDR Museum

After a long day, we had delicious Ramen for dinner and then went on the Alternative pub crawl in Berlin. This involved going to strange, different bars throughout the city. We started at a hippie bar and then went to a goth bar, absinthe bar, rock music club and then finally a club in the basement of a furniture store. It was definitely different to say the least… not entirely my cup of tea but it was still fun.

To start of the next day we went to the KaDeVe for some scrumptious food. There is a gourmet food court in this giant department store where you can try lots of yummy German food. I obviously had some Bratwurst and delicious crepes for desert. on a free walking tour throughout Berlin. Free walking tours are a great way for people with a budget to be able to see a city and learn about it’s history. We started at the Brandenburger Tor and visited many other sites throughout Berlin.

Brandenburger Tor

We went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This was a very interesting site with many different interpretations of its meaning, as our guide told us. At first glance it looks like a lot of coffins of similar height. However, the ground that these coffins stand on is actually very hilly and all of the “coffins” are different heights. These “coffins” vary between around 8″ and 15’9″. Other interpretations are that the dazed and confused feeling you experience in the depth of the memorial is representative of the illusion of order and the confusion felt by the Jewish people during this time. Others claim that it is representative of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague. This was the only place that Jewish people were able to be buried during the Holocaust, and this cemetery quickly ran out of space. Thus, Jewish people were forced to be buried on top of one another with the headstones declaring all the names of the people in that space.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Me in the memorial

After this, we went to the site of Hitler’s bunker. This is a very different picture. It is simply an apartment building and parking lot. In fact, our tour guide showed us where Hitler’s body was burned by pointing to a “P” parking sign. For a while, there was no sign marking the site because the German government didn’t want this to become a memorial or shrine to Hitler. However, before the FIFA tournament in 2006, they finally decided to add an information panel to the site.

We then visited Luftwaffe HQ, which is the only Nazi building to survive the bombings for unknown reasons. Today, it houses the German Federal Ministry of Finance aka the tax building. Very close to that building is part of the Berlin Wall that is still standing. Finally, we visited Checkpoint Charlie, which actually has nothing to do with anyone named Charlie. It is simply Checkpoint C or the third Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War. A picture of an American soldier marks the spot because American soldiers guarded this gate. There are many funny stories of things that people did to sneak through this gate.

Section of the Berlin Wall

After the walking tour, we headed to the East Side Gallery. This is the most famous section of the Berlin Wall that is still standing. Many artists were commissioned to paint images of change, hope and freedom. It is really very beautiful. However, there is lots of vandalism and graffiti all over the wall, which makes me very upset. These artists were selected to paint beautiful images that other lesser artists decided to deface. Most importantly, I am amazed by the fact that the fall of the Berlin Wall occurred only 25 years ago. That was almost in my lifetime. A period of so much inequality and lack of freedom was in my parents lifetime, and almost mine. In fact, the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall occurred while I was in Europe. (Funny story, German trains were supposed to be on strike that weekend, but decided to call it off the days surrounding this anniversary.)

Most famous part of the East Side Gallery

Me with a section of the gallery

Graffiti on the wall 😦

After a long day, my friend Nathan and I had delicious Wienerschnitzel and Berliner Weisse for dinner. Weinerschnitzel is delicious deep fried veal and the Berliner Weisse is beer that is sweetened with red raspberry syrup. This was originally founded by the French when they invaded Germany because they didn’t like the bitter taste of beer.

Wienerschnitzel and Berliner Weisse

To end an amazing weekend in Berlin, we partied the night away at the Berghain. Berlin is the capital of techno mysic and now has some of the coolest clubs in the world. The Berghain is the most infamous of all clubs in Berlin. It is housed in an old power plant. People wait in line for 3 hours or more to get in to this club and do tons of research about how to get in. The very scary bouncer, Sven decides who gets in and who goes based on how cool you look or how much you fit their vibe. One of my favorite articles about how to get in is this one http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/10/18/clubbing-berlin-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98berghain%E2%80%99-door-policy-how-to-get-in-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98ota-berlin-constituency-blog%E2%80%99-contributor-evo-lucien-tells-you-how/  Basically, there are no rules about how you get in. Sven just decides your fate. Rumor has it, Brittany Spears was denied access to this club. My friend Nathan and I decided to give it a shot early on in the night and then go somewhere else in the probable occurrence that we wouldn’t get in. We waited in line for about an hour and watched Sven shake his head and nod his head to all different sorts of people. Let’s just say there were a lot more shakes than nods. We finally got to the front of the line and waited back our turn. The bouncer asked us how many we were and we responded in German “Wir sind zwie (We are two)”. They want mainly German natives in their club as opposed to tourists. We then waited for what seemed like eternity (probably 30 seconds) while Sven was deciding whether or not to let us in. We kept our mouths shut and stayed quiet. He then nodded is head!!!!! Nathan and I were freaking out, but we couldn’t freak out yet. If you do that, you can get kicked out before you make it all the way in. We went through security and they put stickers over our phone cameras so we couldn’t take and pictures. We then danced the night away… well until 4:30 am when we made the sad decision to go home. We wanted to stay later because it was starting to get really fun, but decided to be responsibly because of an early train in the morning.

The Berghain Nightclub

Entry stamp saying to switch off our phones

Epernay, France

Did you know that champagne can only be called champagne if it is from the Champagne region of France? Well, I decided I had to taste some of this real champagne, instead of “sparkling wine” like I have had in the states. Thus, my friends and I decided to go taste the stars, also known as champagne tasting.

Since it technically is the off-season for traveling, many of the champagne cellars in Epernay, France were closed for construction or refurbishment to open up again in 2015. We very quickly figured out why not many people travel to go wine tasting during this time of the year. I’m almost positive the weather was around 40 ºF and raining. My girl friend and I decided to wear dresses and sandals because we wanted to look all classy for the champagne tasting experience… that ended up being a terrible decision. I was so cold and my feet were basically numb walking from the train station to champagne cellar. You can’t tell from the picture below, but it was actually raining when we took this picture.

Smiling through the pain 🙂

Our group was so relieved when we finally made it to Champagne Mercier, the French winery where we did our cellar tour and champagne tasting. This winery was the original rights owner to the name Dom Perignon but gave the brand to a different French winery in the 1900s. It is also the best-selling champagne in France! Champagne Mercier first became popular by making the world’s largest wine barrel, filling it with champagne equaling 200,000 bottles, and taking it to Paris for the World Fair. This was the same year that the Eiffel Tower was showcased. Many say that it was overshadowed by only the Eiffel Tower.

In front of the huge barrel!

View of the barrel from the back

We were lucky enough to take a tour of the champagne cellars in the winery. We watched a short video about the winery and then went down into the cellars for our cellar tour. These cellars cover over 18 kilometers long and 30 meters below ground. We took a train around all of the cellars and got to learn more about how champagne is made and aged.

Champagne Mercier!

Dom Perignon on the wall

After the cellar tour, we got to the fun part: champagne tasting. My friends and I got to taste both the Brut and the Rosé. They were both quite delicious, although I think I preferred the Brut.

The Brut!

The Rosé!

Feeling classy with our champagne flutes

I had a fantastic time wine tasting in France and would love to come back and do it when I’m older and can enjoy it with some sunshine!

Munich, Germany

I got to go to Oktoberfest!!!!

We arrived in Munich on Friday afternoon and went straight to the Hofbrauhaus. I had the best meal to date since arriving in Europe. Spoiler alert: the French aren’t very good with food except for bread, milk products and pastries. I had pork with potatoes au gratin and steamed vegetables… yum! Oh, and a liter of beer… One of my friends ordered “original” beers for our table. I was quite surprised when the waiter came to the table caring liter steins of beer. It was delicious beer though!

My meal at the Hofbrauhaus

Later that night, we went to the fairgrounds in Theresienwiese lawn. I was awestruck. What they call “tents” are really like huge buildings that just happen to have a canvas room. Each tent seats thousands and thousands of people. Many of them also have more than one level. There are also tons of roller coaster rides, carnival games and even a huge ferris wheel! Needless to say, I was very excited to come back in the morning and spend the whole day there.

The next morning we woke up at like 6:00 am to get to Oktoberfest at around 7:30 am. People start to line up to get into tents even earlier than that. Basically, you wait in line to get into the tent that you want. Then the tents doors open at 9:00 am where people flood in and start drinking beer! Unfortunately, we were running kind of late so we didn’t get a table on the ground floor, but we got one on the balcony and eventually made our way down. The way that you’re supposed to do Oktoberfest is by staying in your tent all day drinking beer and ordering the food that they have there. For some reason, my friends and I decided to leave the tent to explore the fairgrounds again. This was a terrible idea seeing as though we couldn’t get back into any tents after that. Instead, we walked around, got food from the food trucks and took in the sites. Later that night, we were able to sneak back into a different tent with some Germans that we met. The Germans are awesome and they all speak English! Plus, everyone looks better in dirndl and lederhosen 😉 Oktoberfest was a great time and I definitely hope to be back at some point in my life.

Bright and early!

The view from our table

Finally on the ground floor with my friend, Renata!

On Sunday, we did some sightseeing of Munich. We went to the BMW museum and saw the Olympic stadium. Unfortunately, we had to leave pretty early in the afternoon because it was a long 6 hour train ride back to Metz.

Olympic stadium with the BMW headquarters in the background

PARIS, FRANCE

Paris, Je t’aime.

My first glimpse of Le Tour Eiffel!

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend the weekend in Paris with my grandparents!! Before I ever made the decision to study abroad, they happened to have reserved a cruise through France that ended in Paris. Being only a little over an hour outside of Paris, it was so easy to go and see them. Plus, who wouldn’t want to go to Paris?

Being a typical tourist with Le Louvre 🙂

I spent Saturday afternoon exploring Paris on my own, checking out the Le Tour Eiffel and Le Louvre. My grandparents already had a tour of Versailles scheduled. However, I got to meet up with them that evening. It was just my birthday, so they came bearing gifts of wine from the Burgundy region of France (Shh.. don’t tell my parents 😉 and chocolate. We had a lovely dinner where I got to try escargot for the first time! Unfortunately, my phone had died and I forgot my camera, so I don’t have any pictures to show for it. After dinner, we walked back to their hotel past the Seine river and saw the Eiffel Tower light up at night… so sparkly!

Sparklyyy

On Sunday, we went to Le Louvre. That place is huge!! I think there are over 100 rooms on each floor and 5 floors in total. I heard some statistic that it would take you days to see everything in the entire museum. Of course, we saw the Mona Lisa, but only after pushing our way through lots and lots of tourists. I took a picture of the tourists for fun. Afterwards, we went to go see La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris (The Notre Dame Cathedral): very big and very old! Finally, we went on a riverboat tour of La Seine. We got very luck that it didn’t rain while we were on the boat. It had been on-and-off raining all day. It was nice to sit down and see all of the sites.

My grandparents and me in front of Le Louvre

La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

I had a wonderful weekend in Paris and was so lucky to have been able to spend it with my grandparents. I had no idea that they had never been to France or Paris before that trip. I felt so honored to be able to join them for that! I will be back to Paris soon.