back in the U S of A

Wow I can't believe I am back home right now...we had safe travels coming home. It was a long day of traveling...over 24 hrs and the jet lag has finally caught up to me and I'm exhaused. Our final days on the trip were wonderful. Athens was a great place to end the trip. Our first few days there we had amazing weather...warm and sunny. It felt like we were back in Santa Barbara. As a group we went to the Acropolis and Mars Hill. We had finals so most of our free time was spent studying...we found a starbucks...it was great...and they had their red christmas cups...enough said :-)Shopped a lot and walked about the Plaka. Watched the sunset on Muse Hill on our last night with a lot of people in our group. It was beautiful (the ocean on one side and the acropolis on the other) and such a great way to end our last day. We had a Christmas party with pictionary and secret santa gifts. We all told stories of our favorite christmas memories. it was such a blast...i think i laughed for 2 hours straight. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone...we didn't really have a good chance to do it at the airport. it's weird not being with everyone now...hard to adjust to seeing people who became my family every day to not seeing anyone. its definitely quiet at my house... my first morning home i half expected to see 15 people downstairs at breakfast...weird. i got to go up to SB this weekend and see my roommates and a bunch of other friends. it was wonderful...i've missed people in SB so much and it was so refreshing to see them all. Can't believe its over...it was definitely the trip of a lifetime and one of the best semesters of my college experience.

only 4 days left....what is going on???

I can't believe that we are in Athens, Greece...our last city. We only have 3 days left and its so surreal. I'm definitely getting antsy to come home but at the same time i'm so sad to be leaving europe and all the wonderful people that i'm with. we have been talking about all the withdrawals we will have when we go back. we go from seeing each other 24/7 in our good times and bad to being home and all separated for a month until we go back to Westmont. so sad...

Italy has a whole was great! Florence was great besides the fact that i had a really bad cold that sucked all my energy away. Some highlights were eating tons and tons of gelato, climbing to the top of the duomo for amazing views of the city, going to the Michelangelo Piazza which is up on a hill that overlooks the entire city of florence, the Uffici Gallery, eating at a restaurant that won best pizza in the world a few years back, and Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving might be one of my favorite days on the trip as a whole. We had it on Friday instead of thursday since the church we needed to use was all booked up on thursday. we started the morning off with a game of american football. we found an amazingly beautiful park along the river arno and played for about 2 hours. in the afternoon we headed over to a church to make our thanksgiving meal. almost everyone cooked something. we made everything from scratch (expect our bough pumpkin pies). it was utter chaos and soo great. everyone brought to the group their favorite thanksgiving recipes and was in charge of making it. jess caswell and i made stuffing...we made amazing stuffing! it was just incredible...every single item of food was great and everything we on without a hitch. it was just so great to cook with everyone, listen and dance to music, eat thanksgiving meal together, and hang out. someone also made a picture slide show of the trip that was fun to watch.

Rome was good too...Our hotel location was not good however. we were on the outskirts of town and had to take a train into the city that only came 2 times an hour and sometimes decided not to show up at all. On the first day a bunch of us went to the Vatican to go to church at St. Peters. We could not go in b/c there was special ceremony going on but they had screens outside that broadcasted the ceremony. we wanted to wait for the pope to come outside. it started to rain and none of us had warm clothes or umbrellas. the pope did come out to the steps of the church to address the crowd but i couldn't see anything b/c of all the umbrellas...everyone else seemed to be prepared. so we got soaking wet but at least we got to see the pope and hear him speak. Other highlights include: a big adventure on the buses to get to the colosseum on our first night in rome, the trevi fountain all lite up at night, the Pantheon, going to the colosseum again and the Forum, hanging out on the spanish steps at night.

We are now in Athens. our hotel is right in the plaka and if you walk down the street you can see the acropolis. we have finals this week so a lot of our free time is spent studying. we are planning on going to mars hill and the acropolis tomorrow. on our last day a bunch of us are planning on taking a trip to an island. can't believe i will be on a plan coming home soon...this semester has flown by...can't wait to be home and go up to sb next weekend...see you all soon!!!

Again sorry its been soo long since i have last written...we have been super busy and internet has been hard to come by. I dont have much time now either so this will have to be a quick update.

Paris was incredible...I love love love that city. It was just so great walking around and soaking the city in. One of my favorite places was the Latin Quarter. Its so lively and fun. The Orsay was probably my favorite museum out of all the ones we have been to so far. It has so many beautiful impressionist paintings. I went to Versailles Palaces as well on probably the coldest day of the whole trip. It was absolutely freezing and so windy. The palace was soo ornate and over the top. I cant imagine how anyone could have actually lived there. On our last night a bunch of us went up the the top of the Eiffel Tower to watch the sunset. It was a perfectly clear day and a great moment. Overall Paris was wonderful. A much better experience this time around. It was just too bad that we had so much school work to do during it.

Interlaken, Switzerland was absolutely goregeous. Words can not describe how beautiful it was. The town was so cute surrounded by the swiss alps. The town is situated inbetweeen two lakes so one day I walked out to one of them and discoverded an old castle. You could walk up to the top and see a great 360 view of the lake and the mountains and the town. One out of the two days I went up the the town of Murren. It was one of the top days of the trip for sure. When we arrived it was snowing pretty good. The down was deserted with only 2 shops open. We got hot chocolate, had a big snowball fight and made snow angels. It was just such a great day to play in the snow. Right before we left, the weather cleared up and it was soo sunny. You could see for miles. It was breathtaking. Nothing but snow covered mountains surrounding us. Switzerland was a great break to get away from the city life and enjoy beautiful nature

Last week we were in Venice. i can think of only one word to describe it...Magical. There is nothing else like it. All the canals and gondolas. Its so great just to get lost in the streets of venice. We visited San Marco and a few museums. Went to a Vivaldi concert. Drank Bellinis. Tried on every mask possible. Went to the island of Murano to watch them blow glass and bought some pretty jewelry. It was once again really cold in Venice. For some reason i was not expecting italy to be very cold...boy was i wrong.

We are now in Florence, another great city. Our hotel is not the greatest...it is more like a hostel and my room is freezing with no heater and no hot water. It is making me miss home and my own bed more than ever. I have a bad cold too so thats not helping. Went to Cinque Terre yesterday. It was unreal. Everyone who comes to Italy must go there. It is 5 towns on the Italian coast. You can hike to each town or take a train. We hiked between 2 of the towns, had lunch on a terrace above a cliff overlooking the coast. We sat on the beach and some of the boys went swimming. We lucked out and had amazing weather...we all striped down to tank tops after being bundled up from Florence. it reminded us so much of Santa Barbara, from the weather to the atmosphere. It was just a great relaxing day. Im so excited to see what the rest of Florence has to offer. Cant believe that we only have about 2 weeks left of this trip. More to come later love you all!

Pictures Finally!

Here are some pictures finally...just a few snapshots of our adventures


the steps of sacre couer at montmartre

picnic at the eiffel tower

at the eiffel tower

becca and i at the beaches of normandy

outside of bayeux, france

the beautiful sunset on our coach ride into france

amanda and i enjoying our belgium chocolate in brussles

in a field of wild flowers during our bike ride

the boys on our bike ride in bruges

jess, charley, and bo in bruges

happy 21st Jason

a little side street i stumbled upon in bruges, belgium

pretty amanda

biking with kelsey and amanda in leiden

leiden, the netherlands

berlin, germany

the most beautiful tree i have ever seen...at the berlin zoo

potsdam, germany

the berlin philharmonic

the berlin wall

the pionters singing "my heart will go on" at a bowling alley in warsaw

the tour guides from our crazy communist tour in poland bought all the girls flowers...gerber daisys..my favorite

Auschwitz

pretty lauren

beautiful prague

on the Charles Bridge in Prague

pretty castle crusing down the Danube in Austria

melk abbey in Austria

going to the opera in Vienna

River rafting in Bosnia
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Mortar, Bosnia


Chartres Cathedral in France

The Netherlands, Belgium, and now France

Wow, its been forever since i've last written. things have been soo hectic and internet has not been easily accessable so i'll try to give a recap of the past 2 weeks without overwhelming you.

Leiden, the Netherlands

went to a few museums in Amsterdam including the Van Gogh one which was incredible, one of my favorites so far. walked through the red light district with a minister who has a ministry there. it was interesting to talk about what we saw with a christian perspective. We had a free day and i went back into Amsterdam to see Ann Franks house and then renting bikes with a few people and rode out to the beach. it was about 1 hour each way and soo much fun. we rode throught some residential neighborhoods and got to see parts of Leiden that we wouldnt have gotten to otherwise. it was so unbelievably refreshing to be at the ocean. we have all missed living in santa barbara and being 5 minutes away from water. Also went to a Mexican restaurant in Leiden. i had been craving mexican food soo much! it wasnt very good but what can be expected from a mexican restaurant in the Netherlands. but i got my mexican fix so it was great.

Bruges, Belguim

Belgium was wonderful...one of my favorite places we have been to so far. The town of Bruges is so cute: cobble steets, large squares, hidden streets, canals, chocolate shopes everywhere, chirstmas stores everywhere, amazing waffles. We didnt really do much as a group here. i spent most of my time wandering the streets and exploring. Had a horrible experience at the post office just trying to send some things home. it took forever, was too expensive, got yelled at in French but eventually got everything sent. Had one of my favorite days on the trip here. in the morning about 15 of us rented bikes and rode outside of the city. we didnt know where we were going and just went down random roads into the country side. there were no cars, fields of yellow flowers, farms, it was absolutely beautiful. After our bike ride our whole group spent the afternoon playing games in a park. we played steal the bacon, duck duck goose, and capture the flag and then all got waffles after. it was so much fun to run around and play games like we use to in junior high. We also went into Brussle for one day. The weather was horrible, it was raining all day. we went to the offices of the European Union and had 2 guest lectures. The rain def. ruined the day since we couldnt really go out exploring but the chocolate shops in the city were incredible. Almost everyone offered free samples; i went into a lot of chocolate shops that day!

France

We spent 2 nights in a little town right outside of Bayeux. Our hotel was soo nice. it was right on a golf course with ocean views, had a pool and a sauna. our group was in heaven. We saw the Bayuex Tapestry and got to explore the town. it was such a great introduction to France. There was this great open air market, flower shops everywhere, people were so friendly, amazing crepes from street vendors. For Halloween we had a party. It was so much fun. Everyone dressed up and we had a costume contest. Since our resourse were limited about half of us dressed up as someone else from the trip. Me and a few other girls dressed up as our professors and their families. Our costumes were pretty fantastic. we got second in the constest. We bobbed for apples, made mummies and ate tons of candy! We spent one day traveling around to the different beaches and important locations of Dday in Normandy. We also went to the American cemetary. The cemetary is on American soil; it was strangly comforting.

We arrived in Paris 2 days ago. I love love love this city. So far my experiences have been way better than the last time i was here over spring break...ie a waiter hasnt made me cry. We are not staying at the best place. It is like a mix between a dorm and a hostel. There is a cafeteria where we have to eat 2 meals a day. Its not the best but its a place to sleep at night. Our first night here a bunch of us went to the Eiffle Tower to watch the light show. it was so beautiful. Went back again last night and had a little picnic. It was so much fun... i want to go there every night. Today I ventured to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. There are amazing views of the city and you can see the Eiffle Tower in the distance. Saw the Moulin Rouge as well. Our week in paris is extremely busy but im sooo excited to be here and am having a great time so far.

i love you all and miss you soo much. cant believe i will be home in about 1 month...this semester is going by too quickly.

Berlin and The Netherlands

So I only have about 10 minutes left at the internet cafe so this will be a quick note...Berlin was great...we were there for a whole week but I feel like it went by so quickly. There was so much more to see that I didn't get a chance to see...

*we had an exam in the beginning of the week so for the first 2 days all our free time was spend studying
*the 2nd round of sickness went around...I got the flu...it is nooo fun being sick on this trip. all our days are soo packed that if you miss one you miss so much
*the holocaust memorial and the jewish museum were very moving
*went to 2 performances of the berlin philharmonic-it was amazing and so much fun to get all dressed up!
*saw what is left of the berlin wall
*free day spent at the zoo, the brandonberg gates, the reistag, exploring the city. it was one of the best days of the trip.
*it was so cold
*leiden in the netherlands is soo great...it's a quant little town...everyone rides there bikes around...i'm more worried about getting hit by a bike than a car
*windmills and canals everywhere (haven't seen any tulips yet which makes me sad)
*sooo cold...in the morning there is frost everywhere

I have the best roomies ever!! I loved my song video(they sent me a video via utube where they rewrote the words to allayah's "I miss you" and sang it to me)-you girls are amazing! i started to cry in the internet cafe...i miss you soo much love you!!

Poland

First off, my apologies that i haven't written in such a long time...we have been soo incredible busy and internet access has not come easily.

Prague seems like such a long time ago...right now i'm in Berlin, Germany. Last week we were in Krakow and Warsaw, Poland. For this portion of the trip we have a tour guide, Garbriel. He is British and currently lives in Berlin. He is wonderful. He could be one of the funniest tour guides I've ever had. And he makes things interesting. I have not been bored on his walking tours of Warsaw and Berlin. And he has spoiled us with food. Our breakfasts have been extensive and our group meals have been incredible (we are talking 3 and 4 course meals-with a choice of a drink which is huge because we normally just get water).

I had no expectations for Krakow and it pleasantly surprised me. It has a very eastern european feel to it. there is a huge town square with open air markets and street performers. There are cobble streets everywhere. my love of cobble streets is fading quickly since this trip-draging luggage on them for over 5 minutes is soo hard! I found a new suitcase yeah! There is a huge mall in Krakow and I was able to find one pretty easily. We stayed in a hostle. It wasnt too bad. I was in a room with 6 girls and had to share a bathroom with 10 people. There were no mirrors anywhere except the bathroom which made getting ready for the day interesting. It was impossible to be quiet in the whole hostle so no one really got much sleep. We did luck out on its location thought. It was right on the corner of the main square...perfect. Our time in Krakow was relatively short. We went on a tour of the city and on a tour of communism. It was the craziest tour ever. We drove around in a huge red communist bus...i dont think i've ever noticed getting stared at so much. The tour leaders were insane/nutty. i dont really know how to explain it but pretty much none of us knew what was going on. it was so random and funny.

one day in Krakow we drove out to Auschwitz. There we saw the death camp and the labor camp. It was an extremely emotionally draining day. I'm still tring to process through everything I saw...I think it will take a while. It was a somber and hard day. I was extremely moved by what I saw...I was unable to hold back the tears. There is something different about actually seeing a place like that with my own eyes. I've read about the Holocause and have seen movies but seeing where it happened makes it so much more real to it. There is a tangible aspect to it. The massive numbers of peopled killed makes sense to me. The history and suffering became real. It was heartbreaking but real.

We arrived in Warsaw on the 10th. It is a strikingly different city. It is huge and has a urban city feel to it. It reminded me a lot of downtown l.a. or new york (but not as pretty). The presence of communism years ago can definitely be felt. Most of the building look identical-like slabs of concrete. Not exactly picturesque like some other cities we have been to. We stayed at a hostel again. this one was much bigger and nicer than the one in Krakow. i was in a 10 person room with 6 girls. The beds were more comfortable and so much warmer. This hostel also had someone who did our laundry for free. it was a little chaotic though. Imagine 47 people with tons of laundry all piled into one room. i had to lable everything. not all of my stuff got washed since there wasn' enought time but i'll take what I got. I have not down laundry since back in Cambridge...it is soooo nice to have clean clothes that don't smell like smoke.

We only had 2 days in Warsaw. One day we had a city tour from 9:30-5...and then next day we went to a few war memorials. One striking thing about Warsaw is that there are almost no orinigal buildings in the city from before world war II. THe whole city was destroyed. Everything was rebuilt during the communist era. one of our nights we went bowling. It was soo much fun. It felt like we were at home. The bowling place had Kareoke too...a few people got up there to sing including Rick and Barb Pointer (known to us as mom and dad) they sang my heart will go on from titanic....it was incredible...barb was soo embarassed but rick was way into it...he looked like a pro.

we left poland 2 nights ago. We had to take an overnight train to berlin. The train experienced was awful. it was stressful and tiring. We had about 4 minutes to get all our luggage onto the train-that is way easier said than done. The cart were sooo small. The aisle was a wide as a suitcase. we had 6 people in a room (3 bunks on each side on top of one another). The room was small...incredible small...only 3 people could stand in it at a time...we barely got any sleep...the german border control woke us up at 6...i got about 3 hours of sleep...not solid sleep but sleep....it was such a long ordeal and not a pleasant one...we made it to berlin safely thought...i ran out of time on the internet so more to come later.