“I don’t know how many times
I have sat down to blog and I just end up staring at the screen thinking it
would be so much easier if each and every one of you just took a trip here. You
are only getting half of the story and it’s the people I have met who have made
my experience amazing. Nevertheless, I have to tell you about the Euro Tour.”
I would just like to add on
that I have now increased my list of enormous things to talk about by quite a
bit. This blog will be brief snippets of the Euro Tour, Corsica, my birthday,
and the Cannes Film Festival.
My
adventure started the morning I headed off to catch the train for Paris with
those in my district who went on the bus trip. I literally had three minutes
until the train LEFT the station, you have no idea how lucky I was and how
relieved for that matter. About halfway through our trip up to Paris we had the
chance to meet a freaking awesome group of exchange students from the district
right next to us. Ironically enough we ended up hanging out with this group
only during our last two months of exchange and they were so close to us all
this time.
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| Our entire group on the Euro Tour |
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| Near the Louvre |
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| Hyesoo (South Korea) and I in front of the Eiffel Tower |
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| Paulina (Colombia) and I being weird... |
After a brief tour of Paris and a little free time
our bus of forty-eight exchange students, two rotary members, a chauffer, and
two young women who accompanied us headed off for Reims, France to spend the
night in a youth hostel. Just to clarify for those of you who have heard about
hostels, they really are surprisingly nice and not creepy, sketchy or dirty
like they can be in the movies and I’d recommend them if you wanted to travel
cheaply.
We left for Strasbourg the next morning where we
went on a boat tour, ate sauerkraut and sausage, took pictures with our flags
in front of the cathedral, and shopped around. The colors of the buildings and
the unique architectural style are incredibly beautiful. Strasbourg is also in
the part of France known as Alsace where Alsacian is spoken. It’s a mix between
French and German because there have been multiple times where it switched
between being a part of France and Germany.
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| Courtesy of Eamon Murphy (Canada)! |
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| Eamon and his girls |
Nuremburg, Germany might have been my least
favorite place. It honestly wasn’t bad or anything, because the downtown area
was quite pretty. However, we saw the stadium where Hitler gave many speeches
and an arena where victims of the Holocaust were selected. That was difficult
for many people to digest.
Overall, our visit to Prague was my favorite. They
honestly love tourists there and it was an overall happy atmosphere. We had one
guy give us a pamphlet for a nightclub and found out that he came from England,
so we naturally became best friends. He even left his job for ten minutes to
walk us to a really typical, hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we had the best
food! One of my good friends, Bobby from California, started calling the Czech
currency a czechle deckle instead of the Czech koruna. It became kind of a
thing.
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| Ime, Bobby, and I |
The next city we went to was Vienna, Austria. This
was probably the most beautiful city architectural-wise because the buildings
evaded the bombings during World War II. We took a Ferris wheel to get a better
view of the city and it was breathtaking. Although we visited Vienna briefly, I
would definitely love to go back after my first impression.
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| This picture was taken from atop a ferris wheel in Vienna |
After Vienna, we descended down to Italy and the
beautiful, tranquil city of Lido di Jesolo where we had our first evening on
the beach. I loved the hotel we stayed in because it was a small walk to the
beach and right down town and our room had a balcony. When we woke up the next
morning, we headed over to Venice on a ferry! It was a rainy day, but we still
packed in a guided tour, a gondola ride, expensive pizza, shopping, and feeding
the pigeons.
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| Everyone on the beach our first night in Italy |
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| My buddies and I in Venice |
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| Americans! Genesis, Jason, Sarah, Hannah, me, Clay, and Corinne |
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| Hannah H. (USA), Bobby (USA), Rebecca (Canada), and Eamon (Canada) |
We took the bus over to Milan where I had gelato
with my some of my best friends, Paulina from Colombia, and Hannah from
California. Then we met up with the others for a tour of the fort. The guided
tour we had basically turned into me goofing around with Bobby, though…
After our stay in Milan we headed out for a stay in
Chamonix, France and we were all astonished at how 1. There was snow but the sun
was so hot that gelato was needed and 2. We could use our phones for free for
the first time since leaving Strasburg! In Chamonix we saw the glaciers and
even took a tour through a “fully-furnished” ice cave.
Next we went to Geneva,
Switzerland to take a tour of the United Nations building and shop around. The
UN building was a pretty powerful thing to see and just know that it serves a
great purpose. This was our last time in another country before going to Dijon,
France and then Paris where we all left from our respective train stations.
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| Bobby (USA) and Lucca (Brazil), Rebecca (Canada) and I |
While at the Paris train station (Gare de Lyon)
there was an unaccompanied suitcase and therefore, it had to be terminated.
Personnel progressively blocked off a large area of the station and when we
were on the second floor we heard the blast. This was where my district and the
district to our right who were taking the same train but getting off at another
stop had to say goodbye. It was honestly awful because we got so close, and
everyone was absolutely exhausted. We got on the train and I was already a mess
and we started reminiscing.
I still keep in daily contact with most of that
group and I had the chance to go to the Cannes Film Festival with Dylan
(Canadian), Lucca (Brazilian), and Clay (American) just a few days ago where we
stayed with Paulina (Colombia). We didn’t see much for stars, except for the
two leading actors in “The Artist” and Eva Longoria, but we just missed
Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman, Carrie Mulligan, Liam Hemsworth,
Jennifer Lawrence, Nicole Kidman, and Lana Del Rey. But most importantly of
all, Emma Watson, whom I can say I was in the same city as her, so I’m pretty
happy. The same night that we were at the festival there was a crazy guy who
had a grenade in his hand and fired blanks but luckily we weren’t present at
that ceremony – instead we enjoyed a nice warm pizza…
My next voyage was in Corsica and happened a week
after our Euro Tour. The other exchange students from my district and I took a
ferry (basically a less fancy version of a cruise ship) and spent eight hours
on the sea where we woke up at six and found ourselves in Corsica. It’s best
described as a mountain in the ocean with beautiful beaches, wonderful smells,
and scenic routes. Corsica is absolutely beautiful and we were lucky enough to
visit the capital, Ajaccio, and Bonifacio as well as the calanques, or rocky inlets. Corsica has a culture of its own even
though it’s a part of France. There is another dialect that sounds a bit like
Italian, and they have stronger cheeses and meats. I might even go as far as to
say that it’s even more chill than the south of France.
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| Fifi, me, Paulina, Hannah, and Rikki |
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| Paulina and I!!! |
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| Rikki, Hannah H., Paulina, Fifi, Emily |
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| Eamon and I |
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| Charlotte, Gabi, Tina, Rikki, Hannah H. |
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| We were invited by the governor of our district's house |
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Me, Charlotte (USA), Emily (USA), Rikki (Australia), Paulina (Colombia), Tina (Canada), Eamon (Canada), Hyesoo (South Korea), Hannah H. (USA), Hannah S. (USA), Gabi (USA), and Fifi (Indonesia)
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The only problem I had was that on our way back
when we took the ferry, there were strong winds and I got incredibly sick. I
couldn’t move to the interior of the boat because if I moved I’d have gotten
sick over tons of people so I ended up staying in the sun for six hours and
looked like a lobster when I finally could stomach going inside. Pardon my
English (not French…) but that was a trip from hell. There were passengers
splayed out on the hallway floors groaning from seasickness. It was that bad.
But in any case we arrived safely and I was able to spend the afternoon and
night with my lovely friend Paulina from Colombia. The next day we made a tarte au citron (lemon pie) and had a
traditional Senegalese meal called a tiep
where everyone eats sitting down on the floor around a bowl and takes a
spoonful of food from their respective corners of the bowl.
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| This isn't the picture of the Tiep but a good example - Simone's was better! |
My
host family was so sweet! They gave me a bag with the name of my town on it and
a purse as a birthday gift!
During the
school day on my birthday my classmates held a surprise party for me! I had to
‘accompany a girl who was sick’ to the nurses’ office and when we came back we
opened the door and found my whole class around a table of food and candy saying,
“Happy birthday Maggie!” We had a fun time taking pictures and I gave a speech,
thanking them for their kindness and thoughtfulness.
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| My class! |
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| Lyssandre, Nongbee, Florian, Gregory, Adem, Moheddine, Lucas, Lucie, and Lucile |
Diatou came home this morning and I am so excited
to see her and be able to actually talk to her. We met briefly in the airport
in Minneapolis when I was leaving and as she had just arrived. Now, at the end
of her exchange and me in the last few weeks, we will be able to hang out and
share stories about our exchanges.
In about three weeks my mom is coming to visit me
and I couldn’t be happier! We just made reservations in hotels (I can’t lie, it
was a loooooong process…) and I can’t wait to be on the beach and traveling
around the French Riviera with my mom.
There you go. My extremely brief version of what
has happened in the last month!
Ciao et bisous,
Maggie
