Discovering Austrian Culture

Because of the weather forecast was better for outdoor activities on Sunday rather than on Monday, Dr. Mac decided it be best if we pushed our orientation meeting and group presentations for Innsbruck back until today (Monday morning) at 9am. This insured the most time possible to get our extreme sports in on Sunday. After breakfast, we walked over to the conference room and heard the presentations from Riedel Glass, Swarovski Crystal, and Audi Manufacturing. Each of the groups did a good job at being creative while also staying informative at the same time.

After our meeting was over, a group of us walked towards the Swarovski store in old town Innsbruck. On the way there, we passed by this little gelato place that looked amazing. Even though it was about 10:30am, we just had to have some! It was so cheap as well! One scoop was only 1,10 Euro!! That’s even cheaper than some places in the States! The flavor that I ordered was called ‘Manner.’ Apparently, it’s a mixture of hazelnut and chocolate with pieces of a cookie that is authentically Austrian. IT WAS DELICIOUS! I don’t even know if I can express just how much I loved this ice cream. If it were back in the States, Manner would be all that I would ever by. Laura and I loved it so much we ended up going back there and getting another scoop later in the day!

After our amazing ice cream, we happened to run into a store which sold .55 Euro cokes! This day was just getting better and better! We finally found the Swarovski store that we were searching for. We had heard that there were better prices here than at the Swarovski World store that we will visit tomorrow during our company presentation. Also, Mrs. Mac gave us all a gift certificate for a free gift with any purchase there. It’s a little pin for a lapel. It’s not much, but its free and I definitely love anything free on this trip! Everything in the store was cheaper than I was expecting for the most part! This turned out to be a good and bad thing. It was good because I was able to buy more things than I was expecting, but bad as well because I spent way more money on multiple cheaper items, haha. I bought a few things for myself and a few gifts as well. I definitely made a significant dent in my amount spent on European purchases! But at least some good news is that I get 19 Euros back from the Customs agents because of taxes. Woo!

After we dropped off our purchases back in our hotel room (I put mine in the safe!) and ate my Ziploc baggy lunch I had made at breakfast, we walked (and then HIKED) up to the top of the ski jump that was used in the 1964 and 1976 Olympics. We had the observation deck to ourselves for the most part, and it gave us a great view of the city. Granted the weather wasn’t superb, just rainy and cloudy like it has been every other day that we’ve been in Innsbruck, but we still managed to see the mountains in the distance. I had been up to the top of another Olympic ski jump before in Calgary, but it was still nice to see this city from a whole different perspective.



Laura and I then broke off on our own and walked around town for a bit. We were just casually shopping for souvenirs. I managed to find a t-shirt for myself that says Austria that I really like! Laura and I seem to have the same taste in stuff like that because that is about the 3rd or 4th thing that we have bought exactly identical on this trip so far! It was starting to rain more and our feet were tired of walking, so we decided to come back to the hotel at about 4:30 to rest up until dinner at 7. I ended up taking an hour nap, and it couldn’t have been more amazing! That was the first nap I’ve had during the day (besides on the bus) so far on this trip. I know my body is getting worn down and people are starting to get sick, so I’m trying to get as much sleep as possible on this last leg of the trip. Getting sick is the absolute last thing I want right now being so far away from home (knock on wood).
Our whole study abroad group left at 7pm from the hotel lobby and drove about 20 minutes to a nearby Austrian village for our traditional festive Austrian dinner. It was SO MUCH FUN! The food was amazing! We had a garlic cream soup for our appetizer, and I loved it! It tasted just like garlic bread in my mouth! For my entrée I chose the schnitzel and spritzed a little lemon juice on top to pull out the flavor of the pork. It was delectable! I would have it again in a heartbeat. The dessert was apple strudel with vanilla ice cream. YUMMY!
The best part of the night however was our entertainment that came and played traditional Austrian music that we learned dances to! I got chosen to dance in the Grand March which is performed at most all Austrian weddings. It was fun but so exhausting! I was out of breath by the end of the song. We danced, yodeled, sang, clapped, laughed, and had a great time.

After dinner and dancing were over, we went out for a short lantern hike through the countryside. It was lightly raining, but that didn’t dampen our spirits. We had such a great night so far that nothing was going to spoil it. As we were driving back to the hotel, I began to realize how much fun I had tonight. I think it’s safe to say that tonight was my favorite night of the trip thus far. That’s saying a lot because of the cities that we have already visited such as London, Paris, and Nice. I was already loving Innsbruck so much because of the scenery and the laid back small town atmosphere, but now I was in love with the Austrian culture as well. It’s too bad we have don’t have much free time left here in Innsbruck, because tomorrow we have business visits all day. Night!

Canyoning In The Austrian Alps!

I think I really am going to love this last leg of the trip. It’s going to have so much more of a slower pace in the countries of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The mountains and the scenery really make just simply staring our your window enjoyable. This morning we woke up whenever we pleased. Since I had become so accustomed to waking up early however, I was awake by about 8:30am. Still though, I got a solid 8 hours of sleep or so which is wonderful for this trip! We went downstairs to the breakfast at 9am, and I was surprised that a bunch of people from our group were already down there as well. The breakfast was probably the best one of the trip so far. They even had Cocoa Pops!

After breakfast a group of about 6 of us set off to explore Innsbruck. We walked fairly fair, just observing the town on a quiet Sunday morning. In Innsbruck, most shops are closed on Sunday so not a lot was open. We did walk to the Olympic Park where the Winter Olympic Games were held in 1964 and 1976. It was raining for the first half of our walk, but the sun began to appear through the clouds by the time we had walked to the Olympic area. We also saw the tall ski jump, but didn’t go to the top because we weren’t sure if we had time. We walked back into the heart of town and ate at about the only restaurant that we saw open, a little pizzeria right around the corner from our hotel. It was good, but nothing to overly brag about.


One thing that I’m really loving about Austria however, is that everything is SO MUCH CHEAPER than in London or France. Water is not more than 2 Euros normally here, when compared to 3-3,50 Euro for water in London or anywhere in France. Food here is also cheap, only around 5-6 Euros for an average meal when it seems like we were paying 10-12 Euros a meal in France. I have also discovered a new candy that I’m addicted to. It’s called Kinder Buenos and it’s amazing! It’s a wafer covered with chocolate filled with a nutella type substance in the middle!

Anyways, after lunch we came back and got ready to go canyoning! Canyoning is where you dress in a wetsuit and have a harness attached to you. You repel, slide down, and jump off waterfalls and rock faces in canyons located up in the mountains. I was a little nervous because apparently canyoning is illegal in the United States, but I was more excited than anything! We met downstairs in the lobby at 2pm and left about 30 minutes later. Turns out that there were 50 of us going on this excursion! That’s 2/3 of the entire study abroad group! It was about a 45 minute bus ride to the Wiggi Rafting business site, and once we got there it probably took us another 30 to get fully suited up and back on the bus. Then we traveled another 30 minutes up very windy (and SMALL!) mountain roads up to the canyon. We passed a sign that said 1,500 meters, but I bet the canyon started at about 2,000 meters up. That’s around 6,000 feet high in the mountains.

When we pulled up to the site, the instructors pointed to a bridge with a river running below it and said, “that’s how we’re going to enter the canyon.” I was like, “excuse me?!?!” The bridge was probably a good 50 feet above the river below it! We were lowered off the bridge and repelled down to the FRIGID water below. The guides also said that today the water was around 45 degrees Fahrenheit! We were in thermal wetsuits, but that still doesn’t help too much when your feet are constantly being submerged in nearly freezing water. I was a little terrified of being lowered down into the canyon by rope, but quickly decided I wanted to go near the front our subgroup, because I didn’t want to stand there just freaking myself out about it for longer than was necessary. It wasn’t that bad. Actually, it was pretty fun!

We then carefully stepped through the rushing water onto rocks and the riverbed until we reached our first obstacle; a jump off a waterfall that was about 4 meters high (or around 12 ft). We were supposed to cannonball into the freezing water below and then swim to the shore. UHHHH WHAT?! Once again, I made myself go near the front of my group because I figure I’m here, and I’m doing this so it’s now or never! The water was so cold it literally took all the air out of my lungs when I hit it. Being submerged under the rushing water was a little terrifying though. Your body starts panicking and going into the survival mindset… which is basically summed up as “get me the heck above the water!” I wasn’t too terribly cold up until this point, but after that jump, it was all over. My hands started going numb with my feet shortly to follow.

As it turns out the first of our 3 jumps we had to make was the highest, so they were a little easier from there on out. However, we had some other very high rock faces that we had to repel off of into the water below. For some reason, I wasn’t very good at repelling down, and normally lost my balance and swung into the rock face. That REALLY hurts when your fingers are cold because everything hurts worse in the cold for some reason.

Towards the end of the canyoning session, one of our last obstacles was a slide. I was slightly nervous about the slide because we hadn’t encountered one yet. I was getting fairly comfortable with the jumps, but there is always a fear of the unknown. The guide said that the slide was “long, but nice,” whatever that meant. He was wrong. The slide was neither long nor nice in my opinion. They didn’t tell us that at the end of the waterfall slide (which the ride lasted all of about 4 seconds) that there was a 10 foot drop into the churning water below. I didn’t see this until about half a second before my body flew off the ledge into the icy water. I don’t even remember if I took a breath. All I do remember is panicking underwater, opening my eyes and only seeing the greenish tint of the water all around me, and trying to find my way to the surface. I felt like I was under that water for ages, although I know it couldn’t have been more than 5 seconds. What I would give to see my face when I popped up from underwater. I must have had a look of shear fear and panic on my face. The slide was definitely the one part of the whole experience that I would not like to repeat again.

By this point of the nearly 2.5 hours that we were in the canyon, my feet had gone completely numb. I could even tell when I was walking on the ground or when my feet were submerged in the water anymore. They simply had no feeling! Laura said, “Now I know how the people on the Titanic felt!”

The experience was a great one and one that I’m so glad I had the opportunity to participate in. I took away so much from today’s adventure in the canyon. I was able to sort of conquer some fears of my own regarding doing risky things. I just have to trust in my body and trust in the instructors that they will keep us safe. By entering the canyon with the mindset of, “I’m here, and I’m doing this, so I might as well do it right,” I was able to be a little more at ease with some of the scary things that we did. But even more than that, canyoning was a great study abroad bonding experience for our whole group. When someone seemed hesitant to go off a jump or repel off a rock face, people were always at the bottom shouting encouraging things. It really made it feel like we were all one unit and all supportive of one another; something that I have to admit I haven’t really felt thus far on this trip. Everyone was able to put aside personality and clique differences to just immerse themselves in this amazing experience and take it for all that it was worth.

Once we finally made it out of the canyon and got back to the base camp, it was nearly 7:30. We didn’t get back to the city of Innsbruck until around 8:30pm and without showering we headed straight to Theresien Brau (the restaurant we ate at the night before) and ordered food. We were absolutely starving combined with exhaustion which meant a cranky Amanda. But no worries, I ordered the Rump Steak (a study abroad favorite for this restaurant), and it didn’t disappoint! It was downright amazing! Probably the best thing I have eaten on the trip thus far! I don’t even like green beans, but I thought these tasted amazing and completely cleared my entire plate.

Now, sitting back in my room reflecting on the events from earlier today, I realize that today has quite possibly been the best and most rewarding day of my study abroad trip thus far. I couldn’t be more proud of myself and how I handled today!

Oh, and one little side note: today my little sister graduated from high school and I had to miss it ☹. I did get to skype with her and the entire extended family afterwards and was able to tell her how excited and proud of her I was! Congratulations, Courtney!

Longest Travel Day of the Entire Trip! :(

6:00am came very early. I made sure to pack everything ready to go last night before I went to bed, so I wouldn’t be stressed or rushed this morning. Caitlin and I went downstairs at 6:30, loaded our bags onto the bus, and went to eat our last set of breakfast leftovers! Haha. At around 7:30, we left Nice and set a course for Innsbruck, Austria. I took a Dramamine with breakfast in hopes of crashing once I got on the coach, but for some reason I wasn’t able to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. I even had a whole two seats on the coach to myself. That’s a big deal to everyone on the coach! I will only get it once on this trip. Fortunately for me, I got the two seats on the longest coach ride of the trip.

Our course took us directly though northern Italy, and we stopped there a few times for rest breaks. So I can now add Italy to my country checklist, although it doesn’t totally count, and I really want to go back to Italy someday in the future.
Once we entered into Austria a few minutes before arriving in Innsbruck, the countryside somehow became dramatically more grand and beautiful. We were driving in between giant mountains complete with steep cliffs, giant rock faces, and greenery everywhere you turned. The weather wasn’t ideal exactly, seeing as there was low hanging clouds and a rain/mist mix, but it still didn’t make the scenery any less lovely.
We arrived at our hotel in Innsbruck. We’re staying at the Hilton, and it is SO NICE! For the first time on this trip, we have FULL SIZE beds! We also have a shower… WITH a shower curtain! Our hotel in Nice had nothing, no glass, door, or curtain. We headed up to our room, changed and went down to the conference room for our presentation from the Innsbruck Tourism Board. We also had the chance to sign up for our extreme sports activities we plan to do tomorrow. I’m going to go canyoning! AHHH!! I’m super excited!... But also SUPER nervous! I didn’t know this until after I signed up, but apparently canyoning is illegal in the United States. Don’t worry though, Mom and Dad, the company here is great, and kids on our trip have been doing this for years! Other people are paragliding, bungee jumping (from the second highest bungee in the WORLD!), white-water rafting, etc. It should definitely be a good time, so tomorrow’s journal entry should be good!
After our meeting, we headed over to a local restaurant and bar for some authentic German/Austrian food. I even had a sip of the beer (which I normally HATE) but it was actually not that bad. I don’t know if I could have drank an entire glass, but everyone else did because we all got a coupon for a free beer from there! I had some German sausage, sauerkraut, and grilled potatoes! It was DELICIOUS! Quite possibly the best meal that I have had thus far on the trip. It’s on par with the pasta dish I got at ASK in London.

After dinner, Laura and I came back to the hotel (it was already past 11pm) and journaled and went to bed. Tomorrow is going be a fun and exciting day!

Last Day On The French Riviera

This morning we had a business presentation with a local university in Nice, EDHEC. EDHEC is a French business school that is located on the street across from the beach. We learned yesterday that it is currently one of the top 5 business school programs in France. The presentation was rather long though, and I was having to fight my body from going to sleep. I was on the front row though, so I made myself pay very close attention. I’ve discovered the easiest and best way to stay awake during boring presentations is just to simply take a TON of notes. Afterwards, since I am a part of the Nice/Monaco presentation team, we took a picture with our speakers and presented them with certificates and a very nice pen in recognition of them taking time out of their day to speak to our group.

The meeting with the business school didn’t take up too much of our time though, which was fortunate because this was our last day in Nice. Jay, Taylor, Kinsey, Caitlin, CJ, and I changed and went to go try this restaurant on the beach, Lido Plage, that was recommended by kids who went on last year’s trip. The food was good, but not marvelous. I think I’ve had better on this trip so far. The view, however, was unparalleled. We were practically one of the only groups of customers in the restaurant because of the cloudy weather and had the sound of the ocean waves rolling up on the rocks to relax us during our lunch.

We attempted to lay out on the beach after lunch, but the clouds soon turned into a steady sprinkle and then into rain. We went back inside, showered, and just hung out in our rooms for about 3 hours. As luck would have it, as soon as I got out of the shower and was all cleaned up from the beach, the rain stopped and the sun came out. Go figure! The same group of us, except Laura came instead of CJ, set off for dinner in Old Town Nice. We decided on the Buffalo Grill (again, so typical us. Everyone wants to find the most American food possible, and it never is as good as home). The food was sub-par honestly. My grilled chicken breast lacked flavor was really tough. It probably didn’t help my appetite that I had just had a scoop of dark chocolate gelato from Julian’s snack stand right before we walked to dinner though, haha. While we’re sitting in the restaurant it starts pouring again, so we wait to leave until it stops (though apparently that’s rude to do over here, because the waitress told us to get up and leave before we had even finished our last drinks after our meal because she had customers waiting—well, no tip for her).


Some people wanted to walk around and find a pub or a bar to go drink in, so I followed the group. Honestly though, drinks are SO EXPENSIVE over here and I would much rather just spend my money on souvenirs for myself and people back home that I love. At least wine is cheap-ish, because that’s all I’m really interested in drinking anyways. Sometimes though, a beer can be around 7 Euros. That’s nearly $11 in American money! Waste of money! Well anyways, apparently there was some big soccer game going on tonight that had all the bars and pubs packed. Since it had started raining on us AGAIN, we just decided to head back to the hotel. I repacked my bag for our departure in the morning for Austria. Tomorrow we have the longest coach travel day of the trip… somewhere between 10-11 hours before we get to Innsbruck. That is a lot of time to sleep and be bored!

Perfumarie Fragonard & Monaco!

On our group itinerary for today, we were scheduled to set off on a 30 minute drive to Perfumarie Fragonard to see what their business of making perfumes is all about, and then head off on our very short drive to Monaco.

Perfumarie Fragonard was very cool! Once we got there, my group received a tour of the factory first, so we got to see how they manufacture all their products… from soaps to fragrances and body oils. I never knew so much went into the perfume making process and just how hard and rare it is to become “a nose” in the perfume industry. Currently, there are only an estimated 50 “noses” in the world! A “nose” goes to school for nearly 10 years just learning about essential oils, how to blend them, and making perfumes. During their first year of schooling alone, they have to memorize upwards of 1,000 different smells, and train their nose to identify that smell. Crazy! We got to smell many of the fragrances, and even went into the gift shop where I have to admit, I did some damage! Haha! Perfumarie Fragonard is based on the French Riviera and doesn’t do a lot of exporting of products. They don’t market their products to any other stores either, so the Perfumarie Fragonard factories are the only place to buy the perfume (besides their website, www.fragonard.com). I figured since I may never come back to this place again, I might as well buy some of the best and most uniquely made things in the world. So I got a few things for myself, and a few things for other people. I hope they like them!

Once we left the perfumeries, we drove through a bunch of twisty, windy roads up on the sides of mountains that overlook the Mediterranean until we got to Monaco. Monaco wasn’t what I expected however. I think I was expecting something a little more glamorous since it is the richest country in the world per capita. It’s also the second smallest, behind Vatican City. Don’t get me wrong, it was definitely nice.

When we got there, we first at lunch at a little café that a small group of us found. I had a margarita pizza, and it was AWESOME. I was SO hungry, because the breakfasts at this hotel are not good. I swear they give our group the leftovers of what the hotel staff would be too embarrassed to serve regular guests. Our croissants this morning were burnt to a crisp! I have come to expect a little more from French croissants than blackened bread.

Anyways, after lunch and an AMAZING dessert, our whole study abroad group toured the Palace of the Grimaldi family. It’s still currently Prince Albert’s residence so not a ton of the palace was open for viewing. In fact, I bet I was in and out of there in 20 minutes with an audio guide in hand. Then we went straight to the Jacque Cousteau Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium (biggest aquarium in Europe). The aquarium part was cool, but the museum was really short and quite uninteresting. We weren’t there too long either, which gave us way too much time to kill in the afternoon until we were scheduled to depart for the casino. A group of us sat in the gardens overlooking the Mediterranean and tried to fall asleep because we were all so exhausted.


Finally we departed for the casino as a large group. I was expecting the Monte Carlo Grand Casino to look a little more grand than it did when we walked up to it. It wasn’t nearly as big as I was made to believe. I couldn’t go inside really because it cost 10 Euros just to enter, so after my morning purchases… I figured it best to save my money a little.

I did however go into the casino next door to the Grand Casino. There was no entrance fee for that one, and the buy-ins were much lower. Just for fun I decided to try to play my first slot machine game ever, and it didn’t go so well, haha! I didn’t really understand the concept of the game, and I’m sure that was a main part of the problem. Unfortunately, within just 5 minutes, my 5 Euro buy-in was gone. That was all I was going to risk though. At least now I can say with certainty that I have gambled in Monaco! One guy from our trip played craps though, and won 855 Euros!!! That’s somewhere around $1,200 American dollars!! Lucky!

We drove back to Nice at around 8pm. I was feeling a little down today, just missing home and really missing Brad. Going to dinner with Laura, CJ, & Callen was really good for me though. It helped me realize that I’m not the only one who is feeling this way. Nice is sort of the hump to get over on the trip, because it’s all downhill from here! I was able to skype with my mom & sister and with Brad this evening before I turned in, so that made me day! I can go to bed a happy girl! Goodnight!

Beach Day on the French Riviera!

Today we had a complete free day to enjoy Nice. We took our time getting up this morning (that meant about 8:30am) and went down to the beach by about 10. We went to a local shop to buy straw mats to make the beach more comfortable. The beaches here in Nice are composed mainly of rocks and pebbles… not sand. It’s pretty much impossible to walk on the beach without shoes/flip flops of some kind. I tried and it’s killer on your feet! The mats actually helped a ton though with my comfort level while laying on the rocks! I also bought a Nice beach towel as a souvenir, and it came in handy as a beach pillow.

The water was so blue but soooo cold! I went in a few times, mainly to cool off from the hot sun which was beating down on us all day today. Actually quite a lot of our study abroad group made it out to the beach today that is located right in front of our hotel. I laid out there from about 10am to 3pm, or 5 hours. I got a little sun, but I was already relatively tan, so the sun didn’t affect me too much. It was so nice however just to lay on the beach, doze off and on, listen to music, and relax with friends. It was a much needed rest day from the hectic schedule that we had been enduring in Paris and London!


After we left the beach in the afternoon, we headed out to explore Nice a little more. We walked around and shopped some in Nice’s main shopping district. Nice is such a cute little town, because yes its touristy, but not overwhelmingly so. You still get to experience the small town feel of a southern French city. I bought a few things at Zara (a very popular store in European countries), and I also bought a present for Courtney which I hope she enjoys and is able to get a lot of use out of!

For dinner, Kinsey, Sam, Caitlin, Jay, Taylor, and myself all dressed up to go out have a nice meal together. We decided on this Italian place a few blocks over from our hotel, and it was great! I loved the penne pasta I got there, and the bottle of rose wine that Caitlin, Kinsey, and I split was delectable!


After dinner, we came back to the hotel, had a small journaling party with CJ and Laura added into our girl mix, and then went and hung out with a few people before I decided to call it a night. Tomorrow, we meet downstairs in the lobby at 8:45am to head to Perfumarie Fragonard to hear all about the perfume making process and try out some of their special scents. After that, we head into the principality of Monaco, and go visit the famous grand casino and Jacque Cousteau Oceanographic Museum. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, but a fun and interesting one! More later!

The French Riviera Is Calling My Name!

We didn’t have to load the coaches to depart for Nice until nearly 1pm, so the morning was our own to spend however we chose. I was tempted to sleep in, but agreed to get up at 8am and go out shopping and exploring Avignon a little bit more with the girls. I was able to skype Brad at about 8:15 while I was getting ready for my Tuesday and he was still awake from his Monday (even though it was actually about 1:15am Tuesday morning). The time difference is so strange to wrap your head around, but I’m managing alright.
Let me just say I am so glad I woke up to go out shopping. I saw so much more of Avignon than I even knew existed while we were walking around. I bought something for mom that I think she’ll like, and some clothes for me. A girl just can't resist an H&M store! Laura and I had a quick bite to eat at McDonalds (yes I know, gross. But we had to have quick food!) and headed back to the hotel to pack and check out of our rooms.
On the bus ride, I was able to journal some and work on memorizing my part for the presentation this evening. I was a little nervous, but I know that everyone is in the same boat at some point or another on this trip.
Once we started driving into the town of Nice, we got to see the pristine blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. We were seriously just like little kids at Christmas time, all flocking to one side of the bus to get the best view of the water. Our hotel is the Hotel Westminster, located directly on the Promenade des Anglais which sits on the beach. The beaches here are rocky, not sand like we’re so accustomed to in the States, so that should be interesting tomorrow. As of right now, a group of us are planning on getting up in the morning, buying some tanning lotion, and heading out to the beach to rent chairs for the day. Supposedly its only 14 Euros which might be worth my comfort for the day! Tomorrow is just going to be spent laying out, sleeping, and relaxing on the beach. I seriously cannot wait! After hectic days in London and Paris, Nice is going to be my rest stop on this marathon of a trip.
Before we could go to the beach (or have dinner for that matter), we had to attend our orientation meeting, and hear from our speaker for the evening, Barbara Wilson, an expert on cultural diversity. She spoke to us about ways that French culture is different from that of the U.K. and from America. She pointed out some things to me that I probably would not have picked up on otherwise, like French people value their relationships with people over telling the truth under oath. In America, we’d normally tell the truth to avoid serving jail time.
Then it was time for us to present our presentation. It went really, really well actually!! I was super proud of our group and the skit that we had created. Ben was hilarious wearing his beret and attempting to speak in his fake French accent! After the presentation, Jay and Taylor even said that they thought ours was the best of the trip so far! Wow, what a compliment!  I’m just glad it’s over with now so we don’t have to stress about it anymore.

The meeting seemed to last forever, but when we finally got released at around 8:15pm, we hurried off to dinner to try to beat the rest of the group to the restaurant that was going to be the most popular. It worked! We went to Texas City (so typical, always wanting to go to the Texas place), and I had a taco plate (also, typical me). It was alright, but definitely not like what we get back at home.
After a fun dinner with Caitlin, CJ, Kinsey, Taylor, Jay, and me, I came back to the hotel just to make it an early night. Some of the crew was going out to Old Town where there are a lot of bars and pubs, but I just wasn’t feeling the going-out vibe, and would much rather relax and get some good, hard sleep. Beach day tomorrow!

Goodbye Paris, Next Stop: Avignon!

6:10am. That’s when my alarm went off. Ugh, another early day. This day was even harder to get up, because I knew we weren’t doing anything of significance besides driving all day. We left the hotel at around 7:20am after having breakfast and set our course for Avignon, a quaint, sleepy little town in the south of France. We would only stay there for one night, mainly as a rest stop for the coach drivers who are governed by really strict driving laws in the EU. We had to stop literally every 2 hours for about 30 minutes just so the drivers could have a break. It made our full day of driving seem even longer.
I slept some on the bus because my Dramamine helped knock me out. When I wasn’t sleeping I was catching up on my journaling, and now I can proudly say that I am completely caught up to date!
When we arrived in Avignon at about 5pm, we checked into our hotel which unfortunately was without air conditioning for the night. Initially, most of us having grown up in Texas, were appalled and groaned at the thought of not having AC, but it actually wasn’t that bad. Although it was about 83 degrees when we got to Avignon, it cooled down significantly overnight, and Caitlin and I even slept with our Juliet balcony doors open to allow a breeze to flow through the room.

After putting our things down in our room, we set off exploring with most of the group. The town is absolutely gorgeous! It sits right on a river which had pretty blue water (unlike the Thames and Seine Rivers in London and Paris). What is most unique about the town is that it used to be the home of the Catholic Popes before Vatican City was formed. We walked around the exterior of the Palais de Papal (Palace of the Pope) and took lots of the pictures because it sits on top of a tall hill that gave us a great panoramic view of the whole Avignon area.


We then found a restaurant for dinner that was actually pretty nice. There was a group of 12 of us seeing as Dr. Mac and Mrs. Mac joined us! Today was their wedding anniversary, and they couldn’t have been more precious! While we were waiting on our ordered food to come to the table, the Mac’s went over to the carousel and were the only people there. They rode it and Michelle took pictures. When I get older, I want what they have, because just anyone looking at them can tell that their love is so pure! Precious!
However, dinner wasn’t as precious. The salad came with some weird meat on top of it. I didn’t try it but it looked to be snails or tuna fish. Oh and the egg on my salad smelled disgusting, so that was another major turnoff. My entrée was delicious however. I ordered chicken covered with mushrooms and mushrooms sauce. YUM! For dessert, most of us ordered gelato, which was delish!
After dinner, my presentation group got together to work on and practice our presentation considering we present tomorrow evening once we get to Nice. I think it should be pretty good, and funny as well. Pray I remember what I’m supposed to say!
Once we were finished, we headed down to sit next to the river where a lot of other people from our trip were. It was so beautiful. We were sitting next to this bridge that Avignon is famous for, and the way it was lit up at night was awesome! I took several pictures that turned out great. I think I’m going to enter one of them into the study abroad photo contest that A&M holds every year.

We went back to the hotel relatively early at 11ish. I then updated my blog and got it pretty much fully up to date! Since I had slept a few hours on the bus earlier that day, I wasn’t all that tired but I made myself got to bed at 1:30am. My head was asleep as soon as it hit the pillow pretty much. I guess I was more tired than I thought. This trip wears you out!!

Last Day In Paris

Our last day in Paris was supposed to be a leisure bike tour around the city followed by a free afternoon and evening. Most of today was not leisurely and relaxing to say the least. This morning, a small group of us decided to get up really early and try to go day one of the French Open! We were all super excited to see some great tennis! We met down at breakfast at 6:30am and left for Roland Garros at about 7am. Once we got there, we were nearly first in line (or the queue as it is known in Europe) to buy tickets. We were expecting that tickets opened up for sale at 8am because that is what Courtney had been told when she went to the Charity Day of the French Open yesterday. That didn’t turn out to be the case however. We definitely got the run-around by the French security guards, and it was obvious that no one really knew what they were talking about so we decided to wait it out. Who knows, maybe they’d change their minds?! A French lady who also spoke excellent English told us that she has gone to the French Open the past 5 years, and every year it’s the same old thing; saying they don’t have tickets and opening up the queue at about 9:30am or 10. That alone gave us loads of hope that we would get to see what we came for!


Unfortunately for us, the one of the directors of ticketing for the whole tournament came over to our line and was very polite when he told us that they really were not selling tickets at the venue today. Apparently all the tickets were sold online this year and nothing would be available at the venue because all the days were already sold out. The French lady then informed our little American grouping that this was a political move by the French tennis federation, because the French lady then informed our little American grouping that this was a political move by the French tennis federation, because for years they have been trying to get the French Open moved to a bigger venue but have faced tough opposition. They figured if they could post all their tickets for sale online and then sell out in advance, they would have people waiting at the gate (just like we were), who get locked out. This way they can go to the board and say, “Look! There were all these people that couldn’t get in this year that wanted to. We need a bigger venue.” It’s all very political and not something I wanted to be a part of. Basically, our group became involuntary martyrs in this situation for the French tennis federation.

We finally gave up and left at about 10:15am. By this time everyone else was already on their Fat Tire Bike Tour around Paris. I’m really bummed that I didn’t get to go, especially since the French Open thing turned out to be a wash. So I just went back to the hotel room for about 3 hours or so, journaled some, relaxed, and uploaded facebook photos. I tried to meet up with a few groups of people, but I didn’t want to ride the Metro by myself and try to meet up with them using only the limited cell phone service between us.
Instead I went down to the lobby and happened to see Lindsey, and we decided to head to the Champs Elysess, because I hadn’t been yet. The arch was pretty, but honestly it was kind of ruined by the fact that boulevard itself was closed down and became a pedestrian madhouse due to some farmers protest thing. At last estimate I heard that there was somewhere near 2 MILLION people on the Champs Elysess boulevard this afternoon. It took us nearly 20 minutes from when we exited the Metro car underground to get up the stairs and reach ground level. We were packed in like sardines, and honestly I felt very uncomfortable and claustrophobic. We walked down the shops along the street for an hour or two, but I didn’t buy anything. After my Longchamp bag yesterday, I’m set for the rest of Paris.  haha.

We came back to the hotel at around 5:45, ate a snack for dinner, and then I left to go to Mont Parnasse with a large group of people from our trip. Mont Parnasse is the tallest skyscraper in France, and you’re allowed to go to the top and view the city for only 8 Euros. I liked this idea better than going up the Eiffel Tower, because I want the Eiffel Tower in my view, not me on it. We went up to the top, although they wouldn’t let us bring our wine, and admired the city at dusk. Paris is a gorgeous city when you soak it all in through one view.


Tomorrow morning is going to come way too soon. We board the coaches at 7:15am and start driving towards Avignon where we stay for the night. Then it’s onto Nice, and oh man will that be nice. ;)

Versailles, River Cruise

Our first (and only) free day to explore Paris! We wanted to get out of the city a little bit and see the palace and the gardens at Versailles. WOW, it was absolutely breathtaking! We rode a commuter rail line about 45 minutes outside of Paris to the town of Versailles and tried to beat the crowds. Lots of students from our marketing trip went out to Versailles then, but I’m pretty sure we had the earliest party leaving at about 8:30am. CJ, Kinsey, Caitlin, Jen, Ashley, Laura, Sam, and I all went together. Although the palace is huge, somehow I still think it was the most crowded place I have visited on the trip thus far. People were wall to wall walking through the state rooms inside the building. Some of the paintings on the ceiling were ridiculous! I couldn’t believe that someone actually painted those such a long time ago… upside down nonetheless!

We then went out into the gardens and explored a bit around there. I videotaped Laura and Sam running through the gardens to get a picture, which I’m pretty sure is frowned upon, but it was seriously entertaining to watch happen haha! Our feet were aching from all this walking that we’re doing, so we didn’t explore too deep into the gardens, but we got the general feel. However, I was very much expecting there to be flowers in the gardens, but I never saw any. I don’t know if they’re in between planting seasons or if its normally just all shrubbery. We really enjoyed the gardens either way though. Versailles, the palace and the gardens together, is one of the prettiest things I think that I’ve ever seen!


Finding our way home from Versailles turned out to be more of an adventure than we bargained for though. The train station that we arrived at was suddenly closed when we wanted to leave, so they directed us about a mile to a mile and half away, through city streets with barely any signage. While we were walking towards this mysterious train station, you’ll never believe who I saw! Logan Beall from FUMC Hurst back home! It was SO crazy random I couldn’t believe it. He was with his study abroad group from the OU Accounting Department, and they were going to be in Paris for a month. It’s crazy how it really is such a small world!
Once we got back into the city of Paris itself, we realized we had no idea where we were. We had to find a Metro station, which wasn’t the easiest thing ever when it seemed like everyone we spoke to did not speak English. Finally, Laura and I split off from our big group and went back to Galeris de Lafayette because we both decided to purchase a Longchamp bag. They’re getting to be pretty popular back in the states, but are about 50 more Euros over there than they are here. Longchamp (pronounced LONG-chomp with a French accent) is manufactured in France, so they’re prices are cheaper over here. I got a cross body purse/messenger bag for 98 Euros. It was my big Parisian purchase! Everyone has got to have one! Word of advice though: never EVER go to Galeris on a Saturday afternoon… biggest madhouse I have ever seen in my entire life!
We then headed back to the hotel for a little rest break and dinner at a café down the block before our group Seine River Cruise at 8:45pm that evening. It was really nice to just sit down on the boat for an hour and relax while we got to take in the sites from the City of Lights. Our cruise was during the hour of dusk here in Paris, so we got to view a beautiful sunset as well. Most of the sites from the river cruise I had already seen before just from walking around Paris, but it was still nice to get a different perspective on it all.


Finally, I came back to the hotel after the cruise and went almost immediately to bed. The plan is to wake up tomorrow and head down to Roland Garros for day one of French Open play! I’m super excited and hope we get tickets!

Busy, Busy Day Around Paris

This morning, we got to have our first French breakfast buffet, and it was so delicious!! It was most definitely about a million times better than the English breakfasts we were eating in London. At our breakfast today, there were croissants, baguettes, orange juice, omelets, hash browns, toast, cheese, and the list goes on. The waiter even came up to me and asked me if I would like hot chocolate, and of course I said “oui! Sei vue play” (meaning ‘yes, if you please’). To this he asked if I wanted more milk or more chocolate! Wow, what great service! It was delicious! Although I was a little rushed during breakfast because I panicked a little bit when I realized I had forgotten my nametag that is to be worn on our business suits in the hotel room somewhere. Luckily, I found it, because I didn’t want to get points knocked off my grade for something so minor.
We then departed via the Metro (Parisian subway system) for our company meeting with Galeris de Lafayette, the oldest department store in the world. Galeris de Lafayette could be compared to Harrods in London because the both tend to specialize in high fashion brands and luxury items. One of the biggest differences between the two companies however is that Galeris has many locations all over France, while Harrods has remained steadfast to their one location throughout the entire world.
We shopped around Galeris for a bit before going upstairs to where they were going to put on a fashion show just for our group, complete with runway, lights, models, and designer clothes! The show was good, although I’m not that into high fashion, so it sort of just all looked the same after a while to me. When the show was done, we went upstairs to Galeris rooftop terrace and had a great view of the city of Paris! We took another group picture in our suits (we look so official!) and snapped a few pictures of friends as well.

Then we were on our own for about 5 hours until we had to meet back together at 5:40 for our presentation from Apple. A group of us decided to check out The Louvre. We were expecting long lines, but were pleasantly surprised to see no lines at all! It was wonderful! A hugely famous attraction with no lines to speak of! We walked most of the museum actually and were there for a couple of hours. We saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, Hammurabi’s Code, Winged Victory, and many other famous works of art. It was such a cool thing to be in the presence of such deep, rich cultural history! I even got my picture in front of the Mona Lisa! I’m so glad I went there, and would have seriously regretted it if I didn’t have time to.


After The Louvre we still had more time to kill, so we walked to Notre Dame. The French man at the museum told us it was a 10 minute walk. I have learned to never trust a Frenchman because it was definitely more like a 45 minute walk. Once we got there we were so tired from walking that we just took pictures of the outside, and then walked down the street to get a crepe. It was so delicious! I chose the nutella and banana kind, because I have heard those are the best, and even though I don’t normally like bananas it was very, very good!

We headed towards Apple via the Metro next, and arrived at our meeting place nearly an hour early. Our little group decided it would be the perfect time to try to find someone to interview for my marketing report I have to turn in at the end of the summer. We spotted this young woman standing near us who looked like she was waiting on someone. We interviewed her and found out she was 21 years old and a business college student like us. She was easy to talk to because we related to her so well since we were the same age.
Finally, it was time for our visit with Apple. Now, being a part of the Apple cult myself, I was eagerly anticipating this business meeting and had high hopes for it. I have to admit I was a little disappointed. The presentation itself was a little boring simply because most of the time they were simply stating growth numbers to try and impress us. Afterwards however, they let us go into their showroom and play with all the Apple technology, much like you can do in an Apple store. The best part of the entire business visit though was walking out onto their rooftop terrace that overlooks the Eiffel Tower. Their office is actually quite close to the tower, so we got a great, up-close view of it. Of course, everyone was taking pictures so I joined in the mayhem. At this point on the trip, everyone just immediately knows how to get into formation for a picture, who kneels, who is on the back row, etc. It’s actually quite amusing how efficient we are with it, haha!

Once we left Apple, 3 of us went to a little café that specialized in pizza near our metro station. The food was alright, but the pepperonis are different over here. They are thicker and more spicy, so that was an interesting change on my pizza. I have to say I prefer the American pepperoni pizza more. The service wasn’t very good though. Typical French rudeness though, just not waiting on us well because we don’t speak their language and are from the United States. It doesn’t faze me though, everyone has their own opinions about cultures and people. I can’t say that I love the French way of life more than my way of life back in Texas because that’d be a lie. Everyone sees things differently, and I’m constantly being reminded of that on this trip. It’s keeping me humble and making me grateful for those things I normally take from granted back in the States.

Goodbye London, Hello Paris!

Waking up this morning was a little bittersweet. I was just starting to really get adjusted to London, the tube, the food, etc and now we were having to leave it already! However, I know that we still have so much left to see on our trip, so we have to move on. This morning we loaded the coaches (“Buses” are not buses over here. Buses are city transportation you pay for. Coaches are the nice charter buses that we think of in the States) and headed off for Paris. I tried to sleep, very uncomfortably I might add, on the 2-hour drive to the English Channel.
Once we got to the Channel, our coach drove into an open train that would take us across the Channel, 90 feet under the sea floor! It was very claustrophobic, and I’m very glad that doesn’t bother me too much or else I would have been really freaking out! The Chunnel ride only took about 35 minutes, and then we were in France! We drove for about an hour before we stopped at a rest stop in France. I ate some pizza, kiwi, and strawberries ;) and it was good… at the time. I started feeling bad on the bus ride right when we departed again though, so I resorted to taking 2 ibuprofens and one Dramamine. Let’s just say I got super tired super fast. I think I was able to sleep for about 2 hours on the bus ride which was greatly needed and much appreciated. It made the time fly by so much quicker. Once I awoke we were driving into the outskirts of Paris!
We finally made it to our hotel, the Marriott Paris Rive Gauche Hotel. Its SO NICE!!!!!! SO MUCH NICER THAN THE HOTEL IN LONDON! Apparently we lucked out too, because last night our trip advisor got a call that our original hotel that we were planning to stay at in Paris, the Paris Republique Plaza Hotel, was going on strike so we would have to find somewhere else to stay! Who does that?!?! Anyways, luckily the Marriott had enough rooms to accommodate our large group. AND… bonus! It has fabulous wifi signal with Boingo! LIFESAVER!!!
We got settled into our rooms and then met back downstairs in a conference rooms for our Paris orientation meeting and group presentations from Paris (the city), Galleries de Lafayette, and Apple Inc, France. They were all very entertaining with cute skits! I hope we do as well as they did when we have our presentation in five days!
After presentations, we met Dan in the lobby and he showed a large group of us how to use the metro system, and took us to the Eiffel Tower. We got there just at dusk, so we had a wonderful view! The tower was so much bigger than I imagined it to be! It’s so grand… and also so masculine looking with all the steel. I feel like I was expecting a more dainty looking tower, although I don’t know why. It was absolutely breathtaking nonetheless. We walked up to Trocadero’s Plaza and took lots of pictures. We waited around until about 10pm when the light show on the tower started! It wasn’t as intricate as I thought it was going to be… there were no patterns to the lights, it was just a constant sparkling, but it was beautiful. I videotaped a minute or two of the ten minute show to show mom and dad when I get home ;). We then left the tower, bought a few souvenirs, and headed back to the hotel to make it a night. A long day of travel is tiring, and I have a lot of journal entries and blogging to catch up on! Night!

Tour of the English Countryside

This morning on our free day in London, a large group of us had booked in advance a tour from Evans Evans Tour Company in which they would drive us via coach up to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge all in one day. They even came and picked us up at our hotel in the morning!
Windsor Castle was our first stop of the tour. It lies about 30 minutes outside of London and is used as the Queen primary residence when she is not at Buckingham Palace. We couldn’t see as much as I was expecting since we were only there for an hour and a half. It was just enough time to get a few pictures, walk around, see everything, but there was no time to linger around one sight. This was probably the biggest downfall of the tour as a whole, but it was still nice to be exposed to all of these landmarks that are outside of London that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The castle was so big, and the view was incredible. I wish I could have seen the front of the castle because all I saw was the side and the back.


Our next stop was 2 whole hours later in Bath, England. Bath was such a cute English town. All of the streets were extremely narrow and it was excessively hilly. I know our coach driver does this all the time, but I still don’t understand how he maneuvered some of those streets with the giant coach we were in. We went into the Roman Baths and saw those. It was cool, but I feel like I needed to know more about them to really have a full appreciation for it. I plan on learning more about them when I get back into the States. It’d be a shame to have visited some place so rich with ancient history and to not fully appreciate what occurred there thousands of year ago.


The last stop on our tour was Stonehenge, which was another hour’s drive. It was smaller than I was expecting, and the stones weren’t as white as I feel like I had seen in pictures. Our group took a lot of pictures as we always do, complete with jumping pictures. Everyone MUST have a jumping picture when they go to Stonehenge! We were only there for about 45 minutes before we boarded the bus and headed back to London. 45 minutes was a little too short, but about right considering there really wasn’t anything to see at Stonehenge besides the stones themselves. I just don’t understand how people from thousands of years ago, before the wheel was invented, managed to move some of these rocks over 200 miles over hundreds of years to form some sort of prehistoric observatory (at least that’s the leading theory right now). It boggles the mind!!


We got back into the city at about 8pm and had dinner at the restaurant, Ask, which we had eaten at a few days before. It’s located on the block behind our hotel, and has some of the best rose wine I’ve ever tasted! They let me take the bottle home, which is something they normally don’t do.
When we got back to the hotel, we made reservations to go to the Absolut Ice Bar near Piccadilly Circus. It was so cool… literally and figuratively! When we got there it was -7 degrees celcius inside the bar, so they provide your with a parka and attached gloves that you have to wear while inside the bar because everything is ice! The glasses our drinks come in are ice, the bar is ice, the tables, the walls, the floor, everything! My drink was actually really good. I ordered the Absolut Vertigo. Some other people’s drinks actually glowed a little which was a little strange for me, but they seemed to enjoy them. The ice bar sessions are only 45 minutes to prevent anyone from getting too cold, which is fine because we were ready to go right about then anyways.


We headed back to the hotel to finish packing, because in the morning we leave for Paris! Goodbye London, it’s been real! Now onto the rest of the trip!