Well, I've left the island. The United Kingdom is a wonderful place, don't get me wrong here, but Europe is absolutely fantastic. I've had an amazing adventure the past week traveling to each of these places with 3 other American girls. We spent two days at each place, flew to Amsterdam, took a train to Paris, flew down to Rome, and then finally flew back "home" to Manchester...
DAY 1 - Leaving for Amsterdam
We set off on Easter Sunday with my ONE backpack of everything I was going to take. This was unbelievably hard, but I did survive, and have lived to tell about it (as my mother would say). But basically with these cheap flights around Europe, they are cheap because they "get you" with taxes and stuff on checking luggage. So in order to keep it cheap, you can only have ONE carry-on. This does not, by the way, include a purse, so that as well has to fit in your carry-on....
Navigating to the hostel was our first challenge while in Amsterdam. We had directions from one of the girls' roommate's boyfriends who actually lives here, it included a train and two buses. Now, this doesn't seem too difficult, until you figure out that everything is written in Dutch, the same number busses go two different directions, you're dealing with new money, and you can't even figure out how to work the ticket machines. Woah. But, thankfully, just about everyone in the Netherlands speaks English. And they were extremely nice about it. Whenever you even looked lost or confused, someone would come up to you and ask how they could help, just to be nice. That really helped. (And yes, the first train was a double-decker)
Once we got off the train and walked outside for the first time, this was our impression: millions of bicycles. Everyone in Amsterdam rides bikes. And I mean everyone, from girls going on a night out in heels, to businessmen in suits, to four and five year old children going to the grocery store with their moms. Everyone.
Needless to say, Amsterdam is VERY tourist oriented.
This infamous sign "I AMsterdam" was right by our hostel
Welcome to Holland!
The cheese here is VERY good. When we first started wandering around the city, we grabbed a slab of cheese, some nuts and set off. I'm not sure what kind of cheese it was (because the cheese guy didn't speak English) but it was very good and had a Dutch flag on it in the display haha
GRANDPARENTS THIS SECTION IS NOT FOR YOU!
(But yes, marijuana is legal in Amsterdam and there are "Coffee Shops" everywhere. It was completely normal to go in and ask for "space cake" or just to buy a joint to smoke within the shop. Little bit different than at home..)
GRANDPARENTS - you're welcome back to the blog..
Our hostel was actually in a very high end area of Amsterdam. There were all kinds of VERY high end shops around this area. Too bad I 1.) couldn't afford anything and 2.) didn't have space for any of it in my ONE backpack that I lived out of for the entire week!!!!
The location of our hostel was actually really nice because we were located right by two major tourist attractions so it was easy to use the signs as well as ask people directions to these two attractions, the Van Gogh Museum (^) (which I didn't make it into because it was a 2-4 hour wait outside in the bitter cold of about 40 degrees and €15, but one of the girls went and said that it was nothing extremely impressive) and the other was the Rajks Museum (v), of which I never actually figured out what it was. -- But, don't worry, I just googled it and apparently it is a museum of the art and history of Netherlands, so I don't feel like I missed out on too much here..
Here is our hostel, Hotel Van Gogh, which was (as the name said) more of a hotel than a hostel. We had hotel keys, really nice bunk beds, a FLAT SCREEN TV and a bathroom within the room. So we did get a little spoiled early in the trip, but it was quite nice.
That night we went out to a Pub Crawl in town and had an absolutely fabulous first night in Amsterdam
DAY 2 - Full day in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Just a shot of some of the apartments/houses/homes in Amsterdam. Apparently they had a tax way back when that was based on how wide the houses were, so everyone made extremely tall and skinny houses to keep it cheap. You can see in this picture especially, the hooks on top to raise the furniture into the home. A little different than the States..
We didn't make it in, mainly because I think Heineken is absolutely repulsive tasting and it is expensive, but we saw the outside of the brewery which was pretty cool.
(And no, "brewery" is not spelled wrong below, it's in Dutch)
This is one of the reasons why we didn't all make it into the Van Gogh museum, look at this miserable line!
Despite the rain of the second day, look at how absolutely beautiful the city is!
One of the things that we all really wanted to do was to go to the Anne Frank house. It was about a 45 minute walk to the other side of town in the rain, but we stood in line for about another hour, and made it in. We couldn't take pictures inside, but it was aboslutely amazing to see. We saw the rooms that everyone stayed in, interviews with different people involved, lot's of quotes from her diary, the bookshelf that was used to hide the secret door, and climbed the literally vertical stairs up into the hideout. We had always talked about all of this in school so it was kind of cool to see the actual thing. It still just blows my mind that 1.) the holocaust even occured and there are still mass murders like that taking place in society today and 2.) that someone could live in such a small, dark place like that for so long. It was just one of those things that really made you think about a lot of things in life..
Since we were wet and cold, we decided to go and have a cup of coffee in a cafe nextdoor to the Anne Frank House. It was the richest and creamiest hot chocolate I've ever had and I recommend it to anyone even thinking about coming to Amsterdam. The little biscuit thing that is on the plate was like a cinnamony-graham-crackery-yummy thing that we dipped in our drinks.YUM!
Diet Coke is non-existant in main-land Europe. Here, they have "Coca-Cola Light." True Life.
Tastes practically the same and I took full advantage of the abundence.
The traffic is absolutely insane. I wish I had a better picture, but there are 6 lanes of traffic instead of 2 like we are used to. The far outside is for bikes; the next was for cars, taxis, and buses; and then the very middle two lanes were for the tram that goes throughout the city. There are small sidewalks in between all of the lanes and pedestrian crossing lights for each of the lanes.
We wanted to rent bikes since they are a relatively cheap way to get around, but since we were in such a central location of everything that we wanted to do and see in the city and because biking is not a "relaxing past-time" but yet a regulated mode of transportation in Amsterdam, we decided to opt out. If we did this again, I would probably try the bikes just for the experience, but to anyone who wants to do this, I would make sure you know the "rules of the road" before trying it. Because when they ring their little bells at you, they tend to get mad if you just smile and wave like we did the first couple of times..
I'm not an architecture person, but how "It's-A-Small-World" do these picture look??
It rained/poured all day long. But hey, we were in Amsterdam and had a damn good time, so we didn't let it get us too down.. But this picture very accurately describes our day (and there will be many more like it in the coming days..)
The infamous Red Light District. We went on a Monday night just to see what it was like, and it lived up to every picture and sterotype we had ever heard. Though (Mom this is for you), there were police everywhere! I guess because prostitution is legal in Amsterdam, it is HIGHLY regulated and very "safe" (I mean, as much as you can get..). But it was just weird walking around in this area so we didn't stay very long haha
DAY 3 - Leaving for Paris
The next morning we got up at about 4:30, caught a cab at 4:45 and made it to Centraal Station to take the Inter"shitty" Train to Paris. (The reason this is in quotes is because they would say everything in Dutch and then in English and with a Dutch accent Intercity sounded ALOT like Intershitty. This was repeated on the loudspeaker every 10 minutes and when you're waitng for about an hour for a 6:15 train, it can be extremely funny..) The picture above is a parking garage for bikes. It was about 3 stories and was almost completely full at 5:15 in the morning. Crazy!
I fell asleep for most of the train ride, even though I hear it is absolutely beautiful, and I definitely do regret not taking pictures during this time, but the sleep was much needed so I think it was probably a good thing.
Welcome to Paris
We navigated the Paris metro pretty well, but it was quite hard to figure out at first, mainly because it was all in French, and the extent of my French knowledge is "Bonjour" and even when I say that I sound like a poser.. But anyways, we finally made it up to the ticket machines (since they had no booths open for whatever reason) and bought our best guess of a ticket to get to Montematre where our hostel was. I tried asking for help, but no such luck because they either didn't want to help (my translation of looking past me when I asked for help) or didn't speak English or French (that confused look that I give sometimes when I have absolutely no clue as to what is going on). So that wasn't a great start, but we gave it our best shot using the directions from the hostel's website. Eventually we made it there without any major bumps, and after meeting up with Christian (our friend from UCLan who is actually German studying in England, but has family in Paris and has also studied there, knows French as well as the area pretty well, and is studying tourism -- all of which were good things for us!), and dropping off our luggage at the hostel, we headed up to the Montematre Butte - which is a fancy way of saying the highest point in the city. It was absolutely breathtaking (despite what seemed like millions at the time, of stairs to get there)
It's a very artistic area and there are all kinds of artists just waiting to sell you their pictures or draw you. Some of them were absolutely brilliant (v)!
My first view of the Eiffel Tower!
Meet Maxime. He cornered me at the cafe that we decided to take a seat at (where we recieved VERY dirty looks for not ordering anything, which apparently is VERY unheard of in Paris -- so DON'T do this!), and told me that he was going to draw a picture of me. At first he was going to charge me only €20, then €15, and finally €10 because I had "such beautiful eyes." I felt like I couldn't back out once he started drawing and with his baret and red scart and painter's pants mixed with the spirit of being in Montematre, I caved. He kept reassuring me that he was going to be famous and that his art "would be worth at least $1,500 in two years" and I would be able to "take my (non-existant) boyfriend on a very nice holiday." HAH! Little did I know, that magic markers and the artistic ability of a 4 year-old that focused a little too much on the bottom half of the picture, would not make for "beautiful art."
Oh well, it's all part of the experience I guess..
After soaking in all of the "art" we could, we headed to the Louvre (an art museum). "Luckily" it was closed on Tuesdays so we planned on going back the next day. However, we did get to the see just how massive (and beautiful) it was.
We passed the Opera House, which was verrry pretty!
Then we headed to the Galeries Lafayette, which was a VERY upper-class mall. Vests and tank-tops were lined with sequins and cost upwards of €700 !! Beautiful ceiling though..
They had this market in the middle of it where they had all of this REALLY fresh food from meat to cheese to pastries to wine, they had it all. No, you should not take pictures here, because they WILL yell at you..
This cafe was probably the lowest part of the whole trip haha. Christian got his coffee spilled down him and all over his new pack of cigarettes. Looking back on it now, it really wasn't that bad, it was just a mixture of the awfully cold and very wet weather, the rudeness of all of the people that we had met in such a short amount of time in Paris already.
Notre Dame
Paris is just an absolutely beautiful place.
The sun came out just in time for us to see the Eiffel Tower. Completely planned =]
We did the stairs. Saved €3, got some exercise, and did it. A lot harder than it looks, but totally worth it!
700 steps, and we still had this much left.
I do think that sunset was the best time of day to go. You get the best of both worlds: clear view during the day, but the sparkle of the night, and not to mention the beauty of a sunset no matter where in the world you are. Though, the top of the Eiffel Tower does have a pretty good view..
And yet, there was still more.
"The Top"
Champagne on top of the Eiffel Tower, you really can't compete with that.
And the Eiffel Tower sparkles. How cool is that? This is an absolute must-see for anyone planning to go to Paris! It is just breath-taking
The subway..
Our hostel was Le Montclair Montematre. It was really nice that it had a bathroom within the room and it was only the four of us inside.
And probably the hardest part about being in France (besides dealing with the rude people of course) was the keyboard!!!! It's hard to see here, but when we were at the hostels you had to pay for time on the internet and since Mom wanted contact with me, I tried to send her quick e-mails to let her know, you know I was alive and stuff, but it was never just a quick little e-mail. Since it was an AZERTY instead of a QWERTY (labeled by the top left of the keyboard for those of you who didn't know). It was unbelieveably hard to adapt to. With the A, W, and M being in different places, it made it really hard to type quick messages. Instead of just typing without looking like I usually do, I had to really focus on what I was doing, which I hated. Another part of the experience I guess, just not one I was prepared for!
DAY 4 - Paris, France
We took the sneaky entrance into the Louvre thanks to Christian's tip!
This is where I personally was most turned off by Paris. There were two ginormous lines in Le Carousel, so since no one in the lines was helping to answer what the lines were for and how they were different, I found a worker and asked him. Well apparently he got frustrated with my not understanding his very vague answers, and literally rolled his eyes at me and walked away. I just stood there completely dumbfounded. I could not believe that someone whose job it was, was to answer questions from various tourists, could walk away from questions like that. I mean I understand getting frustrated, because I was frustrated too, but Good Lord! Are you serious????
Who knew the museum was underneath those pyramid things??
I felt very out of place with all of these artistic people drawing all of these statues and taking it very seriously..
Because all I saw were naked people and Tebow babies..
I do have to admit though, that if this was my living room, I would learn to appreciate art. Because seeing Napoleon's house preserved like this was pretty cool!
And the Mona Lisa, while I still don't understand why it's so famous, is extremely tiny. It's like a life-size portrait, and if you think about it, really isn't that big. Since the Louvre was so crowded, I basically just stuck my camera up in the air and snapped until I got a non-blurry one with as few of heads as I could.
And the armless man. Don't get this one either. Oh well, saw it.
Just another beautiful day in Paris..
Crepe with Nutella = BEST FOOD EVER! YUM!
McDonalds has maccaroons??
The Arc de Triomph
The Disney Princess Carriage! I totally wanted to take a ride in this, but €30 for a kilometer was just a little too pricy for my backpacking budget..
Apartments in Paris. They really do look like "It's a Small World" Crazy!
Hard to see when it's not zoomed in, but we met this bitch (sorry for the language, but there really is no other word that appropriate covers the name for this absolutely wretched human being). While Brennah wanted to go to a bookstore, the three of us wanted to sit down somewhere. The other two girls just had falaffel, which I couldn't convince myself to eat while in a country that was famous for amazing sandwiches because I wanted one of those! So I heald out and we found this cute little cafe with a view of Notre Dame, so we took a seat and because of past experiences, I wanted to make sure that it would be okay for me to eat, but the others to sit with me. So she reassured me many times "No stress honey, it's okay, no stress." False. She came back about five minutes later leaving me practically no time to look over the 7 page menu of sandwiches. After I quickly pointed to something to order it, she looked at the other two girls and waited for them to order, when they didn't, she got really mad and told them that they had to at least order a drink and since the cheapest drink (water for €3) was something they didn't want to spend money on, we got up and left. Very frustrated, but instead I found a salami and cheese sandwich on a baguette for €2 that was MUCH better than the €8 sandwich I was about to order..
La Mere Catherine! I'm famous in Montematre!
We concluded our last night in Paris in Montematre with a yummy dinner outside with a beautiful view of the city!
Day 5 - Leaving for Rome
Last view of the Eiffel Tower in Paris after getting up at 4:30 again to catch a shuttle to the airport for our flight. The sunrise was beautiful..
Maybe it's just because I don't pay attention, but I didn't realize how far apart all of these cities were from eachother. Manchester is the top left of the UK, Amsterdam is to the right of the upper yellow square, Paris is in the top of the central part of France, and Rome is in the middle of Italy on the bottom right. I've been all over!!
NOT The Andes Mountains, but THE ALPS as I have been corrected
(Good thing I'm no geography major! )
We were a little more prepared to be in Italy because I looked up some key phrases to use, since Christian wouldn't be there to translate for us, none of us knew any Italian, and we really didn't like the reaction that we received in France when they found out that we didn't speak French.
My first italian pizza. Funghi e formaggi (mushroom and cheese)
Weird things about Italian pizza:
1.) If it doesn't say tomato, it doesn't come with sauce
2.) You pay by the kilo, so you have to tell them how big of a slice you want
Stop #1, The Colliseum
Just a Roman soldier walking around by the colliseum
Luckily, we had an absolutely beautiful day
This guy (on the right) had to be dragged down off of the third level of the colliseum, because he was threatening to jump. There were tons of policemen (polizia ;-]) and firemen and there was one of those huge blow-up things for him to land on. Apparently he was just protesting the rise in taxes and the corruption in the Italian government. It was interesting, because while I was in line to get into the colliseum I was talking to a lady who is from Rome and she was explaining just how corrupt the Italian government is. It was kind of crazy actually, some of the stuff that she was saying. But basically she said that Italy is a wonderful place to visit, but not a good place to live because the government is no good, the education is poor, and the safety "is sometimes scary" (sorry Mom). But I would absolutely visit here for every vacation for the rest of my life. Easy.
The gelato in Rome was absolutely fantastic! I had strawberry (I picked the pink one and asked if it was strawberry and she had no idea what I was talking about, so I tried describing the fruit as a red triangle with leaves and she just kept staring at me haha, but thankfully another American (I assume) said that it was strawberry flavored) and chocolate. It was really cheap (€2) so that was even nicer!
I'm ususally the one who figures out the directions and reads the map, but I was really into just taking all of Rome in, and the others ended up taking over. Needless to say, we got lost, and I ended up having to figure out where we were going. Oh well, we got it all together eventually.
This was the American Embassy. (Never had to use it thank goodness!) But it was just interesting because while the others were figuring out the directions, I was watching as this car tried to get into the embassy. They had one guard outside the gate, and then the car came in, two more guards used some sort of metal detection on all sides and under the car, then opened all of the doors, the trunk and the hood, and then finally the red barricade lowered, the gate opened and the driveway raised to be able to be driven through. Such a process! I couldn't believe how unbelievably secure it was! Way to go USA!
The Trevi Fountain
You have to throw in a coin and make a wish. This is where the tradition started. Apparently it will only come true if you come back..
Hey mom...
While we were at the Trevi Fountain this couple (^) got engaged. He proposed, everyone clapped and cheered, and she said yes! It was literally thee cutest thing ever! And yes, I cried. It happend.
The Spanish Steps
And these people had a wedding (^) Must be the city of love or something..
The Pantheon
While we were walking to the Pantheon, on a little side street there were a ton of restaurants, each with their own little saleman trying to get you to come in to their restaurant because they have the best food for the best price and the best overall deals. However, I think we found "the real one." Julian got us each 4-course meals with two free glasses of champagne for €12!! Quite the little deal!
And all of these Brazilian dancers had a street show right in front of our table where the were dancing and flipping and fighting all over the place to music!
Bread with oil was first, then super yummy pasta
Next was a salad (ate it before I remembered to take a picture -- sorry!), potatoes, and chicken
Then finally Tiramisu for dessert. YUM!
The metro apparently isn't used as much as in other cities like London and Paris. For one, they don't have separate carraiges, but one long one where you can see all of the way down, which when it turns can be a little mind-boggling because it looks like a Fun House mirror. Howerever, we got 24 hour passes for €4 and were able to use the busses too, which is the main method of transportation. Definitely a challenge because you have to hit the stop button when you want the bus to stop and you have to look at the bus stop sign outside in order to know which stop you're at because the driver doesn't tell you. Rome is actually a pretty small city, so walking was usually all you needed to get around as long as you had time to do it. Eventually we kind of got the hang of it, and we mainly used it to get back to our hostel because the main station was a final stop, so we didn't have to worry about pushing the button =]
Our hostel, Alessandro's Roma Downtown, was very spacious. We had an 8 person room with a bathroom across the hall and lockers in the room.
We went on another pub crawl that night and ended up running into the other group of American girls from UCLan who actually happened to be in Rome at the same time and we didn't even know it!
DAY 6 -- Rome, Italy
The Vatican
The Last Supper
They had this whole section in the Vatican museum of "Pope-Mobile's" They had original carriages and the outfits the horses used to wear in 18th century, all the way up to the Mercedes that Pope Benedict has ridden in!
The walk to the Sistene Chapel took literally forever. There were practically millions of people trying to get there and of course there was only one hallway to get there so everyone was going the same way, most were on a mission to get to the chapel, but some would stop and look at some of the art along the way, the entirity of the museum was covered in art; from floor to ceiling. It was crazy!
Absolutely breath-taking.
(And no, you weren't supposed to be taking pictures in here, but everyone else was doing it..)
I counted while in Rome, and my final count was 21 nuns, 13 priests, and 2 monks.
Not quite as many as I was expecting, but still a ton!
Pope Benedict XVI's acceptance into the papacy
We found a cafe right outside the Vatican to eat lunch and they had a menu of over 40 different sandwiches, each named after different celebrities. Mine was a Denzel Washington and had some sort of crazy-chewy ham/salami, cheese, and spinach. Overall pretty yummy!
St. Peter's Square in the pouring rain
Everyone had brightly colored umbrella's mainly thanks to the MILLIONS of Middle-Eastern salesmen that could be found on every single street corner, by every bus stop, and surrounding the train-station. They would always be willing to cut you a deal or give you a bargain, all had the exact same thing, and were VERY pestering! While it did get very annoying, I had fun with it. One time when one of them asked Emily, I told him that she said no and he replied with "She say no, but I say yes!" Then I snapped on another saying "We just told 47 of your closest friends no, and we're going to tell you the same thing!" Towards the end of the day, when asked I replied "Does it look like an umbrella would make me any less soaked than I already am?" Yes, probably meaner than I should have been, but I got a kick out of it!
In Amsterdam everyone rode bikes, in Paris everyone was on scooters, and in Rome everyone had motorcycles!
I should have listened to Mom and brought my own umbrella. I would have stopped all of those annoying guys from asking me to buy one, and maybe I wouldn't have gotten completely saturated by the end of the day! Thanks to Grandma Egan, I did get a raincoat to bring with me that had a hood, even though I told her I would never wear it. I lied. And they were right..
Drenched again.
We ended the most wonderful trip with a €3 bottle of Moscato that we sat and drank in the dark because the power went out in the hostel. We just sat around and laughed about the trip and the different things that happend.
Euros for those of you who had never seen them before. Weirdest part? They had 1 and 2 euro coins.
Taking Ryanair "home" to Manchester was one of the most stressful things ever. We had to go to a tiny little airport in Rome, and because the flight was so cheap, they were really big sticklers about the size of your ONE carry-on. They're infamous for bringing around a crate to place your luggage in while standing in line for the plane to check the size. Since it was the end of the trip I was a nervous wreck making sure that my bag was small enough. I was wearing 4 shirts, a cardigan and my coat, left my towel in the hostel, and had my pockets stuffed to the max in order to make sure it was going to fit. Luckily, I had no problems.
Things I'm glad to be back for: Free water, not paying to pee, knowing where I'm going, people speaking English, inexpensive food, being able to sleep, not having my wallet tied to my purse and having to cover it all of the time, less homeless people begging for money, not having to not go through metal detectors in airports, at pub crawls, and in museums, my own keyboard, and probably most of all my girls in Flat 67 !!
Things I'll miss: All of the sights, the beautiful buildings, all of the history behind everything, feeling the confidence to navigate where I'm going, the new-ness of everything, the food in Italy, and most of all the laughs and memories made with all of new American friends
Favorite Place: The first day at Rome with the beautiful weather, sitting at the Trevi fountain eating gelato and seeing a proposal, then having a legitimate Italian meal was definitely my favorite part.
Life Lessons Learned:
Communication can be very frustrating - when you're in a new place where the main language is not English, it can be really easy to shut down, but you have to just roll with it. I learned just how vital body language and vivid descriptions can be.
Getting lost is inevitable - when you're in a new place (or country) signs and the people are the key. You will have to ask for directions and read the signs. Sometimes they will be very vague, but agaim you just have to roll with it. Being able to use a map is a VERY important skill. Relying on GPS to get you everywhere just isn't going to fly in foreign countries. One of the girls I was with went running one of the mornings in Paris and got completely lost. (She made it back two hours later after getting a taxi)
Prepare for the worst - Mom always says that if you prepare for something then it's more likely not to happen. I should have brought my umbrella.
The weather won't be perfect all of the time - but you can't let that ruin your plans. Adjust them maybe, but getting in a bad mood because of it won't make it any better.
Bring snacks - Dad always makes mom carry Hershey bars and now I finally understand why. Foreign food gets very expensive and when you're on your own dime, it's much nicer to eat a granola bar out of your purse as opposed to a €3 candy bar.
Watch out for people who are trying to rip you off - do NOT get in taxis that are un-marked and make sure that they have a meter!!
Blow-Up neck pillows are potentially the greatest invention known to man- Thanks again to Grandma Egan, this little baby kept me comfy on crappy hostel pillows, allowed me to sleep on the trains and planes, and was easy to fold up and pack with me without taking up a lot of room. If you plan on traveling in the near future: INVEST IN THIS! Thanks again Grandma!!
Patience is key - traveling leads to a lot of waiting in line and you have to be able to be okay with that.
Plans change - I'm not usually good at going without having a very detailed plan, but when your traveling, you really do have to expect the unexpected and just roll with the punches. Choosing to be happy and being able to deal with everything that gets thrown at you is the only way to cope with it
Laugh it off- whether you wipe-out in a foreign supermarket or almost get hit by a tram in the middle of the street, the only thing you can really do is just to laugh it off and move on
Being an American is a privilege - one of the best lessons I think I've learned since leaving the States is that it really is an honor and privilege to identify myself as an American. Many people (especially as I learned in France) have an automatic dislike for Americans, but it really is an amazing thing to have such freedoms as we do in the States. I am a part of thee most powerful country in the world and everyone watches everything that we do. Our music, our TV, our fashion, our food: it's seen all over the world. People strive to imitate that and be what I am already a part of. It's never been something that I had ever put any thought into before I did this, but I really am proud of everything that I stand for: as an American and as a person.
I leave to come home to the US exactly 1 month from today, and I am more than excited. It has been an amazing ride, and now that all of my traveling is over, it's time to get down to business. I have tons of papers and tests coming up, so I'm really going to have to buckle down, but it has all been so amazing thus far. I can't even imagine what else there is to come.
Cheers!
Katie
