The Arkansas Traveler: May 2014

Well I guess its time to recap my final week of traveling through Europe. The entire class started out by taking a trip up to Pisa and then up to the a lovely coastal area known as Cinque Terre (Five Earths) the town we stayed in is a rather beautiful summer destination for many tourist. After spending the night in the sleepy little town of Vernazza. It was time for our groups to go their separate ways. Some of us decided to spend another week free traveling. However my group and a few others chose to leave on the 23rd instead of the 30th of April.
After a tearful farewell it was time to catch a train to Milan and what we Hoped eventually a train to Paris. However, in reality things didn't work out that way instead of a train to Paris. We had to make an unexpected detour to Geneva. When we arrived at the station, it was already getting late. We had no idea where we were going to stay for the night many of the hotels around the station were rather expensive. So after about an hour of shall we say investigative work we managed to find a hostel that was both affordable and close to the station. Unfortunately due to the unexpected change of plans we spent much of the night planning and booking the rest of our trip. Finally after finishing our all night plan session I managed to get a three hour nap in before we had to be back at the train station to buy our tickets from Geneva to Paris.
Needless to say due to the utter lack of sleep that the group received at the hostel, we all spent much of the four hour train ride sleeping. I must admit that Paris is as beautiful as everyone always says it is. On the first day we spent most of the time viewing all the major sites: the Eiffel tower, the Arc de Triomphe, etc. It was still impressive even if the weather was less than cooperative. My favorite part of that first day was being able to go up the Eiffel tower at night and see all the lights of Paris shine. We started our second day in the city of lights by celebrating Easter sunday by going to the Morning mass as Notre Dame. After a wonderful brunch it was time to visit the Louvre, Unfortunately due to time issues we couldn't visit all the exhibit halls in fact we more or less had to hit the high points. After spending only a few short hours in one of the most famous museums in the world, we decided to try to visit the palace of Versailles. The Palace and the garden that surrounds it were simply magnificent. Everywhere you looked it was fountains, marble statues, and ornamental flowers and bushes.
After Versailles it was time to board another train, this time we headed toward the city of Lille.

The next morning we boarded a ferry that would take us to Dover, England. I must admit that after months of only hearing foreign languages it was nice being on a boat were everyone spoke English. When we arrived in Dover we immediately boarded a train that went to London. London was an amazing sight, we had only two days to take in as much of the sights as possible. So we did what any sensible person would do.....we rented bikes and travelled all over the city. We visited everything from Tower Bridge (What most people mistake for London Bridge) to The Tower of London. From the Parliament Building to Abbey Road. Among the many things we visited we managed to squeeze in a trip to the British museum of Natural History as well as watching Les Miserables in Piccadilly Circus. Before I knew it it was time to go to Heathrow international airport and fly back to Atlanta and then Home. Out of all the places we visited on this trip I had the most regret about only having a few days to spend in London. I feel I could have spent a week in London and not gotten to visit everything that was there.

I'm glad that I was given the privilege and opportunity to have taken this adventure. I wish to one day return and perhaps spend a little more time enjoying the places I have visited as well as maybe discovering new places as well. My time in Europe has opened my eyes a little bit more to the world around me. It has shown me that the world is not as big as I once thought it was, I got the see thing first hand that I thought I would never get the chance it experience first hand. I know what I have shared probably hasn't really been good at expressing this experience. But perhaps it has given everyone a idea of what I've been through.