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So, things have been pretty normal in the 2 weeks since I've been back from the Europe trip. We only had 1 week of classes left to attend, and this past week has been finals. I finished my finals yesterday and am so glad! I'm not officially a senior!

I've gone out a couple of nights since being back. We usually end up downtown a lot, and sometimes people will throw a party.

We hosted a lunch party at our house for our 3 program directors: Maria, Angelo, and Mia. I helped Lauren cook the pasticcio (a Greek dish) and nothing was burned down nor was there any bloodshed. I'm such a homely kind of girl . Anyways, we had tons of food, wine, and desserts. It was a really nice time!

Last night was International Night at Intercollege. All different nationalities and groups had booths...it was sort of a fair. There was a big screen slideshow playing the whole time, a DJ, live band, and dancing shows. Lots of people made food local to where they were from. We were the 1st American group to ever have a booth. We sold rice krispie treats and chocolate chip cookies that we all made. We also set up a beer pong table to show everyone a "real" American game. It was a really fun night.

Other than that I've spent all my time whipping out term papers, studying for finals, and most importantly laying out in the sunshine!

I'm off to Egypt for the weekend...how cool is it that I can say that? I'll be back on the island Monday night. After that trip I'm done to only 1 1/2 weeks here. There's a beach trip & lots of other stuff planned before I leave, so it should be a good time. I'm definitely looking forward to coming home though!

The next morning I woke up & we drove to Paris. We stopped at a truck stop on the way for lunch (fancy) and got to the city at 6:30. That night Erin & I went out & got crepes for dinner. We bought wine & just sat in a park by the Eiffel Tower. Once it gets dark…the Tower SPARKLES! I didn’t know that. It was so beautiful…definitely nicer than I had imagined.

Day 2 in Paris began with a long & painful train ride to the Chateau Versailles. It was nice place, obviously, but definitely not worth the work it took to get there. We pretty much ran through it because it was so crowded.

Afterward we had lunch near our hotel, where I got a gross salad & didn’t eat it. French food = no good. After I went back to the hotel to soak my knees & meet up with Linsey for the afternoon.

We went to Notre Dame during a service, which was really cool to be at. From the outside I didn’t recognize the cathedral. I pictured it dark – like in the Disney movie. Oh well, it was still gorgeous.

We walked around the town, and to the Sorbonne, which wasn’t really impressive at all. The area around Notre Dame is very nice though. Everyone just sort of sits by the river and hangs out…which I seem to like to do in every city we go to.

We went across town to Champs de Elysses, but didn’t shop because it was a Sunday and everything was closed. We got to see the Arc de Triumph, which was nice, and do some souveneir shopping.

We rode the metro home and got Chinese take out for dinner. It was soooo good…not French.

I woke up and went to the Tullieries with Teresa before heading to the Louvre. The gardens were nice but nothing too spectacular. It was a beautiful morning, however.

The Louvre is pretty much a city in itself. There is no way someone could cover that in one visit. It was a serious business kind of museum. I did get to see all that I wanted to see though. There were tons of paintings, which are always my favorite, and a few cool sculptures.

After the museum, I got to see Champs de Elysses when everything was open, since it is right there. A lot of shopping later, it was time to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

The ride to the top of the tower takes 2 different elevators, and is pretty intense. Once at the top, I was fine, but in those elevators…whoa! But the views of the city are absolutely beautiful, and definitely worth seeing.

After that I was beat so I headed back to the hotel for the night.

On our final day in Paris we had only a few hours to spend, so I went off on my own looking to find a park to hang out in. Well, I found it and it was definitely my favorite place in the city. There were ponds, paths, tons of flowers, and people just being lazy everywhere. It was a nice way to end the trip.

We had to take 2 flights back to Larnaca that day. The bus was late getting to us and by the time we were back at the house it was 5:30 a.m. It was an exhausting journey, but such a great one!

Day 10: We’re in the double digits now! Today I woke up and once again, got on the bus. We were in Brussels, Belgium 2 hours later. Here we got coffee and toured the European Parliament. We had a presentation here and got to this debating chamber as well.

Later on we had a 3 hour tour of the city. We saw the Atomium from the last World’s Fair, Town Hall, and St. Michael’s Cathedral. In our free time we got Belgian Waffles!

So, we took another lovely bus ride to Amsterdam, Netherlands where we stayed at the “Botel.” It was a boat, and a hotel. It was weird. The first night I had dreams about the fact that I was claustrophobic. Weird.

That night we went exploring & had some Amsterdam-style adventures. You know, stopped at a few fun shops and walked through the Red Light District.

The next day (Friday the 13th) we woke up & headed across town to the Van Gogh Museum. It was awesome, and I got to see a lot of his works I really liked. After we were done there we took pictures with the big Amsterdam sign and went to the Heineken Experience. It was also really fun.

We had lunch at the Hard Rock Café...nachos! We walked to the Anne Frank House by the river. The museum they made out of the house was extremely good, and very moving. It was definitely cool to see.

We shopped a little and then went back to the stupid Botel to shower & get ready for the night. The plan was to go out…but I definitely laid down to nap for an hour…and passed out. I stayed that way until morning…I’m such an old lady.

The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial was extremely heart-wrenching, but I am so glad I got to see and experience it. The bunkers and crematorium as well as other buildings were still in place. It was unbelievable to physically see the remains of such an awful place.

We boarded the bus and stopped a little bit away for lunch. I think by this point I had a McDonald’s salad from 4 or 5 different countries…not too cool. The ride to Strasbourg, France was 6 hours, so we watched the Sound of Music, which I had never seen before and wasn’t as awful as I thought it would be.

We got into Strasbourg at around 8 and I went out with Marcie & Teresa. Our French dinner was pretty bad – Teresa thought she ordered us soup when actually it was onion pizza. We walked around to see the few sights there were. The city was absolutely beautiful and I would’ve liked to live there. It was pretty small but the city church, opera house, and all the architecture were gorgeous.

This is one day I ate 3 meals, in 3 different countries. Breakfast: Austria. Lunch: Germany. Dinner: France. It was kind of an exhausting day.

Waking up in Strasbourg, we immediately boarded the bus to the Council of Europe. There we were given a tour, got to see the debating chamber, and had a presentation from some important guy…he was boring, that’s all I know.

Afterward, we rode the bus to Luxembourg. We only spent about 2 hours there. It was enough time to grab lunch and explore a tiny bit, though. There wasn’t too much to do there and there was a ton of construction. It was a pretty pointless stop, but hey, now I can say I’ve been to Luxembourg...woohoo.

Yet again we boarded the bus, this time heading for Leuven, Belgium. We got to our hotel and I changed quickly before meeting up with my friend Melde, from high school. She took a group of us around a little and out to dinner. I had some awesome pasta and good Belgian beer. After dinner, we all went to a few bars before heading in for the night. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time seeing Melde again!

The bus ride to Vienna, Austria was only 1.5 hours. We settled into the hotel and went out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner….very Austian, I know. Afterwards I took a bath, used the free internet, and went to bed early.

We woke up and took a walking and bus tour of both the new and old cities. We visited Hundertwasser House and Village, which was awesome. The architect, Hundertwasser, didn’t use right angles, used mirrors everywhere to project light, liked a lot of fountains, and the ground surrounding his buildings were never flat. It was very cool. We also saw St. Peter’s, the Opera House, a few embassies, the Plague Column, and a two castles.

I guess I should mention that this was Easter Sunday. We went to lunch and got ice cream for a treat. We got some boiled eggs and met up with some others to break them (some weirdo Greek thing ). We went to a fair near our hotel to ride the giant ferris wheel, which is historically important for some reason, but never actually rode it.

Everyone went home to rest and I took a walk along the river, which was absolutely gorgeous. I went to the hotel and showered before meeting up with some others to go downtown to dinner. We ate at a traditional Austrian restaurant, which was really slow and the owner/waiter dude was really rude. Anyways, it was a good meal and we had a good time, so it’s all okay.

The next morning I woke up at 6:45 (boo) and boarded the bus to Melk Abbey. The Abbey is one of the most famous in the world, and now a school as well. We only had 1.5 hours to walk around but that was plenty because we couldn’t go inside…. I didn’t see even 1 monk!

The bus ride to Salzburg, Austria took 3 hours. After getting into the hotel we went downtown. I had a quick lunch with Teresa & Blake. We sat by the river with some others before Nicole, Linsey, & I left to explore. A lot was closed because it was still a holiday (Easter Monday) but we went to a beer garden, another Easter market, and walked by Mozart’s house and the river for a while longer.

We went back to the hotel and rested up for a little before going out to dinner. We went to a local place which was closed, and two other places which were also closed. We ended up at McDonald’s again.