Italy, Much Woolton, and Final Thoughts

My last week in Europe was absolutely wonderful! I had the opportunity to travel to Italy traveling to Venice and Rome. It was an amazing experience, and I definitely hope to make it back to Italy someday.

Our view flying over Italy! So beautiful! 

Our first stop on our Italy trip was Venice! We flew from the UK to Venice arriving at about 8pm Monday.  We headed straight to the campsite where we decided to stay while in Venice. I am not going to lie, I was super nervous at the beginning about staying in a tent, but it was actually wonderful! We weren't in our tents during the day so we were never too hot. It cooled down at night.  Upon arrival, we went to the campsite, ate dinner at the restaurant located on the camp grounds, then went to bed to get up for an early day of site seeing! We woke up the next morning and headed to downtown Venice. What's cool about Venice is there are no cars allowed in the city, so everyone just takes a boat or water taxi. We took a bus to get to the edge of the city, walked and took the water taxi the rest of the day. The first thing we did was take a gondola ride and it was great! We got to go see a lot of the city and all the beautiful old buildings in Venice.

After our gondola ride, we grabbed a lunch of pasta which was super good then headed out to one of the smaller islands in Venice to go lay on the beach and have gelatto. It was a fantastic afternoon!

After the beach, we headed back to the main island, had dinner, then headed back to the campsite to swim for a little bit. The warm weather was definitely wonderful compared to the weather we were having in Liverpool the weekend before we left.

We woke up super early Wednesday morning to catch our 5:30am train to Rome. The train ride was a little under 4 hours. The view from Venice to Rome was absolutely spectacular. I definitely want to go back to Italy someday just to go to the country. When we arrived in Rome, we dropped off our bags and headed off on our first day of site-seeing.  We toured the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica. They were both stunning places with a wealth of history.

After our visit to the Vatican we had pizza for dinner then headed back to another campsite, this time in Rome, to relax, play cards and swim in the pool.  Thursday would be our biggest site-seeing day of our time in Europe.  Our first stop was the Colosseum and the ancient ruins. The Colosseum was so big and simply breath-taking. You could almost feel yourself being there over a thousand years ago as the lion fight and other events occurred.

After the Colosseum and ancient ruins, it was a quick lunch of pizza (again) and then off to the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain! The Pantheon was so interesting and it is said to have something to do with the founding of geometry. The Panteon is a building in Rome that has large columns on the outside, then on the inside there is a round opening in the ceiling that opens to the sky. It was definitely one of my favorite places during my visit to Rome. The Trevi Fountain was also one of my favorite places. Although it was crowded and probably always is, it is one of those places you simply have to visit so you can throw a coin in the fountain. At the end of the day, some people collect all the money that is thrown in (over 3,000 euros a day!) and use to help feed the homeless in Rome. Which is very neat if you ask me. :)

 Since we visited all of these sites on Thursday, which was the 4th of July, we figured we should go find the American Embassy and see if there were any celebrations there. Boy, where we wrong! They would not even allow us to take pictures! It was very disappointing, but at least we had a little piece of home for being so far away from it. We finished the night with a nice dinner, then headed back to camp, before our early flight back to Liverpool the next morning. Italy was amazing, and I definitely cannot wait to go back some day!  
Much WooltonAs I went back re-read my blogs today, I realized that I did not post as much as I should have about the main reason why I was here! To teach and learn all about British Schools. I was placed in a Year 2 classroom, which is equivalent to a 1st grade back in the states. I honestly absolutely loved it! I have not worked with younger children, but am so glad I got the opportunity to because my students were fantastic, and I already miss them so much. I am not allowed to post pictures of them online, so if you ever want to see them just let me know, and I would be happy to show you.  Like all students, some of my Much Woolton Primary students left me with wonderful quotes.  The young man who said, "Miss, I'm just desperate for the toilet." made it hard for me not to laugh.  When giving my lesson about America and explaining a s'more is a graham cracker with chocolate and a toasted marshmallow, a student said, "Oh Miss, it sounds just lovely."  Again, I miss them already.

Final ThoughtsThe last 8 weeks have been wonderful. I am so thankful to my parents for supporting my decision to have this experience of a lifetime.  I learned so much about not only about the British curriculum, but how to travel on my own and live out of nothing more than a small backpack for up to five days at a time.  I also learned to be flexible because things won't always happen the way you think they will and sometimes you have a better experience just because they turned out different than the original plan. I have had a wonderful time, but am definitely ready to head home tomorrow to see my family. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my blog every week. It truly means so much to me! 

Dublin

This blog is a little late because I have had a crazy last week at school.   I will be blogging about my last week at school later this week. :) This blog is all about my trip last weekend to Dublin!

The travel group for my trip to Dublin, Ireland consisted of my friend Brandon, another BSU student from my class, my high school friend Amy (who is studying abroad in Spain and came later Friday evening) and myself. The other three girls Brandon and I normally traveled with planned a trip to Dublin next week.  They have other friends coming over, so we decided to go ahead and do Dublin on our own!

We landed in Ireland about 12:15pm on Friday, hopped on the bus and headed into the city of Dublin. After we dropped our bags off, we stopped at a little Pub called O'Shea's for a WONDERFUL lunch of fish and chips. It was a great meal!  Then, we explored Dublin and happened to find not one, but two bookstores! As many of you know, one of my hobbies is definitely reading. I love reading all types of books by many authors. I also wanted to make sure I found several children's books only sold over here, so I can take them back for my future classroom. After the bookstores, we continued walking around some more.  We met up with some other BSU students that were in Dublin for dinner. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel to wait for Amy to arrive! Once Amy arrived in Dublin, we went out to listen to some great Irish music, then off to bed to wake up for a big day on Saturday!

We woke up early Saturday, ate breakfast at the hostel, then headed out to do some sight seeing! Our first stop was Trinity College and it was a beautiful place. We walked around campus for a bit and wanted to see the Book of Kells, but it was a bit of a wait and very expensive, so we just decided to go ahead and pass and just hang out on campus.

After Trinity College, we made our way to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is a famous cathedral in Dublin. The cathedral was absolutely beautiful. I had a great time walking around and reading about the great history of the cathedral!

It started absolutely pouring when we finished touring the cathedral, so we stopped at a little restaurant for lunch and to wait for the rain to stop. After lunch, we headed on our way to Dublin Castle. Dublin Castle was one of the things I was really looking forward to going to visit, but we were sad to find out when we got there that it is currently closed and would open again until July 1st. Dang. It was still beautiful from the outside though!

After the castle, we decided to go and do some souvenir shopping! I have not done much shopping for myself except a few children's books, but wanted to find myself a nice piece of jewelry from Ireland. I am happy to say I found myself a nice Claddagh ring, and I absolutely love it!  We spent the rest of our afternoon and evening  in a few more shops, had a great dinner, then headed in for the night. I had an absolutely great trip to Ireland and was so glad I got to see my friend Amy! I definitely hope to make it back to Ireland one day. Next weekend, we are doing a day trip to Chester, then head off to Italy on Monday! Cheers until next time!

Paris

Paris was certainly an interesting and memorable trip. It did not start out the best, but it improved towards the end. Here is my adventure in Paris!

Our day started in Liverpool with us missing our 9:30 train to Manchester Airport.  We had to wait for the 10:15 train. The thing is, the trip from Liverpool to Manchester is one hour with additional time needed to get into the airport. So, we arrived at the airport at 11:30 and the gate for our flight was scheduled to close at 12:10. Security took a long time.  It was 12:10 when we got through security.  We were all worried that we had missed our plane.  Thankfully, our flight time was pushed back 30 minutes and we were okay.

Our flight landed safely in Paris, but we did not see any of the famous things you expect to see when you fly into Paris. This is because we had booked our flight into Paris Beauvais Airport.  Paris Beauvais is 65 miles outside of the city. Our journey continued as we had to take a one hour bus ride into the city. Once we arrived in the city, we had to take three different subways to get to our hostel. We finally arrived at our hostel. To be honest, it was not located in a good area.  We found out from one of the officers at the train station that we were in one of the roughest parts of Paris and we should get out if we could.  The only enjoyable thing about our hostel was being greeted at the door by the nicest asian lady dressed in flannel kitty pajamas, high socks, and croc sandals.

We left the hostel and went into the city to grab some dinner.  For dinner our first night in Paris, we had our first American meal in 5 weeks at McDonald's. It was the only thing open, was a lot more expensive than back home, but it was so good.  When we returned to the hostel, we all skyped or texted our parents.  We told them what was going on with the hostel and they all suggested we try to get a hotel the next day.

The next day, we woke up and got the heck out of  where we were. Sadly, we were not able to get a room for 6 people.  We were able to divide up into twos and split three rooms. It was a little more money than I wanted to pay, but it was better than the hostel from the night before. After we got to our hotel rooms, we headed off to see the sites! Our first stop was Norte Dame Cathedral. This was one of my favorite places to see in Paris because it was so beautiful and was amazing to see in real life. After Norte Dame, we stopped at a little street vendor and ordered crepes. Mine was filled with  Nutella and it was so good!!

After Norte Dame, we walked to the Louvre. Sadly we did not go in, but the outside was still very cool! I did the typical touristy pyramid picture.

We continued walking to the Arc De Triomphe.  With cars racing around the momument, we walked underground through a tunnel and up into the center of the arc.  Then, we headed off to spend our evening at the Eiffel Tower! The Eiffel Tower was absolutely amazing. It was a lot bigger in person than I thought it was going to be. We all grabbed a fresh baguette, some cheese, and champagne to enjoy.  We sat on the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower for four hours to wait for the light show that happens every night at 11. It was a great way to end the night!

 On Sunday we got up early and headed to the Catacombs in Paris! This was one of my favorite things I have done in Europe. This reminded me of my freshman year of high school when we read Cask of Amontillado in Coach Cooper's English class. It was a little creepy but very interesting at the same time!

We finished our Paris trip with a visit to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. I was in heaven! This is the bookstore originally opened at a different location in 1919 but closed during the Nazis occupation of France.  It is where many great authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein would go to write and converse. This was recommended to me by one of my sorority sister's Wynne. I am so glad we went because it was exactly the type of little independent bookstore I love.  I even picked myself up a nice copy of The Great Gatsby and some of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories to read on my family vacation later this summer.

While our trip did not get off to the best start, it ended very well and I am so glad I went! This weekend I am off to Dublin, Ireland with my friend Brandon and another one of our traveling buddies, Mary! Once there, we are going to be met by best friend from high school, Amy, and some other friends from BSU. I cannot believe that I only have two and a half weeks left here. I am definitely going to make the best of it and enjoy my time here. Cheers until next time!

Also Happy Father's Day to the best Dad ever!

Berlin

Berlin is an amazing city! It was not the prettiest place we have visited in terms of scenery, but Berlin was beautiful in its own way. Here is my blog all about Berlin!

My group arrived into Berlin about 9pm local time on Thursday evening. Just for a point of reference,  Berlin is an hour ahead of Liverpool and 6 hours ahead of home. After we got off the plane and made it through customs, we were on our way! Getting to downtown Berlin was tricky. Unlike Barcelona where a majority of things were in English and Spanish, everything was in German. As a group though, we have become good at looking for certain landmarks or learning the first letter of where we need to go to help get us to where we need to go. Also, we have learned that hand gestures and pointing work when communiocating with non-English speakers. Once we checked into our hostel, we were all very tired.  We we decided to call it a night and start early in the morning.


On Friday, we woke up and got our early start! We began with a wonderful breakfast. It was an inexpensive but big breakfast we could purchased through our hostel. It was wonderful! We had yogurt, toast, cereal  cheese, salami, and many more things! It definitely filled us up and we were then on our way to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. We hopped on the train to take a 30 minute  ride to the concentration camp, then we walked 20 minutes to get there once we got off the train. It was an eerie feeling at the concentration camp. You could almost feel the sadness and horrible things which happened there. We spent about 3 hours in the camp just walking around and reading about everything that happened while the camp was in operation.

Where they use to do roll call several times a day. If someone was missing they would go find them, then start roll call over again.

The barracks where people were forced to live. 

Some people were locked up. 

The entrance to the camp.

After we visited the camp, we headed back to downtown Berlin and went to the Berlin Dome. The Berlin Dome is a beautiful cathedral! People still attend church there.  If you want to go up into the Dome it costs a little. We decided to go up! We climbed 287 stairs to get up there, but it was worth it because the view was so beautiful!

The view of the inside of the dome!

After the dome, we headed to an authentic German restaurant.  I had the best brat and sauerkraut of my life! It was served with potatoes and bacon.  It was a fantastic meal! We then headed back to the hostel, where we hung out and played games before we headed to bed. We turned in early to get ready for another fun packed day in Berlin.

On Saturday, we woke up and had the same great breakfast, then made our way to the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was so cool because on one side there was artwork and on the other there was graffiti. It was definitely a cool site to visit. Below are pictures of some of the amazing artwork I found.

After the wall, we went to the Holocaust memorial and museum  Like the concentration camp, there are not words to describe what it is. You just have to go and feel those emotions yourself. It was definitely a great experience, and I am glad that I went. We then had a quick bite to eat, walked through the Brandenburg Gate and sat in the park for a few hours just to relax. Berlin was a wonderful trip, and I would definitely go back again someday. Next on the agenda is my first full week of teaching at Much Woolton, then off to Paris on Friday! Thank you to everyone reading my blog and following my trip! I really hope you are enjoying. Cheers until next time!