Subject: Danielle's Euro Tour!!!

Danielle's Euro Tour Adventure!

So, Ladies and Gents, here is the long awaited Euro Tour report. I would
like to thank you all for waiting so patiently. It has already been a
week since I got back; Euro Tour was absolutely AMAZING! I have seen so
much, and I want to tell you all about.

So, I guess I can do a briefing of each city I was in, and sort of what
we did. Our plan looked like this:

March 19 - Meeting in Hannover
March 20 - Hannover-Prag
March 21 - Prag
March 22 - Prag-Vienna
March 23 - Vienna
March 24 - Vienna-Budapest
March 25 - Budapest
March 26 - Budapest-Ljublijana
March 27 - Ljublijana-Venice
March 28 - Venice-Florence
March 29 - Florence
March 30 - Florence-Nice
March 31 - Nice/Monaco
Apr 01 - Nice-Charmonix|
Apr 02 - Charmonix
Apr 03 - Lyon-Paris
Apr 04 - Paris
Apr 05 - Paris
Apr 06 - Paris-Bruges
Apr 07 - Bruges/Brussels
Apr 08 - Bruges-Göttingen

We were a pretty crazy crew, I must say. We were 48 exchange students, 6
ROTEX Tour Guides, and a Bus Driver. Our Tour Guides are rebounds,
(German students in our district that have already been on an exchange)
and they organized our entire tour. They found all the Youth Hostels,
Restaurants, time schedule, countries..everything. They seriously did a
lot of work. Anyways.it was really cool because we were just a bunch of
teenagers, and 20 year olds. It was like one big party.

Our bus driver was also really cool. He was like 28 or
something, played really loud music in the bus. (That wasn't always
good..depending on the music, and how much we wanted to sleep) Anyways
he went to parties with us, drove us all to clubs, and stayed out with
us until like 4 in the morning. He really went above and beyond the
call of duty.

Making Euro Tour also blast was our 'Slave' game that we
played throughout the entire trip. If somebody lost their name tag,
water bottle, left a pillow or a brush or something in the Hotel, or on
the bus, they had to be sold. We had daily Slave Auctions. We would buy
each other, and the money went towards a big party the last night of
Euro Tour. I was auctioned off 3 times. The tasks of a slave could
include really anything. For my one master, I had to tell a story and
navigate out Tour Bus. I had to carry suitcases, make beds, and give
massages.you name it! Because of the slave game there was a team effort
to find people's lost things, and not misplace your own things. It was
really funny.

Our first night together we met in a Youth Hostel in
Hanover.(Jugendherberger.a.k.a. 'Jugie') The next morning, our bus
picked us up at the Jugie, and we set off on our way to Prag. The first
thing that we discovered on the bus was our cool bus driver, Kai, and
his interesting taste in music. In Germany, there is a really popular
song sung by a 6 year old called 'Schnee Schei Schnappi.' Kai had a
spoof of this song called 'Fee Fie Ficky.' We had the privilege of
hearing this song at least once a day. Kai would get this wicked little
grin on his face that we could see in the rear view mirror when he
turned it on. We would all shout at him, and then he would turn it up louder.

Despite how boring it sounds, sitting in a bus for 8 hours
is actually a lot of fun. We slept, talked, ate (mostly satisfying
candy and junk food), played games..lets just say that the bus was a
real 'bonding' time. The bus rides were a large part of our Euro Tour,
and it's necessary to explain the adventures that we had on the bus.

Another Euro Tour story to tell was the 'Sandwich Bar.' The
Rotexers took turns driving the Euro Tour Van, holding medical
supplies, and.our Sandwich Bar. Every day at lunch time, no matter
where we were, we would unload the Van, and make Sandwiches. This
allowed us to cut eating costs by about 200 euros a person. However, we
did get tired of the same stale white bread after a while..Once we set
up our Sandwich Bar on the steps of the Parliament Building on Vienna!

Prag, in the Czech Rep. is a medieval city, is very old,
and has really jagged, but beautiful architecture. We were seriously
flabbergasted when we got there. When we were in Prag, we went to the
biggest 'Disco' in Europe. ('Disco' is the Euro way of saying Club) You
guys all know that I'm not really a 'disco' kind of person, but I went
anyways, and had fun too. We got a chance to eat typical Czech food,
and it was pretty good! Prag doesn't have the Euro, so we had to change
all our money, and try to learn how to say thank you in the Czech.-Dekuji-

In Vienna, we got to see all the regular sights, but my
favourite was the Hundred Water House. Its wacky architecture was
created my an Austrian artist. However, you can only view the apartment
complex from the outside because people actually live inside! It was
weird to be back in a German speaking Country again with the Euro. We
ate Wiener schnitzel, Mozart Kugeln, and drank a coffee at one of the
few Starbucks in Europe.

Budapest was my favourite city. Hungary has a different
currency and language, so we had to learn to say thank you again. The
coolest thing about Budapest was the Swimming pool that we went to.
Budapest is famous for excellent thermal baths, and we went to the most
famous one, which is essentially in the courtyard of a castle. We sat
there and soaked our dying feet. We also visited The Market in
Budapest, where they sell all the meat and vegetables. We tried the
traditional hot peppers, and also a pastry thing which looked like it
was probably 98% grease. In Budapest, we also went to another really
well known disco. That was definitely the best disco on the trip.

Ljubljana (Lubleeanna).nobody could pronounce, so we just
called it Lubeebobchubob. We were in Ljubljana for Easter, and there
really wasn't much for tourists to do, so it wasn't very exciting.plus
our Jugie gave us too few rooms, and we had to share single beds. It
was an interesting night. However, despite the bad accommodation and
uneventful small town, Slovenia's landscape is one of the most
beautiful that we saw on the entire trip.

Venice! Venice was really unlike anything that I had ever
seen before. People take a boat to get anywhere because the streets are
water! I knew that before, but it's different when you get there, and
experience it for yourself. When we got to our Jugie and had free time,
I walked around with friends, and just took picture of laundry. The
stereotype of laundry hanging everywhere in Italy is true. We had to
laugh. Our Jugie in Italy was really strict, turned out the central
lights at 12, and had separate entrances to the men's and women's
sections of the Jugie. Italy was all around very different from The
Czech, Hungary, and Austria. The people were incredibly friendly and
the ice cream really good! I think the highlight of Venice was the
Gondola ride in our free time. It was so quiet, peaceful, and beautiful
all at the same time.

Florence was also an interesting place. There are excessive
amounts of naked statues and beautiful churches. In Florence we also
did our communal laundry. Everybody's laundry got mixed up, and I lost
a couple socks in the process. Since they gave us back the laundry wet,
we had to hang it on strings from bunk bed to bunk bed. Our room was a
maze of laundry! When we were in Italy, sometimes we ate ice cream
three times a day..it was just that good! When we were in Florence, we
met so many Canadians it was unbelievable. One group was doing an EF
Tour around Italy, another group was on a class trip, and another group
was doing a semester in Italy. Crazy, huh?

On our way to nice, we went to Pisa to see the leaning
tower, and taking pictures. We were only there for two hours or
something. Also on our way, we stopped on the beach. It was like being
back on the beach in Vancouver...give or take a couple palm trees.

Nice was the only city where we stayed in a real hotel. My
friend Courtenay and I shared a room to ourselves..such luxury. We had
our own bathroom...including our own mirror, toilet, shower etc. After
sharing 2 mirrors, 3 toilets, and a couple showers between 30 girls the
whole time, the hotel was in fact a luxury. We didn't have to put all
the sheets on our beds, or make it in the morning when we got up. The
next day, we made a day trip to Monaco. Only super super rich people
live in Monaco, and it was an interesting city to see.

The next day we were off to Chamonix, which is really close
to Mont Blanc, and is in the mountains. We went hiking in the beautiful
Alps, and ate our sandwich bar by a glacier stream. From the window in
our Jugie, I could look out and see mountains surrounding us
everywhere. It was so cool. It was weird, because within one day, we
had driven from the beach to the mountains. Extreme warm, to extreme cold.

Lyon was our next destination. This was also a pretty cool
city because it was a lot less touristy than a lot of the other cities.
When we were in Lyon, we got to hear a lot of French. That night in the
Youth Hostel, we just went down to the bar and hung out together. I
have to say though, that we were most entertained by the DJ/bartender.
He was wearing a belly shirt, a funny hat, and was singing in a huge
karaoke microphone while he served drinks. He was so gay! We wanted to
just sit there and watch him because he was so funny, but we didn't
want to stare. That was definitely my night's entertainment.

Paris war unglaublich schön. However, our Jugie was sort of
in a bad part of town. Some guys in our group got held at knife point
to hand over their valuables.right outside the Jugie! We were pretty shocked.

The first night in Paris, we went to go see the Eiffel
Tower, and the next day we went to The Louvre, and pretty much all of
the typical tourist points in Paris. The following day we went to
Versailles. They had audio tours, so we got really educated all in our
first language.

Then, we were off to Bruges. Belgium is so cool! Bruges was really not
very big, but is really cute. The first thing we did was go on a Canal
Tour. We also got a tour of a Brewery, visited a church that hold the
famous 'Madonna and Child,' and bought Belgian Chocolate. Mmmmmmmm...

We went on a day trip to Brussels the next day, and visited
the European Parliament. We had a Tour, and got to sit in on a
discussion in the big round room. That was cool. Also in Brussels, we
saw the Manikin Piss, and the Atomium.

We discovered the amazing hair cutting talent in Paris of
my friend Sophie from Canada, when I let her cut my hair. After my
hair, she cut 8 other people's hair. The Brazilian guys who are
obsessive about their long curly hair even let her to a trim. So, we
also had hair cutting nights.

Euro Tour was absolutely amazing. What more can I say? The
fact that we were all together made the 3 weeks super fun.

Thank you.if you read all of what I wrote! I know it was a little long.
I know the English grammar and things are pretty messed up too. My
computer is seriously working overtime to correct my spelling. I am so bad now!

I love to hear from Canada, so drop me a line. I love email!

Your most favourite

Danielle