KimG
Kim G. Joined: October 17th 2007
Logged in: June 23rd 2011
Logged in: June 23rd 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Eiffel Tower
J'aime Paris ! Our drive to Paris from Lucerne was a long one. And everyone was starting to realize that this was the end of the trip. It's really insane how close you get to some of the people and it was really strange to think that we all just met 3 weeks before. It felt like some of them had been my best friends forever. I guess when you are in the kind of situation we were in, spending time together 18 hours a day for 21 days straight, it's normal. But I didn't want to think about leaving, so I reminded myself I was in Paris!!! and to live it up. It was raining when we arrived, but we headed straight for the Eiffel Tower anyway. We waited in a pretty short line to ... read more
Chapel Bridge
Mountains and Chocolate and a place to finally relax! The drive from Florence to Lucerne was long, but beautiful once we got into Switzerland. I think I counted at least 9 waterfalls- and that was when I was looking for them for about an hour. One word to describe Switzerland- AMAZING! It was so beautiful! It was so nice to be in Lucerne, after 6 crazy long days in Itlay. Lucerne is a relatively small city on Lake Lucerne and it surrounded by the Swiss Alps. You couldn't ask for better scenery and the weather was gorgeous while we were there, but very hot! That night we arrived we just walked into town and had a relaxing drink at this cute bar. (I had a diet coke, or coke light, as they call it here, ... read more
Pisa
Florence...land of the Renaissance Man Florence...I've been told, was a great place. So, I was really looking forward to visiting. Got into Florence with a stop at the leaning tower of Pisa and I made sure to take a pic holding up the tower. Corny, but you gotta have it. We did a little exploring in the city that night, ate some dinner, and headed to a bar called the Red Garter for some good, old-fashioned kareoke. The next morning we had an early start. We drove into the center of the city near Piazza Santa Croce. The church in Santa Croce is home to the tombs of Michelangelo and Dante. The history was already starting... Florence is a true place of art, housing some of the best museum's in the world. The Uffizi and ... read more
Trevi Fountain
Welcome to the land of ANCIENT history! After Venice we headed to Rome which was an amazing city mostly because of the fact that 2,000 year old ancient ruins are splat in the middle of a modern city in random places all around. It's crazy to think about really. The night we arrived we went on a walking tour of the city to get our bearings. Chad took us by the Colloseum, Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, part of the Imperial Forum, and countless other ancient Roman ruin things that I can't particularly remember. Well, the Pantheon was by far my favorite ancient ruin - I think because it is so well preserved and literally in the middle of a modern city square. The city is truly amazing! We really could walk almost everywhere we wanted to ... read more
View into Venice
Venezia- it's sinking! On the drive from Munich to Venice we made a quick stop in the Austrian Tyrol for some whitewater rafting. It was so much fun! The only bad part about it was the fact that I had to put on a wetsuit, which is just a tramatizing thought! Being from Florida you never have to swim in a wetsuit since the water is always warm. But in the Alps the water tempurature was a chilly 44 degrees and I guess in the end I was happy to have it on. We were forced to jump in once or twice so we could practice pulling each back into the raft. After that, I made it my goal to NOT end up in the water. I did follow through on that goal, and instead of ... read more
Hofbrau Haus
Back in Deutchland- Munchen style! On the way to munich we stopped at Dachau Concentration Camp-the first concentration camp. Supposedly there were no mass killings at this camp, but it was set up to happen. Some groups of people were killed here though. As I walked through the camp it was hard to believe that something like this had happened to people in our world. It's even harder to think that it's still happening in some places. The walk through the cremetorium was very eerie and surreal. Even though there were people all around it was completely silent, everyone lost in their own thoughts. I think I wandered for an hour and half through the camp completely by myself. And when you looked around it seemed that everyone there was alone too. It was quite ... read more
Prague
No fireworks in Prague :( Woke up bright and early after night 2 in Berlin to blaze the trail to the Czech Republic via a stop in Dresden, Germany- a little mideval town with crazy baroque style churches and buildings. It was July 4th so I made sure I wore my red, white, and blue. I didn't care that there was only 7 other Americans around me- I have patriotism for my country! Needless to say, I was glad we were headed to Prague rather than Paris... Got into Prague or Praha as the Czechs call it in the early evening. A little delays at the Czech border, but everyone got through clear. (Czech Republic still is not a part of the EU so we had to stop at the border. Which meant I got another ... read more
@ the Berlin Wall
Ich bin ein Berliner! We had a long drive to Berlin and got in around 5 or 6 in rainy weather. We stopped for a little bit at a part of the Berlin Wall that is still intact and took some pictures and walked around. When we got to the hotel we (the girls-Michelle x 2, Monique, Courtney, Siobhan, and me) decided to stay in since we had had 2 long nights in Amsterdam, not to mention it was also crappy,rainy, and cold. After dinner we headed to the bar at the hotel where I thought it would be a good idea to start playing some drinking games. I ran upstairs to get my trusty George W. playing cards that I had gotten on my trip to D.C. the summer before and loved using whenever possible. ... read more
Biking in Edam
Bikes, cheese, and clogs...oh my! I started my day just like everybody else...hungover and tired. We jumped in the coach for a short drive to Edam, a little town just outside of Amsterdam, for a bike ride. In Amsterdam, and I guess Holland in general, everyone rides bikes all over the place. You should see the bike parking garage in the city. It literally was stories high and packed with thousands of bikes. Cars and pedestrians have to yield to the bikes! In Edam we clambered on our "granny bikes" which were just like beach cruisers. Our bike guide lady talked to us for a little bit about where we were going and to be careful about parking our bikes since they often times fell over since people didn't put the kick stands down correctly. Well, ... read more
The Guides
I AMsterdam Left EARLY from London and loaded the coach to catch the ferry at Dover to Calais, France. Met our wonderful tour guide, Chad, and driver, Jarrod. They were the BEST we could ask for! It was pretty foggy so we couldn't even see the white cliffs of Dover. Don't feel too bad for me though, because 3 weeks later on our return we did get to see them. Sat with Antony on the first bus trip and then sat through a lot "this is me" talks from everyone one the bus and then did some "speed dating" aroudn the bus to get to know some people. Soon enough we were in Amsterdam. Talk about a location to get to know your fellow travelers. Guess we were all going to get acquainted pretty fast. Got ... read more
