Hello, Amsterdam! Unfortunately, this means my Eurotrip is closing out. Friday afternoon, I say goodbye to this amazing, educational, slightly crazy, unforgettable summer. But until then, there's still plenty to see and do! We slept in this morning, packed, and left our beautiful apartment. We had a 5:05 flight, but the airport is about 30 minutes outside the city, and when Marie was coming in, she also had an issue with the shuttle not showing up. On top of that, we were flying easyJet, which, as a budget airline, was super-cheap, but also meant we had to check. So we wanted to be there early, which meant that we had to try to catch the 2:00 shuttle to account for all the possible variables above. That gave us too much time to just hang out, but ... read more

This city is truly gorgeous, I have to admit. I found that out even more by waking up at 5:30 for the sunrise from the Charles Bridge. After going back to bed for two hours, we headed to our tour, which took us around the city for 3 hours. We hit every section of town, from the Old Town to the New Town to the Lesser Town (rough name). We toured with the same company that I toured with in Barcelona, and it was entirely worth it. Not only was the tour spectacular, but we got some great food advice. Our guide mentioned a place called the Beer Museum (which is actually a bar), where you can try a flight of five different 0.2 liter beers. He also recommended a few foods to try, especially svičková, ... read more

I would describe today's activities, if I had the words. Unfortunately, I don't. We went to visit Versailles, I can tell you that much. I tried to impress upon the group how large everything there is beforehand and failed; I doubt I'll do much better here. But let me attempt. For starters, the grounds are 800 hectares. For those of you at Northeastern: that's more than 27 times our campus. For anyone else: about 1500 American football fields (including touchdown zones). It's hard to image, really, without seeing it. It takes approximately an hour to walk from the Palace of Versailles to the opposite end of the cross-shaped Grand Canal. That's on the left side of the gardens. On the right side, you can try to head over to the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon, or ... read more

Hello, Paris! Another day of travel. These come more often towards the end of this trip, if you haven't noticed. I woke up early this morning to take Marie's dog Beau on a run. It was actually fantastic; I didn't know the area, but he knew exactly where to go, so I was able to just follow him. He obviously enjoyed being out in the woods, and I wasn't complaining about having a guide. We then flew out of London on an early flight, but due to time difference and some serious delays at both Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle, we didn't actually get to our hotel until about 3. We're staying in an apartment the hotel owns. When I say apartment, I don't mean a presidential suite. I mean this is literally a flat in ... read more

London apparently has 230 days of rain a year. I suppose we couldn't avoid all of them. We did only get poured on for about an hour, though, then we had sun for the rest of the day. We took an early train in to Waterloo Station, which is really ideally located in the middle of everything that tourists always want to see. The London Eye sits right outside the station. Across the Thames was sitting the Parliament Building, to which Big Ben is attached. Hiding behind that was Westminster Abbey, from where it was an easy walk along St. James' Park to Buckingham Palace. Beyond the palace was Hyde Park, which led us straight to Harrod's Department Store. Which, by the way, was huge, expensive, glorious, wonderful, overwhelming, and awesome. Also they had delicious food. ... read more