Traveling by train throughout Europe

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I'm back in the United States now, but I never wrote about my two weeks of independent travel! (and those two weeks were some of the best 2 weeks of my trip!) It is really hard to get internet access when traveling around (and expensive too!) so that is why it's taken me until now to record all that I have done.

On December 3rd, the Furman group returned from southern Spain, and our foreign study trip was officially finished. However, the majority of us decided to stay in Europe a little longer and travel around. I bought a Eurail pass which allowed me to travel around Europe by train. The night of the 3rd began our crazy two week adventure. 8 of us from Furman took the night train from Madrid to Paris. It was really funny when we first got on the train and saw how tiny our sleeping car was! The whole car was about the size of my bed at home....and we fit 6 people, 6 bunks, plus all our luggage in there. There were bunks on both sides stacked 3 people high. I got the middle bunk and could not sit up.

We arrived at 2 the next afternoon in Paris. We took the metro, then dragged our luggage for about 20 minutes to what we thought was our hotel only to find out that this was a chain of hotels and the one we were suppose to stay in was only 3 miles down the road....being the cheap college students that we were, we lugged all of our crap to the next hotel. It would have been okay if one girl hadn't decided to bring ALL of her luggage (I left so much at my senora's house while I was gone....I wasn't about to cart all of that for 2 weeks!) The poor boys that came with us...not only did they have to carry their own bags, but she made them roll her 80 pound bags too!

By the time we got to our hotel, it was already 4:30. We decided to go to the Louvre from there since it was free that day. The Louvre closes at 6, so we covered the entire Louvre in a little over an hour. We were literally running from painting to painting! Then we went to mass at Notre Dame. That was so cool! After that, we were so exhausted that we had dinner and went to bed!

Next day, December 5th, the day we had chosen to save money on transportation and walk Paris....We started at 9 a.m. and were on our feet til 7 that night. We started out at Notre Dame, climbed to the top, then saw Sainte-Chapelle, the concierge, Luxembourg gardens, Napoleon's tomb, Eiffel tower, climbed the 718 steps up the Eiffel tower (the views were simply amazing!), Arc de Triomphe, and finished at Sacred Heart. We did so much that day! I'm sure we walked at least 8 miles.

December 6th: That morning we went to Versailles, then in the afternoon we went to the Orsay museum were I got to see Van Gogh and Monet paintings. That night we walked to the Eiffel tower. It was sparkling and so beautiful. I'm sure the French probably think a sparkly Eiffel tower is so tacky, but for us tourists, it was my favorite part of Paris!

The next morning our Furman group split up. There had been 8 of us in Paris, but me and 2 other girls (Kate and Casey) left Paris at 7 a.m. for Amsterdam. That afternoon we went to the Anne Frank house. It was really moving knowing that 60 years ago she was hiding in the same room that I was standing in. The next day we went to the flower market where there were tons of tulips, then to the Heineken museum, and the park. We found a hotel where you could go up to the 23rd floor and it afforded an amazing view of the city! For dinner that night, we had pancakes. But pancakes in Amsterdam aren't your normal blueberry or chocolate ones...for example, the "American pancake" has fried chicken in it, the "Mexican pancake" has black beans and corn....really interesting combinations. They were...okay, definitely worth trying!

That night we took an overnight train to Munich. After dropping off our luggage at the hostel, we then took another train to Salzburg, Austria! We took an elevator to the top of this cliff where we saw a beautiful view of the town. From there it was a 30 minute hike through the snow to a castle. It was freezing, but it was starting to snow and we were having a great time! We got a hot punch/rum drink upon reaching the castle and it was amazing how much that could warm you up!! We later went to the Christmas market in the town center and saw where Mozart grew up. We got lost going back to the train station, but luckily trains left for Munich every hour so we were just fine.

December 10th: That morning we took the train (again!) to the town of Fussen were Mad King Ludwig's Neuschwanstein castle is located. Cinderella's castle in Disney World is modeled after this castle. We bought our tickets and the salesman told us that our tour was at 1:45. At this point it was 12:30, and it supposedly takes someone 50 minutes to walk up the mountain to get to the castle. Well, Casey decided that certainly there must be a 1:00 tour and if we could make it up the mountain by then, we could get back to Munich earlier and have more time there. So she made us power walk/run up the freakin ALP to make it on time! We made it up in 20 minutes!! We arrived exactly at 1.....only to find out that the 1:00 tour group was in German!! Kate was so mad, but I was just laughing (and about to fall over from our power walk up!) After the tour, Casey looked at her watch and realized that we had 17 minutes til the next train came to take us back to Munich....the train came every hour, so if we could only make this train....Casey and I decided to go for it (much to the dismay of poor Kate) so we RAN down that mountain! We were flying, and people were giving us such strange looks. We were actually very lucky that there wasn't any black ice on the path too. Amazingly, we made the train and were back in Munich 2 hours later! That night we went to the Christmas market (the biggest in the world!) and had gluhwein (hot spiced wine) and wursts (classic German food!) It was FREEZING outside, probably about 10 degrees or so. Later that night, we went to the Hofbrauhaus. It was so much fun! The place is packed! There are no empty tables, you just sit down wherever there is space. We sat with these 4 German guys who were our age, so it worked out really well 😉 They were incredibly nice. Casey and I split a whole pint of beer. I don't like beer, but this beer was actually rather good!

That night we took our last overnight train to Florence, Italy. It was the worst train experience of my life....we didn't get a sleeper car and the seats that we were assigned to were hard and couldn't lean back. At one point I got under the seats just to be able to stretch out. The next day we went to the Duomo and the Baptistery in Florence. Then we went to see Michelangelo's David. Inside the museum we ran into the other Furman group!! We didn't even know that they were going to be in Florence on the same day. It was so neat to be able to meet up with them again. We spent the rest of the day together, going to the Uffizi museum, the San Lorenzo market, San Croce (which is where Galileo and Michelangelo are buried), and to the best gelado place in Florence. We had pasta for dinner, yum! Day two in Florence we went crossed the Old Bridge (the only bridge in Florence that Hitler didn't burn down) and climbed to the top of a church for a great view of the city. That night, we took our last train to Milan.

At 8:30 the next morning (the 13th), Casey and Kate left me and took a train to Paris. My flight back to the US was the next morning, so I had a flight back to Madrid that evening out of Milan. That day I walked around Milan by myself. That's when it hit me that I really wanted to come home. I was by myself and tired of having to always be thinking was my passport still on me, did I have enough money, where were my Eurail ticket and credit cards, etc. My flight out of Milan was at 6:30 that night. I left Milan at 3:30 to take the hour bus ride to the airport. Thank God I left as early as I did, because when I got to the airport, I found out my flight back to Madrid had been cancelled!! Yikes! Luckily, there was a flight back to Madrid an hour earlier, but if I hadn't been there early, I would not have made it back to Madrid that night and therefore would have missed my flight back to the US. God was looking out for me. I got back to Madrid, went to Margarita's house to take a shower and pack up everything for the final time. I said goodbye to Margarita and Azathara (her daughter). I was planning on dragging my mountain of stuff on the bus because I was meeting Oli that night at his apartment. Thankfully, Jesus (Margarita's boyfriend) drove me to Oli's place. We put all my stuff in Oli's room, then him and I hung out until 4:30 a.m. I took a taxi to the airport. My flight left from Madrid to Munich at 7:30. I don't even remember taking off from Madrid because I was so dead tired! I had a layover in Munich before taking my final flight back to Charlotte. It was 10 hours on the plane, but I could not sleep. I guess I was so excited to be going home! I landed in Charlotte at 3:30. My dad met me at the airport, and I cried when I saw him! I definitely had an amazing time in Europe, but there is no place I'd rather be for Christmas then at home with my family.

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Photos

The Eiffel Tower
I'm sure anyone who has been to Paris has a similar picture :)

train travel
Our sleeper car on the way to Paris

Gargoyle!!
a gargoyle on top of Notre Dame

Amsterdam
Kate and me in the flower market in Amsterdam

Neuschwanstein Castle
Cinderella's castle in Germany

Florence
View of Florence

Milan
Feeding the birds in the main plaza in Milan