Hi again! As you can probably tell over the course of the semester I have discovered my new found love for blogging but dang, it's taxing after a while so now I'm all rested up and ready to share part two of my European adventures with you all! Now on our trip the phrase that everyone used was "dominate" and it kind of turned into one of those things that you attach to any action (ex, "dang stacey you just dominated that ice cream cone" or "guys, we have to dominate the street while crossing so we don't get run over by crazy Italian drivers"). Apparently when the group was in Paris a few days before we met up with them they were on a bike tour similar to the one I took in Barcelona where their tour guide used the phrase and it just stuck.
Another fun little aspect of the trip that doesn't really relate to any particular leg of the journey but still brings a smile to my face when thinking about it is the wake up song and the trip song. When we would fall asleep on the coach our trip leader would wake us up when we were stopping with this annoying techno song that we all grew to have a strong love/hate relationship with. And then every morning he would play the trip song and 2 people would stand in the aisles of the bus (no, it was not safe if that's what you were thinking!) and preform the choreographed dance that we all had to learn. Needless to say, I was rarely bored!
Now, after Nice we headed north to Switzerland and the Swiss Alps where we would be staying on Mt. Rigi for 2 nights. Now Switzerland was the one place that I originally was not really looking forward to going to because I thought it was just kind of randomly thrown into the trip but now I totally understand why we went there and it actually ended up being one of my favorite places that I visited. There is something really unique about staying a hotel that you have to take a cable car up 1400 meters to get to because it's so high up a snow topped mountain. I think the part that I enjoyed most was that I was with a big group of Australians, many of whom had not seen snow in real life. So of course we made snow angels and had a mini snowball fight. Well really the snowball fight started with me falling for the biggest trick in the book when Tim (a Canadian boy) lobbed a ball way over my head which I decided to watch soar away and then getting pelted by everyone waiting for me to do just that. They were surprised when I fired back and admitted I did not throw like a girl (get ready for summer softball season, Norm, I'm all warmed up!).
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| Snow angels in April with a bunch of Australians...love it! |
Nothing too exciting actually happened in Switzerland but the sheer beauty of the place and the time to just relax and actually feel like I was on vacation was a pleasant change from the go go go of the rest of the trip. I had time to sit in a little Swiss cafe and sip on a cappuccino and sit around and get to know all of the other people on the trip.
After Switzerland we were headed to ITALY...along with the rest of Europe apparently. Who would have thought that traffic delays would be had when traveling into Italy on Good Friday?? Well needless to say our 8 hour drive from Switzerland to Florence took 12 hours and a lot of sitting in traffic but when we finally made it I found myself in the place that I have dreamed of going to for years!
