"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure..."

Next on our list was the beautiful Greek island, Santorini.  We stayed in Athens for a night near the port where we would catch our 7am ferry to the island the following morning.  When we landed in Athens it looked absolutely beautiful with blue skies and tall mountains surrounding the airport.  However, once our cab driver took us to our hotel near the port we realized we were not in the best area and it was probably a better idea to stay near our hotel and not to wonder too far.  We were up by 5am the next day and excited to get our 5 and a half hour ferry ride over with and arrive at the island.  With a little help from some Dramamine I was sound asleep for almost the entire ride there and before I knew it we were grabbing our bags and rushing off the ferry filled with excitement.  It was absolutely beautiful as soon as we arrived and we knew we made the right decision dedicating the final week of our very long spring break to the Greek islands.

            We hopped in a cab and headed to our hostel. We stayed in an adorable hostel with a loft and very typical Greek cut out windows, which opened right up letting the breeze from the ocean in which was only a few steps away from our hostel.  I was falling in love very quickly.  The past 3 weeks of traveling have been absolutely amazing and I am so fortunate to have been able to see as much as I have but Santorini was exactly what I wanted and was much more up my alley.  As much as I love all of the European countries I have visited I was ready to step away from the Euro city scene, and soak up the beach, mountains, and sun.  We settled in, washed up, and headed down the street where restaurants and bars lined the beach.  We were staying on Perissa beach with black sand beaches and a great big mountain lining the side. We walked on the beach and ended up a traditional Greek restaurant, Aquarius. 

            One of the great things about traveling are all of the small friendships you make with the people you encounter, whether that be waiters, cab drivers, bartenders, or the people working the front desk.  Many people were curious about us wondering what we were doing in their city and took interest in our travels.  We made one of these fast friendships with our waiter at Aquarius who was cracking jokes and bringing us free traditional Greek wine.  It was a great start to our 3-day stay in Santorini.  After dinner we headed back to our hostel and laid by the pool as the sun went down sipping margaritas and chatting about how amazing Greece was already.

The next day we woke up early and set out to another popular part of the island, Fira.  After a short 20-minute bus ride we hopped off and were ecstatic about the amazing views that were before us.  Fira met every expectation I had of Greece with big cliffs filled with white houses and blue domes and the ocean crashing below against the mountains.  We walked around for a while going in and out of shops and small boutiques collecting souvenirs and gifts for ourselves and our family and friends.  The clouds rolled in so we took shelter in a small Greek restaurant as the rain started to come down.  We enjoyed a long lunch hoping that the bad weather would pass and to our surprise it did.  The sun came out and we continued to walk around bouncing in and out of shops.

As we walked down the small winding sidewalks we ran into a man with 6 donkeys and we all were immediately jumping with joy.  Riding donkeys in Santorini was one of the first things on our list of things to do during our stay there and we were all thrilled that we found them.  For 10 euros the man put us on the donkeys, tied them together, and down the winding stairway we went.  I was so excited to be doing it but was also terrified that my donkey, or one of my friend’s donkeys, would trip causing a domino effect of 5 falling girls on donkeys flying down the cliffs of Santorini.  Luckily, none of my irrational fears came true. We went down the stairs and then back up we went, laughing the whole time while trying to take selfies on our cameras.  We were all so happy and in the best of moods after that.  It was official; I was madly in love with Santorini.  We spent the evening at dinner overlooking one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen along the water in euphoric states.

The next day we got up and took the bus to Fira again.  We had heard about a boat trip that took would take us to the active volcano right across the water including a visit to the natural hot springs.  We were all so excited to get into the water so we prepared the day with our bathing suits on.  We bought our tickets and took the cable cars to the bottom of the island and packed onto a boat with many other tourists.  We arrived at the volcano and immediately could see the black volcanic rock from its last eruption.  We hiked to the top where you could smell the sulfur but also could see some astonishing views of the blue water and the cliffs of Fira.  After about an hour and a half we packed back onto the boat and headed to the part we were all most excited for, the hot springs.

After a short trip an announcement came on that we had arrived at the hot springs, however in order to get to the hot springs you had to swim a little ways through the ocean which we were unaware of.  The announcer warned the group that they should only proceed into the water if they were good swimmers, which I soon understood why.  We weren’t quite sure how cold the water would be so we all looked at each other about hesitantly but made the group decision that we had come to sit in the hot springs so that is what we would do. We stripped into their bathing suits and one by one people jumped off the boat and swam for the hot springs.  My friends were in front of me and jumped in and screaming as soon as their head popped up of the water.  I figured the water was going to be a cold shock initially but we would warm up once we reached the springs.  I jumped in and as soon as I came up from under the water I was jolted by how cold the water was.  The only thing on my mind was to reach the hot springs as fast as I could to get out of that freezing water.  I swam as fast I could toward the springs but had to take a short break halfway there as my core body temperature dropped and I tried to come to terms with the shock my body was set into.  I reached the hot springs however I was terribly disappointed to discover that these hot springs were not hot at all, they were barely even warm.  My friends and I were shivering as we cursed at the situation and regretted out decisions to jump off the boat.  The worst part about it was, we had to swim back through the freezing water to get back on the boat.

After a few minutes we took some deep breaths and tried to dig for the courage to brace the water one more time.  As I swam as fast as I could back toward the boat I was glad to know that the water was not as bad as it was the first time, but only because my body went into shock and was becoming quite numb.  We finally reached the boat after doing our best Michael Phelps performances and it felt like the happiest moment of my life.  We raced to the bathrooms to get out of our wet bathing suits before we started sailing in the wind again.  Once we were back in our dry warm clothes we had the chance to breathe after our experience and laughed about what had just occurred.  It was undoubtedly the coldest water I have ever been in, but I was so happy that we did it.

We returned to Fira and had our last dinner in Santorini overlooking the beautiful sunset again.  Exhausted, we returned to our hostel with chilly bones and sunburnt skin.  We packed our things up and took one last walk along Perissa beach and returned to Aquarius for a nightcap where our waiter friend that we made the first day gave us free traditional Greek drinks.  We laughed about our day and conversed about how much we loved Santorini and would be just fine never leaving the island.  It was the perfect last night to our stay in Santorini.

"I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen..."

After our time in Berlin and Prague we arrived in Vienna.  There was something about Vienna I really liked and found much different than the last two cities.  The first day we were there it was cold and cloudy so we took it easy and looked for some indoors things to fill our time.  We set off in the city and headed for the Sigmund Freud museum.  I think I was most excited for this being a psychology major, so I was looking forward to whatever we would see.  My friends had initially thought that the museum was going to be a display of his work, experiments, and theories, instead it was where Freud used to live and had his office and held appointments with patients.  My friends were slightly disappointed with this discovery but I thought it was really interesting.  There is something about being in a room where so much history has taken place that seems to make you feel enlightened and privileged.

We all seemed to be out of it and decided to save the big stuff for the following day and just take it easy.  We spent the remainder of the day walking around and spending some time in a quaint little coffee shop where we ate apple strudel and chatted for a while planning for the next day.  Afterwards we went back to our hostel and relaxed for a bit.  I was still feeling under the weather so while my friends went out to dinner I stayed in to rest hoping to gather some energy for the next day.

We got an early start the following morning and after breakfast we took the metro to the Schonbrunn Palace.  It was absolutely massive and took up most of our day.  There were over 1000 rooms inside of the palace, however because it was such a beautiful day outside we decided to skip the inside tour of the palace and stick all it had to offer in the gardens which included a palm house, botanic garden, desert house, a zoo, a maze, the great parterre, and so much more. We spent hours walking around the gardens and spent a decent amount of time in the zoo as I could barely pull my friends away from all of the animals. 

After hours of walking around my friends were ready to leave but there was one last thing I really wanted to see, the great parterre.  It looked beautiful on the map but the downside was that it was up a steep hill, which my friends did not want to go up.  They were patient enough to let me go up and see it before we left while they waited at the bottom and rested their feet.  It was a little hike up but I was so happy that I did it.  At the top of the hill was a beautiful view of the palace and all of Vienna in the distance.  I climbed up the top of the great parterre and could see the mountains in the distance, it was the most beautiful view I had seen my whole stay in Vienna.

That evening we went out to dinner and took one more trip to the church, Karlskirche.  We sat on the steps for about an hour or so as the sun went down and watched the lights of the church slowly come on as we chatted and took pictures.  It was a great evening with my friends and I could not have imagined a better way to bring our trip to Vienna to an end than relaxing on the steps with this gorgeous church standing before us.  I felt nothing but gratitude for our trip in that moment.

"We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls..."

Berlin and Prague were next on the list for the beginning of the week. I arrived in Berlin late afternoon where I was meeting my two friends Katie and Jess.  I was exhausted from traveling with my family for the week and was really excited to be back traveling with my friends where we usually are on the same page throughout our busy days. The first night in Berlin was spent getting prepared for the next day and catching up at a relaxing dinner with my friends at the hostels restaurant.  I was happy about this because I was starting to feel really sick and run down and needed a night dedicated to sleep and unwinding.  We were all soundly asleep by 10pm, which helped us get an early start the following morning.  We woke up on Sunday and walked down the street to a cute little German coffee shop, ate breakfast, and hit the road. 

            Our first stop was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  When I first walked up to the memorial it appeared as rows upon rows of grey bleak cement blocks.  At first we were slightly confused as to what they were supposed to represent since there was no writing or explanation on any of the blocks.  As we continued to walk toward the center of the rows we realized that the blocks were getting taller and taller and darker and darker as you walked more toward the center.  It gave off a bit of an eerie feeling as it seemed more like a maze and as I walked on my own I was worried I would lose my friends in the stretch of the tall grey blocks on the grim rainy day.  We learned afterward that the architect who built the memorial, Peter Eisenman, the memorial was supposed to represent the holocaust and give off a feeling of disorientation and make people feel uneasy, confused, and lost.  When you looked down one way in the cement blocks it was different than looking another way, giving you the full effects of losing your sense of which way was which.  It was a really powerful memorial to witness and was a really amazing representation of even the slightest feeling of what those years must have been like.

Afterwards we went to Checkpoint Charlie and visited an art exhibit that had a huge panorama picture of what Berlin was like when the Berlin wall was still up in the 1980s.  It was really amazing to see as the room turned from day to night giving you the full effect of what it must’ve been like while the wall was still intact. It felt like a really historical day, and we all felt really honored to be able to see all of these things that played such a huge part in history.  All of a sudden history classes of the past seemed much more interesting as we tried to recall facts of high school history classes.

The next day we were off to Prague. After our 4-hour long train ride we arrived to our hostel and were happy to settle get settled in.  However, when my friend went to pay for stay at reception, we were told that there was a different currency in Prague (which we unaware of) called, the Czech Crown.  We though we were good a dealing with different currencies between the Pound and the Euro, however the Czech Crown was by far one of the most confusing things we had to figure out over spring break.  This was because 1 US dollar was approximately 25.59 Czech Crowns, and although the conversion rate was very good for us, we could not seem to get the hang of it during our stay.  When going out to dinner and receiving a bill of over 1000 crowns, it was a whole lot different than anything we were used to.            

The following day we spent sight seeing and exploring the beautiful city of Prague.  Our first stop was the John Lennon was which was really cool with quotes all along the wall and more colors than you were prepared for.  There were even people there with cans of spray paint contributing to the wall, which also resorted in spray paint on our jackets and in our hair, but we didn’t mind too much.  The rest of the day we walked around and found ourselves at a market in a beautiful square filled with traditional Czech food stands and Easter decorations brightening up the square.  We walked around trying different foods and making small jewelry and artwork purchases for family and friends.  

It was beautiful city unlike any other we had been to, feeling much like a fairy tale.  Although we don’t want to leave Prague we are all excited for our next stop, Vienna, mostly to go back on the Euro, which has been sorely missed during our short stay here.

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love..."

Five more cities later and i am sitting in the Dublin airport after spending a week with my family waiting for my next flight to Berlin.  The week with my family was great, it was refreshing to take a step back from my abroad life and spend time with my family, especially getting to see my brothers.  It was a taste of home that was well needed after 3 months without seeing my family. Each place was different, even my second time in Amsterdam was completely different than the first, however my favorite was Dublin.  Dublin was so lively i was in love with the culture and the city, along with the live performers flooding the streets.  I have never heard so many covers of Oasis in my life. Although my visit was short in Dublin with under 24 hours in the city, i was so happy with all of the places we saw.  The first time i visited Amsterdam my friends and i had planned to go see the Anne Frank house, however when we arrived there the line was so long we decided to skip it.  Luckily the second trip there my family and i toughed the line out and got to go inside.  It was such an amazing experience to be inside of her house knowing all of the events that took place in that building.  There were quotes all around the walls from her diary, it was extremely moving and we were all honored to be able to see it.
During our stay in Belgium my family and i got some unfortunate news.  We entered a museum as all of our phones started to go off and we were told that our grandmother had passed away.  She had been sick for a while and fell ill with pneumonia and the flu several times prior.  My cousins were extremely upset that they were not there for her passing but my family accommodated to their euro trip, not wanting them to cut it short, and pushed the funeral to the following week.  It was really upsetting to get the news while i was with my family however i was also very grateful to be with my family when it happened instead of traveling with friends.  It was sad news to get but my parents wanted me to stay in Europe and continue on with my journey, so onward i go.
Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Athens, Santorini and Mykonos are next on the list throughout the last 2 weeks of my spring break travels.  It was amazing to be with my family but i am so excited to reunite with the girls from my trip that i will be traveling with the remainder of the time and to get back to our traveling routine that we seem to have down so well.

So the journey begins...

It has officially been 10 days into my month long spring break and it has already been absolutely incredible.  The past 9 days were spent in France on a Loyola sponsored trip to Paris, Montpellier, and Nice.  Along with these cities were quite a few day trips to other cities including Avignon and St Guilhem Le Desert.  Most of the days were filled with sight seeing and tours, attempting to see as much as we could in the time that we had.  I was excited for the France trip but it was even better than i could have imagined.  We saw so much and did so much and made great use of every day we had there.  It was amazing seeing the south of France and how different Montpellier and Nice are than Paris, as well as the warmer weather.  One of the best days of the France trip was wine tasting at Chateau Bas D'Aumelas, a beautiful vineyard in the south of France which was accompanied by 60 degree weather which felt like summer compared to northern England.  I spent my last full day in France walking around the beaches of Nice, riding my first Segway, and making in evening trip to Monaco.  The Segways were absolutely hilarious as a group of 14 of us rode them through the streets of Nice on them grabbing the attention of everyone we saw. I learned there is no way to look cool on a Segway, and I now know what i will be asking for when my birthday rolls around.

This morning all 40 some of us parted ways headed on journeys all over the world.  Last night was spent asking each other, "what country are you going to tomorrow?" and i couldn't help but think how unreal our lives are.  Everyone was a little sad this morning as last hugs were given knowing that many of us won't see each other until we are back in Newcastle in 3 weeks.  I headed to the airport with 3 friends and had a rushed goodbye as i jumped off the bus to my terminal.  We are all together so often it feels a little strange not traveling in a pack.  

Currently i am at the Nice airport waiting for my flight to Belgium where there journey continues.  There, i will be meeting my 2 older brothers, as well as 5 of my cousins and we will be traveling to Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Dublin for the next week and i know it is going to be an absolute blast!  It'll be great to see my family and get a little taste of home. After that i meet back up in Berlin with the 4 girls i will be traveling with for the remaining 2 weeks.  I imagine that after this month of nonstop traveling with just a backpack and a small carry on duffle bag we will all be wiped.  It's a little scary how quickly spring break came, none of us want it to end.  It is now nearing the half way mark of our study abroad adventure and i am no where near ready to go home.  I think i could live this life for years as the travel bug inside of me has never been so happy.