I’m really bad at this…
It’s difficult to get myself to decide to sit down and write in here, but I am so anxious to tell everyone about all the things I’m doing here. Words cannot express more than my enthusiastic face could….
^^moments before traveling up the eiffel tower
I’ve written about my 11 day excursion in a notebook, which I plan on transferring to this blog at some point. It will happen, but for now I’ll just tell you how much I enjoyed it.
Without a doubt, the best consecutive 11 days in my entire life. (I think everyone I was with would say the same for themselves.) People were asking what my favorite city was and I honestly cannot choose. They were all very different and I liked them all for different reasons.
Dublin was really beautiful. It was much smaller than the other cities, and everything was walkable. The pubs were so much fun and EXACTLY how I had imagined the Ireland culture to be like. Everyone was so joyous and just enjoying everybody around them, it was magnificient. I had my first pint of Guinness on Halloween and now I’m hooked, I actually enjoy it now. We ventured to the Guinness Factory where I learned how to pour the perfect pint and then drink it (I drank it for my Dad, of course)
Amsterdam was just a DIFFERENT place. Again, the people there were super nice and chilled out (mmmmhmmmmm). We went to the redlight district..which was insane. I always heard about it, and how women stand in the windows, prostituting themselves. I never thought that it actually worked that way…but it does. It’s exactly that. It was crazy and for my eyes, I did not reallylike the idea of it all, but still appreciated the culture and I understand that so many places and ideas are different everywhere. Surprisingly enough, the place I felt the safest was in Amsterdam. The atmosphere was not dirty or creepy, there are barely any homeless people at all and everyones too..chilled…to care. I’m avoiding saying what the main pasttime in Amsterdam is only because my family reads this, but I’m an honest person, hay! haha, google it : ). Besides the attractions in Amsterdam, the city itself is flawless. It’s gorgeous. Canals all over and bikers riding through everywhere. Can I mention that we all rented bikes for the 3 days we were there to ride around like the locals? We may have rode bikes like the locals but that does not mean we didn’t stick out like tourists ..stopping every 10 blocks or so to look at a map because we were lost, or the 6 of us riding in a straight line with out ‘rent a bike’ logos on the fronts of our bikes. It was quite a sight…
Paris. Yeah…A lot of Paris was exactly what I had expected. Beautiful, not understanding the language, shaking my head with wide eyes when people tried to talk to me in French and looking frantically around for Chris, Kate or Karen because they knew some French. However, Paris was a lot dingier than I expected, especially where our hostel was. It was dirty and made me appreciate the cleanliness of London. Still, with all of that, it had some of the most beautiful sights. Without describing, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Pere Lachaise, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, the Lourve, Moulin Rouge etc etc etc. Yes we did all of that in a matter of 3 full days. Including the market, eating a lot of croissants, drinking some wine, reading cosmopolitan, waking people up, and mainly coughing.
Three beautiful, beautiful, beautiful places.
Yet we cheered when we arrived back in New Cross.
It is nice to have your own room, away from the same 5 people you’ve shared everything with for the past week and a half without a minute of privacy. It is nice to have your own bathroom with shampoo AND conditioner AND bodywash! (WOW!) hahaha. and..towels. It was THE most amazing experience ever. However, I’m still so happy that I chose to come to London (it’s my favorite). I am leaving in four weeks and I’m not looking forward to it, but then again I am. I’m excited to see my family and friends and Range. I just wish I could explain everything I’ve done here by showing them. Even a camera cannot capture all I’ve seen and done. I’m surprisingly not homesick at all, but I think I owe that to my friends here who’ve become more than just friends, they have been my family for the past two months, and I love them all.
Daria
