Don't Cry Because its Over, Smile Because it Happened :)

My 30th and final post is being submitted from my bed in Fargo. I landed in Fargo last night as planned and was greeted by Aaron and Devin. After Spicy Pie for dinner I went home to shower and start unpacking. Contrary to my usual style, all I did was expand all of my stuff to every surface in my room which was left that way overnight because Rachel, Katie, Zach, and Aaron all came over to see me and we just talked for a while. It feels so good to hear stories about old friends again! Not that I didn't love all the time spent with my group in Europe but it's just different. They left when they decided I was going to pass out right in front of them, which I almost did when I fell asleep at my computer not 5 minutes later. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and worried that I wouldn't fall back to sleep because that's 11:30 in Belgium but I did and now it's about 10:00 and I'm going to start some laundry before I go to class and grocery shopping with Nick. I'm sure I've said it before but I'm so glad I went on this trip and thankful for all the things I've learned and friends I've made. So special thanks to Mom and Dad for making it happen and supporting me in everything I do, I really couldn't do it without you!

Love,
Jencacious

Time spent with friends is never wasted

Well this is going to be the longest post yet, it’s been a crazy end to the trip! It’s almost time to go home J

 Hallo! Thursday- what a day! As I said Wednesday was the official end to our program so we’re chaperone-free now. We had a late night just hanging out and reminiscing about all the good times we’ve had. Then ‘The Romans’ got to get up at 5:00 am to catch the 6:00 shuttle to the airport. Believe it or not everything went as planned, we got our bags into lockers at the airport, printed our boarding passes, made it through security, and were seated outside our gate 45 minutes early. Our first flight was less than 1 hour to Amsterdam. Way back in June when I booked the flights it seemed like a good idea to pay less money for the flight and have a 7 hour layover in Amsterdam so we could see another place along the way. That almost turned into a disaster when we went through the wrong passport control gate and nearly got into trouble for it. Then we finally made it outside (after putting our luggage in small lockers before passport control so we wouldn’t have to go through security with them on the way back in) and checked a map to see which way to walk to The Anne Frank House. Of course it started raining almost immediately and the group agreed that it was acceptable to take a taxi. We arrived at our destination to learn there is over an hour wait just to get tickets and it is still raining so we decide to stay with the taxi and head to The Heineken Experience. If we had more time we would’ve done the whole tour to see how the beer is made and what makes this brand unique. But instead we just bought some souvenirs and followed signs to The Hard Rock Café (5^th one this trip now). Since the weather had cleared we began our walk back to the train station, stopping at McDonald’s on the way for lunch. Shortly before we got back to the station it decided to start pouring rain again, not 2 minutes after we stopped at a pub for some beers. Since we had to get back to the station we had no choice but to walk through the pouring rain. But we did make it and we got back to the airport on time, struggled to find the right gate, got extra searched by security, but then we found our luggage and arrived at the gate with plenty of time to spare, enough to hop on the internet. Our flight was delayed 30 minutes but it was a great flight to Rome with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. It was about 2 hours but we stayed up and chatted some more to stay alert. And finally we’re in Rome! We found the train station, got on a train and made it to the transfer station where a nice stranger helped us find the right train. Of course I doubted whether he could be trusted but we had no choice and he didn’t do us wrong so thank you to him! We got to the second station and decided to walk to the apartment because it was close enough. And we did so with no wrong turns. Wow. This place is amazing, it is a legitimate apartment with 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room, and our own large patio with furniture, aka Friday night family dinner site. We got a great deal and we all love it here, there were lots of pictures taken so I will nab some for my collection. After getting settled and enjoying the place for a bit, we decided to walk to find some food and we found a great pizza place for relatively cheap, enough to satisfy us. Tomorrow we will be doing a double decker bus tour of the city where we can get on or off at any stop we chose and get on as many times as we would like in the 48 hours following check in. So we will be very busy with that, seeing all of the good sights! Have a great day!

Love,

Jenacious

Bonjourno Bella!

It is now Friday night in Rome and Sharon, Amanda, and I are back in the flat, packing our bags and waiting for the rest of the group to get home from their adventures. We had a slow start this morning, enjoying our new place a little too much. But we did find a fresh food market right around the corner from our place so we were able to get some breakfast before trying to find the first stop for our bus tour. That was a task in and of itself but we did make it to the Vatican City. Before we made it to the bus stop we were approached by a man selling tickets to a Vatican City tour that would skip the 3+ hour line. We followed for a bit but then some of us decided we weren’t interested in it for that price so we decided to try something different. (The 3 that did go on the tour said it was well worth the money.) We did find the bus stop and began our double decker journey around Rome. We got off at one stop to find the Hard Rock Café where we got souvenirs with some drinks before getting back on the bus. The next stop that we chose to get off for was at the Coliseum where we grabbed a late lunch at a local restaurant across the street from the Coliseum.  We hit a few souvenir shops on the way back to the bus which we rode back to our first stop to do the rest of our souvenir shopping; there are so many great things for cheap compared to other countries! For dinner we went out for pasts to celebrate Michelle’s birthday. We chose a small restaurant that was relatively cheap and the waitress spoke English well enough to help us order. We all loved our food choices and moved on to get some real gelato. That was the highlight of my day. There were two men working when we walked in so we were trying to decide what flavors we wanted while mentioning that it was Michelle’s birthday so they started singing to her right there. Then they were laughing and teasing us the whole time, we all got a kick out of it. Now everyone is going to get packed up! Tomorrow we have to have our bags out of the flat by 2:00 so we’re getting an early start so we can get more use out of our bus ticket and see more of the sights- hopefully the weather is good for pictures! And then it is off to the airport to fly back to Belgium for the last time, it’s starting to feel real that this is the end and that is far more depressing than I actually expected it to be. I am so thankful for everything I’ve learned and experienced during this time, wouldn’t change a thing about it.

Love,

Jenacious

Hello!

We survived another day- our last day. This will qualify as the longest weekend of our lives as far as I know. Saturday morning we were all packed, apartment cleaned, and on our way by 8:15 am. Our first destination was the Double Decker Bus again to visit Trevi Fountain and anything else we thought of along the way. We made it there quickly and discovered the Spanish Steps were a short 10 minute walk from there so we can cross those off our list as well. We hopped back on the bus to get off a stop before the Coliseum where we climbed up some big steps to get a great view of that part of Rome. Then we walked along the road to see some cool looking ruins before passing the Coliseum and on to the Circo Massimo or something like that, a stadium built to hold 250,000 people but currently in disrepair. We caught the bus again to get back to the flat to get our luggage since we had to be out before the cleaning lady came through.  Not only were we out on time, we were out earlier than they requested of us- GO TEAM! We headed our separate ways again, this time walking a bit to see the Pantheon. It pays to pack lightly on trips like this! We had approximately 4 hours to waste before boarding a train to get to the airport so we rode the bus one last time to Termini Train Station, the main transportation hub of Rome if you ask me. Again, the whole group arrived earlier than planned, probably because it wasn’t easy to do much while carrying full backpacks or duffel bags. In our search for a counter to buy our train tickets, a man informed us of the bus that goes directly to the airport that was less than half the cost of the train. Well thank you strange man because you saved us time and money! We printed our boarding passes, found the security lines, and got inside an hour and a half before loading time! It’s a good thing too because the flight changed gates about 30 minutes before boarding so we were able to regroup ourselves and move. Long story short the plane is now in the air, expecting to arrive in Brussels around 11:15 pm where we will sleep and camp out until our flight for home leaves around 11 am. Luckily we’ll be able to relax and repack all of our bags to be more efficient and hopefully within weight limits. Rome was a beautiful city, definitely lots to keep a tourist busy for a week! I don’t know that I will come back for a week but who knows, I don’t even know what I want to do with my life so maybe a little intense travel will work its way back in to my life?

Love,

Jenacious

Spending the night in the airport makes for a long morning. We landed in Belgium around 11:30 last night and just camped out right outside the gate we entered through. Unfortunately that was the coldest part of the airport so we were all freezing cold and uncomfortable. We stayed there until 5 am when enough of us were ready to be warm again so we made our way out of security to get the rest of the luggage. We’ve drawn quite a bit of attention today, especially when we were sitting on the floor, unpacking and rearranging all of our bags so we could get them home. I managed to weigh in around 45 pounds again, although my suitcase was completely full. I also have a carry-on bag full of souvenirs this time. Anyway, we got our tickets, made it through security and found our gate, all with 3 hours till plane takes off. After picking up the last of our gifts in the airport we will be boarding a 9 hour flight to Chicago where we have to pick up all our luggage again to go through customs. Hopefully our 3 hour layover is more than enough time. I’ll try to post the final update when I’m back in Fargo but who knows what the evening will hold! Thank you for following along these last 5 weeks, hope you enjoyed the stories. Can’t wait to see you all soon.

Love,

Jenacious

It's been real Belgium!

 Well the day after bungee jumping was not nearly as thrilling, but it was another day for the record books. We woke up in Switzerland, drove to the French border before stopping for lunch, ate dinner in Germany, and then spent the night in Luxembourg. It was a lot of driving on the bus which normally I don’t mind but since bungee jumping reminded me of the snowboarding accident from last winter so I couldn’t sit still for long without some ibuprofen. For my second time in Germany I was again a little disappointed. Maybe we need to get better at picking our destination cities because we haven’t hit any tourist towns. I guess I’ll have to go back to visit there another time. Dinner however was excellent. We ate at a family owned winery where we sampled 6 different wines that one of the owners told us about. After dinner we headed back to Luxembourg where out hotel was literally surrounded by fields and horses so needless to say we stayed in for the night. I decided to repack my suitcase in hopes that I wouldn’t have to do it again and I would be under the 50 pound limit.

Wednesday morning we had a tasty breakfast at the hotel. Mostly just bread but it was good so it’s okay. We left the hotel to do a tour of the city of Luxembourg where more of the European Union activity happens. The first part was on the bus and we were so happy because it is quite cold here now, and walking around for hours is not as fun. The last part was a walking tour through the older part of the city where we saw how it was originally built as one of the most fortified cities in Europe with its natural hills and Roman-built walls. We had a break for lunch and souvenir shopping and then we bussed to Brussels for our last dinner as a group. We went to a restaurant called The Mother Mill where we had one of the long European meals- you wait at least 30 minutes between courses and get hardly anything to drink. But it was so nice to be with everyone one last time, hard to believe that was the end! We came back to our hotel in Brussels where Dr. Wright said his final goodbyes because we are officially on our own. Seven of us are flying out at 8:30 tomorrow morning for a day in Amsterdam followed by 2 days in Rome before returning to Brussels. This is my last entry until Brussels on Sunday or Chicago on Sunday afternoon with the final entry about Rome!

Cross that off my bucket list!

Only a couple days left!

Good morning! It is now Tuesday and we are on the bus headed towards Germany and Luxembourg, our last two new places for the program! We will be stopping in Germany for a quick lunch break and spending the night in Luxembourg tonight. But you’ll hear more about that tomorrow. Yesterday was an epic day to say the least. In case you didn’t see my facebook status, I spent my Monday afternoon bungy jumping in Stockhorn, Switzerland. More about that later..

We started our morning with a continental breakfast as usual. Then it was off to the bus to go up the hill to catch a train to a higher spot on the hill, to get on one last train that took us to the Top of Europe. This is a building literally built into the Swiss Alps where you can send postcards, buy souvenirs, climb around the mountain a bit, etc. As a group we went out on an observation deck type place to take some fun pictures before exploring the place on our own. Unfortunately we were a month too late for any of the fun activities like ziplining or tubing at the top of the mountain, but we did get to go to the Sphinx, which is the highest point on the mountain I believe. What a neat experience. We were all a little ill after a while because of the altitude but it was worth it, literally breathtaking views. We also got to walk through an ‘ice palace’ and through tunnels that were just carved into the mountain. After our time there we took two trains back down to the bus to drive back to the hotel. But the fun was just beginning. There are a lot of intense, adventurous activities to do in Interlaken. Most of the people in our group went Canyoning, which I’d never heard of until this trip but they basically jumped off cliffs into the water and rampaged around canyons. Sounds thrilling but not my cup of tea since I don’t like water. Another set went paragliding, which I would’ve done if I’d had enough time. Lastly, two of us went bungy jumping. We were picked up at the hotel and driven out to Stockhorn, about 30 minutes from Interlaken. I was quite worried because the people weren’t talking to us very much and we don’t speak German. When we got to the main building even more people joined us so we loaded up a Gondala (enclosed ski lift kind of thing) and rode up the mountain about half way. At this stop we received directions entirely in Swiss German, guessing what they were saying most of the time. Then we signed our waivers, suited up in the harnesses and prepared to go up even higher. This time we loaded a much smalled gondala and we were strapped into a corner like cows. We rode half way up until we were directly above a small lake with the mountains surrounding us. One at a time we started jumping, with the help of two guides up top and two guides below in a boat waiting for us. You couldn’t really see anything until you were on the ledge, about to jump, so that probably helped with the nerves. When it was my turn I tried to ask how to get down because I couldn’t remember what they said but they didn’t hear me so they checked my locks and sent me to the edge. Oh. My. Gosh.  What a sight. I wasn’t sure what to expect but when I looked out for the first second I saw nothing but air. The lake was completely calm, everything on the mountain was still, and I could barely hear them counting down for me. The only thing on my mind was that if I didn’t jump the right way then I was going in the water because my rope was just a bit long. When they reached one I jumped. The first second goes by and then I realize that I’m in the middle of the air and there is nothing to hold on to- free falling. After a panic moment, it’s like time stood still and I could see everything around me perfectly clear. It was the most peaceful thing I have ever felt. And then I realized I was still falling so I prepared myself for the return. But I never felt it because I just knew I was hanging in the air. After just swinging around for a while I was pulled into the boat successfully and unhooked. The guides both spoke English and they were very nice, I was still in shock that I just did that. I didn’t realize what they were saying till jus t recently but I guess I was about a meter from touching the water, I honestly had no idea. I also had the loudest, longest scream out of the group according to my partner in crime, Caitlin. It seemed like a short thrill for almost $200 but it was so worth it. I’ve wanted to bungy jump for a long time and I would probably do it again someday. Once I made it back to shore we waited and watched a few more people jump before going back to the Chalet to head home. I bought the cd of pictures so you will see those at some point. Surprisingly it didn’t hurt our bodies as much as we thought, but this morning I realized that it actually did hurt so I’m a bit sore.

After we got home I grabbed a microwave meal from the grocery store and ate that while catching up with other members of the group about their adventures. Then I got to talk to my best friend, Nick Nelson, and remembered why we’re best friends. At 10:00 Caitlin and I had to walk to a hotel to pick up our pictures and it ended up taking us about an hour to get there because we kept going the wrong way but we made it eventually and it only took us 15 minutes to get back to the hotel! I was welcomed home by 4 people just hanging out and loving life in my room, ready to hear about our adventure. After spending a couple hours with them, just being care free kids, it was time to pack up and go to bed. What a day. Hope you enjoyed the story!

Love,

Jenacious

France --> Switzerland

Really quick- we had a delicious breakfast before heading out on a wine route through the Alsace area of France. We stopped in two charming villages to take some pictures and grab lunch. A couple of us did a wine tasting that was very fun. The afternoon was spent driving to Switzerland so I took a nap on the bus which wasn't the greatest but sleep at all is awesome. I woke up to arriving in the Swiss Alps and got to check in to the hotel right away. Instead of doing the walking tour with the group I took a shower and got ready for dinner. We ate at a local restaurant which was very fun but the waiter was a bit much for us, definitely an experience! Then we had the evening off but everything is very expensive in this town so we're staying in for the night. Tomorrow we're going to the top of the mountain and then we have another afternoon off so we'll see what happens! More tomorrow!

Love,
Jenacious

Running out of titles for these blog things...

Bienvende! Tonight is our last night in France! But that's okay, Strausbourg isn't the tourist-friendly town we've enjoyed the most. This morning we had a delicious breakfast in the hotel before embarking on a tour of the city with a French/German tour guide. I'm sure it was a great tourr but it was too difficult to listen to him so we missed a lot of the information he was giving us. Also it suddenly got cold outside so we were all a bit chilled by the time we got to break for lunch. In our pursuit for restaurants we found a cute little sandwich shop dealio that turned out to be a win for most of us and enough to get us home and out of the cold air for a bit. For the afternoon we rode the bus to the European Union side of town to see the capital buildings and such down there. Then we had the afternoon free for ourselves so everyone in the group took a nap except Dan, Sharon, Amanda, and I who decided to walk to Germany since the border was just the other side of town. We did a good job getting there but it took a bit longer than expected. And the town we entered in to was not a tourist town whatsoever so we were a bit lost and couldn't even find a souvenir shop to pick up a trinket for our struggles. So instead we found the bus station and bought a one-way ticket back to France to shorten the walk home. We got done just in time to meet up with Dr. Wright to do a canal tour of the city which turned out to be a bust because it was dark by the time we started and none of the buildings were even lit up so it was hard to focus then, too. A few sketchy plans for dinner and we ended up trying the restaurant in the hotel which was of course expensive. But we did some sharing to bring down the cost and it turned out to be a good time, as usual. We've had a lot more free time on this leg of the trip than ususal so we're not really sure what to do with ourselves. Tomorrow we have breakfast and then we're doing a wine tour of the area since it's France. By afternoon we will be checking in to our hotel in Interlaken for a group dinner. I'm excited to see what it is like there because I don't know waht to expect! And only one week until we get home and have to live normal lives, going to class on Monday instead of visiting the Swiss Alps or walking to Germany. Hope you are enjoying the weekend!

Love,
Jenacious

Back In France!

There realy isn't much to say about today. We checked out of the residence in Antwerp and loaded our insanely heavy bags on to a coach bus that would be with us for the rest of our trip. We rolled out around 9:30 this morning and it was the best traveling we've had yet. I was able to sleep most of the first part until we stopped for lunch in Luxembourg. The afternoon went by quickly after I slept all the way to France. We're staying in a small hotel but we are able to get internet so we will make it work. We got to walk around town and check out the souvenir shops. Then we had a group dinner that was interesting. Speaking of which though, we had our closing dinner in Antwerp on Thursday night at a Japanese restaurant and it was amazing! I tried a little bit of sushi but couldn't handle the whole course. Luckily it was followed by 2 or 3 more delicious courses, prepared Benihana's style while we wore Kimonos that were provided by the restaurant. Dessert was a very tasty ice cream and fruit combo served in a glass of dry ice so it was steaming when it was served.

Tomorrow we're doing some tours of Strausburg since it is one of the centers for the European Union. The link for the NDSU blog is: http://www.ndsu-studyabroad.blogspot.com/ and you should check it out because it's a great place to start looking at study abroad options or info, and because it's part of a group project to direct traffic to the website :)

Have a great day!

Love,

Jenacious