EUROPE TOUR!!!!

Letīs see.  How can I begin to describe one of the best 3 weeks of my life?!?  On the 14 of May, my host dad drove me to Salzburg so that I could go to the District Conference on the 15th.  All of the exchange students had to come a day earlier so that we could prepare for our big conference.  We all had to sing a song in Austrian dialect German together and then after that almost everyone else did stuff in little groups.  Dances that  are popular in their countries, songs, etc.  The rotarians loved it and it turned out to be a lot of fun with only one person ending up getting hurt in the process. 


Sunday May 16
All 60 or so of us piled into the bus and set off for a little city in Italy called Lido di Jesolo.  I was extremely happy to be there because our hotel was right next to the ocean and I hadnīt seen anything even close to an ocean in almost 10 months.  Stuff we did there included walking around the city, eating italian ice (in Italy!!), and swimming in the ice cold water.  We stayed in that hotel for 2 days but only got to see the city for about half a day because of our day-trip the next day.
 
Monday May 17
Day trip to Venice.  First we drove and then we had to take a boat ride to get to the island.  That was unbelievably beautiful. Once we arrived in Venice we had about 6 hours of free time.   I spent most of that period shopping. (very expensive day!).  I really wanted to go on a gondola ride but it would have cost 80 Euro and I didnīt have 80 on me at the time.  Just another excuse to go back there in the VERY near future ;).  I also took a boat from Venice to a little island next to it called Murano. Thatīs where they make glass sculptures. Needless to say, I saw a glass-making demonstration there.  Finally we did something everyone has to do in Italy and that is, eat pizza! Then we drove back to our hotel in Lido.

Tuesday May 18
The next day, we drove to my favorite city out of all visited on the tour.  That was Florence.  I just could not believe that it was possible for there to be something amazing and beautiful literally everywhere you turn.  I was also amazed as we were driving through the city and the tour guide kept mentioning the names of all of the famous people I learned about in history such as Napolean. We took a tour through Florence and then
had a few hours of free time. I used that time to go to the  Michelangelo museum. That wasnīt the actual name of it but many of his works were there.  Plus we saw this bridge thatīs supposed to be famous where they have a bunch of expensive jewlery stores.  Not of much use for a poor exchange student like me though. 

Wednesday May 19
On the 19th we went to the famous city Pisa to see...what else do you see in Pisa besides the Leaning Tower of Pisa?  It was cool to see something that Iīve known about for as long as I can remember.  I even have pictures of me holding the tower up and pushing the tower over. The good and evil sides of Ashley Conon muahaha :).

Thursday May 20
This was easily the most tiring day of the tour. Almost everyone was sick and we went on a 4 hour hike over a mountain in an area known as Cinqueterre (thatīs German, I donīt know if itīs the same word in English). We had an amazing view from the top but at the same time we were all ready to kill our...chaperones...not sure what to call them. Once we reached the other side though it was totally worth it.  We were right by the beautiful Mediterranean ocean.  We all went swimming despite the ice cold water and forgot all about our little hike.

Friday May 21
Friday was sort of a busy day.  First, we drove to Monaco where the Grand Prix and Monte Carlo are.  I didnīt get a chance to go down to Monte Carlo but I did  go to the Grand Prix race track.  We had just missed a race so there were tons of people there and we got to see every team there.  We tried to go into this castle in the city but it turned out itīs only open in June. Then we drove to a little city called Eze Village. Thatīs where they make a lot of perfumes so naturally we took a tour of the shop where they make the perfume and then we tested about 70 different kinds.  I couldnīt smell a thing when we left that place. 

Saturday May 22
On Saturday we went to a city known as the Palais des Papes actually called Avignon.  Basically all we did there was walk up to the top of this castle and explore a little bit up there.  There were shops in some of the castle rooms so it was pretty cool.  We also saw the famous bridge that you might have heard of from the song "Sur Le Pont D'Avignon."     

Sunday May 23
Barcelona was the next city we travelled to.  That was another place that we stayed 2 nights in.  The second day there we went on a looong walk through the city and got to see a lot.  That night we also saw a beautiful water/light show.  It was over at about 12:00 and then they found out that the Barcelona soccer team had just won a game and literally everybody in the entire city was partying and driving around blasting their car horns.  It was crazy.  I couldnīt believe that every single person was a soccer fan.  I guess itīs true that the Spanish love soccer.     
  
Monday May 24
Monday we went to a country between France and Spain called Andorra.  We spent most of our short time there searching for patches and postcards but the city we were in was soo small that it was impossible to find anything "touristy" like that. I ended up just getting cinnamon flavored ice cream.  Then a friend of mine and I bought a kilo of chocolate for the other exchange students.  Boy, they really loved us that day.  Atleast the ones that didnīt end up with it all over their clothes!

Tuesday May 25
On Tuesday we stopped in Bordeaux on the way to Paris and basically just had free time all day. The group I was with looked on the map and we decided we wanted to see this cathedral and a really big cemetery but on the way to those places we ended up going into pretty much every store and sort of ran out of time.  We did see some beautiful statues though and we found a great little bakery that had a huge sandwich, a drink, and a desert for only 4 euros. Yay! 

Wednesday May 26
We stayed in Paris for 2 nights but we only had today to actually explore the city.  A bunch of people tried to find the Eiffel Tower the first night but ended up getting lost on the subway.  Haha.  Anyway, from about 8 to 2 we had a bus tour of Paris.  Paris was also unbelievably beautiful.  With the tour they gave us an "option" of either going up the Eiffel Tower or going up another building that was a lot smaller but also a few euros cheaper.  Of course, we all wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower but when rotary said they would pay for the other building we went up that one and agreed to go up the Eiffel Tower later that day to watch the sunset.  So we went up the other building which had the fastest elevator in the world, taking us up 53 floors in just 20 seconds and had a view of the whole city.  It was amazing.  We also went to another building called the Louvre. 
After the tour we had time to do whatever we wanted.  The first place I wanted to see was the Moulin Rouge.  If I had known what the area was actually like I never would have gone there.  It was just me and 4 other girls on an entire street dedicated to sex shops.  We were so scared that once we found Moulin Rouge one of us took a picture, promised to get copies of the picture for everyone else, and then we bolted for the nearest subway station.  We didnīt know where we wanted to go, anywhere but there.  I canīt figure out for the life of me why that place is so famous.  Anyway, once in the subway station we decided to go see the Notre Dame.  Something everyone has to see in Paris.  The Notre Dame so so amazing.  Some of the gargoyles were falling apart a little bit on the roof but that didnīt take away from itīs beauty.  We went inside too but they were restoring it so we couldnīt see much.  One of the girls I was with read the book though and said it describes the church in full detail so she was telling us where everything is and how to get to the bell tower and everything.  That was pretty cool to know.  After that we had lunch.  Then we had a lot of time left but we didnīt want to wait until later to see the Eiffel Tower.  We went straight there and went all the way to the top.  Once up there we took about a million pictures and then met some people from California and were telling them all about rotary youth exchange and the opportunities you get from it.  The Rotary district in California should be expecting an exchange student from that family in a couple of years. Before we knew it we had been up there for 4 hours.  Kind of careless on our part because we didnīt have time to do anything else after that.  We just went back to the hotel and watched movies until we fell asleep.           

Thursday May 27
Out of all of the little cites we visited this one was probably my favorite.  On Thursday we drove to the city Brügge.  I have no idea what that is in English but itīs in Belgium.  It was extremely beautiful but at the same time very small and simple.  All of the people are very nice and Flemish is the funniest language Iīve ever seen.  There were signs everywhere with words such as "eeg" and "nog."  I also ate a Belgium waffel in Belgium which is something everyone has to do in their life-time.  It was with Italian ice cream and hot fudge on top. Yum!          

Friday May 28
On Friday we drove to Amsterdam.  That was a bit of a shock for me because the first thing we saw when we pulled into the parking lot was a guy doing drugs right there for everyone to see.  I guess people really make use of the fact that drugs are legal there.  Our tour guide even said to us "why drink and drive if you can smoke and fly."  Thereīs not one cafe you can walk by that doesnīt smell. Anyway, there we took a boat tour through the city and learned a bunch of facts that you canīt help but laugh about.  Such as, the buildings are all slightly tilted with a hook on top because theyīre too small and when people move, all of the furniture has to be hoisted up through the windows.  Also the amount of cars and bikes that end up in the cityīs canals everyday. It sounds as though people purposely drive into them. We also saw the Anne Frank House which is something Iīve wanted to see since the 6th grade. No words can be said about that. I even bought the diary from the actual house. Iīve already read the book but itīs nice have it.

Saturday May 29
On Saturday we drove back to France in the city Strasbourg.  There we just had free time to ourselves.  I spent a good deal of time there in the church because we were in there for about an hour and then just as we were leaving, a mass was starting and we figured why not just stay for it?  In French, no less.  After that we went to a cafe and sat outside playing cards.  A couple of the exchange students decided that they wanted to be...well, themselves and act like idiots to make money.  They came up with this extremely stupid song and went wandering through the city singing it to whoever would listen.  Believe it or not they actually made over 20 euros.  Probably because the people felt sorry for them though.  haha.   

Sunday May 30
Sunday we drove to the last country on our travels which was Germany.  Heidelberg to be exact.  There we just climbed to the top of a castle and walked around and took pictures.  They had a barrel on top that held like 10,000 gallons of beer.  Thatīs always handy to have :).              

Monday May 31
For the first time on our trip, the weather didnīt agree with us.  We tried to drive into Switzerland but only made it about 100 meters into the country before the border police stopped us and said we werenīt allowed to go in without visas.  Instead, we drove directly to where our youth hostel was in a city called Bodensee in Germany.  There really wasnīt anything to do there so some of us went to the local movie theater and watched Bärenbrüder, known to all of you as Brother Bear. I know itīs a little kid movie but atleast I understood everything that was going on. 
Then that night was our last night of Euro Tour, not to mention, our last night all together so we had to have a big good-bye party on the dock by the hostel.  We have one more district conference in Hungary but being the fact that not all of the exchange students will be there that was our last night with everyone.  It was so sad.  They have basically been my family this year and I will never forget any of them.  Iīm proud to say that I have friends from all over the world. 
 
Tuesday June 1 
On the 1st we were just supposed to drive to 2 cities in Austria to drop off people but we made a stop before that in Germany.  Everyone knows that at the beginning of every Disney movie it shows a castle right?  Well, we stopped to see the castle that the Disney one was modeled after.  Itīs called Neuschwanstein and is absolutely beautiful.  I wanted to take a horse driven carriage to the top because it was only 5 euros but we didnīt have enough time.  Instead, we walked up to the slightly smaller castle a little below it.  We still had a great view from the top though. 
 
P.S. Thanks to a great friend of mine named Laura, I have a cd with about 500 pictures of Euro Tour.  The downside is that theyīre all of people rather than the things we saw.  I did find a couple of pictures of me though that Iīm attaching to this e-mail.  The first one is me eating Italian ice cream with a bunch of friends and the 2nd is me trying to stop the evil Kerryn from pushing over the tower of Pisa :). 
 

SECOND DISTRICT CONFERENCE IN HUNGARY!!

(I was going to make this another report but I figured since itīs already over I might aswell put it in with Euro Tour)

 

On Thursday the 10th all of the exchange students met up in Linz and drove to Hungary. We arrived in Hungary pretty late so we only had time to meet the exchange students that were spending their year in Hungary and practise for our district conference a little bit.  The awesome part is that since the exchange students in Hungary were also there, I met up with Laura Smith from the Bahamas.  That was a great surprise!  

 

Friday night was the conference but during the day we went to this big ranch and saw a horse herding show.  They let all of the horses run loose on the ranch and then herded them all up.  It was a lot more exciting than it sounds.  I also got a chance to ride a horse for a little while. Iīll have to do that when I come home.  I forgot how much fun it is.  That night the conference went great.  We were sort of competing against the exchange students in Hungary but I donīt think it was really fair because we did our performance (the same one from the last district conference) and then the exchange students in Hungary had to do their performance while everyone was eating.  Because of that, there was a lot of noise and nobody was really paying any attention to them.  Then we had a HUGE buffet dinner. Of course, I made the bright decision of skipping the appetiser and the main course and went straight to the dessert so I ended up feeling a little sick but it was so worth it. 

Saturday we had what they called a sport day and we could do whatever we wanted in the camp we were staying at relating to sports.  Such as, go swimming, play tennis, soccer, badmitten, whatever we wanted.  We also took a boat ride from one side of the lake to the other and back.  That was beautiful.  By the way, the lake I keep talking about is called Plattensee. Thatīs important to know because if anyone is wondering where in Hungary I was, I was am Plattensee :).     


That night since it was our last night together we had a big party at this disco nearby that lasted until about 4 in the morning.  You can imagine how excited we were to then get up at 6 in the morning on Sunday to drive to Budapest.  After sleeping for 3 hours on the bus we got to Budapest but unfortunately didnīt get to see too much of the city.  We figured the best thing to do would be to wait for the city tour bus to come so we could see the most stuff but after waiting about an hour we realised it wasnīt going to come at all.  Then we just had 2 hours to walk around.  What we did see was beautiful though.  It reminded me a lot of Vienna.   

Then we drove home.  I donīt want to even mention that because for the first time in I donīt know how long, I really cried. I realised I would never see some of those great people again and just burst out crying.  It wasnīt so bad though since I definately wasnīt the only one. They mean so much to me and Iīll never forget any of them.

 

Right now I feel like I have a million things to do and have absolutey no time.  Iīm trying to find gifts for all of my teachers, get all of my teachers to give me some sort of grade for this year, set a date to buy breakfast for all of my host families, sort out all of the speeches that Iīve made this year for community service hours, and buy gifts for all of the people at home that I couldnīt find things for on my Euro Tour.  All of this has to be done in the next 17 days.  Craziness.  This year went by incredibly fast.  Not to mention, Iīm in a really wierd mood right now.  I canīt wait to go home and see my friends and family but at the same time I just had to say good-bye to all of my best friends here and I really donīt want to leave them.

 

Anyway, Iīm planning on writing atleast 1 more report while in Austria so...

 

Until then,

 

Ashley Conon