Back to Reality

               A lot of time was spent traveling during my last two weeks in Europe. Lily, Aubrey, Jessica, Lydia, and myself traveled to Dublin, Ireland once our program was over where we visited the Cliff’s of Moher as well as the Guinness Storehouse and Jameson Distillery! After Ireland we we’re off to Greece where we spent our time on two separate islands of Greece, Mykonos and Crete. We explored the islands with four wheelers and cars, jumped off cliffs, and made some of the best memories.

Cliff's of Moher

Four wheeling through Mykonos

The hidden spot where we cliff jumped

           It’s crazy to me that my time in Europe has come to an end. I knew that it would go by quickly but I didn’t expect to be sitting at home on my couch looking through all my pictures and missing it so much. I am so grateful for the experiences that I had during my time abroad, I can honestly say these past three months have been the some of the greatest times of my life. I have definitely grown as a person since I left home in March; I’ve become a lot more self reliant and independent. I no longer base my happiness on others, I have found so much joy in the experiences that I’ve had while studying abroad that could last me a lifetime. My time in Europe has taught me to not rush things; it seemed as though everything was always so laid back no matter what country or city I traveled to, there was never a reason to stress or worry. I’ve learned to really take in the moment that I’m living in and to quit wishing time would go by quicker (which I am guilty of). It’s hard to put into words exactly how great this trip has been for me, I’ve been asked multiple times “how was it?” “What was your favorite part?” and I find it difficult trying to explain it to people when I know they don’t want to listen to me ramble on forever, I simply cannot explain in a sentence or two.

            Although I constantly find myself reminiscing on these last three months and all of the adventures that I had, it feels so good to be home. Papillion will always be home to me, no matter how long I’m gone for it feels like I never left. I missed my family and friends, I missed my house and my bed, and I missed the convenience of going wherever I wanted whenever I wanted with my car. I missed getting a paycheck every two weeks and having an actual income instead of just spending all the time, I missed hearing English everywhere and having people understand me instead of looking at me weird with confusion. Now it’s back to the reality of working three jobs, starting the process of transferring schools, and this whole “getting my life together” thing.

            Now I could sit here and type out all the things that I miss about Europe but it would be a pretty long list, but most of all I miss the freedom. I miss waking up in a new country or a new city every few days and being able to explore a new area. I miss how cheap it is to travel and get around. I can’t express how grateful I am to be given the opportunity that I did, visiting 11 countries in the three months that I was gone when most people will not see that many countries in their lifetime. I have truly been blessed with one amazing life.

This trip wouldn't have been the same without these four <3

              

Bohemian Behavior

            It's crazy to me at how quickly these past two and a half months have flown by. Our program has officially ended and we're all off on our own traveling until it's time to go back home! 

            I have had so much fun this past week and it makes me so sad that it's actually over. The group we had definitely made this trip more fun then I expected it to be and I am so happy for that! During our last week we visited multiple towns of the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, the first town being Litomysl! Luckily UNK was so nice to us and we got to stay in a cute little hotel in the quarters of the castle that provided us with breakfast. We didn't do too much in the town of Litomysl other than see a church and celebrate Jessica's birthday (which was a lot of fun). I'm glad we visited Litomysl though; it was a small but beautiful town that I would not have thought to visit if it weren't for UNK. 

The town of Litomysl

            On our second day of the trip we took a bus to a town called Kutna Hora, which was about an hour and a half away from Litomysl. Once again it was a cute, small town with a lot of history. When we arrived we visited a chapel inside of a cemetery that was decorated with all human bones... It was a weird way to decorate, but at the same time very interesting that all of the bones were actually living humans at one point in time. Afterwards we headed into town and visited a beautiful church and spent the day wandering the town, getting liters of wine that only cost around $2, getting pizza to go and having a girls night (plus Dan) playing catch phrase and sitting around talking and hanging out. The next morning we were up early to see the Silver mines of Kutna Hora, it was a lot different compared to the salt mines that we went to in Krakow. These mines were very small, a lot of the time spent inside the mine was spent crouching that way we didn't hit our heads, it was still a very cool experience learning the history of the town of Kutna Hora and how it used to be a busy town when the mines were functioning. 

Bone church

St. Barbara's Church 

Silver mines

          After the silver mines we were back on the bus and headed to Cesky Krumlov to spend the last few days of our trip. But of course we couldn't go to the city without first stopping at the Budweiser Brewery. We had a guided tour of the brewery all about how the beer is brewed, bottled, and shipped out, pretty interesting stuff if you like beer. Once we got into town we had the day to ourselves to explore the fairytale town of Cesky Krumlov, so we spent it looking in shops, getting dinner at a medieval restaurant and getting drinks! The next morning we had a tour of the Cesky Krumlov Castle and the old theater that many plays were preformed at, they showed us how the plays were put on and how everything was done by man, such as sound effects, special effects, and scene changes. 

View from the Castle

         Later on that day we had a rafting trip planned for our group, rain or shine we were going and we got both types of weather that day. It was one of the most fun days that I had with our whole group, although the rapids weren't strong at all it was a fun time to kick back and relax and try not to hit the sides of the river that we did multiple times. I had been looking forward to some type of outdoor activity this whole trip other than walking through cities and seeing castles and churches, so I believe it was a great end to our trip. Despite the rain our group definitely made it a blast! After rafting we had to rush back to our hostel to get ready for dinner that night which UNK was paying for, so you bet a majority of us ordered appetizers, meals, and desserts. After dinner our group went out for drinks but called it an early night from our full day of festivities. 

Just Touched Down In London Town

            For the last free weekend of our program London was a must! Although it was a very quick trip I think we saw a lot in the two days that we spent in London. Friday after classes Jess and I were in no rush to get to the train stations like the rest of our classmates were for their weekend travels because our flight didn't leave Prague until later that night! Luckily for us we could come back to our dorm and relax before leaving for another hectic weekend traveling. We got to the train station in Olomouc to catch our train to Prague at what I thought was 6:37 PM.... Turns out that I had booked our train for 6:37 AM instead and so we had to purchase another train to get to Prague. Thankfully there was another train that left to Prague a half hour later and we were still good on time to make it to our flight that night. I had never taken such a late flight to the point that everything in the airport was closed and there were hardly any people there compared to the usual people running to make it to their flights. Especially with all these terrorist threats going on around Europe lately, I felt safer with the airport being empty then its usual chaos. We finally landed in London around midnight and customs took about a half hour to get through until we could purchase a bus ticket to get us from the airport to the location of our hostel. The bus ride took about an hour and we made it to our hostel around 2 am completely exhausted and ready for bed! 

            Lack of sleep was a trend on this trip because we were up at 8AM the next morning ready for the day which began with a full English breakfast that only cost us 5£! We tried our hardest to eat and do everything cheap this weekend due to the fact that London is one of the most expensive cities and our bank accounts have been dwindling down the past few months. British Pounds is the currency in London making 1 British Pound equivalent to $1.5 USD which is VERY expensive on a college budget, luckily only two days were spent in this pricey city. After our English breakfast, on our first day of London we decided to see all the typical tourist sites such as Big Ben, the London Eye, and the London Bridge. To do so we had to figure out how to use the famous "tube" as called in the UK, it was a little confusing at first but eventually we got the hang of it. One of my favorite things to do when in a new city is to just wander around and stumble upon new things that you didn't expect to find, which is exactly what we did up until it was time for our show. We had purchased Wicked tickets in advance so we stayed out the whole day and grabbed dinner before it was time to go! The show was awesome, I had never been to a Broadway musical before so I didn't know what to expect and the show did not disappoint. The actors voices were a absolutely amazing and they made it so comical for the audience. I would highly suggest seeing Wicked to anyone that has not yet seen the performance! After the show and our loooong day of wandering and site seeing, we were pooped and ready for bed. 

English Breakfast

Big Ben

London Eye

London Bridge

London Bridge

Wicked

:)

            Another early morning was in store for us the next day so that we could accomplish all we needed and wanted to. With our flight leaving at 6AM and needing to be at the airport hours before we decided not to book a hostel for our last night in London meaning we had to carry our bags around with us all day. This was definitely a pain carrying around our bags especially when in large crowds and worrying of pick pocketers, but when you're ballin on a budget you do what you gotta do to save money. Our day started off finding our way to Camden Market, which was insane! I could've easily spent all day in this area of London, there were so many shops and booths in the market with clothing, artwork, jewelry and crazy good food and drinks to try. It is a must to come back and visit Camden Market and spend way more time looking around!

Camden Market

            After the market we found our way to a beautiful open park filled with people playing games and laying around enjoying themselves with family and friends. It made me once again realize how laid back everything was compared to back home. Where family time is more precious than work and really living in the moment. Thankfully for us this was a perfect place to set our bags down (use them as pillows) and take a much-needed nap. The weather was absolutely perfect for an outdoor nap in the park. After this we found our way to Buckingham Palace, got some coffee, did some souvenir shopping and I finally got to try the famous London "fish and chips" (fried fish and French fries) didn't disappoint by the way, other then the price of course. All in all it was another perfect day in London! Before we knew it we were headed on a bus back to the airport to spend the night on the airport floor and wait around until it was time for our flight. 

Park where we napped

Buckingham Palace

Fish and Chips

            London definitely is at the top of my list for favorite places I've been! In the short amount of time that we spent in London I honestly haven't felt more comfortable and welcomed in a city. It had a feel of home to it, which could have something to do with a lot of English being spoken (and their beautiful accents) but it was something other than that, the city was a perfect mixture of old and new with something to do wherever you went. I cannot wait to one day come back to London and spend more time wandering the streets and enjoying new things that I didn't have a chance to do this time around. I can't get over how lucky I am to be able to experience all that I have in these past few months. It has made me happier than I ever thought possible!

Over the clouds

Krakoooooow

            Aaaaaaaand we’re on the home stretch. Only 27 more days left until I’m on a plane back to Nebraska. If that’s not depressing then I don’t know what is. After this last weekend in Krakow, Poland we only have one more class field trip. It makes me sad knowing that we only have two weeks left with the 24 of us. I’ve actually really enjoyed getting to know everyone and hanging around them all, they’re not so bad I guess ;)

            Friday morning started off a little rocky with Lily and I sleeping through our alarms (I accidently hit snooze, woops). And we made it just in time before Kathy realized we were almost late (sorry Kath J). It was smooth sailing from there on out, the bus ride was a great time to take a well needed nap, occasionally waking up and staring out the window. I actually enjoy the bus rides, the longer the better, time for me to listen to music and think about anything and everything on my mind.

            The bus ride from Olomouc to the Wieliczka Salt Mines was about four hours. I really enjoyed our tour through the salt mines; our guide had a sense of humor, which I think makes things more fun for everyone. We started off going down 53 flights of stairs to get to the start our tour, it wasn’t quite what I expected when hearing “salt mine” I always thought of a cave and having to where lights on our heads. This salt mine was way more than that, it was huge! Due to the ventilation in the salt mines we had to close one door before we could open another. There was electricity and lights running through all the areas, benches carved out of salt, sculptures carved of salt, chapels, horse stables to house the horses that once used to work in the salt mines, bodies of water, gift shops and even restaurants. For the two hours that our tour lasted we had only seen 1% total of the salt mine and we were 130 meters (over 400 feet) underground. I was so impressed by how massive it was and how much work was put into creating these salt mines, I definitely enjoyed this part of our trip.

            After the salt mine we checked into our hostel and had the rest of the night to ourselves in which we decided to grab a traditional Polish meal some Pierogi’s, also known as Polish dumplings. After grabbing dinner the majority of our group decided we were going to experience the Krakow nightlife for ourselves and attended a pub-crawl. It made for an interesting night having a big group of Nebraskan’s roaming the streets of Poland, but as always was so much fun!

            The next morning we met up with our whole group for a tour of the Wawel Castle, to be honest I wasn’t too interested in this part of our trip. Our tour guide talked a lot and explained pretty much every single piece of art, every weapon, and everything displayed in the castle. In my opinion it was too much detail for a group of students that are used to wandering and reading information of things that interest them. Once our tour of the castle was over we headed to the main square of the city to hit up some markets and of course eat some Polish sausage, which did not settle too well in my stomach and make for a crappy rest of the day.

            On Sunday we were up early to get some breakfast at a cute café down the street from our hostel, which took FOREVER, but my stomach was full afterwards so I was happy. We then checked out of our hostel and headed to Schindler’s Factory, which has now been turned in to a museum of World War II and Krakow’s history throughout this time in history. I really wish we would’ve been able to stay longer at the museum and actually get to read everything displayed and written on the walls instead of listening to a tour guide because I feel that we missed out a lot on the important information that could have been taken from this museum. For a city that has so much dark history, I wanted to really get a feel for everything that happened and with this tour I don’t think that we did.

                                                    

            Overall I loved Krakow, it is definitely a city that I would love to visit again! It’s very lively with all of its markets and booths set up everywhere. It’s a city with so much rich history that you could spend days learning about, I’m very glad we had the opportunity to spend the weekend here!