Alana's Euro Tour - Part one

UPDATE FOR EURO TOUR

 

Ciao! The past month has been crazy busy. We had euro tour, which is traveling around on a bus for two weeks though Europe and it was amazing.

 

Our bus had around 40 exchange students from around the world and they were all amazing lovely people. Most people were from different districts around Italy but my district was very lucky in the fact that everyone from my district who was going got the same bus. So I got to spend possibly one of the best two weeks of my life with an amazing bunch of people, and my god did we have fun.

 

We started by meeting up in Milan at the train station. We were introduced to everyone and got some photos taken together (photos added to email). From there we were given free time to wander around Milan (honestly we took some pictures in front of the very impressive Duomo church, got some ice cream, and tried not to walk into any stores because everything is crazy expensive). Then it was back to the bus, our mode of transport/the cause of many sore aching muscles. It was a 9 hour trip to a very pretty small town called Innsbruck in the very beautiful country (not to be confused with Australia) Austria! We had an Austrian themed dinner (which was mainly soup), and literally flopped into our beds dead tired.

 

The next day we were given a beautiful tour of the town. I mean the town was nice and all but possibly the best thing I found in Austria was in the tourist shop. It was a t-shirt saying ‘No Kangaroos in Austria’- literally the best thing ever. Its now my favourite shirt and I wear it constantly amused with myself. So I had a great time in Innsbruck.

 

We left Innsbruck after lunch and travelled for about 5 hours to Vienna, the capital of Austria. Looking back I believe Vienna was one of favourite cities, I would even being interested in living there for a while (I really liked it).

We stayed in Vienna 3 days & 3 nights.We got there late in the afternoon, unpacked, ate dinner, then was invited to go to an amusement park that was open til 12. So at about 10.30 at night we were brought to a (honestly very shady looking) amusement park and were given free reign for about and hour then had to meet back up. This was a monday night at 10:30 at night, so the park was pretty empty, which meant no lines (which was obviously a win win for us). It was fun, very random but very fun.

We weren’t in bed until about 1, which should have been been the first warning sign for the next two weeks. (You do not sleep on euro tour. Every night we get back to the hotel around 12-2. Which means you try and catch up on sleep on the bus, hence certain muscles have permanent damage. and you find out quickly who gets grouchy with not enough sleep)

 

Next day we had a tour of the schoenbrunn palace and gardens. The palace was impressive, the gardens gorgeous. There was a maze, a huge fountain and a zoo (not joking), but the best thing was the small very snazzy/hippy cafe. I was with my very lovely friend called Erin (from England, love her accent), and we constantly agree though Italian food is delish, meat wise they are just not on par with actual proper thick meat. So when we ordered this meat burger and what came was an actual proper meat burger, I could have cried. It was first proper burger in months. The fact that I am describing this to you in detail should explain how amazing this moment was for me, such a good burger.

Anyway after that we were taken to the main center of Vienna, where I discovered there to be many, many of my favourite stores. I still feel slight shame on how much I bought 3 days in to euro tour, didn’t regret it (they were great sales), but I do tend to skip over my shopping spree when recounting this adventure to my mother. After that we went and had another traditional Austrian dinner including women wearing the traditional dresses (think old time taven owner or milkmaid) and more soup. There was also ‘traditional’ fiddlers, which played a beautiful rendition of the chicken dance (we taught the Taiwanese and one very confused Finland this strange dance, very amusing). From that back to the hotel, dead tired and slept.

 

Our final day in Vienna was practically was a huge free day, unfortunately they left us in the center of Vienna again, and the shops practically called to me (I have no actual restraint). After that went back to the hotel had a nice dinner, then were allowed to dress up and travel back into the center (taking the subway). With friends, we found on one side of the river is like a mini beach. With sand and beach chairs out at 10 in the night, very relaxing watching the lights on the river. Later returned back to the hotel and dropped dead.

Next morning we left for Prague in Czech Republic. Again a very long bus trip that killed my back. With traveling a lot many of our lunches ended up being the traditional servo stop for chips or a sandwich, eating healthily was not of high importance to us for the next two weeks.

We reached Prague and were allowed free time to walk around for a few hours in the center. I found this amazing toy store that had a working carousal in the middle of the store. It had a slide and a lollie/chocolate area and all these toys you could play with or ‘test’. I do not regret I spend quite some time enjoying myself in this huge toy store (but didn’t really have the courage to go ride the carousal, mainly for the reason I didn’t want to be the weird eighteen year old lining up with the seven year olds).

 

We were then taken to our hotel, which was 4 STARS!! So to sum very, very nice hotel that we throughly enjoyed. Though funnily enough for a four star hotel the cooking was really not on par with the rest of the hotel, that or they gave us a very cheap menu option. I say this because for desert we were given an actual ice cream still in its wrapper served on a plate.

That night we were allowed to go out to the center but me and a few other girls decided to have a chill night, which consisted of face masks, chatting and general laziness in pjs.

 

Next day was a tour of this gorgeous Prague castle in the morning, then free time until we meet up for dinner later. I was with friends and we got lost, so very very lost. We walked around in literal circles for about 2 hours trying to find our way back. At one point our main marker for how to get back was this store called ZARA and we were asking this old security guard about where to find this store (he had no idea). When a girl our age over hears and puts us in the right direction. I asked where she was from, cause I could bloody hear it, and she turned out to be Australian! I neverrr see any australians so in my excitement when she told me I immediately threw my hands up for a high ten very excitedly. She was confused but complied, which was when I explained I was Australian and just very happy to see another another Australian. She found it funny so that was all good.

 

Anyway we made it back to the hotel and got dressed up because not only were we having a very nice dinner but after we were going to the biggest night club in central Europe.

IT WAS AMAZING, the club had 5 levels, on each level a different style of dance floor with different kinds of music. It was definitely one of the coolest places I have ever been to. We danced until 3 and went back to the hotel as a group. As you can imagine the wake up call at 8 the next morning was not taken well by many. From there we left the hotel for Munich Germany.