Europe Recap: Paris and return

Final post recapping the trip:

Day 11 continued (5/26): On the total of 10 hour bus ride we found out that due to the British Airways strike we would not by flying from London to Baltimore. Half were going to Philly and the other half to Chicago then Baltimore. That put a damper on the whole bus ride, but we made the most of it. We got to Paris eventually and went out to dinner. Rather than going out to these bars a bunch of us just went back to hang out at the hotel bar.

Day 12: In the morning we headed outside of Paris to meet the reps from Disneyland Paris. After the meeting we were able to go into the parks for the day, which was the greatest news I could have hoped for. In the park we went to Big Thunder Mountain first, which had an annoyingly long line. After that I made sure that we went to the Haunted Mansion, or as it is there, the Phantom Manor. The Haunted Mansion was my favorite ride growing up and I still love it. This one was a lot of the same, but a bit different too. The younger ride allowed better effects, but the ride itself wasn't as enjoyable. We then went on Pirates of the Caribbean, which was also a lot of the same. There was an Indiana Jones roller coaster we went on which was fun but painful in the rain. We then went to the other park to go on Tower of Terror: amazing in Paris and Orlando. We went to Rock n Roller Coaster, but by time we got to the station it had broken down and was closing. The park closed around 6:30, and we were on our way back to the hotel. I was pretty beat from the day so that night I went to an Internet cafe and got nice and lost on the train on the way. But I got to see the Eiffel Tower and Arc De Triumph at night which were nice

Day 13: Our morning site wizit was cancelled so we got to sleep in. In the afternoon we went to Microsoft's European headquarters which was really interesting. That night we had a river cruise of the Seine River. Afterwards, we went as a big group to an ice bar in the middle of a terrible neighborhood in Paris. It was 38 Euro cover and my camera died, but 100% worth it as pictured above. We got a half hour in the ice part, and got 5 drinks. Drink 1 tasted like bubble gum. Drink 2 was lemon basil. Drink 3 was oragney. Drink 4 was vodka and chocolate chips and was horrible. Drink 5 was just straight vodka, also rough. But it was a fun time, as was drinking at the hotel bar afterwards.

Day 14: On our last full day we had a free day in Paris. A lot of us took a bus tour in the morning, but about half of us got off at the Eiffel Tower. We walked by it and I harassed the vendors that were harassing us. We then went to the Arc De Triumph and got lunch before heading back to the hotel. At night we all got dinner together and there were some epic speeches made. With a long day ahead we just hung out at the hotel bar with some other American students at the hotel.

Day 15 (5/30): Oh what a long ass day. I'll give it in local times but Eastern Standard Time as well. I woke up at 6am Paris (Midnight EST), got breakfast and checked out. We got to the airport around 9 something (3am EST) and it was a mess checking in. We flew to London and got there after 11 am London (6am EST). The Philly people left and we headed to our gate. We found a TGIFriday's there and it was like finding buried treasure. We left London at 2:30pm (9am EST) and were on our way to Dallas (oh yeah, Dallas is NOT a district of Chicago we found out a couple days earlier despite what we hoped.....). After 10 hours on a plane and 10 minutes of sleep, we arrived in Dallas at 6:30 pm (7:30pm EST). BUT....it wasn't so simple. First we missed the runway because another plane was landing. THEN it was a storm, so we had to wait outside of customs for our luggage.

We got it eventually, around 7:30 pm Dallas (10pm EST) and went to our next gate. Then, once we got there, THEY MOVED OUR GATE. Back on the tram! We get to our gate and finally depart around 9:20 Dallas (10:20 EST). Keep in mind my iPod is long dead at this point. The flight was short cause I slept for a solid 2 hours or so on it. Some woman on the plane was being such a pain in the ass that we almost had to land in Nashville. I would have killed someone if we did... Anyway, we land in Baltimore around 1:20 am Eastern Standard Time, and I finally get back at school around 2 am. For those of you keeping track at home, I was up from 12am Sunday until 2am Monday EST. That is 2 hours of sleep over the course of a 26 hour day. I was not a happy camper.

Crappy return home aside, these were the best 2 weeks of my life. I had a great time with all 31 in our group (28 students, 2 instructors, and Hans), and had fun the whole trip. I made new friends, became closer with old ones, and completely changed my opinions on some people. All in all it was worth any hassles, and I'm so glad I did it. Pictures are on my facebook and tagged as well, so check them out.

Europe Recap: Austria & Switzerland

Day 5 (Thursday, 5/20): We left Munich for Innsbruck, Austria, in the morning but on the way stopped in the city of Kufstein and visited the plant for Reidel Glassworks. They make very nice wine glasses and we got to see them glass blowing which was really interesting. The "tour" was weird, it was like a fun house....not really sure what it had to do with glass but oh well. Eventually we got to Innsbruck and that afternoon met with my group's business, the Innsbruck Tourism Board. There is where we signed up for our free day events, which went on two days from then. That night we found some bars, but I spent most of the night at the casino in the hotel. I won 90 Euro in total that first day, so all in all it was good.

Day 6: In the morning we drove to northern Italy and went to the Leitner Ski Lifts factory. My god was that awful. Just boring as hell. Long tour, couldn't hear a thing, just terrible in every way. During the afternoon I went to the casino again and won another 95 Euro, so I was in a good mood to say the least. That night the whole group went on a lantern hike up the Alps. At the top was this little tavern where these two guys played music and we sung and danced and drank. It was worth the hike. That night a couple of us went out to a bar to get ready for the next morning that awaited us.

Day 7: Our free day in Innsbruck was very busy for me. In the morning myself, Steve, Vida, James, Brian O, and Mike M (all pictured above, post jump) went bungy jumping off a bridge near Innsbruck. It was 192 meters, 600 ft....the third highest bungy in the world. It was such a great experience. I went fourth, so I knew what to expect for the most part. Hopefully the video will be up soon. That afternoon half the group went canyoning (pictured above) and the other half white water rafting. Canyoning was pretty difficult, but a lot of fun. All that made this easily the most productive day of my life, and also one of the most fun ever.

Day 8: Not the most exciting day in my life. We travelled by bus to Lausanne, Switzerland, which took like 6 hours not counting stopping. Switzerland was expensive, and didn't use the Euro which made it difficult. After getting settled, we went to this Canadian bar which was one of the few open for the holiday weekend. It was a nice, relaxing night. Only real highlight was that some guy passed out drunk on the table to the point he couldn't stand up.

Day 9: We went to the Cailler Chocolate factory in the morning which was like Hershey's Chocolate World, a fun time. Afterwards we stopped at a rest stop where I oddly ran into Ryan Flannery, one of my friends from high school. That was quite the coincidence. We also stopped by Gruyere, this like medieval tourist town stop. That was fun, but nothing too amazing. That night we all went to a bar under a bridge not far from the hotel, which was another nice relaxing night out.

Day 10: In the morning we went to the Chillon Castle on the lake, which was really nice. We had the afternoon to ourselves, which we too advantage of. A bunch of us went to this park near the beach at the lake. The park had these nice pools and beach volleyball courts, so it was a nice way to spend the day. The pool had a 10m high dive, which might have been scarier than bungy jumping and certainly hurt to hit the water.

Day 11: It was our last day in Switzerland and in the morning we went to the Nestle headquarters. On the way our bus driver, Hans, drove down to a bridge the bus wouldn't fit over. So to get back he drove the bus backwards up a windy, narrow hill. It was the most bad ass thing I've ever seen. After the site wizit we started going towards Paris, and got the bad news about our upcoming flights.

European Recap: Germany

I'll talk about the two weeks in Europe with one post for each country. Just easier that way.

Day One (Sun, 5/16): I got to the airport around 6:30pm or so and there was time to kill. Then the stupid Icelandic volcano delayed the flight another hour. We made good use of the airport bar to get some sleep aid for the long flight ahead. Too bad it didn't work. I got many an hour of sleep over the course of the 7 hour flight to London

Day Two: We arrived in London and then flew to Munich, got there around 3:30 in the afternoon Monday, Munich time. We eventually got to the hotel and had a walking tour of the nearby parts of the city. We all got dinner at one of the beer gardens, and got the night off to a good start. Next we went to the train station for more drinks, because they had them. THEY HAD JACK DANIELS AND COLA IN A CAN. It was my dream come true. So good. Later we all hit up this bar called 23 or something like that, don't remember. Those who stayed got nice and drunk before our return to the hotel. Those who went out to celebrate Rich's birthday had an interesting time, but I stayed put rather than getting lost.

Day Three: We had our first site visit in the morning: the BMW Dingolfing plant. The bus ride over was miserable. Never been so dry mouthed in my life, and I wasn't alone. The plant was huge, bigger than my home town and had more employees than people in my town. It was a nice start to the school part of the trip. Later we went to Dachau Concentration Camp site. I really wanted to see it and it was certainly a moving experience. Most of it was cleared out, but what they had was very informative and interesting. That night we went to the Hofbrau Haus, a famous beer garden in Munich (pictured above). It was a lot of fun. We had a group sitting outside, got some dinner and beers and had a fun time. Afterwards we went to a hookah bar by the hotel called Millennium and were rowdy Americans. This is where we started chanting names and gave birth to the Stenson chant.

Day Four: In the morning we walked to Serviceplan Media, a European marketing firm. They gave us some of the best quotes of the trip including "Wizards" instead of "Visits". That one stuck the whole trip. That was done early, so we had time to kill at the hotel used for napping. At night we went to Hofbrau again, but there were no tables. We went to the place next door called Augustiner, which was just as good. I stole one of the mugs. After starting there we went back to Millennium and had our own room upstairs. As a group we had a great time for our last night in Munich.