Spring Break (Nice, France- Paris, France- Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Our Spring break planning was months in the making and started back in January when we first arrived in Rome! We decided we wanted to start in south France, travel to Paris, and then see where that took us traveling with our roomies from Rome, Rima and Audrey, and Betsy and Jessie. We are back to report everything went as planned. Read below for the hilarious adventures of our trip 11 day trip in Europe.

Day 1: Nice, France- “Nice is Nice”

We stayed at the most amazing Hostel yet! Villa Saint Exupery (rated one of the top hostels in the world). Was a cute villa up in the hills of Nice where the whole staff was from Australia. We woke up, took a shuttle downtown (Luckily we bought tickets because our tram was raided by the Police!) where we found a cute fresh flower and fruit market. We bought lunches consisting of a French baguette, pesto sauce, strawberries, and cheese and made our way to the beach in bikini’s! Found a spot up against the wall where the “rock beach” sand was semi-soft and didn’t move until 5pm that evening when the sun was setting. The Mediterranean sea was too cold to swim in, but it was beautiful to look at!

Around sunset we walked up to a lookout point where we could see the entire city and the sun setting over it (while an accordion player was playing music in the background) Perfect photo opportunity!! That night we ventured to a popular bar (Waynes) where dancing on the tables was the standard and a live band played American songs all night long (Including Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”

Day2: Eze, France- “KABOBS”

Took a bus from Nice to the base of a mountain to begin a 45 minute hike to Eze. We were told to get food at the bottom of the hill because the restaurants in Eze can be quite pricy. We found a sandwich shop and got some Kabobs. We asked the worker there if 1 sandwich was enough to share. She looked at us “Americans” and said we each needed our own. When they were finally ready, she brought out sandwiches that were almost up Sara’s waist!! (about 3 people could have shared 1) We got to work on our sandwiches, making frequent stops (about every 5 minutes) to take a bite. About 8 minutes into our hike, a serious looking hiker coming down the trial said in words of encouragement “Boy, your girls have a LOOONG hike ahead of you.”We weren’t feeling too good once we were deep into the hike. We decided to ditch our sandwiches, after eating about a third of them, and got into real hiker mode. We continued searching to Eze. Somehow we found our way to the top, without any troubles. We walked around the cute little town of Eze window shopping and were ready to relax back in Nice.

For dinner we followed the advice of Rick Steves to go to a local rugby restaurant, L'Occitanie. To our luck, there was a big game going on that night, but no worries, there was 1 table open for us…right under the TV. We enjoyed and amazing meal consisting of steak and potatoes for only 9 euro, and one of the best desserts yet (or at least until we get to Paris). The staff was so friendly and we ended our day with a evening walk on the boardwalk!

Day 3: Monaco, France- “Casinos Casinos Casinos”

Sprinting in the train station, we nearly missed our train to Monaco! Somehow we all barely made it on and arrived into the ritzy country of Monaco! (2nd smallest country in the world- behind out neighbor Vatican City) You should have seen the people walking around us- everyone just screamed money. We walked into the city past rows of yachts, million-dollar cars, and every designer shop you could imagine. Making it finally to the Monte Carlo Casino in our dresses and poker faces on, ready to test our luck at the slots. We then realized it didn’t open until 2pm.

So how about a quick, cheap lunch break?! In Monaco, cheap really isn’t a word in people’s vocabulary. We finally found a place where the meals weren’t above 30 euro per plate. We enjoyed a delicious lunch, then after we made our way to the casino. At the casino, we decided to not get too daring and stick to the penny slots. We all came out about even, and considered it a successful day. We easily made it back to Nice, and did a little shopping. That night we realized we were very sad to leaving Nice, but excited to see what kind of adventures are to come in Paris…

Day 4: Paris, France- “TOURING THE CITY”

We got up early in Nice and board the flight to Paris. We had about an hour train ride from the city to the airport, then we had to use the metro to get to our hostel…such city girls. Our hostel appeared to be very nice-St. Christopher’s Inn hostel. The only problem was that it was a little outside the city, but we still managed to get around just fine. After checking into the hostel, our friend Blake, a sophomore at Marquette also studying abroad, met us and we started out into Paris!!

We took the metro and came out staring right at the Louvre Museum. Walking over to the glass pyramid was beautiful! It was such a nice day outside- so we sat on the fountain and soaked in our surroundings. Eventually we entered the museum only to realized, its free admission for all European students! How great!! Found the Mona Lisa in a room of her own surrounded by people (it was kind of crazy) but very cool to see nonetheless.

Not really having much interest in spending the whole day in the museum we left and walked through Les Tuileries- the most central park in Paris. (Seeing our first site of the Eiffel Tower- Goosebumps!!) It stretches from the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde. We approached the Arc de Triomphe and got some French bread to munch on.

Finally wondering through the streets we found the Eiffel Tower!! It was the most amazing thing we have seen and looked better in person than any postcard we have ever seen. We were approached by about 15 different middle-eastern guys who had sculptures of the Eiffel Tower for sale yelling in our faces “good price, good price” but as our moms keep telling us- “no buying junk!” so we resisted.

After staring in awe for about an hour we took a metro over to the Notre Dame church. Luckily when we entered into it church has just started so we sat down and had Eucharist in the Notre Dame Church. (A little change from St. Margaret Mary’s and St. Vincent De Paul- our parishes at home)

Finally made our way to the “Latin Quarter” district and ate at a cute family owned restaurant then took the metro back “home” to our hostel…

Day 5: Paris, France- “Eiffel Tower turns into DOOMS DAY”

Woke up egar to start another day in Paris. Locked up all our belongings in the lockers provided and headed out for the Eiffel Tower. Again, being harassed by all the men trying to see mini steel Eiffel Towers to us and Gypsies everywhere (asking us “you speak engligh??!”), we held our purses tight and made our way to the short line at the tower. Karma must have been on our side because the line to walk to the top was super short! We started the 1665 step hike to the top, excited to hopefully see a marriage proposal on the way. Made it finally to the top (Sara’s fear of heights didn’t help the situation much- but she survived!)

Paris looked so beautiful and we could see up to 40 miles away from the top! Talking millions of breath taking pictures we then left and went to the Jewish Quarter where there is amazing shopping and good Chinese food (who woulda thought!)

Had a little pricy lunch due to the fact that we didn’t understand the ordering process and shopped in the afternoon. Once it got dark we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower to see the light show! On the hour, every hour, the Eiffel Tower does a 5 minute light show and it was unbelievable! So pretty glowing in the night. We finally made our way home in great spirits from everything we witnessed that day. Nothing could made us upset, so we thought….

We did have ONE misfortunate thing happen when we were in Paris….We barge into our hostel room in high spirits after such a fun day in Paris. We go on and on telling our roommates in the hostel how great our day was and so on. After about 10 straight minutes of talking their ear off they look at us and say “So I’m assuming you haven’t heard the news yet?”.They go on to explain that someone has broken into our hostel and went through all of our belongings and broke through our locks. They stole our roommate’s brand new mac books pro computer, and our other roommates new I touch. A few other things got stolen from the other people in our room too. We both got very lucky to have had everything valuable with us that day, so nothing got stolen. Either way, we still thought it was very creepy that a stranger had gone through all of our clothes and decided to throw them everywhere. We keep reminding ourselves how lucky it was that no one was in the room when he decided to break into it!

After taking with the manager, he decided to give us a refund on our room rates and we had free food and drinks at the bar that night…

Day 6: Paris, France- “yummmm”

Because of the events that happened yesterday, Audrey our roommate decided to leave Paris early and went onto London to visit her boyfriend and Rima had to attend the police station all day to fill out police reports so Maggie, Sara, Betsy, and Jessie started the day with shopping and wandering around Paris. Had lunch at a cute sideway café and made it to the Orsay museum. The artwork was everything we had learned about since grade school (Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Etc.) After the getting lost in tour groups in the museum, we were on a mission to find the famous dessert place La Dauree (this is famous because is it the company that made all the desserts in the movie Marie Antoinette!!)

It was decorated like an old English castle with the best desserts we had ever seen. After eating our desserts which was a taste of 10 minutes of heaven- we wondered down the main street and walked through some fancy stores such as Louis Vuitton, PRADA, Christian Louboutin, and Chanel. Found our way to the Metro and took it to the famous stop, The Moulin Rouge!

Right off the metro, we knew this was a different part of Paris we had yet to see. We took our pictures and left before it got too dark out!!

Day 7: Paris, France- “Then there were three”

This was our last day in one of the most beautiful cities we have ever seen!! Betsy and Jessie left us to go off to Prague to meet friends from High school. The only 3 remaining on the trip was Maggie, sara and our roomie Rima. We started off the rainy day walking over to The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Cœur Basilica. It started to rain for the first time since we had been in Paris (talk about good timing) So we took the metro back to the Latin Quarter and had the best lunch to date. We ate at a place called ptitgibus café. They serve every kind of Crepe you could image.

We had a “lunch” crepe filled with meat and cheese and veggies then had a nutella and banana one for dessert. IT WAS AMAZING! After a long relaxing lunch, Rima left us to go to more museum (she is a art major) Sara and Maggie both were kind of “burnt out” of museum - so we decided to wander around and go shopping. How lucky- we had an entire day to ourselves to just relax and wander the streets of Paris!! Finally made our way back to the hostel and started to pack for our final journey of spring break. AMSTERDAM!!

Day 8: Amsterdam, Netherlands- “loony town”

Arrived into Amsterdam into the Flying Pig youth hostels uptown. It was such a different feel that any other hostel we have ever been to- it was super relaxed and chill. We dropped off out bags in our 5^th floor room (yes, we had to walk up the worlds smallest staircase to get there.)

Immediately we walked straight to the Heineken Brewery tour- we were in for a treat. It was so much fun! We walked through the history of how a beer is made- then we were actually made into a beer (a 4-D experience… similar to a IMAX) After we learned the proper way to drink their beer and played with their interactive bar tables. (highlight of the tour) after making friends and trying on everything in the souvenir shop we decided to have some lunch and visit famous museums in Amsterdam.

We walked though the red light district during the day- because we were scared to see what it looked like during the night! What a crazy place Amsterdam is. Walking home we found a Mexican restaurant we couldn’t deny! We have been having withdraws from Mexican since being in Rome! Made our way back to the hostel and realized that we were sharing a room with 6 other guys from London celebrating a birthday. How perfect…

Day 9: Amsterdam, Netherlands “Tour de Amsterdam”

After eating our free breakfast at the hostel we walked over to a park where you can rent bikes for a whole day. Buying insurance (you never know what will happen with us) we had to do a few practice runs before we could take on the real streets of Amsterdam. We went over to the Anne Frank house and waited in line for about 30 minutes talking to a cute couple who met studying abroad and now live in Germany! The tour through Anne Frank house was really interesting and sad. It was surprisingly bigger than we thought it was going to be. It sad to think that people had to live in complete dark for 4 years- all the windows were blocked out and there were hiding rooms everywhere.

After the tour we rode to the famous Pancake bakery. This whole trip we have only talked about food- but here is another winner. Like the crepes, we had a lunch pancake and then a dessert with apples and cinnamon. Nothing short than amazing. After lunch we continued on our bike tour blending in with the locals, sat in a park by the Van Gogh museum, and soaked up Amsterdam. It was such an amazing city!! Hope to return here again someday!

Day 10: Travel day home- “Home Sweet Rome”

Found our way to the Amsterdam airport after receiving horrible directions to the bus stop from the hostel. (We think they wrote them while being blindfolded!)

Our Plane was delayed about a hour- we were perfectly content just sitting in the airport "people watching" but leave it to the Italians in their Puffy Coats to freak out. They were all pacing back a forth yelling in Italian. It was complete chaos- but enjoyable to watch. This was just a preview of what we were returning to in Rome! We finally boarded our flight and return to our Home. Exhaustion doesn't even begin to describe how we felt!

It was so nice to return to our apartment and actually felt good to be in our single sized cots... who would have thought we would ever say that!

Tuscany Wine Tasting + Florence

We went to FLORENCE for the weekend to spend time with Betsy and Jessie and try our first ever wine tour. The tour took place in the hills of Chianti, Italy at Castello di Verrazzano. (http://www.verrazzano.com/en/programmes-wine-tours/)

We started our adventure with a 1-hour bus ride through beautiful Tuscany. Made friends with the bus driver and had him help us figure out when to exit. The bus dropped us of into what seems like the middle of nowhere and found a little house of the side of the road with a sign “wine tour”. We went inside and asked, what we thought was a sweet little old lady, where we go for the wine tour. She replies “just up the hill!!” with a smirk on her face. We began our trek up a vertical hill through a vineyard… 10 minutes into the walk we begin to realize that the so called "short walk" is actually a trek up a mountain…no wonder she was laughing.

After seeing 2 cars pass, and seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, we decided that the next car we see is getting the thumbs up (aka…hitch hiking is our only hope). 45 minutes into this rainy hike (we forgot to tell you its foggy so their isn’t much of a scenery to enjoy) we see our new best friends driving our way. We flag them down and asked if they are heading to the wine tour. This nice family from Pennsylvania with a son our age at Notre Dame University, told us that they were headed there, and invited us to cram into their rental car. Our sweaty bodies gladly accepted and drove 2 minute around the bend, to finally make it to the wine tour. Go figure.

We arrived at the tour and got into our groups- three different couples in the group told us “We couldn’t believe you girls were walking when we passed you!!” Little did they know, it wasn’t by choice… We started the tour of the Verrazzano Vineyard. Exploring through room after room of ageing wine, stacks of bottles dating all the way back to 1960s, and their home-grown wild boar meat hung out to dry, we were ready to have a few “drinks”.

There were 2 tables for the group, all the adults sat at one table, and we sat at the other…who wouldn’t want to sit with us? We were then joined by a nice couple from Memphis. The wife Diane might as well have been traveling with us!! While her husband was the wine expert, she sat and gossiped with us about her fun college stories, shopping in Paris, and our favorite TV shows.

Back to the tour….we were first served 3 different types of their classic Chianti wines. Then we were each presented with the biggest platter of food, or as they would like to call it “a light snack”. We also got biscottis to dip into their dessert wine, along with a “shot” of alcohol, which we compare to the strongest form of alcohol we have ever had.

As we were leaving, a nice couple from our group offered to drive us back down. We quickly accepted. The bus ride back seemed to go much faster, maybe because we attempted to speak Italian with the bus driver the whole time.

We made it back to Florence in time for some naps and then more exploring throughout the city. Thanks to Annie Narzisi, she typed out a awesome list of places to see, eat, and do, we defiantly experienced Florence that weekend. Our favorite place being Dante’s, where all you pay for is your meal and then you get a max of 5 free bottles of wine per table. Talk about a DEAL!! We saw the most famous square is Piazza della Signoria, The Duomo (cathedral), the Baptistery of John the Baptist, The Campinile, bell tower, in Piazza del Duomo, The Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), and many other things... We Loved it there!!

The italy gang :)

Roman Shenanigans.....

Here is a little recap of some interesting events that have happened to us in the past week...

1. We decided to go on a run together because it was 60 degrees outside. Our destination was to run around the Vatican walls and make it back before dark. We started on our jog with ipods in hand. We got to the top of the hill and had to cross a street- because we are in Italy and crossing the street is always a risky situation, we decided to keep it safe and push to crosswalk button. While walking across we hear a screeech and crash. Immediately, we look back and and witnessed a 3 car fender bender! Wouppss! Guess they aren't use to stopping for pedestrians here. Continuing on our jog, we rounded the corner and were face-to-face with out favorite gelato place, Old Bridge. Maggie just happened to have 5 euro on her so we made the logical decision that we had to stop and get some..."When is Rome!"

Enjoying our heaven in a cup we walked home through the Vatican getting many strange looks... as our faces were still red and sweaty from running...

2. Our second fun story is our run in with the law. This was when Betsy and Jessie came in from Florence to visit. We were wondering around and found a bus to take to the Pantheon. As we hopped on the but Sara nonchalantly says to Maggie "We really should pick up a bus ticket to use." We usually always have a bus ticket on us just in case the police are on to check to make sure we aren't sneaking on the bus without paying (where would they get an idea like that???), however, we both had to use ours the previous week and never bought a new one. As soon as we get on we see police on the bus. They came right up to us. We must have looked like tourists or something. They ask us for our tickets, and even though we fully knew we did not have one, we pretended to look and acted like we were clueless...just visiting Rome for the weekend. Trying to use apologize and say we will buy one right now (thinking that would fool them) they proceed to follow us off the bus at the next stop. They explained our options to us in broken English. As we understood, they could ticket us 150 euro, that we would pay later and have our names sent to the U.S. embassy, or pay 30 euro up-front and walk away. Conveniently, we had just gone to the ATM. We opted for the 30 euro and continues on our way. Lets just say we didn't go on the shopping trip we had planned for that day.

3. Sara just came home and surprised Maggie with 2 Peroni beers for St. Patricks Day. Can't wait to go to the neighborhood Irish Pub tonight for celebrations!!!

4. Tuesday night the water in our apartment went out, causing a bit of a scare. Only for it to turn back on finally in the morning

5. On Monday night we heard singing going on outside of our apartment. We run to our balcony and notice that there was a huge group of people doing Stations of the Cross walking down the street... only in Rome

6. We leave for spring break tomorrow! We are headed to South Franc (the French riviera) then onto Paris, and finally ending our vacation in Amsterdam!

We are about to go on another run... watch our Rome!!!

CIAO!!

StrongBeerFest- Munich, Germany!

Grub gott! (hello in German!)

This past weekend we arrived in Munich, Germany! This now holds the title as one of our favorite places we have visited in Europe (Switzerland holding a close second place). We took a 2 hour speed train from Rome to Florence to meet the bus company- from there, of course the bus 8 hour bus ride has a story to tell. Sara and I sat on the top of the double-decker coach bus and got "comfortable". As we dazed in and out of sleep listening to Coldplay and Taylor Swift on repeat... we noticed that the bus kept stopping every hour causing the arrival time in Munich to be pushed back 2 hours. We didn't realize until we walked off the bus in Munch sleepily, that some boy had been puking and the bus bathroom was broken... causing us to stop every hour or so. Guess some people don't understand the concept that drinking and long bus rides are not a good combo...

The hostel we stayed at in Munich was called Jagers (yes, we were referring to jagger bombs every-time we said it) It was such a nice hostel! Amazing breakfast, our own bedroom and OWN bathroom- this screams royalty in hostels :) Talk about luxury!!

Friday we met in the lobby of the hostel after a few hours of sleep and began the walking tour of Munich! First stop (and most importantly) we had to go to the Lowenbrau Beer Hall to get our tickets to the Starkbierfest (aka Dark Beer Fest)! Apparently they sell about 5000 tickets for the night and usually sell out! After purchasing the golden ticket we continued on our walking tour. We realized that maybe the reason we liked it so much here was because it was the cleanest and most organized city we have been to yet in Europe! This is mainly because after WWII the city had to be almost completely rebuilt.

Friday night was something we have never experienced in our entire life and was one of the most culturally enriching adventure we have done yet!! It was time for the beer festival. The beer they were "celebrating" it only brewed 3 weeks out of the year, and we were lucky enough to be there for the first night it was served. We never considered ourselves dark beer drinkers, but it was surprisingly good!! The beer hall was a HUGE room with long tables made to seat about 30 people each. They look like they should belong in Harry Potter and everyone is squeezed together. We wore "lederhosen look-alike" t-shirts found in a souvenir shop- we are trying our best to fit in with the locals and make out ancestors proud! With matching pig-tales we entered into the beer hall and were literately speechless at what we saw. People of all ages holding huge Stein glasses of dark beer (stark beir), dressed in traditional German clothes we both have only seen worn at halloween or in movies, and plates full of unrecognizable meat and potatoes! On top to that, there was a traditional polka band playing, dancers showing off their moves, weight lifting contests, and a fashion show, which we of course found ourselves in...

Surprise, surprise....we somehow ended up in the "Miss Triumphator beauty contest!!! We walk onto stage wearing our "trying to fit in with the locals" t-shirt (which we got laughed at by the Germans later because it turns out our t-shirts had the traditional male outfit on it). So, we march onto stage, finding ourselves standing in front of about 5,000 people. We 5 American girls along with 7 other German girls went down the line introducing ourselves. It was at this moment that language was a bit of an issue....perfect! The microphone finally made its way to us and we said our name and stated we were from Nebraska. You could have heard a pin drop after that. Awkward....

To avoid anymore embarrassment on the stage we walked back to our seats getting a few claps along the way. The show continued with a weight lifting contest and more dancing. Unable to read the menu we somehow ordered a HUGE platter of different meats. Of course this didn't hold us back from finishing the entire thing.

After dinner and a couple STRONG beers, we began to dance with the locals. We walked around and found a table of young locals who were dressed from head to toe in German attire. We thought they would be perfect contenders to teach us how to dance. We introduced ourselves and asked about any person who spoke even a little English what our last names meant in German. They got very excited when they found out about our German last names!! (Rudersdorf meaning a small rowing town in southern Germany and Peitzmeier is Bavarian and means they were dairy farmers!) Who woulda thought!

Saturday morning was relatively a easy morning to wake up only because of how excited we were to spend another day in GERMANY! We made our way out of town to the Dachau Concentration camp. We bought the audio tour and spent about a hour walking around. It was really educational and sombering experience. We defiantly needed a little "pick-me-up" after that. How about shopping! One thing we noted: there are H&M's everywhere! When we say everywhere, we mean on each corner (Mens, Women's, Accessories, Children, Shoes, etc.). Maybe the most exciting thing we bought on the trip.... PEANUT BUTTER!! Peanut Butter is extremely hard to find in Rome.

Saturday night we made out way to the famous Hofbrauhaus. We squeezed between some locals at a long table. Oddly enough, the lady sitting right next to us lived in Appleton, Wisconsin for 5 years! She loved to hear we were from Marquette. Then we met another girl from Canada traveling on her own for 5 months, and then a bunch of german boys here for a big soccer game! We ordered some classic steins and had an amazing beer- Its a mix of lemonade, sprite, and beer. Yummy! After dinner, Sara found herself in a game of Poker with a bunch of local men. She proudly beat them after the first round. YES!!!

We woke up extra early the next day to get ready for our long bus ride home. On the way home though, we took a detour to see the original Disney castle. It is the castle that the one in Disney World is modeled after! To get to the castle we had to take a long walk up an icy path. We had to walk up an even scarier route to get to a bridge that has the absolute best view of the castle. We knew it was going to be a tough walk because we had to sneak around a sign saying "CAUTION: no trespassing." Rules are meant to be broken, right? I wish someone could have videotaped that walk. It would consist of a lot of falls and grabbing onto the railings for our lives! The walk was well worth it though. Just look at the next pictures and you have to agree...

typical.....

Just like the Walt Disney Castle in Disney World!!! (except this is the real thing...)