Tag: tourist spot

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Vienna

We spent all day in Vienna today. Walked around and took a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour to be able to see more of the city, had lunch in one of the many cafes, stopped by St. Stephen’s Cathedral and saw the floating rocks, and then visited Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, and Strauss (they have a special section in the cemetery for the composers so they can all hang out together). We also got to take a tour of Schönbrunn Palace after hours; you can see the extravagant palace with beautiful (and huge maze-like) garden, but some of the extravagance is not what it appears (most of the gold inside is only a gold leaf coating so it is cheaper than it appears, and there is a whole porcelain room except that only 2 things are actually made of porcelain while the rest is just wood painted to look similar). Even though they didn’t have a lot extra money, they took a lot of pains to make it look like they did so visitors would be discouraged from attacking this “rich” army. There are also paintings from Empress Maria Theresa’s wedding, and every person has a small number beside them and are labelled as to who they are; Mozart is in one of the paintings, but he was actually never there and was added in later (bit of old school Photoshop) once he got famous because Maria Theresa wanted people to think he was there.

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Hitting Amsterdam’s High Points

We visited the Anne Frank museum, and got there right when it opened so it was not as crowded and it was very powerful, then we went to the Pancake Bakery for breakfast. They are well-known for their very strange pancakes, with many options ranging from sweet to savory. I got the Dutch pancake with Stroopwafel chunks (a traditional Dutch cookie), cinnamon ice cream, chocolate flakes, and whipped cream; it was soo good, but also soo sweet and large that I could not finish it. Then we explored the Van Gogh museum, and did the Heineken Experience which had a “ride” sort of thing to make you experience what it is like to actually be the beer. We took a boat tour with Those Dam Boat Guys, where we got to see some of the smaller canals. We also took a (quick) visit to the Red Light District, you know, just to say we did.

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Exploring Athens

We had a great breakfast this morning, there was actually normal Greek food instead of just soggy hotel eggs and such. We went up to the Acropolis which was really cool, and we had a great tour guide, Thanos. He was very informative and interesting, and talked a lot about things that weren’t necessarily related to exactly where we were or what we were doing, but more about Greek life and traditions and such. From the Acropolis we could see an ancient theatre which was really huge and cool. We also got to see Mars Hill where Paul gave a speech that’s in the Bible. Thanos took us on a walking and bus tour where we also saw the first modern Olympic stadium, a statue of Harry Truman (thanks to Mrs. King I actually remember the Truman Doctrine), and the grave of the unknown soldier. Our guide was talking about how Lord Byron loved it here and was buried here; this stuck out to me because we visited his castle in Switzerland, and I really enjoy being able to learn about and see these connections across different places. We went out to dinner and got a really delicious cheese ball (reminds me of the hunk a chunka cheese I got in Mexico) and there was a band playing traditional Greek music the whole night. Halfway through dinner a few dancers came out and started folk dancing, and then later they brought up some people (including me) to dance with them. It was a really fun night, and now I can brag to the theatre company about being a part of a real oppa.

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Off to Greece

Had to say goodbye to most of the peeps I’ve been hanging out with for the past 2 weeks which was kind of a bummer, but I’m super stoked to go to Greece so it’s ok. It’s really strange, I’ve been able to sleep really well on the coach whenever everyone else is awake and talking, but now that everyone’s asleep and it’s silent, I can’t sleep.

The Acropolis museum was very cool; it astounds me 1) how they are able to find all this stuff and 2) how they are able to piece it all together. There were lots of statues of Nike, whom we saw the big statue of in the Louvre. We got a Greek buffet for dinner which was very good – they put some kind of dressing on the cucumbers that made me actually enjoy them, and there was this pastry thing that I have no idea what was in it, but it was very good. Then a couple of us wandered around Athens just exploring. There’s someone playing some type of instrument on basically every corner, and it’s Greek music which makes the situation even cooler.

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Exploring Rothenburg

We had a very free day today, and we had done a lot last night already, so we just walked around all the shops. We visited the Christmas shop which was actually pretty cool. We had our last concert in the square and then after dinner we played exploding kittens in our fancy balcony. Since it’s most people’s last night in Europe, we had a celebration thing where we all just gathered together to watch the slideshow from all the bus cameras.

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Matterhorn

We drove and then took a train to the town at the base of the Matterhorn, Zermatt, and then took another little train to the Matterhorn viewing place. It was a very beautiful and a clear day, so the mountain wasn’t covered at all. For dinner everyone got together where we had played our concert and had cheese fondue and some of the locals performed for us. They had a normal little band and classic Swiss dances as well as the classic long horn thing. There is also the tradition that if you drop your bread in the fondue, you have to go around the table and kiss everyone of the opposite gender on the cheek, so that was entertaining because a lot of people had to do it.

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Montreaux

We got up early before breakfast so we could walk around the town which is really beautiful. I was able to meet with Coco today and it was really great to see and talk to her! She followed us up to the Castle of Chillon where we took a guided tour. The castle has amazing views and has a gorgeous interior as well with the nice dark wood columns and ceilings. Then we took an hour walk next to the lake down to Montreaux, it was a very beautiful walk and then the town was very busy because they were setting up for the Montreaux Jazz Festival, so Coco and I just walked around and talked. It was great and it didn’t feel like it had been 3 years since we saw each other last. We got back to Crans-Montana, ate dinner, and then had our concert. It was definitely our best concert yet, and it was pretty fun because there was such a big crowd of locals. The Swiss really enjoyed our concert and the red band played Stars and Stripes three times.

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Eiffel Tower & Louvre

Went to the Eiffel Tower and climbed up to the 2nd floor and saw some great views of the town; there’s this interesting mosque looking building with silver dome top things, but there are also crosses on those so I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it looks cool. It’s definitely different seeing the police and military walking around with huge automatic weapons, but it’s actually pretty comforting and you don’t feel threatened by them at all. Next, we went to the Louvre, but we only had about 45 min there, so we spent half the time looking for the bathroom and the other half at the Mona Lisa, but I’m pretty ok with that because it’s not as interesting to look at all the stuff when you don’t know what it means, and all the plaques were in French. I was thinking yesterday that a French cream puff would probably be very good, and we got one as our dessert with dinner today which made me very happy!

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Paris

Had first French croissant today and it was very good. We went up to Montre-Marte and saw the Sacre-Couer catedral and explored the little village there with cute art; the catedral was cool because on the outside of the windows are gray, but on the inside they were colorful stain glass. Then I had a crepe with strawberry jam on it and we had a sandwich on a baguette. I learned some French phrases like “Can I please have some water” and “Where are the toilets” and I think I’ve gotten my French accent down pretty good; but also last night I asked our waiter where the toilets were in French and he just laughed and pointed while saying (in English) “Downstairs.”

Next we went to Notre Dam which was also gorgeous. I tried my first macaroon and it was so good. At the waiting spot, there was a whole flock of pigeons and Nick and Kat actually got some to land on them! Then we went on a river boat cruise on the Seine and saw the Eiffel Tower.

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Off To Paris

We got up at like 4 o’clock to travel to Paris on the ferry; the drive to the dock took a couple hours (and the dock had a great view of the White Cliffs of Dover) but the ferry ride was only like 45 min and then we had around 6 more hours of driving from Calais to Paris. The traffic here is already very crazy, our driver drove over a median to get around blocked traffic and has honked his horn at least 10x more in our first hour here than he had in all of London.