Travel on Travel

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted about my travels, but in that time I’ve been all over Europe. It’s hard to believe that the last trip I posted about was Portugal. So here’s my attempt at trying to catch up on a month of trips. And I promise to try and do better in the future!

Germany – The most adventurous trip I’ve had so far, for sure. I was super excited for Oktoberfest because I was meeting up with my friends from Northeastern, the first people from home I’d seen in almost 2 months! It was so much fun to be back with them and laugh and have good times.

Getting to and from Germany was definitely a little unconventional. (Mom, you might want to skip this part.) Since flights to Munich were so expensive for Oktoberfest, I had to get creative with transportation. I flew to Paris Thursday night to meet up with my friend Paula, and then we drove overnight to Munich, arriving around 7 am. So obviously, we were ready to start our day. Since our friends weren’t coming until Friday night, we went to Oktoberfest and explored the tents for awhile before going to our airbnb. We met up with everybody and went to dinner at a beer garden, which was really fun but also freezing cold. I forgot how spoiled I was with Spanish weather.

Beers with Paula!

Saturday we got up early and headed back to the tents for Oktoberfest. Let me just tell you, beers the size of your head will do their job pretttty quickly. We got pretzels to go with our beers, and had fun sitting outside the biggest tent all day. Eventually, we were all tired and went back for naptime before going back into Munich for dinner (at Pizza Hut – talk about cultural immersion) and to explore the city.

Marienplatz, the main square in Munich, at night

Sunday was a touristy day, and we went to the Olympic Park and the English Gardens, where there was a manmade surfing wave in the river. We watched people surf it, and it was so impressive! Also, who’d have thought that surfing was big in Germany? Not me. While we were there, Paula and I got a call saying that our ride back to Paris for that night had fallen through, so we headed to the bus station to see if there were any not sold out options. Through some miracle, even though the last bus of the night at 5:30 was sold out, people didn’t show up and we managed to make it and 13 (yes, 13) hours later we were back in Paris – again at 7am. Since my flight didn’t leave for Sevilla until Monday night, Paula and I wandered Paris, found a Starbucks (and I finally got my pumpkin spice latte), and went to see the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens and Notre Dame. It was rainy in the morning, but cleared up and turned into a beautiful fall day in Paris. We ate lunch on the Seine, and it was the perfect relaxing day after Oktoberfest!

Me at the overlook above the Olympic Park!

Outside the Louvre

Paris – Less than a week after I left (4 days to be exact), I was back off to Paris! I had planned this weekend of visiting Paula before I figured out how to get to Germany, so it was a complete coincidence that I was there two weekends in a row. I flew out bright and early Friday morning. Since Paula was at work all day, I decided to head out to Versailles for the day to explore. It was absolutely breathtaking and completely ostentatious and decorative. I will say that after all the hype, I was a little underwhelmed by the Hall of Mirrors. It was obviously beautiful, but I had expected more, although there were also lots of people, so maybe that had something to do with it. My favorite part of Versailles was the part of the grounds where Marie Antoinette’s private house was, along with a gardener’s cottage and small buildings around a pond. It was literally straight out of Sleeping Beauty or some other fairy tale, and I could have stayed there all day.

Friday night, I took the train out to Paula’s little town outside of Paris and went out with her and her friends before coming back to get up early Saturday morning and head back into Paris. Saturday I packed a lot into one day. First, I headed to Sacre-Coeur, the church on the hill with amazing views of Paris. Both the inside and outside were gorgeous, and I even saw a mime performing to huge crowds. After Sacre-Coeur, I walked around the Montmarte District and grabbed lunch. Then I headed off to Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, someplace I’ve always wanted to visit, and it didn’t disappoint. The bookstore on the first floor was cool, but it was the second floor where they have a collection of old books that aren’t for sale, and reading nooks, an old typewriter, and even a bed, that was my favorite. I could’ve stayed there forever!

Sacre-Coeur, and the crowd watching the mime!

Shakespeare & Co.

Instead, I stopped at the love lock bridge on my way to Notre Dame to go inside and climb the tower, since I had only seen the outside with Paula. I hung out with the gargoyles at the top, having major Hunchback of Notre Dame flashbacks. Again, what beautiful views of Paris! After that, I met up with Paula and my friend Spencer, and we decided to walk along the Seine on our way to the Eiffel Tower. It started to rain a little, but nothing too bad. When we saw the Eiffel Tower light up, I felt like I was in a movie. We took a ridiculous number of pictures. When we got to the Eiffel Tower, we found out that we couldn’t walk up, just take the elevator to the top, so we decided to wait until the next morning when we could take the stairs. After that we grabbed dinner (the most amazing burger of my life), hung out at a bar, and ended up back at a hostel.

My favorite bored-looking gargoyle

The Eiffel Tower lit up at night - breath-taking!

Sunday was another full day, since we got up early and ate approximately 14 Nutella sandwiches at the free breakfast the hostel had before heading to the Eiffel Tower. Climbing up, we found that they had installed plexiglass floors so you could see directly through to the miniscule people on the ground below. It was a little terrifying, but also pretty cool. Unfortunately, it was also windy and cold, so teeth chattering was a central part of the Eiffel Tower experience. That being said, it was so cool to be at the top and looking out over all of Paris. After the Eiffel Tower, we headed to the Catacombs. The amount of bones found in the tunnels under Paris was a little overwhelming. I’m glad that I went, but it was still pretty overwhelming seeing all of those skeletons and thinking about all the people who had died. Finally, we went to the Arc de Triomphe, and walked down the Champs Elysees (obviously stopping at McDonalds to grab food, because why not?) before I got on the Metro to catch my flight back to Sevilla.

Coming next: Dublin, Madrid, Toledo, and Barcelona!