I'm Back!

Well, yesterday afternoon I flew into the Toronto airport after spending 5 and 1/2 weeks over in Europe! It was such an amazing, incredible experience and it's going to be so hard to write about it to describe it! I saw so much and learned so much in that time, it's hard to believe that it actually happened!

One note - the picture on the blog is of a mountain in Switzerland, in case you were wondering.

I'll be writing several entries on the various parts of the trip as I have time, but I'd like to at least write an overview, in case you're saying to yourself "She went to Europe? How did I not know about this?" (The answer to the second question is: I was very busy and did not properly inform people that I was leaving)

On May 11 I flew out of the Toronto airport with 23 other students, Dr. Pearse and his wife and Dr. Woolsey to spend the Mayterm in the Balkans. It was part of an honors course that I participated in second semester. It was called "East Meets West" or EMW for short. We studied the develop and clash between Eastern and Western civilizations through history, with a special focus on the Balkans where the two cultures often met. It was a 12 credit course and involved reading about 500 pages a week (correct me if I'm wrong) and writing a 5 page paper every other weekend and a final 9-12 page paper (though we now have another final one to write for Mayterm). The 4 areas of study were: History, Theology, Literature, Political Science. Dr. Pearse lectured us on History/Theology and Dr. Woolsey lead our discussions on Literature. We had an overnight flight to Budapest, Hungary and we spent the next 3 weeks of the Mayterm traveling with our professors through the Balkans, visiting the places we studied. The majority of the time we were in Croatia, but we also did a day trip in Montenegro, and spent a few days in Bosnia and Serbia. We ended the trip in Venice, Italy where we spent 2 days before the group divided up. Some (meaning 2) people flew out on May 31 to head home, then other smaller travel groups went off through Europe, with another chunk flying out on June 9, and then the rest of us flew home on June 18. So I have spent a total of 5.5 weeks on a foreign continent!

During the second half of the trip I traveled with four other girls, and it was so much fun! After Venice we went to Thun, Switerzland where we stayed with a missionary family Hannah knew from Africa. We spent a few days with them, then went to Paris, France via Vichy, France. In Paris we stayed at a place called "Cheap Beds Hotel" which was actually REALLY nice. After a few days there we met up with Erika's dad and grandpa and travelled to Normandy and spent a few days with them, going to Stewart's concerts (her younger brother). Our next stop was Haarlem, Netherlands where we spent one night, then it was off to Hamburg, Germany. After two nights there we went to Berlin, Germany. There we stayed with a missionary family that was friends with Erika. From there we went to Nurnberg, Germany and stayed with a girl named Laura who become friends with Erika while she spent the past year in the US as an exchange student. Then instead of heading back to Venice we split the very long train trip into 2 parts and went to Basel, Switzerland for a night (but didn't see the city at all). Then we spent two more nights in Venice before flying out early on the 18th.

Wow. That's a lot of activity in a short period of time.

In the next few entries I'm hoping to write about, well, almost everything! But please comment with questions if you have them!