Paris

Our first day in the beautiful city of Paris. Surprise I missed my bus in the morning and had to pay for a taxi to the Notre Dame which was 68 euros but I was with 5 other people and the taxi driver liked my singing and dancing at 8 am so he just made us pay 10 euros each. What a great way to start the morning :) Driving through the city was not really what I expected. This was my first time in Paris so I didn't really know what to expect but I was surprised when we were driving down on our way to Notre Dame because there was this street that was filled with hundreds of homeless people sleeping in piles of clothing or in whatever they had. When we got to the Notre Dame we met up with our group and started the tour. Our tour guide told us a lot about about the wars and kings but too much for me to write down let alone remember. What I do remember is that the original device of beheading was a sword. It could take up to 4-5 tries before a complete separation. The maximum number of times taken was 18 :) We then moved to the latin quarter, which was only given its name because at the time Latin was the only common language spoken. There was also a fountain of st michael standing on the devil and points to send him away. The island in Paris is believed to be the centre of Paris for it has the Notre Dame and the official government building. Julius Caesar wanted that land and killed many people and founded the new beautiful Roman city to be called Luttuce. Paris was named after the Pariis tribe on the island. We then walked over to the oldest bridge in France, that's made from cement. It only ever had two commercial spots - tooth pullers using nails, hammer and pliers. It was eventually banned due to people being unconscious on the bridge and drunk people wandering home with blood everywhere. The second was a grooming for poodles of rich wives of the nobles. The famous Love lock bridge Pont des Arts was next to see. It weighed 55 tonnes and meant they had to be removed, melted down and built into art, which was then sold and the money was donated to charity. The weight was actually destroying the infrastructure which is why they were removed. We then visited the Louvre and learned about why the Mona Lisa was famous - The Mona Lisa is famous for the eyes, the mystery of who she is. She's actually a Da Vinci to paint her. The thief went to Florence to try to sell it to an art gallery. Police then arrest him and he is tried in Italy and consider a national hero not a thief. They took the Mona Lisa on a world tour in the 1960s. Now has bulletproof glass and 2 guards. 1989 created the pyramids and turns them into the entrance. French first hated the modernization of the pyramids in front of the Renaissance building. However over time. We also passed the egyptian obsolesce on our way to the arc de triomphe. We then went to the Louvre to see many amazing works including the Mona Lisa, which is soooooo overrated. After the tour we had a nap in the gardens and then went for lunch. After the very eventful day we went back to the hotel for dinner a a swim. In 1998, France beat Brazil in the World soccer cup. This was the first and only time the St Michael fountain was vandalized with a French shirt on him and then a Brazilian was thrown into fountain and put his shirt on the devil. Literally meaning that France is standing on Brazil. Before 1911 no one cared about her. She only became famous in 1911 due to her abduction. An Italian patriot of Da Vinci for the 5 of his paintings. He found the Mona Lisa, stole it, and it took it back to Italy. It went viral by newspapers that the Mona Lisa had been stolen. The Mona Lisa's fame. The Mona Lisa's fame.

Notre Dame

Jamie from New Zealand and I

Jade from Wisconsin and India from Canada with out bubble teas 

a homeless guy we bought food for and his dog which is the cutest ever 

so overrated 

so underrated 

EuroTour! Zurich - Paris

Eurotour has been something all of us exchange students has been looking forward to all year but as the time went by we we're getting nervous for it because we knew it would be the last time we would be able to spend together. The day before Eurotour actually started we all decided to meet up in Zurich to go swimming. We didn't just meet up with Rotary students we met up with all of our exchange student friends from other organizations as well. It was a nice day and there nothing we like more than all hanging out and swimming so thats how we decided to spend our last day all together. As the time approached to go to our hotel and say goodbye we all got our journals and flags out for each other to sign. That’s something we do, after a great year and all the memories shared, we write a little letter to each other to read when we're in the plane to go home. We woke up in the morning, loaded up our double decker bus with all 64 students and all our luggage to leave our hotel in Zurich for our 10 hour trip to Paris, France. The ride was long but we played games, slept, chatted, watched movies and listened to music. When we arrived at the hotel in Paris unloaded our bags and went straight to the hotel pool & sauna. 

Nauplie

On the way to Nauplie we stopped to explore more ruins. This site had a cool tomb that had an echo so our choir conductor decided that we would sing a song. He is really funny and does what he wants. When we were in this tomb another tour guide came with her group and started yelling and getting mad at us for singing but he didn't care, we were there for a purpose and he just kept conducting. Nauplie itself is my favourite place that we had visited. Its a city along the ocean and it was just beautiful. We had a lot of free time here as we didn't have anymore concerts. My best friend Guy and I took a cab to a beach that was about a 15 minute drive. We were the only people on the whole beach and it was amazing. The weather wasn’t perfect so we didn't stay too long but I don't regret going because we had a great time. instead of taking the cab back we decided to take the walk along the water. We met a little dog that followed us the entire way and even after we passed other dogs and people he stayed with us. I really enjoyed this walk. The view was amazing and I loved the smell of the water. It was not a very busy path and there were no houses or anything. It was about a 2 hour walk but it felt like less because it was so pretty. This was our last night so we all decided to get out for drinks in town. It was nice to hangout with everyone for the last night because we didn't have an opportunity to do it before. The next morning we made our way back to Athens to fly back to Switzerland. We made our last ruins visit and this time was interesting because we almost got kicked out. We visited the whole sight and made our last stop the theatre. Normally to sing at the theatre you have to have a permit, make a reservation and a bunch of other things that we didn’t care about. It is very rare for people to sing here but we did anyways (without permission). We took a photo first to set a diversion and then we stared to sing. As soon as we started singing, the security started blowing their wistles trying to get us to stop. They weren’t successful because its was impossible to stop our group of 70 people. We thought we would only sing the first verse but our director kept conducting for the whole song. Our director was very determined to finish our song. When we finished, everyone in the theatre applauded but the security was threatening to call the police on our director. He didn't care and he planned it out so  that if we were to get in trouble we had already visited everything on the site in case we got kicked out. It was an exciting way to end the voyage. Overall, this trip to Greece was a lot of fun! It was great to be able to explore such a beautiful place, see history in real life, eat some delicious food and built relationships with new people.

an abandoned building on the ocean 

Delphi & Andritsena & Olympia

While driving to Delphi we learned about its history and importance. It was interesting unloading 60 suitcases from our bus to the hotel because we blocked the whole road and caused a traffic jam. We created a chain system and unloaded all of the bags in under 3 minutes. The ruins were a walks away from the hotel so we went right after we put our bags in the hotel rooms. I really liked it here because I really enjoy old architecture, even if it is in ruins. After the site we went to the museum to look at all of the old artifacts that have been found. After that we had time to do what we wanted before dinner. That was our only day in Delphi but it was a nice quick visit. The next day we drove for 5 hours to a town called Andritsena. On the way we stopped in a town called Antrition, there was a beautiful view of a nice bridge that connects the northern and southern part of Greece. When we arrived to Andritsena we stopped for lunch and then went to a library in the area. There was a doctor, named Nikolopolos who came from this town and moved to Fribourg (my city in Fribourg) then became famous. When he died he donated all of his books to his home town and they made a library after him. We had a concert in the hotel and people from the town came and heard our presentation. They seemed to really enjoy it and my favourite was when we started to sing a Greek song and everyone started to sing and sway along with it. The library of Andritsena gave us each a personalized certificate thanking us. Our first stop was to explore the Temple of Zeus. When we got the park we went to a park to do a concert. It wasn’t for anyone in particular, just for the tourists. People came and went but many people were very interested in our concert because we were singing in so many different languages. We sang in English, Greek ,all 4 of Switzerlands national languages and even Fribourg's old language, Patois. After the concert the staff had drinks and greek snacks for us before we started the tour of the actual site. We saw the temple of Zeus, ancient schools and hotels, as well as the first Olympic stadium and track. We later went to the museum for the temple of zeus to see all of the artifacts that were discovered in the ruins. One of my favourites were this mural made up of Greek gods, there were intact reconstructed but they were the original designed and size. 

Edward and I 

the sign that was posted around the town inviting everyone to our concert 

Our wonderful guide

Guy and I 

Ryan and I