Our last stop on our 5-city tour was Hallstatt, known as the most beautiful town in Austria. It’s a little jewel of a town tucked into the Alps, waterfront to a deep blue lake. It’s so pretty, in fact, that the Chinese replicated the town in China. Anyway, Hallstatt: gorgeous, but a real odyssey to get to. We took a standing-room only bus from Salzburg to a station high in the Alps. Although we were basically leaning against the driver…
I know, I know. It’s been 3 months since I’ve written last. But good things are worth waiting for, right?;) Although it’s no excuse, my post-France semester was filled with the harsh realities of normal, non-globe-trotting life. School and work and extracurriculars and finding housing for senior year (secured!) and an internship for the summer (nailed it!). But now it’s summer, and besides my 3 days a week interning at a cool PR firm in Greensboro, I’ll have plenty of…
Austria was the next stop on our 12 day trip! We took a sleepy afternoon bus from Budapest to Vienna, and then made our way to a sweet Viennese neighborhood where our Air BnB was located. The area was filled with old apartment buildings, independent grocers, and the occasional towering church. That night we made Indian food and chilled, happy with a homemade meal and Netflix after traveling for six days. We only had one full day in Vienna, so…
Budapest might be my favorite city I visited during my whole semester. It’s beautiful, but it’s also a little quirky and gritty. It’s called the “Paris of the East,” an understandable nickname what with it’s Parisian-style buildings and pretty boulevards. But Budapest feels more exotic; it is instilled with a fun youthful energy and cool vibes. After we checked in to Avenue Hostel (would also highly recommend! Free breakfast, free Monday night dinners, and very easy to make new friends)…
I know it’s been forever since I’ve written, but I’ve been so busy having my own adventures I haven’t had any time to write about them… A week after Strasbourg was fall break, and I embarked on a 12 day trip around Central/Eastern Europe with two of my friends. The first city we visited was Prague, the City of a Hundred Spires. Prague is a beautiful city straight out of a storybook, with gothic churches and winding side streets and…
Strasbourg enchanted me when I visited last week. It’s a colorful city filled with flowers, half-timbered medieval buildings, and a soaring Cathédrale Notre Dame that sits on the skyline like a moody, Gothic giant. Its canal flows blue-green in the daylight and shimmers peacefully under street lamps at night. And, perhaps most wonderfully, books spill onto every street from countless book markets and bookstores. I was in heaven. Strasbourg is a French city with Germanic influences (it sits near the…
So I did something crazy: I stayed up all night in Paris for Nuit Blanche, an annual arts festival on the first Saturday of October that goes from 7 pm to 7 am. It was probably one of the happiest nights of my life: wandering through Paris at night looking for art, sipping wine and eating crêpes, discovering the surprises within each exhibit. I felt young and bubbly and excited with the energy of the whole city surrounding me. I…
Last weekend, during the final days of summer, I finally made it to Paris. After a few weeks of cool temperatures, the sunny warmth made the whole city glow! I remember standing on a bridge shortly after arriving and looking out over the Seine, off toward swaying trees and tiered buildings, and feeling a bit of that Paris magic I’ve read so often about. The magic definitely disappeared when I encountered the full brunt of tourist crowds, but for…
I went to London last weekend to meet up with Sandra, an old friend from Denmark. I arrived Friday morning and left Sunday afternoon, and the trip was much too short– I wish I had at least another day in the city because I loved London! Perhaps I’ll go back before I leave in December… For one, it’s a great destination for an English major like me– it not only has deep literary roots, but a great book publishing industry…
I’ve been living in Reims, France for the past month! The economic champagne capital of the world, it’s a charming city 45 minutes-by-train from Paris, set in the rolling green vineyards of Champagne. The spirit of bubbly infuses the city– even the faces of the colorful trams are shaped like champagne flutes! It feels rather glamorous to drink that sparkling golden liquid in the Unesco-World-Heritage-listed region where it was made. And yes: I fully intend on becoming a champagne snob…