Switzerland

I went to SWITZERLAND! While staying with my family in Germany and enjoying movie nights and day trips, my family decided to take a road trip from their home in Stuttgart, Germany about two hours south to Zurich, Switzerland as they were in search of a Swiss cow bell strap from the weekend markets there. There was a light rain shower occurring in the city, but that didn't deter us from our mission or take away from the beauty and enjoyment of the city and the country. 

Affenberg (Monkey Mountain) - Salem, Germany

Monkey Mountain, known as Affenberg in German, is a wildlife reserve where people can go and feed and interact with monkeys. You are given a handful of popcorn upon entering the park and you walk around and are able to feed the monkeys as they wait for you to give them pieces of popcorn. You are allowed to get within three feet of the monkeys, which lets you get up close and personal with them which is really cool! The monkeys were very gentle and carefully grabbed the popcorn from your outstretched hand as they sat on benches like little humans. 

Blumen - Flower Picking in Deutschland

Ich liebe Deutschland!

[I love Germany]

Germany is such a gorgeous country! At every turn in the road, there are beautiful fields of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, ready to be picked by people passing by. Using the honor system, people who drive past these stands and fields can park their car, use a knife provided by the growers, and pick their bouquet of flowers and place their payment in the box. As my cousins and I were driving back from an outing, we spotted one of these Blumen fields and decided to stop and pick some flowers. Such a cool experience and something I will always remember about this country! 

First Day in Stuttgart, Germany

Germany is so beautiful and clean! After taking a quarter of German at UCLA, I had some sense of the culture and language in the nation, but after arriving, it was even more orderly, efficient, and clean than I ever imagined! The streets are neatly paved and I have yet to see litter of any kind. Their upkeep of the old, historic buildings is also impressive and they are all used today for stores and homes! I am also very impressed by their kindness to nature. There are open fields everywhere because the Germans don't believe in filling in every space with shopping centers or neighborhoods. My cousin, Lisa, even told me that she thinks killing bees here is illegal (if on purpose) because Germany is so animal and nature-friendly. 

Harry Potter Studios Tour, London

One of the coolest experiences in my travels in Europe was visiting the set of the Harry Potter movies. With everything still intact from the movies, including costumes, concept art, blue prints, everything you could think of, it was a Harry Potter fan's dream! My friend and I spent hours walking through everything, enjoying some butterbeer, and taking pictures of literally everything. Such a fantastic day! 

Abbey Road Studios, London

So as many of you know, I am a huge Beatles fan... like pretty huge... And I knew that I would make my way to Abbey Road when I was living in London for a month. It was actually the set of directions I looked up first when I got the address of the university I'd be living at in London. After finding out it was only a fifteen minute bus ride from Regent's University, I went there as one of my last hurrahs in London, and loved every  minute. 

Brighton, UK

After spending a lovely solo day in London, I decided to head south to the coast to visit one of my friends from UCLA and see what a British beach town looks like. Kind of like the Santa Monica Pier of the UK, Brighton was nice and sunny with lots of beach goers and cute beach shops. I actually ended up getting a little sunburnt on my nose! Not what I was expecting from anywhere in Great Britain! We walked down the pier and ate fish and chips while people watching and strolled down the beach lane to see the people sunbathing on the pebble beach (no sand in sight, I realized how lucky we are to have soft sand on our beaches on the West Coast). It was a bright and sunny last day spent in the UK before heading off to Germany for about 2 weeks! 

Versailles, France

Versailles was such an amazing palace to visit! So many ornate and extravagant pieces of furniture, sculpture, tapestry, and painting all housed within this giant palace. I cannot believe at one time this was someone's home! It was almost unreal walking up to the palace gates knowing that the French people had stormed this palace during the French revolution in order to overthrow the monarchy and take the palace for the people. I felt like I was in the movie, Les Miserables.  

Parisian Streets, Monuments, and Buildings

Day two of Paris was so lovely with a walk down the Champs Elysees to have a picnic in front of the Arc de Triomphe. My friends and I had picked up a fresh baguette from a local bakery and some deli meats and fruit on the way to the Metro station and ended at a park bench in front of the Arc to eat our picnic. We ended up running across the busy roundabout in front of the Arc to go underneath it and see the eternal flame, and later realized there is an underground footpath to get you from the sidewalk to the Arc (whoops!). It's a great memory now, though! 

Louvre - Paris, France

The second weekend of my time studying in London was spent in Paris. Being a frugal college student, my travel buddies and I booked an inexpensive overnight bus from London to Paris's City Centre which we knew would take 10 hours (but it cost $20 so we went for it). After leaving London at 10 pm, I quickly drifted off to sleep to wake up to the bus driver saying in his thick Slovakian accent, "We're on a ferry. You have one hour and then you must get back on the bus." I knew we would be crossing the English Channel somehow, but I did not realize that our bus would be driving right onto a large ferry! As I looked around in my sleepy state, I realized there were hundreds of carrier buses like mine in what looked like a giant mall parking lot and thousands of people were filing out of their buses and cars to the upper decks of the large ship. I slowly walked up to the deck of the ship and watched the lights on the waters of the English Channel at four in the morning... it was a very beautiful and unexpected component of my trip. 

With a check-in later in the afternoon at our Airbnb and an arrival with our baggage at 9 am, my friends and I decided to head straight from our overnight bus to the Louvre (partly to beat the crowds, and the other part to be able to check our luggage in at the museum while we walked around). Much to our surprise, the Louvre was free to EU students and we were able to enjoy all the artwork payment and baggage free (when living out of a backpack for a month and hauling your stuff around for day trips, a nice place to check your bags in like a museum is a major relief and huge perk).

Malahide Castle - Dublin, Ireland

About a 45 minute bus ride outside of the city centre of Dublin, this 12th century castle was worth the trek. Malahide Castle was unlike anything I had ever seen in person and I couldn't help but keep imagining it as inspiration for the setting of a Disney fairy tale movie. Not only was the castle itself impressive, but the surrounding park area was super lush and green. The park around the castle is about 260 acres, most of it naturally lush and left untouched, with a trail leading you through it, and families were picnicking and playing cricket due to the lack of rain that day.