Brace yourself, this post is going to be long!
We drove directly from Ljubljana, Slovenia to our hotel in Lido di Jesolo Italy where we would get to stay 3 nights! Lido di Jesolo is a beach resort about one hour outside of Venice known for it’s 15 km long beach. On the first day when we arrived all of us went and checked out the beach and went for a quick swim before dinner. The weather was great like +35! After dinner Sabrina and I walked the huge pedestrian street which is as long as the beach I swear full of different shops, restaurants and best of all GELATO! I fell in love with Italian Gelato and definitely gained some weight from eating it 2-3 times per day! We then met some other girls Abigail, McKenzie, Saj, Cherry and Mai and went ate pizza before heading back to the hotel for the night. The next day we were completely free to do whatever we wish. I spent the whole day at the beach in the +40 Italian sun, and got super duper extremely sunburnt, like my skin is still peeling 2 weeks later.. It was a lot of fun though, and some of my friends and I rented a paddle boat to take around the bay that had a waterslide on it too. Good times indeed. Some of the girls and I went and ate more pizza for lunch because when in Italy right? Directly followed by even more Gelato 😉 then it was back to the beach until dinner time! Daniel, Pablo and I went out for dinner together and watched a soccer match. I had lasagne this time and it was honestly the best Italian food I have eaten in my life. That night all of us went out together, so much fun and a lot of memories that I will never ever forget! The next day we had free time until 2:30 in the afternoon when we would go in to Venice! A lot of people went to the beach but I just stayed back at the hotel with Hannah and Gabbe because I was so sunburnt there was no way I could go back to the beach, so we went to a supermarket bought a ton of food and then pigged out like typical exchange students back at the hotel.
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger, scroll over to see a caption if there is one.)
At 2:30 we were back on the bus and drove about 20 km to a dock where we would take a boat into Venice since no motor vehicles are allowed in the city! Once our boat docked in Venice we went straight away to take a gondola tour because when in Venice! Sabrina, Emmy, McKenzie, Abigail and I shared a gondola together and we had the most attractive guide ever.. like honestly. We cruised through venice, under the bridges and through the canals for about an hour, in the +43 heat before the humidity.. CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW FREAKING HOT IT WAS. But the gondola ride was definitely a highlight of the trip, I have always seen them and dreamed about doing it someday, and then that dream came true! After the tour we had a few hours free time in Venice, the girls and I roamed the narrow cobblestone streets just exploring, then to the big squares, a delicious Italian bakery, and lots of photo taking on bridges. By the time we had to meet the group again we were all exhausted mostly from the heat I think. But going back on the boat was the best ever! We had a different boat going back to the dock where our bus was, and it was a double decker boat we had all to ourselves, with speakers that we could play our own music through. 67 exchange students having a blast on a boat in Venice, the memories are amazing! And the captain of the boat came and asked Sabrina and I if we wanted to drive the boat, literally! How cool!? Although he was giving most of the directions in Italian and I had no idea what he was saying everyone survived! We got back to Lido rather late and then ate and then some of us went for a little late night swim at the beach! I absolutely love Italy, it is definitely everything it is hyped up to be!
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger, scroll over to see a caption if there is one.)
From Italy we had a really long day of driving through the Italian and French Alps headed towards Paris! Of course driving all the way to Paris in one day from Italy would be insane, so we spent one night in Chambéry. Nothing too exciting happened in Chambéry, we had the nicest hotel of the whole tour, so my roomate Nicole and I just chilled for the night as it was pouring rain, we weren’t exactly in the city center and we had to leave extremely early the next morning. I have nothing else really to say about that stop, so the next day we drove alllll day and finally reached Paris just at rush hour but luckily we didn’t have it too bad as some years the bus has had to wait up to 2 hours, I think we only had to wait 20 minutes maybe! We settled into the hotel, and then the whole group went out to a classic French dinner followed by just a quick stop at the Eiffel Tower as we went back every day after that too! It was a cold rainy evening and mostly everyone was watching a soccer game so Sabrina and I decided to go use the wifi at McDonalds as our hotel in Italy and in Paris both didn’t have wifi. Lame I know, but it was that or sit in a pub and watch soccer. The next day we had a 3 hour guided tour of Paris where we saw the Eiffel Tower again of course, the Louvre where the Mona Lisa is although we never went inside, The Arc de Triomphe, The army museum, The Notre Dame Cathedral and some other things that I can’t remember right at this moment. In the afternoon we had free time so Taine, Sabrina and I decided to walk and try to find some shopping, we didn’t ever find the shopping centre we wanted after walking for 4 hours in the pouring rain and we weren’t feeling adventurous enough to figure out the metro on our own. We had a group dinner again in the evening, followed by a fun night in at the hotel because no one wants to go out when it is freezing cold and pouring rain. I know some people slept, some watched movies, I chilled with a bunch of the guys, all in all it was still fun. The next and last day in Paris we had free time for the whole day so finally I got to sleep in! Sabrina and I decided to sleep until 10 and then we met Kate and Tanner and had lunch, and then decided to try and figure out the metro system. We were trying to get to the Eiffel Tower and got lost, so then we tried to get to the Notre Dame Cathedral, but we got off at the wrong stop and had to ask for help many many times. My limited French skills came in pretty handy here when trying to figure out the metro with 3 Americans who know no French at all! One thing I forgot to mention in the other posts, when us exchange students use the metro in other countries we think it is really fun to speak Swedish with each other instead of English because then no one understands what we are saying. See I knew Swedish would be useful someday ;)! We ended up going through the Luxembourg Gardens which was really neat, and then Kate and I lost Sabrina and Tanner. So I was with Kate the great for the whole afternoon. We went to the Cathedral and then to the famous love lock bridge. After wandering around for a little while we made our way back to the hotel to go out for dinner with everyone again. After our last dinner in Paris, most of us went to go see the Eiffel Tower at night! It was absolutely stunning, it’s just one of those moments that definitely take your breath away! Paris can be really scary at night so it was good that we had a big group with a lot of guys or else I probably wouldn’t have went, but I am so glad that I did! Something I will never ever forget!
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger, scroll over to see a caption if there is one.)
After we left Paris, we drove to Brussels in Belgium! This was my second time being in Brussels so everything we saw on our short guided tour I had seen already. And then the boys and I had waffles for lunch! Oh so good, tasted just as good if not better the second time! We then had like an hour or two to roam the city, so of course we all went chocolate shopping and did a little picture taking. I wish we could have stayed at least one night in Belgium, but I’m not complaining atleast I got to go back! I forgot how much I love that little country, the waffles, chocolate and fries make the trip worth it every time!
From Belgium we drove through the Netherlands and made a quick one hour stop there but the battery on my Camera died so that’s that. Onward from the Netherlands we drove to Bochum in southern Germany where we spent the last night of the tour! The Netherlands is such a flat, yet cute little country, someday I will need to do more exploring there. This means 4 countries in one day again! France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany! The last night in Germany was super sad because it was technically the last night that we had ALL together, I mean we had one final night in Malmö together but some people had already left. The night in Bochum included, performances by all of the exchange students, a lot of junk-food eating, tears, and flag signing, but it was so memorable I will never forget it. I will wrap this up here, and in my next and hopefully final post I will tell you about our goodbyes in Malmö and my 18th birthday! Sorry this was so long but I just felt I needed to cram everything into one post!
xx Jessie
Swedish Experiences 