| Wow. Europe’s come and gone. I’ve been
waiting for this trip since November, and it’s already over. My pictures are
not yet accumulated, so all I can do is describe it, and then I will add the
pictures.
Day 1 – Departure from the U.S.
We arrived at the airport in the afternoon, and then we got
on the Virgin Atlantic flight to London.
Yes, the rumors were true. The legroom at Virgin was as cramped as hell, but
the entertainment made it all better. There were full CDs, movies (over 50) that
you could rewind, games, TV shows (Friends, Simpsons, Lost, etc.), and probably
more that I have left out. The flight seemed quite long though since I didn’t
sleep. The food was also quite good. I knew they didn’t have Coke, so I said
Cola and they didn’t know what I was saying. They gave me Virgin Cola when they
said Coke.
Day 1 Continued, technically Day 2 – Arrival in London
We arrived in London
at 10 in the morning. Obviously, we were about to fall apart. We went straight
to our hotel, which was nice since it was in the middle of the city, which
allowed us to visit Harrods in close proximity  . Since Mr. Campbell
didn’t want us to get terrible jet lag for the rest of the trip, he wanted us
to go to the Tower of London
instead of sleep at the hotel. We met Matt there, who arrived a few days
earlier. We went to the Tower of London,
where I tried to energetically go around all the walls. I only made two of the
four walls. We saw the Crown Jewels, Big Ben, London
Bridge, and some beefeaters, who
are the guards with the big hats. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel for an “interesting”
dinner at the hotel. The food was filling, though.  Then we went to the
grocery store within 5 minutes walking distance from our hotel to pick up some
essentials for the sightseeing for the days to come. I got some cameras, water,
sodas, and Aero bars. My room mate for London
was Jonathan, and man, he doesn’t sleep at all. He would stay up and watch
Scream, Police Videos, Pimp My Ride UK, Cribs Footballers UK, and anything and
everything else.
Day 3 – Local Sightseeing
We woke up in the morning and had a continental breakfast at
the hotel. We then left to meet our guide. First thing we went to was the St.
Paul’s Cathedral, the best cathedral we visited in England.
It had huge mosaics and everything. Pictures describe everything, so be
patient. We also went to the Crypt there. We then went to Buckingham Palace to
view the changing of the guards. We broke the law by sitting on top of the
fence to view the changing of the guards. Mr. Campbell ended up scraping his
leg coming down. We then split up in groups to eat lunch. I had a sandwich with
Mozzarella and Pepperoni and a Red Bull. After lunch, we ended up breaking the
law again getting off a bus where we weren’t supposed to get off. We went to
the London Dungeon, an interactive museum where people would dress up and go
around an elaborately designed museum recreating and re-experiencing the
horrors of London such as The Plague, Jack the Ripper, the Great Fire of
London, and more. After that, we went to Harrod’s, where I bought a cup of Starbucks
coffee, but wasn’t allowed to go outside with it. I had to lie about my age
since there was an apparent age limit to go into Harrods o_O…and I wasn’t
allowed to put my backpack on my back, so I had to hold it, but slipped it back
on when guards weren’t looking.
Day 4 – Oxford and
Stratford –upon-Avon
We drove for a few hours to Oxford.
Lots of us went to pick up copies of Harry Potter -_-. We went to the local
colleges to check out the areas where Harry Potter was filmed. We saw the
staircases and the dining hall…very different from the movie though. Pictures
will be shown later. We then had free time to roam the entire area. My initial
group was Jessica and Lauren until I ditched them for Toby, Josh, Carl, Jonathan,
and Jennifer (I think). For lunch we went to KFC ( ), since we got
homesick already. Popcorn Chicken is as good as I remembered it. We then went
to Stratford, where we visited Anne
Hathaway’s Cottage. We took a tour of it, and then we went to the Labyrinth in
the backyard. We lost track of time, and ended up running back to the bus a
couple minutes late. We then went to Shakespeare’s birthplace, which was really
boring. We then explored the city around there, and I had to hold my piss in
there, which really sucked. Later, we ate at a hotel buffet, which was quite
decent compared to the Holiday Inn food we had. That night we watched the
Shakespeare play, Comedy of Errors at the Royal Shakespearian Theatre, where I
fell asleep for the first half. We drove back to London
and got there at midnight. That was
the night Toby lost his iPod. Tired as hell, I slept as soon as I hit my bed.
Day 5 – Stonehenge and Salisbury
We drove to Stonehenge that morning,
which was the highlight of my stay in England.
It was awesome to finally see it up close. Pictures will describe it better.
Later, I went to the gift store to get some postcards when some girls from
another group called Toby and me “gay”. o_O Right when we were about to pay,
the power went out at the store, so we ended up not buying anything. 
Then we went to Salisbury and
checked out a cathedral (my hazy memory doesn’t remember). We then went back to
London, where we rode the
Millennium Eye. Initially I wanted to go to the British
Museum, but found out it was too
far away from our hotel. Nevertheless, the London Eye was awesome. At the
bathroom nearby, I put in money to buy a pack of gum, but ended up getting
breath spray since they wouldn’t refund my money. Zayneb, Josh, Carl and me
went to look for a taxi to get back to our hotel, which took forever. On our
way to find a taxi, we passed the house of the Prime Minister, and walked
around Picadilly Circus. It took an hour and a half to get on a taxi. When I
got back to the hotel, Johnny pulled a prank on me pretending he had diarrhea.
I freaked out like crazy until I learned it was a prank. -_- That was our last
day, and we got ready to depart for Paris
the next morning.
Day 6 – Paris and the Eiffel
Tower
We arrived in Paris
via the Eurostar train, which passes the English Channel.
We then had an abrupt tour of Paris
on our bus with a local guide who went too fast, where we took pictures of the Eiffel
Tower and stuff, but very briefly. Then
we went to the hotel, which had an awful stench and tiny ass rooms. My room
mate was Anthony, and every night we would talk in our hotel room with some
friends. That night we went to the Eiffel
Tower to eat dinner on Altitude 95.
One waiter hated us, and got pissed off every time we asked for a change in our
order. We had smoked salmon, chicken and rice, and then we had a weird
chocolate thing and Orangina, which was everywhere in Paris.
We then went up the Eiffel Tower
by ourselves, and I got scolded by these Chinese ladies who found out I was
translating their messages to my group since they cut us to the top.
Eventually, we got to the top just in time when they turned on the lights. We
then went down and I bought some souvenirs from street venders. People were
following us on the way back to our hotel, but then they eventually left to go
on their own way.
Day 7 – 80 Euro Lunch and Beefeaters
Anthony and I woke up way late this morning. Breakfast was
supposed to be at 8 a.m., and we were
supposed to leave at 9 a.m. We woke up
at 9:14. We scrambled and go our
stuff ready, and apparently, Josh got it much worse. He woke up at 9:30, and despite not eating, I had a pretty
nice day anyway. We went to a cathedral where we had a guided tour by a nun.
Then we had vouchers for 15 euro for a lunch around the city. I went with Josh,
Toby, and Jonathan around the city for lunch. We found a nice sit down
restaurant with a three-course meal costing 15 euro per person. So we thought
we had it covered. There was a really nice French Onion soup, Spaghetti, and
then an awesome ice cream. We each ordered an Orangina, suspecting that it
wouldn’t be too expensive. Our total bill came out to be 80 Euro, 20 Euro
passed what we had. We found out that the Orangina costed 5 euro each and we
got ripped off. I decided to dance in the street next to street performers to
regain some of the money. I earned one euro and five cents. Later, we went to
Notre Dame, where I pretended to be blind by wearing sun glasses. I gave a
street performer a tip, and they gave me a kick ass balloon Harley Davidson. We
then wanted to go to the Catacombs, but there was a long wait, and Mr. Campbell
didn’t allow us to go shopping at all. We went to a Korean restaurant that
night, where Josh, Toby, Johnny and I each ate a plate of meat and a hella lot
of sides since Johnny’s family friend owned the restaurant. Yum! We weren’t
allowed to go shopping later either since Mr. Campbell didn’t want us to wake
up late again.
Day 8 – Chateaux Galore
We woke up fine this morning and left early for an hour and
a half drive to Chateauxs in the countryside of France.
We stocked up on food for the rest of the day at the local gas station grocery
store, where I got some iced tea and a pack of 100 Tic-Tacs. We went to
Chateaux of Chambord first, where there was a huge estate you could bike around
and inside there were two marble staircases that never went into each other,
but were right next to each other. I dropped my Tic-Tacs on the stairs and then
when I was going to pick it up, Maia stepped on it, spilling it all onto the
ground. I put them all in my pocket since I believe in the 10-second rule 
Then we went to the Chateaux of Chenonceau, where we rode boats around the lake
that the Chateaux had. Shayma and Maddy complained on how they got their asses
wet from the boats since we splashed them a lot. We rented the boats for about
half an hour. Then we ate lunch and got food for our 5-hour train ride to Spain
the next day. That night we went to the Louvre, basically to look for the Mona
Lisa. We saw nude status -_-…and the Mona Lisa was much smaller than I
expected. Look for my pics when they come. It was kick ass. We ate burgers for
dinner, haha, and then some egg rolls at the Chinese part of the food court.
Day 9 – Card Games in the Bar
The train ride to Biarritz
took 5 hours, so we kept playing card games in the bar of the train, listening
to music, and lots more. Not that much
happened today, but when we crossed the border to Spain,
we were finally in a slower paced life. We went to the beach at Biarritz,
where the water was very warm and there were lots of people. (When I got back,
I had a huge tan everywhere) We checked our kick ass hotel, which was ocean
side, so we had a great view of the coast and everything. Again, pictures
describe it best.
Day 10 – San Sebastian Tour
We walked around San Sebastian,
exploring all the parts of the town. It is extremely small, and we tried the
local tapas, which were very exotic and delicious. They aren’t what you expect
from the southwestern tapas, though. They kind of taste like sushi. In the
morning, we also went to the top of the status of Jesus and pissed off the huge
ledge. Then we went to the beach that afternoon. More fun in the sun!
Day 11 – Guggenheim
We went to the Guggenheim museum, and again, words describe
it best. We had a local guide show us everything in Bilbao.
We had lunch in the town, and ate great sandwiches. We also had ice cream and
frozen lemonade, and overall was a laid back day. We went back to the hotel and
rode rides at the amusement park right by our hotel. We won some prizes and stuff.
I got injured by the hazardous rides in the park.
Day 12 – Beach Beach
Beach
This day was our last day and free day, which we decided to
spend at the beach. I got the most tan this day, and we ate at the American Café
and got crappy burgers. We also rode the carousel in San
Sebastian. Beach beach beach and got chafed legs. The
weather turned really cold and dark later that day while we were at the beach
and we had to walk a mile back to the tram to our hotel. Then we spent the rest
of the day at the amusement park playing games. Then we packed and got news
that our flight from Bilbao to Paris
got cancelled, and it was planned for 3 in the morning. Our new flight from the
Pyrennes to Paris was at 1 a.m., so we got a 3 hour nap. We got wake up
calls at 1 a.m. from Mr. Campbell, who
wouldn’t believe that I got up since I sounded so groggy.
Day 13 – Farewell
I thought I was going to die this entire day since the bus driver
forgot to close our luggage doors in the morning of the bus and it was pouring and
foggy like crazy. I was scared that the bus was going to fall off the cliff and
I was going to die. Then we went to the airport an hour before it opened. -_-
It was fun waiting for the airport to open, but yet we were tired at the same
time. When the lights finally flickered on, we went in, but the check in desk
wasn’t open for another half an hour. So we waited. I got ripped by false
advertising at the airport. The vending said PEPSI COLA for 1 euro. I clicked
it, and it gave me Coke. Sigh. The flight was interesting from Pyrennes to Paris.
The lights were flickering and it smelled like gasoline. Since we were on an
airbus, there were only 22 rows, and it was poorly pressurized. I got headaches
on the flight. Then we went on the flight from Paris
to the United States.
At first I sat with Amanda on row 52, then rode with Quinton later on row 55. Since
there were no entertainment systems, I decided to sleep and stuff, and then
watched Hitch. I drank lots of water and Coke and ended up pissing a lot. Then we arrived in the U.S.,
where I slept at 5 p.m. and woke up
at 4 a.m. It’s now 7:53 a.m., and I’m done with this.
Time flies when you’re having fun. Pictures coming soon.
Happy reading. Much more happened, but I like to keep things inside secrets. You know if you came along.
Remind me if I forgot anything.
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