Europe Here We Come!!

Paris

2008-06-22T23:04:01Z

Bonjour...So, I've been in Paris for about 2 and a half days so far and it's been pretty great other than the language barrier. Fortunately, unlike us Americans, most people know multiple languages and English happens to be a popular one. The weather has felt like summer...we have finally been able to break out the shorts and dresses and leave the jackets behind. Friday, when we arrived, our professor Danny, Britney and I went to a cafe and ate a late lunch and walked to Notre Dame. Since we walked (and kinda took the long way) we got to see the Seine River, Musee d'Orsay, the Louvre and many other amazing buildings. After that we got some AMAZING gellato in the Latin Quarter which is similar to the French Quarter but for the young crowd. It's a very cool place. We also got to see the gathering fountain that college students supossedly gather around often. We then walked back to the hotel around 7 and because of the long day and month I took a nap and didn't wake up until 11 pm. Then I did a little homework and went to sleep. Saturday, we slept in until about 9 30, went to the Louvre for about 3 hours, ate lunch at another cafe outside to people watch, walked around a few shops, and looked for the catacombs for our scavenger hunt. Unfortunately, by the time we found out where they were, it was closed so we had to postpone it until Sunday. We then visited Frederic Auguste Batholdi's grave for our scavenger hunt. He is who built the Statue of Liberty. After that, we headed back to the hotel to shower and have a mini wine and cheese party in one of the girls' rooms before we went out. We just so happened to be here for the biggest party night of the year. It is at the end of final exams and is a Music festival will small stages with bands all throughout the city. We went back to the Latin Quarter, found a great seat outside a cafe, and watched the night unfold. We left at 2 am with the party still rockin, but we knew we'd have plenty to do the next day. That brings me to today. Alex and I woke up and took the metro to Montmartre and visited the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur which was absolutely beautiful and had a great view at the top of the hill. Then we wandered around the town a little and did some souvenir shopping before heading back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else. We met up and then headed to the catacombs. They were very interesting (although kinda creepy). It took us about an hour in line and about 45 minutes to walk through. It was amazing to see this mass graveyard that someone had actually decoratively arranged bones in the 1800's so that the public could walk through. It had thousands of thousands of human remains which was just astounding to see in person. After that adventure, we headed back to the Latin Quarter for lunch and gellato. Alex and I broke off from the group again and sat for over an hour people watching and eating and talking. I think this has become my favorite part of Paris. It's part of the culture and it's great to just sit back and take in the rest of the world around you. We picked up some more gellaton which was again awesome and took a picture at our last scavenger hunt stop. This is where we called it a day, headed back to the hotel, and I just finished working on our Public Relations presentation that we are giving tomorrow in class! There's so much more to do in the next two days! I'm so excited. I still can't believe I'll be back in Baton Rouge in three days...It just hasn't quite hit me yet!

Auvoir!

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London Comes to an End...

2008-06-19T23:50:27Z

Sorry it's been so long but we've been busy and I could never find the chance to write. This also means that this one will be short and probably not as specific as I wish it could be! So last I wrote, we had seen Avenue Q....Friday we had class, picked up some great tickets for a good price to the Lion King and then got a few extra scavenger hunt clues. Lion King was absolutely extravagent and absolutely AMAZING!! The dancing, the singing, the costumes, the props...everything was amazing. During the weekend, we saw the changing of the guards at buckingham palace, had a day trip to see stonehenge and bath (a city with roman baths from the natural hot springs), and did some shopping. This week we have had class a few mornings, visited parliament and westminster abbey, taken a tour of the london tower, taken a trip on the london eye, visited oxford, seen wicked and had high tea, visited JP Morgan's Public Relations department, visited the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, seen the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, taken the same picture the Beatles took on Abbey Road at 530 AM, seen St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and of course visited the rest of our scavenger hunt sites. It's been amazing! There are still so many things I want to do in London so i guess I just need to come back soon!! For the next five days while I'm in Paris I won't have any Internet unless I pay for an Internet Cafe so unfortunately I'll just have to write in a word document and then post it when I get home! Pictures are slowly getting up on my PhotoBucket but they'll eventually all be up!! Thanks for coming by again,

Cheers from London!

London Comes to an End... remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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My Birthday and more!!

2008-06-13T00:17:23Z

So, on my birthday yesterday, we packed up our things and took the train to London. After passing by the Kensington Gardens, we pull up to a great looking Columbia Hotel. We moved in and got cleaned up and decided to go out to dinner for a birthday celebration. I decided that I was having sushi withdrawls so we went eat at a place called Yo! Sushi. It was great and a very cool place. The way it worked was that they had different colored plates that were color coated by price. The food was placed on a conveyer belt and went around the large bar that we sat around in the restaurant. Then we picked up some ice cream before heading back to the hotel. While getting ice cream, we discovered the most amazing dessert ever; it's a belgian waffle with ice cream on top...It is AMAZING!!! This morning we had class once again in a great classroom. We had class in the Kensington Gardens. After class, we went pick up tickets to see the musical, Avenue Q and had some lunch. We then went get a picture with Harry Potter's platform 9 3/4 for our scavenger hunt. We also got a picture of the Sherlock Holmes Museum for the scavenger hunt too. After, we met up with the group at the British Library. It was a major chance of a lifetime. We got to see the original Magna Carta, Guttenberg Bible, written lyrics to a variety of Beatles songs, books from Da Vinci and Sir Issac Newton, Mozart, Beethoven, Beowulf manuscript and much more. It was the most amazing experience. It's hard to believe that these renowned, historical people actually touched the documents we got to see. We then went back to the hotel for showers and getting cute for the show. The show was AWESOME. It was funny but had quite interesting topics to talk about. It was a 7 person show and they used puppets and great music and discussed life issues seen in a modern big city. It was set in New York. Now, we are in the hotel and doing some homework. So far, London is GREAT! I'm excited for all that's to come...I know there's a lot to do in this city and it'll be a packed week.

My Birthday and more!! remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Tomorrow we're off to London!

2008-06-10T15:45:06Z

Unfortunately, the past few days we have not had Wifi access because we switched hotels in edinburgh and it's 6 pounds to use 1 hour of internet...in other words $12/hr. which no one obviously wanted to use! Right now I'm in a Burger King so that I could check emails and do a little more research for our school work since we're going to be on a 5 hour bus ride tomorrow and I'll want to get some writing done, so i need some sources. Anyways, this will be a little short because I have a bunch of stuff to get done before leaving BK. In the past few days, we've checked out the National Gallery of Scotland, the Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace along with having class, checking out some stores and going out to Dropkick Murphy's. On Sunday, Elizabeth and I also went to mass at St. Mary's Cathedral and didn't realize that we would be there for a mass not in our language. We aren't sure what it was but we are thinking either Polish or maybe Russian...not really sure but our proffesor informed us that there were a fairly large amount of Polish people around here so that's what we're leaning towards. It was an interesting venture. Everything in this city is so awesome. It's build amazingly and has a great history. I'm so happy we've had a few days here but am also very excited to leave tomorrow for London. (not to mention tomorrow's my birthday!) We'll be there for about 9ish days and hopefully I'll be able to keep this more updated because hopefully we'll have internet that's free!!! Sorry about this being so short...but keep checking out my photobucket album and all it's pictures!

Cheers,
Chelsea

Tomorrow we're off to London! remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Edinburgh

2008-06-07T21:16:53Z

So, we arrived in Edinburgh on Thursday and checked in at the Cairn hotel which is very close to the Royal Mile. After settling in, we headed towards the Royal Mile to check out what's around. We walked through the beautiful park on Princess St. and then went find a bar that our professor suggested. It's called the tron and it's specifically for college students. We picked up some dinner from a cool little place called walkabout...it kind of reminded me of a dave and busters but without so many games. We then took some showers and went back to the Tron! It was a lot of fun and we met a few people and got some interviews for our project. Yesterday we had class in the park and then went check out the shops on Princess St. and had some lunch. Then we took a shower, took a nap and went down to a tour called the city of the dead. It was a haunted graveyard/historical tour. It was pretty cool..but not as fun as it was made out to be. We then went out to a bar called the Three Sisters. It was really big and had a dance floor and we saw about 4 different bachellorette parties and a couple bachelor parties. They like dress up with some type of theme out here. It's pretty interesting and funny all at the same time. The people are quite shameless. We've decided that instead of celebrating my birthday we're going to throw me a bachellorette party and it's gonna be really funny! We figured it would mean free drinks...it could be fun. The bar closed around 1 and so we were back in the hotel by about 145 and we hung out in the lobby for about an hour and 15 minutes and then headed out for our 3 am hike up Authur's Seat to watch the sun rise and see the entirety of Edinbourgh. We were in for quite an adventure. As we were walking towards Calton Hill on our way to the mountain we were to singing Father Abraham and a random guy started singing with us. We started talking and told him we were going up to Arthur's seat and asked for better directions than we already had. Instead of just telling us...he decided to walk with us and be our tour guide up the mountain...it was THE hardest hike i've ever participated in, but soooo worth it. It was absolutely beautiful to see the city from that high and unfortunately we didn't get to see and AMAZING view of the sun rising because of the clouds but it was beautiful. Then we hiked back to the hotel by 6 and slept until noon. We showered, ate lunch, and waited for the group to take the bus to Rosslyn Chapel. It was very cool to see what we saw in the Da Vinci Code live. It wasn't very cool that there was some scaffolding around it but it was still pretty and cool to walk around. There was definately some great sculptures and stained glass. Now, we're just hanging out and most of the group is going out tonight but I'm taking a break to try and get rid of these allergy symptoms and do some homework and get some good sleep! Well, thanks again for coming read!

Edinburgh remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Going to Edinburgh

2008-06-07T19:45:39Z

From the land of the Scots,
I’m on the bus traveling from Skye to Edinburgh at the moment. Yesterday, we went on a boat trip from the Isle of Skye to see some of the “Small Isles” that surround it. We saw some sea lions and once again beautiful views. I k now I keep saying the same things but it’s just so hard to explain the breathtaking views we’ve seen on this trip. Even the pictures don’t do it justice. It’s just so clean, serene, and absolutely stunning. The water was so aqua blue and clear it looked like you could just start drinking it. (don’t worry I didn’t try though) We got off at one of the islands and hiked around. I tried to scale a rather large rock that was pretty steep but I didn’t have any equipment so I didn’t quite make it all the way up. Once again I got a great flipping pic with an outstanding background. After a long day of boating and hiking, we drove back to Broadford which is the city in Skye we stayed and we stopped for a really late lunch on the way. When we returned to the hotel, I grabbed my computer and did some uploading and homework and talked to a guy that lived not too far away from the hotel (in Inverness) and was working in town. He was a great interview and he told me many stories. He talked about his travels and it definitely makes me want to travel more in the near future. I’ve decided that when I graduate a semester early I’ll just backpack and visit places we missed on this trip (Italy, Prague, Amsterdam, Greece, Spain…etc.) for a semester. Also, right when I get back home I’m looking into what I need to do to work for an embassy because I think that would be an amazing job! My new friend Neil who I talked to in the hotel said he knew a girl that did that and said she’d never had a better experience. I’m thinking maybe some PR at some foreign embassy…if you have any connections let me know! Well, as for today, we woke up early and had breakfast and loaded the bus for Edinburgh. We stopped at Loch Ness and took a swim with Nessie. She’s really quite nice. We took a few pictures and got some sweet souvenirs. I got an awesome postcard that a lucky person will get…they’ll be really excited to see it haha! Well, that brings me to now and we’re about to stop for lunch and then continue our rather long drive today. Thanks for stopping by, and by the way last night I got all of my Ireland pictures up and I’m hoping that tonight I can get the start of my Scotland pictures up too!!

Going to Edinburgh remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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To the land of the Scots!

2008-06-04T07:30:00Z

Our last night in Dublin was a quiet one but then early Monday morning we packed up our things, left the Kinlay House Dublin behind and flew RyanAir to Glasgow, Scotland. Once again we were in a city and EB, Jamie and I were EXHAUSTED. So that meant take a nap, eat a great Greek lunch and meet Dimeitri, a very nice Greek guy that gave us some hints about the city and told us about Greece. He also was our best interview yet for our PR project. After lunch, we settled in and went check out the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. It was amazing. It was free, with plenty of paintings (a few of my favorites will be in pictures in my photobucket album). The building was also amazingly beautiful. After that we walked around and then ate a little and called it a super early night. There was no way our bodies would function much longer. The next morning we were up bright and early, had a nice breakfast and hopped on a long bus ride to Skye. We got to make a few picture stops along with visits to the Doune Castle (the one from Monty Python and the Holy Grail...we re-did the coconut scene), and the Eilean Donon Castle. They were amazing...and of course if you look at my pictures you'll notice that I'm "flipping through Europe" and taking random flipping pictures at certain stops. Our bus trip may have been long but totally worth it. We ate at two different seafood restaurants for lunch and dinner. I had mussels, scallops, and trout between the two and it was all great! We are in Skye now and staying right on the water. The internet access is sparce but I did manage to get it for this short period! sorry pictures are going to be delayed for a little bit probably but I'll get them up as soon as possible! Cheers!

To the land of the Scots! remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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To Glasgow we go..

2008-06-02T10:06:44Z

Well, we have just arrived in Glasgow and are hanging out in the hotel until we can go eat and then check in at 1. I have had it brought to my attention that you need a password to see my pictures...if i can get rid of it i will try but if not then the password is chelsea1...I hope ya'll enjoy the pictures! Sorry about the inconvenience

To Glasgow we go.. remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Last day in Ireland

2008-06-01T20:38:49Z

Last night, after our long nap we ate some dinner and went have a last cider at the Turk's Head Bar. We hung out with the rugby boys and went to sleep fairly early so we could wake up for mass. We went to the 11 15 mass at the Anglican St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was beautiful. The stained glass, the history and everything was beautiful. Unfortunately, mass on campus isn't quite the same. We took a few pictures and headed back towards the hostel for a bagel at bagel haven which became our new favorite place. Bagel sandwiches with brie are amazing by the way. After a nice lunch with the girls we hung out for a little with the rugby boys before they left then changed into our rugged gear to take our cliff hike. Our hike was in Howth which was about a 20 minute walk and 20 minute train ride. It was like a cute little fishing town by the Irish Sea. There were plenty of sail boats and even some wave runners enjoying the weather...which by the way we have had AMAZING weather that none of us expected since when we would look it up said we would have rain each day. Anyways, as we walked up the side of the mountain, we managed to find a path that we thought would bring us to the main trail but we got to walk to stickers and thorns for about a half mile. It was worth it though because we got pictures others probably didnt' see on the real trail. We continued on for about 3 miles and had the most amazing views I've ever seen in my life. It was beautiful and kinda thrilling to be on the edge of a cliff. I have plenty pictures that will be in my photobucket album but they just don't quite do it justice. It was amazing and I'm quite happy I took the chance to check out the cliff walk. Now for tonight, we are doing laundry repacking and preparing ourselves to say goodbye to Dublin. It will be hard to top our time here in Dublin, but I'm ready to see what's in store!! Tomorrow we will be up by 5 and on our way to the airport by 510 to fly into Glascow!! Keep checking this out and make sure you check out the pictures on photobucket ( photobucket.com/chelsea_gomez_europe08 )....as the locals say, Cheers!

Last day in Ireland remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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FINALLY!!

2008-05-31T23:22:53Z

Well, after the tour today we took a nice 3 hour nap and then planned out tomorrow, had dinner, and i played with pictures and we're about to go have one last drink in Ireland. My pictures are now in photobucket and the url is photobucket.com/chelsea_gomez_europe08 check them out...i have almost 200 already it's crazy but they're great. unfortunately the titles to the pictures weren't saving so i'm going to have to try to fix that!

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AMAZING tour

2008-05-31T17:15:57Z

Alright, so since last time, we went to the Guinness storeroom wednesday after class and lunch to see how guinness is made and hang out in the gravity bar at the top to have a free pint. It was definately interesting but very touristy. After that we picked up some food to cook in the hostel for dinner, went get a drink with the group, made dinner, did a little school work and did some emailing/uploading pictures and then called it an early night and went to sleep because we were exhuasted. Yesterday, we had class in the morning in the garden next to the Dublin castle. After class, around 12, we grabbed a quick lunch, did some more emailing in the hostel for a minute and then walked to the other side of the city to see The Sex and the City movie which was amazing. We got to see the river and walk around a different part of town. Then, we ate a quick sandwich before heading off to watch a rugby game. It was a Wales team and St. Mary's which is in Dublin. The Wales team is staying in our hostel and on Wednesday night a few of the people in our group met them so we figured it'd be fun. We were a little late but what we saw was great and then after, they have a rugby country club type bar where we hung out and had a GREAT time. They had a piano and so one guy played and everyone sang, talked and just had a really good time. It was nice to get out of the city and actually get to talk to people from this area and the Welsh people. The bus ride back to the city was quite entertaining to say the least. Those English boys are nothing like those in the US haha. After, we went to a bar in the city called Turk's Head with the team and our entire group and it was a lot of fun. It was more like a club so we danced and had a good time. And now for today, we took a bus tour out to Wicklow. It was absolutely spectacular! The countryside is amazing. It's so green, clean, and I loved seeing buildings that are older than i can even imagine. You definately can't find anything like it in the US. Unfortunately, some of the girls weren't feeling so great from the night before but we managed to have an amazing time. The water was beautiful and crystal clear, along with the sky. We have luckily been quite fortunate with the weather. It hasn't rained a drop (of course i just jinxed myself). We stopped for lunch in larah and I had some genuine tomato basil soup sitting outside with a beautiful view. It was unreal looking at the countryside as we drove back to Dublin, because it's exactly what you see in the movies. Green fields that go on forever, beautiful flowers, cute little Irish houses, and of course sheep. We got to see a great, very old monastery and cemetary. We got to see the forest where Braveheart was filmed and also the lake that they fished in for P.S. I Love You. Our guide was funny and super nice which made it all the better. We also stopped by some cliffs and it was just so great and serene to sit on the edge and enjoy the beautiful view. I promise I have plenty pictures and am in the process to make a photobucket album but the internet connection is not good to upload photos to the internet so it might be a while! But be patient and i'll let you know where it is and when i get it up! Thanks for reading again...I'll probably have another early night because we plan to go to St. Patrick's for mass tomorrow and we also have alot planned for tomorrow!

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Day 2

2008-05-29T12:54:08Z

Last night was great! We went to Quays Bar and I had some Irish Salmon and Irish potatoes along with a nice Bulmer's Cider. It was delicious! We also went down to the famous Temple Bar and had a few pints with the locals. We ran into an Irish Tiger. His name was James and he actually plays tennis at LSU but is originally from Dublin. It was interesting to talk to him and his friends for the night. On the way home we had a near death experience with a car walking across the street...Jay walking isn't a good idea in Dublin obviously! We called it a semi-early night going to sleep around 1 since we had been awake for over 24 hours. This morning we had class in front of the Christ Church Cathedral that was built in the 1000's. I can't say I've ever had a better classroom. We discussed what we would be doing this summer as far as classes and discussed some organizational things along with getting to know everyone's names. For our Media in the British Isles class, we have to decipher some riddles to go on a scavenger hunt and to later explain their importance to media and culture. I'm pretty excited about both of our projects...they're all about exploring and meeting people and seeing place. What more could I ask for out of a class? After all that, we split up and Jamie and Elizabeth (2 upperclassmen in my sorority) and I went look for postcards and walk in a few shops and managed to get loss before we got back to our hostel. Now, we are hanging out for a little bit before we go check out the Guinness factory!! Sorry there are no pictures yet, but it's kinda hard to download them and plus I only have about 25 Mb space...I'll get them up as soon as the site allows me to!! I'll be updating you later or sometime tomorrow!!

Day 2 remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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WE MADE IT!!!

2008-05-29T22:18:49Z

Well, we finally made it in after being detoured to Baltimore because of storms near Newark, and then finally getting to Newark and flying out by 1230 am....then there was the 7 hour plane flight that I got maybe 1 hour of sleep on MAYBE. And then we dropped off our stuff at our lovely hostel and went search for a quick snack and wander around town and do a couple errands to prepare for the rest of our trip. Now I decided to take a little nap and write some emails and shower and what not before we go out for our first experience with pubs in the temple bar area of Dublin!!! And of course we won't stay up too late since we have class in the morning!! Well, there will be a lot of updates with more juicy information later!

WE MADE IT!!! remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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As our adventure begins...

2008-05-27T20:11:58Z

Well, I got to the airport 2 hours early just like everyone always says; I met up with some of the girls going on the trip with me; and we started talking about our adventure. Not knowing anyone yet, I talked to the girls and found who I'd be working with in our PR class while in Europe and after we found out our plane to Newark would be delayed, I decided to make a travel blog! So now, I have this to keep all of you informed of what's going on this next month. Keep checking up to see pictures and read my blog of going to Dublin, Edinburgh, London, and Paris!! I'll also be doing a project in my Public Relations class that involves me and my partners interviewing 5 locals in each of the countries about their perspective of America and Americans and our relations with our foreign neighbors so I'll also keep you updated with some of that information too! Well, hopefully we'll be getting out of New Orleans soon and I'll have an update from somewhere a little more interesting than the airport!!

As our adventure begins... remains copyright of the author cgomez7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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