Last week I got back from an amazing adventure through all of Europe. My friend, Stephanie (who goes to SLU!), and I bought Eurail passes to travel all over the continent. We only booked a hostel for the first night because our plane wasn’t supposed to land until about ten. After that, we were what we like to consider “real backpackers.”

We got into Venice, Italy, on the night of October 23rd. We were with some friends from our International Enrichment program. After a good night’s sleep in the hostel, we jump started our day. Stephanie and I woke up before everyone else to make sure we could get overnight tickets for the following night to Vienna, Austria. After booking our tickets, we met up with our friends to find a hostel. After little success, we started to ask inside hotels. We learned that they want our money, so they started bargaining with us. They told us we could get a room for thirty euro each. Realizing that was a better deal than any of the hostels and was actually in Venice, we took the offer with little hesitation. Our hotel was part of a chain. Before we knew it, a guy came to pick us up and bring us to our room. He took my friends bags and started dashing through the crowd. We thought he was either stealing my friend’s bag or leading us to an alley with beds outside. We were wrong. When we got to the hotel, we walked up to our room and realized we were staying at an absolutely gorgeous (and expensive) hotel.

We didn’t want to spend too much time inside, so we left to explore the city of Venice. We got gelato after lunch and then took the vaparetto to Piazza San Marco. Because there are no roads in Venice, we got to use their public transportation – boats! San Marco was absolutely beautiful We saw St. Mark’s Basillica and other beautiful churches. Afterwards, we went to Murano, which is an island known for glass-blowing. We watched a glass-blowing demonstration and then each bought something for someone from home. It was really fun! We spent the rest of the day exploring and then went back to our hotel for the night. The next morning we set out to explore some more. We went on a gondola ride, sat on a pier along the canal and had a three course dinner. It was absolutely beautiful.

Here is a picture of me and my friends with our gelato!

The time finally came for us to go to Vienna. We hopped on our first overnight train and were off to yet another new place. Vienna was absolutely gorgeous. Right now I’m in a Music Appreciation class. I was able to visit Mozart’s house and a park devoted to composers. It was really fun to relate my class to the city! Stephanie and I decided we wanted to see the countryside, so we asked the receptionist at our hostel if she knew of any good places to go. We ended up taking a morning trip to Baden, Austria. We got off the tram, walked to the mountain, and found the Beethoven Temple. It was at this park that Beethoven wrote his 5th and 9th symphonies. Symphony No. 5 is probably the most well-known piece in the world. Beethoven wrote Symphony No. 9 when he went deaf. It was really fun to see where he wrote his music and performed it! Here is a picture of me at Beethoven’s Temple:

After we got back to Vienna, we hopped on our train to Zurich, Switzerland. Though it was raining and freezing, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Zurich. We walked down Bahnhofstrasse (which is rumored to be the most expensive street in Europe) until we got to the lake. We walked around and saw the mountains, then had lunch, found real Suisse chocolate (I never want anything else), and took tours of the city. I had so much fun that I did not want to leave. Here is a picture of me in front of the water!!

After Zurich, we hopped on a train to Hamburg, Germany, because the train to Berlin was booked. When we got to Hamburg, we realized we weren’t fans of the city, used our super flexible Eurail passes to take a train to Berlin. Here, we got to see the remnants of the Berlin Wall. We went to the East Side Gallery, where 199 artists from 21 countries painted the wall. It was so beautiful. Afterwards, I met up with my roommate, Kelsey, and her friends from home for dinner. Here is a picture of me at the Berlin wall!

The next morning, Stephanie and I hopped on another train to Copenhagen, Denmark. We got into Denmark at night, so we spent the few hours we had searching for places to go the next day. It was a fun hostel, but my bed was probably about twelve feet in the air with no rail. I was pretty nervous to sleep there. The next day it was FREEZING again. I’m used to the cold weather, so I didn’t mind taking a tour of the city. While in Denmark, I got to see one of my favorite sites in all of Europe: the original LITTLE MERMAID STATUE! The Little Mermaid was my favorite movie when i was little, so I was really excited to see it! Here’s my picture in front of it:

That night we took another train to Stockholm, Sweden. Here, we visited Old Town, City Hall and numerous other places in the city. It was literally freezing when we were in Stockholm, so we decided to devote some of the day to Christmas shopping! It was so much fun. Really, how many people can say they went Christmas shopping in Stockholm for the day? Here’s a picture of me on the ‘island’ of Gamla Stan (Old Town):

I had the most amazing time on my European adventure. I’m just sad it had to end so soon. I promise I won’t make any other posts so long, I just wanted to share stories from my trip. Hopefully everyone is having as much fun at home as I’m having in London (and the rest of the world!)