Okay words cannot explain how unbelievably awesome Eurotour, when you spend 18 days on a bus with crazy exchange students of course alot of things are going to happen. I had the time of my life on Eurotour and I made "friends for life" no but seriously I made friends with people from Brazil, America( a couple of them were very nice), Argentina, Mexico, Lithuania, Canada, Italy even some of the Australians!! Together we travelled around Europe on our "special" bus in total travelling around 4000 kilometeres with broken toilet and air conditioning that didn't work half the time and of course a very unique bus driver...
Eurotour for me started at the crack of dawn pretty much! I had to wake up at 5am..yes 5am!! and then drive for 2 hours to the place where I was getting picked up. I get on the bus and people were excited and luckily all tired so we could all sleep. I spent most of the trip talking to Helen (Kiwi friend) and also floating around the bus talking to the other people. Driving from basically the top of Danmark to Berlin takes about 13 hours then you have to add on an extra hour for when certain bus drivers get lost trying to find the hostel!
1st day of tour we spent in Berlin, we got dropped on in the centre and then our so called tour guides just said okay be back at the bus in 3 hours and walked off. So it was a bit confusing but also nice being able to explore Berlin on our own. We then got taken to the Berlin Wall and I wrote on it! Which was my main goal for Berlin.
Prague was our next destination and we stayed in a wait for it...4 star hotel!! Prague was all about the beautiful buildings, bridges and river running through it. Prague is apparently very cheap to buy things but I was so busy sightseeing I didn't actually make it to the shops. I must be growing up!! In Prague 4 american girls were lucky enough to see Channing Tatum ( a movie star and he is very hot!!) Unfortunately I wasn't lucky enough to bump into him so had to make do with looking at their photos of him. It was in Prague were our bus driver actually crashed the bus into a sign when he was attempting to do what felt like a 200 point turn. We caused a mini traffic jam behind us and cars even started honking! We then drove around for 1 hour trying to find a parking place.
After our time in Prague we left the 4 star hotel and headed to the hills of music! Austria. Where we actually stayed in the middle of now where! There were only hills all around us and grass and yes we were miles away from anywhere!! The hotel was "quaint" aka small and smelly but it was nice being in Austria. That night me helen and marg (and aussie) went for our usual run in every country and we sung sound of music which is compulsory if you are ever in Austria. The next day we went sight seeing and saw the opera, parliament, churches and lots more. Austria was a bit like Prague just cleaner. In Austria we crashed AGAIN!! This time into a tram! Luckily no one was hurt though. We also got to go to the opera in Austria. We organised it all ourselves because our guides didn’t want us going, it was a nice evening out at the opera though.
We then headed to Italy!!! My favourite country. This was all about sun, beach, sleep and relaxing and partying like an exchange student with the other buses. We met up with Bus one the first night and then the 3rd night Bus 3. Because we were on the beach we didn’t have any set things for us to do so we could just take it easy and work on our tans. After living in Danmark for a couple of months we were all pasty!! We headed to Venice one day and that was really nice just walking the streets of Venice and getting lost. In Italy I rode a mechanical bull!! Was so much fun. There was some English rugby boys in Lido de Jeslo at the same time as us and they had made me a bet that I wouldn’t be able to stay on for more then a minute but I did. It was sad to leave the land of Gelato and Sun but I will defiantly be back there soon.
Monaco was a surprise, I didn’t know that it was that small and built up with so many high rise buildings. We were only there for a couple of hours but I still go to appreciate the beauty of it all. We parked at the top so then had to run all the way pretty much to the bottom. There was stairs so running down was okay, it was the coming up which the difficult part.
France was both good and bad. I loved Avingnon with its old castles and unfinished bridges and yet Paris did nothing for me. In Avingnon I went around with the guys and also the Brazilians, which was a change from Helen and the Americans. I could tell it was going to be good because the first thing we found was a fruit salad stall that was giving it away for free!! I then had to do the haka because the guy in charge of the stall found out I was from New Zealand. We spent the day just taking it easy in Avingnon and looking around because I was with guys I didn’t get to do any shopping!! That night after dinner our beloved bus driver blocked the road "trying" to do a u-turn.
We arrived in Paris and met up with Bus 1 again and then had to rush to get ready because we were meting up with them under the Eiffel Tower. Now I have seen the Eiffel Tower before and it is nothing compared to what it looks like at night!! Personally I think you shouldn’t be able to look at it during the day, only at night because it is so amazing! So we partied under the Eiffel Tower me and Ange did the haka again and in total just had a really nice night. During the day times did the usual sight seeing and taking it easy everyone was running low on energy by this stage. One thing, which made me very happy, was that I saw the Moulin rouge! Well the outside of the Moulin rouge it cost's to much to actually go in!! But I still did the cancan outside the Moulin rouge.
After Paris we headed to Brussels, the land of chocolate mmm. We only got a couple of hours to sightsee in Brussels because we got there late. But I got to see the main thing there is to see in Brussels the pissing statue of a boy. That night we went out to this pub, which had about 1000 different, flavours of beer it was amazing! The only chocolate I actually ate was the free samples that was given out in the chocolate stores so that was pretty impressive I thought!. Belgium was a really nice country and I wish we got more time to explore it.
Headed to Amsterdam the land of hash, red light district and the best thing of all croquets!!!! or however you spell them!. The first thing I did was rush off the bus and find myself a croquet stand. We then had a canal tour but the boat actually left without Marg and I so we had to chase it down the river. Finally got onto it and it was a mini sauna in there because it was a glass boat. They only gave us 1 hour in Amsterdam which is basically no time so that was annoying. On route to where we were staying ( unfortunately we didn’t get to stay in Amsterdam... luckily I had already seen red light district Thanks Dad!) our air-con broke down on the bus and it was one of the hottest days on tour! This meant that as soon as we pulled into a petrol station it was water fight time!! That night was our last night on tour so needless to say very little sleep was had!
Journey back to Danmark was sad because for some people this was the last time they would see each other because my oldies are going home soon. After spending 18 days with each other you get close and bond! Coming home was weird, It felt like I was coming back to New Zealand not Danmark. I have to get used to speaking Danish again, after only speaking it a couple of times on tour it got a little bad.
So that was basically Eurotour, nearly 1000 photos taken, only 4 hours of sleep most nights, lots of random conversations and memories forever!
Thanks to my friend Mark in Australia this was proof readed by him =)
