Europe Tour 4

After Austria it was off to Italy so it was back on the bus again for us.
For lunch we stopped by the side of a lake and had our packed lunches in between feeding the swans and playing rugby.

After a few hours we finally arrived at our Hotel in Lindo di Jesolo. Our hotel could not have had a better Location......right on the beach, near 4 Gelato and 2 pizza shops....what more could we ask for.

That afternoon the brave went swimming in the not-so-warm sea. I being among those brave found the water rather chilly and coming form a girl who has been know to swim in the Derwent in Tasmanian when it is raining and only 18 degrees ....that is a big statement...meaning the water was freezing.

After my rather quick swim I went and bought my first few scoops of ice-cream. Over the 6 days that we were in Italy I sure did eat my fair share of ice-cream....I made a point of tasting as many flavours as I could…… no matter how odd they were....so I had a range from Pumpkin, to Pineapple, Tiramisu, coconut, Nutella, all the way to normal chocolate and my favourite the berry kinds.

That night after a wonderful dinner of pasta ,m and small little bread stick things...that those at my table would appreciate the humour when I mention these, and how we sort of didn’t really eat them normally and did what our mothers would have hated and played with our food....ooops.

So after dinner we all went to a Bar and sang karaoke....this was so much fun.
I joined in and sang my heart out to songs such as YMCA, Rome wasn't built in a day, It's raining men, What’s love got to do with it...etc.

After a lot of singing. …….not by everyone as for some people singing really wasn’t their thing…… so after allot of singing by me.....the night was drawing to an end and we all walked back to our hotel.


The next day Gemma and I awoke to find all of our swimmers etc that we had hung out on the balcony the night before to dry blown across the side all between out hotel and another. ………after a quick rescue mission we went off to enjoy our beach day.....so that’s really what we did all day....walked on the beach, swam again , played touch footy on the beach, talked on the beach, ate pizza on the beach and had fun in the sun on the beach.







That evening a group of us went a played games we used to play as kids...such as red rover, stuck in the mud style things etc. It was so much fun...I really enjoyed myself.

After playing our games we all went and had yet more ice-cream. ……..I think by then I was up to my 18th scoop or so.......oooops

The next day was one of my favourite....it was the day we went to Venice.

We all caught the bus to the ferry stop and from there we took the ferry over to Venice itself.





Once in Venice our first stop for the day was another small island....Morano...the island of glass. Here we saw a display of glass getting made....I found this really interesting...after the glass making display I went off with Gemma and we took out time as we weaved in and out of glass shop after glass shop...each filled to the brim of the most beautiful glass creations I have seen.





After Marano we went off to The Main Island Of Venice...the first thing we did there was buy ice-cream...

the second was to take photos with the pigeons (they were everywhere....and if you stuck our arms out they all came and sat on you)





after looking around a few of the stalls that graced the streets and tying on some of the masks



we went to try to find the famous bridge and other famous buildings

After getting lost many a time....but finding some cute photo opportunities along the way...we bumped into Kristen and some other Australian who she had met and pickled up along the way. We then had 2 missions to see all of the history and to by Masks.

So that’s what we did the rest of the day....we saw the sites...and boy were they stunning and we got lost and saw some really beautiful parts of Venice while we were on a mask hunt. And as per usual we ended up getting masks form one of the first shops we went in......but this was not so easily done as we actually had to find this shop again and this was not an easy task.

Venice was such a lovely city.......the Church there was just breath taking with all of its mosaics


The gondoliers set the atmosphere and the day was just one of the best I have had.


The boat trip back from Venice was also a lot of fun made even better by our rendition of Disney songs.


The next day we were off aging to our last hotel of the stay.

We drove there for most of the day with a big stop over in Verona...home of Romeo and Juliet (if they actually existed)

So of course I saw the balcony, touched the statue, wrote a message on the lovers wall (no, no nothing like that.....we all wrote how we love our Europe tour group 2007).







I also had a photo with Roman guards in front of a theatre, had photos with my friends on a bridge and looked at all the things Verona had to offer.





Later that day we arrived at our last hotel. I was in a room with the other Jemma and Valeria ( I am not sure how to spell her name).


The town we were in happened to be having a market, so off we went and explored this little villages market for the afternoon. All I can say about this experience is what most of you wont understand. LOCK DOWNS; SKUTTEL....SECURITY FIRST.. LOCK DOWN .as with some things in life you had to be there.


That evening our leaders treated us all to gelato...I had 3 of the best scoops I have had in ages.....with more Scuttling and lock downs the evening was over and it was off to sleep before our last real day of Europe Tour.

Florence was our last Destination....and it was well worth the wait.


First we had our last City tour....and our Tour guide was something special. He was just so great with his Italian accent and the thickest rimmed glasses I have ever seen....I really have never seen anyone quite like him before.

After looking in the huge cathedral,






and taking a group photo there

seeing the Statue of David an amazing bridge, a glided door and many other amazing statues and pieces of art work...we were free for the afternoon to do what we pleased.








After being totally ripped off with the exchange rate when I had to change over some money we all decided to spend our last lunch together in a sit down restaurants and not a quick take away or food from a supermarket as we had done all of the pervious days.


We eventually found a restaurant, we talked the waiter into not giving us a sitting in fee and then had one of the biggest and most delicious meals of my life....gosh Italian food is good.

To thank our waiter we all drew and wrote a thankyou message on napkin...so one day when we are rich and famous he can sell the napkin and make millions…….. or so was the idea.

We then went off to these fabulous markets....filled with leather and other amazing goods. After getting lost in there for hours Kay-lea and I finally resurfaced without the others (we lost them near the scarfs) and then together Kay-lea and I went looking for some proper shops.

After buying a jacket (I decided I may as well spend all of my euros seeing as I had to pay so much to get them) we went and had an ice-cream....ad here was the only misfortune ,apart from the money exchange rate, we had all trip...the people totally ripped us off and we ended up paying extreme amounts for our ice-cream…..but couldn’t get out of it as they kept twisting things.....but oh well. ……the ice cream was good.

After dinner in a restaurant the whole exchange group went up on top of the hill behind Florence and had our last evening together.





The next day was best bus ride I have had in my life....while it was mixed with so many emotions......happiness at being together and sadness as the trip was over....we still had so much fun. We talked sang and just enjoyed every last minute together.

I had the best ever Europe trip....and I would go again in a heart beat.

Thankyou so much Rotary…..thanks mum and dad and thanks my fellow exchange buddies

Eurpoe Tour 3

After The Czech Republic it was off to Austria for us.

As usual most of the day was taken up with driving.....however this was not a problem as i enjoyed our buss rides. we always had allot of fun together, with music playing and walking around the bus and talking.

We had our first stop at a small church....and let me tell you this church was like nothing i have ever seen in my entire life. The whole thing was decorated with bones from 40,000 people, as there had once been a plague and there was not enough space for graves. The site also represented the fact that one is always the same in death and so we should make our soles beautiful and not focus on appearance.






After the church we kept on driving until we arrived at our Lunch stop for the day was another small village in Czech. This village was so lovely, made better by the fact that it was not overly touristy and was extremely cheap. Here I bought a scarf and lunch for about 1 Australian dollar.

that afternoon we arrived in Austria and all went to our hotel rooms. My room was just amazing, totally massive and extremely clean. Here I was in a room with Kristen, Emily and Hannah.

We then had the afternoon free to look around the suburb area that we were in.
I then went and with Jimmy, Emma, Tanya, and Kay-lea and had an iced coffee.
We then had dinner in our hotel ad the food was heaven....it was soo good to eat proper meals again

after dinner we once again had free time so it was off to explore the church, the area a little more. We then stumbled across the best ever little restaurants where I had this amazing chocolate dessert.....totally fabulous.





The next day we awoke early and went with our bus into Vienna. We then had a city tour by bus; we picked up our tour guide along the way. I feel that we did our city tour by bus as Vienna is so big we couldn’t have done it all on foot

We stopped at the most amazing building I have ever seen......it was called Hunderedwasser haus....and was a Art building filled with tiny shops etc





the buildings toilet was even an attraction as it was no normal toilet room but an art toilet room.


We also had a stop off at the Old Royal place, where the statues have their breast replaced each 3 years as they are worn away by the hands of thousands of men and women who take a photo holding the statues breasts.


We then all walked into the city centre and from here went off in smaller groups to do what we wished. The boys all went to The Australian Pub ;that they found. And Gemma and Kay-Lea and I headed off first to the Church to climb the tower.






Afterwards we met up with some others and all had a special Sachentorte...I thinks that what it was called....what ever it is called it is a speciality from Vienna.

It then ended up that I was off with Gemma, Rachel and Kyle to see the historical sites of the village.

We first headed off the Museum....Before we entered the museum we saw little men all dressed up trying to get us to buy tickets to their concert.....one even asked Gemma to marry him.....however she declined and we all had a photo with him instead




Once in the museum I was totally blown away as and I have never seen such a beautiful presented museum in my life. It was so amazing.....I could have spent days in there and Kyle had so much knowledge to share about the Egyptians and Gemma knew the history behind nearly every painting and sculpture....listening to them really brought the museum to life.




after the museum we continued to walked through the city passing Mozart’s Statue and the Town hall (or Rathaus as it is in German) oh and also the Parliament buildings



We then found ourselves in a beautiful park and here we climbed a tree and took photos...allot of fun



that evening we had Wien schnitzel for dinner in a restaurant and the we were all of to a Classical concert. This was just wonderful.. I really didn’t know what to expect ...and I never did expect the concert to turn out how it did. The concert was mainly opera and Mozart...but then there were also comedy aspects intertwined in the whole evening, such as music being played with hammers and whistles etc. It really was very enjoyable

The next it was back to the city for an Orienteering sort of game. We had a list of questions and we had to go around Vienna and find out the answers. Before our Orienteering game we had another group photo at another Royal place.





and then after many a photo we all went and played in the Palaces mazes. This was so much fun as the mazes were very interactive with water being shot at you etc.






We then split up into our teams, my team was with Gemma, Rachel, Kyle and Kay-Lea. We were a good group as we went to most of the places that we had to find out the answer and didn’t just sit in the Australian Pub and ask the bar tender the answers. I am so glad that we were good, as I had so much fun with my group travelling around looking for our answers.

After doing the first few questions we had a break and did what any girls would do in a city and went shopping. I had so much fun with Kay-lea and Gemma as we tried on hundreds of clothes while the others went off to look in other shops.

After a while our group ended up splitting as Rachel and Kyle wanted to get piercing and Kay-Lea, Gemma and I decided that we would go and finish all our questions.

We took the train to a park where we had to say what was in the statues arms.....well this was allot easier said than done as we ended up catching the wrong train, then we hopped on the right train but went in the wrong direction....and eventually after many a laugh and a change of clothes (yes we changed into our newly bought tops on the train) we arrived at our park.

Here we took a photo with the sculpture......(the man taking the photo told us to do diffrent emotions with each persons camera...mine is confused .. I think)





We then had fun in this beautiful park and took some more photos...we even caught me falling out of a tree on camera.


We then arrived at our meeting point to hand in our questions....however we realised we had forgotten to do one....it was something to do with how many rings are around some special church pillar....so offcourse no-one we asked knew the answer.......so being cleaver we looked on a postcard and counted the rings...and guess what we got it right.


That evening we found ourselves free in a them park style thing (like Luna park) for 3 hours.

I went on a few rides and then I found the ultimate thrill.......




however I was so scared to go in it....I don’t know why as usually I love this stuff...but I just felt so anxious.... as I was trusting my life in a few pieces of rubber string.

however I did it and it was so much fun.

The next day we had a free morning until 11. So what did I do??...like all the other girls I went and had a hair trim....this is because it was so cheap in Austria ...well about 20 AUS...but in Switzerland it would have cost me close to 70Aus.

After 11 we all went on some bush walk thing. This was not the most beautiful of walk however we all seemed to enjoy ourselves. I even danced on a hill singing the sound of music...I will have to get the film off somebody.


That afternoon we watched the Rugby....Australia vs. England and any true Rugby fan will know the outcome was not a happy one for Australia....need I say some of the boys were not to pleased, but the south Africans liked to lets us know that they were still in the cup.

After dinner that night myself, Gemma, Kay-lea, Rachel, Emma, Lauren, Tanja, Caity etc all went and had some more of the amazing chocolate cake. Here we all had a great chat about everything and anything.


Afterwards we went back to the hotel to pack our bags for Italy.