*I am aware that England is in Europe but the general British population doesn't seem to feel the same way so I won't take that away from them
The third thing that most study abroad students did with spring break, however, was welcome their parents to the UK and I did that two months ago so I suppose I'll start there:
Tom and Jude Take England
The build-up to Mum returning to the UK began the day I decided to study abroad here. She was hugely influential in convincing me that this is where I belonged despite my protests that I wanted to study in Australia and could visit England "any time". As always Mum was right and you can imagine how excited she was when I announced that I wanted to spend a full year abroad- mainly because it meant that she would be able to come along too.
I have been to England twice before that I remember, but the most recent trip was in 2006 so the Prentice family reunion was long overdue. It's bizarre being so close to my family in the States and hardly knowing my family across the ocean, funny that family relationships don't just come included with a dual passport. Aside from the brief moments of feeling like I was starring as Hallie in the Parent Trap, visiting with everyone in Lichfield was definitely one of my favorite memories from England so far. We were able to have a huge (very lively) pub lunch with nearly all of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and of course Grammy who brought everyone together, and stayed nearly past dinner! It's an incredible feeling to be so loved by so many people that I haven't seen in years and years, but if there is anything that visiting Lichfield showed me it's that England can always be my home if I want it to be. And I like those options.The final stop on the Kenny tour of England (in which I was included) was a road trip up to my favorite windy corner of the UK: Newcastle upon Tyne. I still had classes to attend and Mum and Dad still had places to see so their time here was short but it was so fun to show them around my home. Dad was able to get his runs in on the moor while I gave mum a tour of my city, my accommodation, and of course my school! ... which became more than she bargained for when we stepped out of the student union to find the entire frisbee team gathering in support of a campus event. Never to be outdone, however, in typical Jude fashion, she simply smiled and stopped our president from introducing everyone by saying, "Oh don't worry! I know all of you from your Facebooks!". Needless to say, she is now up by a few more Facebook friends.
On their last night in Newcastle I took Mum and Dad down to the quayside for the necessary picture on the Millennium Bridge. Mum always jokes that I'm so keen to miss her until she's actually there, but their trip to England was genuinely one of the best parts of my year here. Getting to show my British mum around her own country was a privilege that not many kids can say they have, and I'm so grateful to have parents that would cross the Atlantic ocean in the middle of February for me. See you in two months friends xx
Jessie Takes the World
So quite a few things happened between my parents' visit and The Europe Trip- I visited Cardiff for 48 of the wettest hours of my life, my best friend Sarah Hand turned 21 years old, and our women's frisbee team qualified for division 1 nationals at a regional tournament in Leicester- and all of those things are beautiful memories. The memories I need to record before they slip away from my mind or become too tainted by nostalgia, however, are the ones I made during my 3 weeks of European travel. So here they are:
It all began in Paris. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Loyola has made us pretty spoiled abroad by organizing a few trips throughout the two semesters in which everything is completely planned and "paid for" (by our $60k tuition) and the most anticipated one was The France Trip. Over the course of 8 days, 50 Loyola students took on the entirety of France, beginning in Paris and making our way all the way down to Nice. Though I'm not a huge proponent of large group outings- especially in foreign countries in which a majority of the group speaks no French and carries selfie sticks- this trip was actually really well organized considering the circumstances. In each place we visited we stayed in hostels in the center of the city, and though I was forced to make more friends than my comfortable two by sleeping in rooms of 10 girls, it became apparent very quickly how lucky we were to have had Loyola arranging our accommodation as soon as we were on our own (see Rome and Florence).Perhaps one of the greatest things that Loyola has ever done for us was buying each student the Paris Pass, which meant we got free transport and admission into all major attractions in the city for the 3 days that we were there. They also provided several fancy, three-course meals (a little too fancy for this small town, picky eater) among which were snails and other French delicacies that I was told by Loyola representatives that I would "regret if I didn't try at least once" but alas, I still sleep at night. Shoutout to Lindsay for being the fearless member of the group who would try absolutely anything, and to Sarah for being my five-year-old taste buds companion and even trying some things that I never would. This trip taught me many valuable things about friendship, but mainly just that complementary eating habits are the easiest ways to gain best friends.
In between the incredible amounts of eating and sleeping necessary to survive this trip, we were able to see all of the City of Love. On day two we explored the palace of Versailles, wandered the halls of the Louvre, cruised the Seine, and ended the day with ice cream in front of the Eiffel Tower in what we thought was the perfect way to end the perfect day- only to realize a few hours later that our actual dreams were to see it lit up, ensuing a mile run from the metro stop in order to be there at exactly 10pm when it began to sparkle. The next day was just as full of tourism- visiting the National Opera House, the Notre Dame Cathedral, and of course the Arc de Triomphe (which we had the privilege to climb by way of the longest spiral staircase I have ever seen and the most embarrassing fall I have ever taken at the top when my legs gave out)- but it was pretty hard to top the magic of our first day in Paris. We left France's greatest city exhausted, full of ice cream and crepes, and zealous for our next adventure. But is there really any better way?The next stop on The France Trip was the south of France, Montpellier. Now if you've been following any of our other adventures across the UK you know that we're not actually very good at traveling (throwback to learning to nap in between London tube stops and the ideal 36 hour trip to Dublin). But if this trip has taught me anything about myself, it's that I am much more comfortable in situations where I can establish more a "normal" routine. In the case of Montpellier, it was waking up at 7am with Lindsay for runs around the aqueduct, day trips with Loyola to nearby French cities, and then a solid choice from our european diet of either apples with peanut butter, crepes, or gelato for dinner. The city itself was so picturesque and walkable in contrast to Paris and the first place we experienced real sun!! Despite the fact that we were now finding ourselves in a lot more uncomfortable situations in which the only words we could utter were "bonjour" or "merci", I loved every minute that we spent in beautiful Montpellier.
If the Paris passes were the best thing Loyola ever did for us, then Xavier was a close second. Xavier was the tour guide that Loyola hired to show us around the south of France from the second we stepped off of the train in Montpellier to the second we boarded a coach for Nice. Though I think it may have been a slightly one-sided affection between our group of rowdy American college students and this expert in medieval art (praying for us to have just one question about the medieval frescoes in the Palais des Papes) but we honestly could never have survived without him. Whether it was a 9 am coach to Avignon in the pouring rain, exploring an ancient colosseum in Nimes, wine tasting at Chateau-Bas d'Aumelas, or hiking 50 students up a mountain at Saint Guilhem le Desert- Xavier was always there with his impeccable scarf selection and nearly-comprehensible French accent. There were a couple times in which the language barrier proved to be an obstacle (or simple American body language, aka zoning out, for which Lindsay received very concerned looks on numerous occasions from our tour guide). I think in the end we visited 6 different towns in those 3 days and even got some free, authentic French wine out of it, so naturally I was very pleased.
Loyola really did save the best for last, though. The final stop on the whirlwind France Trip was Nice. Now I'll save everyone the terrible puns, but this was by far one of the nicest cities I have ever been to. Sarah made the comment that it "looked like Disney World" to which I replied "maybe Disney World looks like Nice?" and then we jointly agreed that someday we will bring our future children back just so that they can see the real thing first and never have the same confusion. Our beach hostel- though a topic of heated conversation amongst the group due to the assignment of 10 girls to one shower and 3 outlets per room- was ideal for exactly what it promised in the name. During the 2 days we spent in Nice, we took a train tour of the city (though "train" is a strong word for glorified trolley), biked along the coast twice without accident, and got brilliantly sunburned on the beach for hours. After a week of non-stop tourism and jumping from place to place, I can't even describe how amazing it was to lay by the Mediterranean Sea and watch my pale, English skin turn red and freckly. I have a suspicion that the feeling was mutual because that night students and chaperones alike turned the hostel into a Loyola bar as we celebrated the end of an amazing trip (and for the chaperones, successful evasion of any major disaster). I may only seem to have two friends most of the time, but that night I was so happy to be a part of this crazy, dysfunctional 50-American program.
And then it was time for us to flee the nest and explore the world on our own- on to Barcelona! This was exciting mainly for two reasons: we were staying with Lindsay's flatmate, Marta, which meant real beds (!!!) and I finally got to use my 13 years of español (except not because we picked the only city in Spain that actually speaks Catalan lol). That was okay though due to the former comment, and over the course of 5 days we made our way through Barcelona led by our amazing, fluent, local tour guide. We got super lucky in that all but one of the days was beautifully sunny so we were able to explore both the touristy attractions and the traditional neighborhoods all while wearing sun dresses and- as Mum pointed out- the first absence of my scarf. As I found before with Xavier, you get so much more out of cities when you tour them with a local who can point out all of the culturally significant things that we simply would have missed on our own. We saw La Sagrada Familia cathedral, the National Museum of Art of Catalunya, the beach, the (only) Dunkin Donuts, and of course the enchanting Park Guell, in which we spent 4 blissful hours taking in the sun and reading our books. From the artwork of Gaudi to the best tapas, Marta ensured that every second of our trip was spent immersing ourselves into Spanish culture.
Perhaps the best part of that week was the feeling of being in a home and part of a family again. As soon as we walked through the door on Sunday night, Marta's mum took all of our laundry and insisted that she would wash it for us. She also proceeded to make us dinner each night (which even Sarah and I couldn't turn down because it was so phenomenal) and though she didn't speak any English, she never failed to say "hello" each time she saw us. I would be remiss if I didn't also mention Bimba, their adorable, miniature dog who greeted us at the door with kisses and love every morning. When we departed Barcelona we left a note for their family- written partially in high school Spanish and partially in whatever Google Translate could come up with- expressing our deepest gratitude for putting up with us all week. Signed with love, their 3 American friends.
We arrived at the Rome airport at 11 pm on Good Friday, yawning and blurry eyed, ready for bed. What we weren't ready for was the influx of Italian taxi drivers who wanted to usher us into cars and capitalize on our inability to neither communicate nor understand what they were saying. 50 euro and approximately 10 minutes later, we arrived at "Camping Village Roma", which is where silly American girls who book accommodation for Easter weekend in Rome stay. Being too late for regular check-in, we were directed to our "bungalow" (what Lindsay has deemed a "glorified tool shed with a bathroom") and immediately three things became apparent: we had no electricity, we had an ant problem, and we had no idea what to do. So, like the good girl scouts we are, we surveyed our surroundings and attempted to come up with a plan. In the end we actually had 3 (all to Lindsay's credit): A) wait until morning B) randomly flip switches on the fuse box or C) try to scrape together enough Italian to ask the security guard for help. Plan A was thrown out immediately on account of needing to charge phones, and when plans B and C both failed to resolve the issue we all just laid in bed and texted our respective mums hoping to at least get some sympathy for our sorry selves. New text message from Mum: "All part of the adventure my love haha gotta take the rough with the smooth *kissing emoji*"... and a picture of a box of Goldfish she found in Walmart.
However, the coolest part of Rome, in my personal opinion, was actually none of the above. In fact, it was the only unplanned part of the day but it turned out to be the best part of the trip. One of my closest friends at Loyola happens to be studying abroad in Rome for the semester and decided to text me as we were happily eating pizza before heading back to CVR, advertising the "best views in Rome". The exhaustion in me begged for sleep but Sarah played the "we're studying abroad and visiting Rome for 3 days" card so we all rallied and met Joey Dwyer for what were absolutely the most spectacular views of any city to which I've travelled. Sitting on his rooftop, watching the sunset and drinking wine, is one of the best memories I have of Europe. And it was only made better by the fact that he then took us on a crazy nighttime adventure to the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and even a cat sanctuary made of the ancient ruins surrounding the area where Caesar was stabbed by Brutus (which I didn't believe either until it was verified by Joey Dwyer, Trip Advisor, and the dozens of cats living there).The next morning we woke up at 7 am to attend the papal mass at the
Vatican for Easter. Unfortunately, while the Catholic girl in me was super excited by this, that was also the main reason I was a little disappointed by the tourist trap that became St. Peter's Square and the spectacle that replaced the traditional mass I was hoping for. People showed up in jeans and sweatpants and held selfie sticks in one hand, cellphones in the other. While it was incredible to see the new Pope that I have come to admire so much, I do wish that I could have attended a more traditional mass while in Rome. I hardly consider myself a conservative person, but it was definitely a little sad to be in the minority of people concerned enough to even put on a skirt or mouth the prayers. That by no means put a damper on Easter for us though, and we had a great time wandering the city and eating gelato in the pretty new dresses we had bought for the occasion. If nothing else, we now know that Lizzie McGuire is a reliable source and Rome proved its magic in every way imaginable.
And if you are still with me at this point, (first of all, thank you wow) I imagine that you are quite tired just from reading this so imagine how we felt on day 17 when we arrived in the final destination (for me anyways, my friends continued on to Vienna and Budapest)- Florence. The good news is, the adventure never stops! and by that I simply mean we still managed to mess things up and get hopelessly lost in a city in which none of us spoke the language.
On Monday night we boarded a MegaBus in Rome that got us into Firenze at about 9 pm and we were just so thrilled to be sleeping in real beds free of ants, stains, and any other fun byproduct of camping that we didn't really care too much what the hostel looked like... though we probably should have checked further that it was one. Instead what we found after 30 minutes of aimlessly wandering the- admittedly beautiful- streets of Florence was a man's apartment consisting of three bedrooms and a single bathroom. As we walked into the "office" that was a hallway with a folding table in it, it already felt a bit like Taken but it was just one night and I mean hey, no ants. Once the man had us sign a contract in Italian and totaled the cost of the room on the calculator app on his phone, he showed us to our room and we were alone to simultaneously freak out and learn how to function the locks on the door (which backfired when we basically locked ourselves in). After a few deep breaths, we found ourselves some food and settled in for my final night in Europe.
Sarah decided that in order to make my 24 hours in Florence worth it, I needed to get to the top of the Duomo Cathedral before my flight back to the UK at 1 pm. So in the most brilliant display of friendship this world has ever seen, both of my friends woke up at 7 am the next morning and we were outside the Duomo by 8:45, ready to climb the 463 steps to the top. Now, at this point we have already scaled some pretty impressive things during this trip- the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the mountain in St Guilhem le Desert, the Castle Hill in Nice, Palatine Hill in Rome- so we figured we would be able to conquer this tower at a brisk pace in order to get back to check out with sketchy "hostel" man at 10 am. In these fantasies, however, we failed to account for the millions of other people who had the same idea and were also trying to use the single spiral staircase to the top. So in the end we made it to the top in a record-breaking 45 minutes, with approximately 5 spent at the top, and made it to check out at 10:04 am. And if that's not impressive enough, here's some pics from the top:
Though I was literally only there for a few hours, I think that Florence was probably my favorite city out of them all and it's pretty easy to see why. "Ciao" was definitely the hardest goodbye to say.
Home
It's funny, because the whole time that I was in Europe I kept texting Mum and saying "I miss home", but I wasn't referring to the one on the other side of the Atlantic ocean and I think she knew that. It's not that I don't miss my real home- I do, every single day- but while I was traveling there was a definite part of me that just yearned to be back in my little city in Northeast England where the sun is temperamental and the language is (most of the time) recognizable. I flew back to London and headed off on an entirely different adventure in Cardiff for a frisbee tournament. We played with a team based in Newcastle called "The Brown" and won 6 out of 7 games which was really exciting! Though this was hardly the rest my body was aching for, we managed to spend two gorgeous days in Wales and even got a little bit more sunburned, which was welcomed openly. Then on Sunday, April 3rd - day 22 of travel- I went home.
And so here we are. Classes begin again tomorrow for what the Brits call "semester 3" and life has become roughly normal again. I can't pretend that traveling the world was easy- as I have come to realize, I am not a good traveler. I get tired easily, I like alone time, and I rely solely on my knowledge of English and prayers that others will too. Luckily, I found the two people in the world who will wake up early everyday so we don't have to go to bed late. The two people who will be happy to eat lunch in the form of an apple and dinner from a grocery store. The two people who will sit on a beach or a bench or a bed for hours and just read a book, or better yet just sit there. My favorite memories of the world have been made with these two people and I honestly owe it all to them.
The Europe Trip has taught me innumerable things about myself, the world, and everything in it. I would say it was the best three weeks of my life, but as I've come to learn from my travels, never underestimate life. It has a way of just getting better.
For anyone who missed the beautiful video that my friends made or are hoping for a more condensed version of my travels, here's the highlights :)
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