"That's so hipster!"

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

–Ernest Hemingway

This quote pretty much immortalizes my changed view on Paris, a city I completely fell in love with unexpectedly. Not only that, but this was probably one of my most epic weekends thus far. But lets start off talking about Zurich, our pit stop for a night before moving onto the city of light.

Zurich may make a mean gin and tonic (Would you like some tonic with that glass of gin?), but it pretty much bankrupted me and the Swiss guy we ended up hanging out with kept smacking me in the head instead of high fiving me like everyone else. Oh, and I spent 11 francs (the equivalent to the dollar’s exchange rates) on McDonalds. Plus one of our friends pretty much puked all over the city the next day before our train. Once in Paris, It took us about two hours to navigate to where our hotel was and how to figure out the metro system, so we didn’t get to our hotel Friday night until around 10 pm, so the four of us decided to quickly change and try to meet up with some of our friends that were also in Paris at the same time, so we got hot dogs in a park we walked through, and met up with our friends at Dupliex Club, and had an amazing time (albeit we accidently walked into an gay bar for the older Parisian crowd). Without even realizing it, we were dancing away until after 4 AM.

We woke up early Saturday morning and walked up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and bought 10 euro glasses of champagne to toast to our rockstar lifestyles, ate breakfast crepes, checked out Notre Dame, and then spent the remaining part of the afternoon exploring the Louvre. We went shopping at H&M so we could have going out outfits, and made plans with Daniella to go drink wine under the Eiffel Tower and go clubbing on a boat.

Sunday night I was able to meet some French guys who I left the club with, and we walked around Paris for hours having good conversation. I think sometimes this might mean I am a wanderer, or that I just love making new friends. It probably was dangerous, but they were very nice! I learned several useful French phrases through them and was able to see a lot of Paris that I wouldn’t have been able to if I hadn’t gone with them. One thing I did notice about France is that I can categorize most of the French into two categories: people who hate everyone (or at least anyone who doesn’t live in Paris) and people who are curious.

And good advice that I may or may not one day delve into one day if you don’t want to get back to your dormitory at 4:30 AM: Don’t miss your train because your friends have your reservations and all the other trains are booked because you thought it’d be cool to see Paris during Bastille week. But for now I’m in a sleeper train heading toward the crazy city of Amsterdam with pretty much everyone in our program, deathly afraid of getting bed bugs (Pray for me! Haha.)

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

Its been a few days since I've given myself enough time to update everyone on my European status. I feel like some kind of trendy jetsetter or in the very least, like I am straight out of a Hemingway novel. I've always wondered what it would be like to be a part of that "lost generation" of writers and artists who tried to make a living in Paris (although, technically, Hemingway refused to believe his own generation was lost). All my friends and I do is have intellectual conversations, travel freely, spend money, and drink good alcohol. Which, believe me, I'm having no qualms about.

This week I've tapped a little into my adventurous side, and that seems to be recurring these past few weeks, leaving me feeling really rejuvenated--even joking that the Innsbruck program can be advertised as a fat camp with all the walking up and down mountains we seem to be doing. Sunday we were given the opportunity to visit two of Ludwig's castles in Bavaria and the design really fascinated me. The fact that he dedicated the design of one of his castles to the French courts of Louis XIV is a interesting story in itself. I also had a chance to go water rafting down the Inn river just outside of Innsbruck: full wet suits and getting to jump into freezing cold water is surprisingly fun. I forgot how much fun the outdoors can be when you learn to forget what might be in that murky water below you and the bugs flying about you.

I also got a very good cultural (and drinking) experience in this week: Munich's famous HofBausHaus gives you a liter of beer to go along with your authentic German wiener meal. We took an afternoon train ride into Munich and just spent a few hours at this beer garden, laughing and having an amazing time, then took the latest train we could back. Its kind of wild that you can go between countries so easily, and make it back in time to catch a few hours of sleep before class. In just a few hours I'll be departing on another train, and heading to Zurich for the night and spending some time there until its time to catch the 3pm train to Paris for the weekend. I'm hoping to finish "A Moveable Feast" by Hemingway before the train arrives in the "City of Love", so I can really relate to him when I sit down for a drink in Harry's New York Bar, famous for many writers during Hemingway's time period. Not only that, but I'll be reunited with one of my favorite friends, Daniella, during my weekend in Paris. Picnic lunch under the Eiffel Tower, anyone?

Until next time and Au Revoir, my friends!

The Cultural Divide

First off...isn't it kind of crazy that in Europe you can buy wine in a can? I'd expect something like this from the South!

Instead of following some of my sorority sisters and friends to Vienna for the weekend (as I really want to see Vienna), I opted for a five mile hike across some mountain ranges for today and a castle tour in the morning. Once again, the sites were completely breathtaking as I trekked the ridiculous five mile hike and realized how out of shape I was! Hopefully the morning runs I am taking with Jason by the river will cure that. Anyway, we took this crazy one person ski lift back down the mountain, and I thought I was going to die for sure on it!

I have recently took on a whole new objective to this trip: to meet and get to know as many people as I can. I'm hanging out with people I normally would never get a chance to talk to, and also trying to emerge myself into the culture by talking to actual Innsbruck residents. At one of my new favorite bars last night, the irish pub, I was able to have a very long conversation about the differences in culture with an actual Tyrollean Innsbruck resident. He ended up teaching me a lot of German and attempting to help me with my accent! Speaking of accents, I have the worst German accent and say practically every word completely wrong. Anyway, after taking a closer inspection of their culture, I realized how widely accepted PDA was and how everyone's personal "bubble" was a lot smaller than those of my own country. When a new friend tried to say goodbye by kissing each of my cheeks, I was dumbfounded and awkward for a moment, as no one in the United States would find that a acceptable greeting or goodbye.

Its getting late and I am waking up at a gross 6:45 am so I can get on the bus in the morning for a tour of castles in Germany and Austria, then later it is the final match of the World Cup, the Netherlands versus Spain. Downtown should be crazy and certainly an experience I wouldn't want to miss.

Surrounded by the Alps

If one day you get the chance to climb the Alps and look down into a beautiful city such as Innsbruck, it is one of the most magnificent experiences. It was cloudy and raining sleet on my friends and I, yet I still was completely amazed.

So here I am, attempting to keep up with a blog while I spend the next six weeks living in beautiful Innsbruck, Austria (Wish me luck). I've only been here for less than a week, but I can feel myself getting into the rhythm of things here in Europe: there is usually no tipping at restaurants or bars, Innsbruck's bus schedule (after a few misguided attempts), lots of pork, and the way people leisurely live their lives. Perhaps thats the most refreshing aspect of this six week excursion: getting rid of my ridiculously busy American life and slowing down to appreciate the things I'd otherwise miss. Especially with the stress this last semester put on me and all the emotions/feelings/decisions I put myself through, I can finally sit down (metaphorically) and sort through everything; I can figure out who I am as a person, and the kind of person I am and possibly hoping to shape myself into while here. I felt for a while I had lost who I was, and I think I'm slowly remembering whats important.

On a lighter note, I also got the opportunity to go to Vipiteno, Italy for a few hours yesterday for an extremely delicious Italian meal and a violin concert performed by some Stetson alumn. It was such a quaint little town, comprising of only one main street, and one or two side streets.

Tonight I'm off to one of my favorite Innsbruck bars, the Theresienbraeu.

Auf Wiedersehen!