back from Europe...

I just came back from Europe yesterday. WAAAH so sad, I wish the trip was longer!!! >.<

It was really fun but the overall planning was so bad (the travel agency did a pretty bad job for us). One time, we had an 8-hour bus ride that was delayed 11.5 hours. We were supposed to leave in the morning after breakfast and arrive at 4 PM, but one of the buses broke down so we ended up waiting until noon, which was lunchtime. So they had to use the working bus to drive us to a nearby mall for us to get lunch. When it was time to pick us up, the bus was late, so we ended up leaving the mall at like, 5 PM. And when we finally got to the neighborhood where our hotel was, there was a huge truck blocking the whole road which was the only way to our hotel (roads in Europe are really small). They couldn't move the bus either because it was for transporting medical equipment or waste or something, and people were performing emergency surgery/stuff on someone. So it took about an hour for the truck to move...then we drove like, 5 minutes to the hotel. :P So that was a really big waste of time. When we arrived, it was like 3:30 AM! :( The next morning, we still had to wake up at the time we're supposed to, which was like, 7 AM.

Oh and one morning, when people boarded a bus (I wasn't on that bus, but I heard the story), one window was totally shattered. So I guess someone broke in...but who would break into an empty bus? They clearly couldn't start the car anyway, and there was nothing inside.

Throughout the trip, we had 6 concerts. People actually came; I was really surprised! :) And the audience were so nice and gave us so much applause even though we messed up a ton. Some halls were really bad though; one place was a dance studio/stage, so the acoustics were totally messed up, and two others were churches which gave us waaay to much echo.

The beach at Cannes was soooo awesome! It was the perfect place for swimming; the water becomes deep really quickly so you don't have to go too far away from the shore, there's a small island close enough to swim to and the water is shallow enough at one part to walk, and there are boats for rent with attached slides! The beach at San Sebastian in Spain had a lot of kelp and wasn't as good for swimming, but it was good for shopping and eating. :)

Anyway, some famous places we visited were:
-Eiffel Tower!!! :D We went up to the second floor.
-L'ouvre Museum (I saw the Mona Lisa, Code of Hammurabi, Venus de Milo, etc.)
-Palace of Versailles (and the king and queens' bedrooms; Marie Antoinette is really spoiled...the decorations on her bed are huge....)
-Sagrada Familia
-Santa Maria La Real (a Gothic cathedral)
-Vieux port and the Old Town at Marseilles
-the place next to the beach where the Cannes Film Festival will be held
-palace of the ruling Grimaldi family, cathedral where Princess Grace/Prince Rainier are buried (@ Monaco)
-Avenue de Champs Elysees
-Arc de Triomphe
-Notre Dame cathedral
-Place de la Concorde

I'll post all the pictures in another separate post later. :)