Making the Most of Living in Europe

Today I have been thinking a lot about friends and family back at home and wondering what everyone has been up to. I am especially starting to miss my closest friends but only a month and a half till I go home. Don’t get me wrong...I am definitely not home sick and not wanting to go home! I am just appreciating what I have in Montana more and more. I can’t wait to tell everyone more stories of my summer in person. This weekend was full of even more adventures that I will never forget.

Friday, I and four other friends jumped on the TGV (train) and got off in Milano, Italy! We got to our apartment easily and it was like luxury staying there compared to my apartment here in Chambéry. We had a full kitchen, very comfortable beds, and plenty of room...I really wanted to stay there for the rest of my time in Europe. So for dinner we decided to go and get pizza at a recommended restaurant that wasn’t too pricey. OH MY! Was the pizza so good and the service was just amazing. It was weird not being able to speak the language and I kept on wanting to speak to everyone in French. After the first night, I knew that this mini vacation was going to turn out very well. The next few days we discovered Milano by taking the metro everywhere. I was very impressed with the metro because it was extremely clean and easy to get around everywhere. We saw the Duomo of course and other churches; we also tried to go and see the Last Supper but we should have bought tickets weeks in advance. We also went to the Castello (castle) and walked around the park behind it. I almost forget to say but we ate ALOT, I mean I think within the two full days being there I had gelato four times! On Saturday night we find ourselves in a relatively expensive restaurant that specializes in Risotto! The food was so good; totally worth the 40 euros. My trip to Milano was amazing and I am so glad that I decided to go at the last minute. Here are a few photos.

Monday was sort of a relaxing day. I took a lot of time to prepare for my trip to Barcelona this coming up weekend. Today, Tuesday, was a very exciting day! I got to go on another adventure called canyoning, finally. It had been cancelled twice but today was a beautiful day so we were off. I really had no idea to expect other than that I would get wet and I needed good tennis shoes. We arrive to the beginning point with full wet suit, helmet, and harness. Within the first ten minutes we went down a few “slides” that were made out of rocks and jumped off a boulder into water 8 meters down. What we pretty much did was walk done a stream and overcame the obstacles of boulders and rocks by either jumping, rappelling down, or sliding down the rocks. I have never done something so epic in my life! I also was able to translate a lot for the other students because I was able to understand the instructor when he spoke in French. I have one photo of the event because we couldn’t take our cameras with us.

Well I probably won’t write until the beginning of next week because I will be in Barcelona all weekend. I just want to wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July and I hope everyone stays safe! Love you all!