Spring Break X

So, this was the beach in Valencia, Spain. It was absolutely beautiful weather, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! We couldn't have asked for a better place to relax and enjoy our Easter Break...well...maybe I should talk about this later and give more of an introduction to our trip.

Anyways, we began planning this little excursion about a month ago and all agreed the best thing to do was to visit cities in Western Europe and "try to do it all." Our break began on April 1st, and, in the end, we decided to do London, Paris, Barcelona, and Valencia over a span of 10 days. Next, we had to book flights, hostels, trains...basically everything. It definitely felt good to get all of that out of the way.

We left Krakow on the morning of April Fools Day and hopped on a plane to London. When we arrived at Stansted Airport, it was a huge a relief to be able to understand all of the signs and people speaking ENGLISH! First things first, we went straight to the hostel, and I personally loved it from the moment we checked in until we left two days later. The downstairs was a bar for both the public and guests of the hostel, and it also had a pool table, internet, tv...the whole shebang. While in London, we made an effort to see a lot, and I would say one of the coolest moments was on Thursday when we had dinner at this pub next to the Thames River. Of course, we all had to get fish 'n chips. I think I just really enjoyed the atmosphere, and you could tell the locals were having a great time just drinking and loving life.


This is probably the best story of the trip, though. We bought tickets before we left to take the "chunnel train" from London to Paris on Saturday morning at 6:55 AM. We left the hostel before 6:00 and moseyed on down to the train station. With about 15 minutes to spare, we got close to our platform and saw these huge lines for checking tickets, security, and passports. Uh oh. Thankfully, we were able to cut ahead in the lines, but we got split up and were literally sprinting to get onto the train at different cabins. It wasn't until we got to our seats that we were sure we all made it. Let's just say we were about two hours early to everything the rest of the trip...

The plan was to spend three nights in Paris(sounds like a movie title, doesn't it), and we were fortunate enough to be there on the first Sunday of April--Easter. Also, we found out almost all of the museums in Paris are free on the first Sunday of every month. After seeing the Louvre, Notre Dame, and Pompidou Centre all in one day(once again, for FREE), it was definitely an eventful Easter Sunday. The last thing we did was go up in the Eiffel Tower on Monday night...very cool. I think it is hard to understand how big Paris is until you see it from like 1000 feet in the air.


The next stop was Barcelona, Spain. We ended up staying in the so-called "most popular" hostel in the world here. It, of course, had a different feel than London or Paris, and I think this is when we started to unwind a little and really enjoy our break. In the other cities, there was so much to see that we were constantly doing something all hours of the day. We ate at a seafood restaurant right on the Mediterranean Sea(ask Tyler what the head of a fried fish tastes like), and found an all-you-can-eat buffet very close to our hostel. Can't forget--I bought a FC Barcelona soccer jersey here, too. We watched a game at a bar...they won...I had to get one, right?!

Last stop--Valencia. This was the most 'chill' place on our trip, for sure. Like I said earlier, it was perfect weather, and we did our best to do nothing productive and just lay on the beach most of the day on Friday. Cheers to our friend, Captain Ron who let us stay in his hostel.

Four flights, two trains, and one AMAZING trip around Europe that will be hard to beat! I ended up with lots of memories, pictures, and...a sunburn.