Five short months have passed and I am already back in the US. I am grateful for my experience and believe I have changed and matured significantly since my arrival. I made a great group of friends representing every continent except Australia (but one had lived there for a while). Having so many viewpoints surrounding me constantly challenged my own causing me to change some and reinforce others. Checking out of my dorm and closing my Catalunya Caixa account went smoothly, and while there are cheaper places to be found in nearby areas (I recommend Cerdanyola or San Cugat) I was very happy with both the dorm and my bank.
Before I left, my brother Jonathan came to visit, and we rented a car and went on a thirteen day, seven country Eurotrip. The trip was long, about the same distance as driving from coast to coast in the US. The first and last country we visited was predictably Spain. Here I was mostly in my element and was able to navigate us to where we needed to go to rent a car and show Jon around a bit. I even managed to play translator when my roommate chatted with us about the basic American topics like guns and the wars in the middle east. We started our journey with no cellphones that worked outside of Spain and no data plans. We used, and I highly recommend, the offline map called GPS nav & maps. It cost about $5.99 for the app and the map of Europe.
Our second country was Andorra, the sixth smallest nation in Europe. It was pretty, mountainous, and small. We really only stopped for breakfast and continued on.
Our third country was France. Here we visited Normandy and the point where Rudder stormed the shores with the aid of grappling hooks fired by rockets. We also visited a small vineyard and purchased some nice local wine. I was amazed at the number of windmills and nuclear power plants we passed here. One thing to consider when going through France by car is the tolls. They can run very expensive. I suggest googling how much they will cost and including that in your finances. Tolls easily cost us about 150-200 euros when all was said and done.
The fourth country we visited was Belgium. This is another country we were really just passing through, but it was beautiful and had nice food. One of my favorite memories abroad is being in a bar in Belgium watching a losing Belgian team score two points to win in the very last minutes. The reaction of the crowd was priceless.
The fifth country and our main goal was The Netherlands. Here we took the boat tour and learned a lot about the history and culture of Amsterdam. We also saw old windmills and ate local food.
After a quick pass through Germany for the autobahn and ?some delicious German food, we headed to our seventh country Switzerland. This turned out to be the absolute best part of our journey. Hiking in the swiss mountains was beautiful, I don?t think there is much out there that can compete with their snow capped mountains, multiple waterfalls, old buildings, and plentiful wildflowers.
Both the eurotrip and my study abroad were long, and at times stressful, but I wouldn’t trade the experiences, lessons, and friendships from either for the world. Thanks for reading.