College, Work, And Pretending To Be An Adult

Europe was amazing, but unfortunately that wonderful thing had to come to a sad end. And then began the rest of my life...pretty much. 

I started college last week. But don't get all excited, I am only in two classes. And since I know you are dying to ask, it's a math class and an institute class. Math stinks, but my teacher is pretty awesome. She has this really awesome Russian accent and explains things well. It's my institute class that I have been excited for for, well, ever since I registered for it. I go to math four times a week for 50 minutes, which only left one day for institute. Lucky for me, there happened to be a class on my only free day. So there you have it, my college update. Now I can just point people to my blog instead of repeating myself ten times a day. ;)

Not only did I start school last week Wednesday, but I also had my first day of my new job. My very first job. Unless you count babysitting, then I've had a lot of work experience. I work at a nursing home, and I really like it. I work full time, Tuesday through Saturday from 2-10pm. It's exhausting. ;) So far I've averaged walking about 5 miles each day at work. And since I know you are dying to know, I'll tell you what I do there. I am a CNA, so I feed people, get them ready for bed, transfer them from their bed to their wheelchair and to the toilet and such, I change their briefs (adult diapers), get them things they need, and more. And for some strange reason I really do like it. 

Being back has made me have to pretend to be an adult. I've done my laundry, gone to my college class, got a job, had lunch with a friend like people do when they don't see them 24/7 at school, and I've filled out a bunch of paperwork for work that I have no idea what it means. Oh, and I cut my hair to donate it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. 

And don't worry, I still make to play my flute, read, exercise and spend time with my fantastic family.

GERMANY

Rothenburg. "A charming bit of Yesterday."  And it is totally true. I love this city. Like absolutely, no doubt about it, in love with this city. 

As unpleasant as our trip to Camp Dachau was, I wouldn't change it. It was such a learning a great experience. Walking around where it actually happened, knowing that innocent people died there was really hard but at the same time it is a good way to remember them and I feel that was one of the most important parts of our whole trip.

I loved walking around the city! I loved their streets and all the beautiful buildings! Like I really loved it! I could not keep a smile off my face that first night as we wandered the city. 

The first night, Megan and I went on the Night Watchman's Tour. It was awesome! And hilarious! There was the biggest crowd there that that guy had ever seen! We had to wiggle and gently push and run our way to the front every time he moved so we could hear. And one of the best parts was the way he talked! Our chaperone's husband did an absolutely perfect impersonation of it! I would highly recommend going on this tour if you ever find your self in Rothenburg.

The famous night watchman, who came to our concert!

The keys to get into our hotel rooms were super cool, they were actual skeleton keys! Fun story: On the day of the concert my roommate, who was in the choir, left our room to go to her concert before I got back from my concert, so I was locked out. Or was I? I used Megan's key, who's room was right next to ours. It took a little wiggling but I eventually unlocked ours with their key. Later that night, Megan's roommate had the key and was off doing something so Megan couldn't get into her room, so she tried our key. The reason her key worked for our room but not vice versa was because our key hold was bigger than theirs. Our key was too big to even fit in their, but their key was just small enough that we could still use it to get mine unlocked.

I thought our room key was so cool that I just had to take a picture

This concert was definitely one of the most fun. The people were super into it and we got several encores. The audience was super energetic and clapped a ton during our songs. And the town square where we were performing was COMPLETELY full! It was the biggest crowed they'd ever had for a performance! And then the choir performance was perfect, as usual! Another fun story: Megan, Bena and I brought our fans because we figured in a chapel with a ton of people it would be hot. And it was. Before the concert started we were sitting down and fanning ourselves when the girl next to me turns to us and asks us where we got our fans. She looked sad when we said Italy. ;)

There is a wall that goes around the city of Rothenburg that you can walk around. It's pretty awesome. The ground is pretty uneven and in some places it is really narrow, but it was still cool! We were walking on a place where people had fought from and protected their city, how cool is that! The stairs were terrifying though! They were step and not wide and just plain little. You could fall easily and break your neck!

This is inside the wall...well the part where we were walking on.

The last night of our trip we had a party. Each coach was supposed to come up with a skit about the trip to present on stage. Everyone's was HILARIOUS! Except ours. ;) Our coach went last too, so we got to see everyone else's and, at least I did, groan when you realize they are all funnier than ours. Don't get me wrong, I liked ours and it was cute and clever, it just wasn't the funniest. ;) We did a slideshow. We had a slide of London where we were all waiting for a taxi, a slide for Italy where there was a human gondola and people looking very hot, there was a slide about our iPod Idol games, a slide with all of us in it talking a selfie, a Paris slide with the Eiffel Tower, an Switzerland slide with a human ski lift, and a Germany slide with the night watchman impersonator. And, of course, as we left the stage our coach did our cheer of our blehs and euus.

Flight home. So so so sad. And holy moly was I ever tired! We had to wake up at 3 that day, and then just got a little nap on our way to the airport where we had to stay awake until our next flight. Our eight hour flight. I only took a little nap because I didn't want to be super horribly jet lagged if I could help it. I watched three movies on that flight. Unfortunately there were no movies on the next flight. Which was ten billion times harder to stay awake on. I wrote in my journal for a while on that flight, but then I was getting so tired that I wasn't making any sense. So Maddie and I played War the whole rest of the flight. It was hilarious! We were so tired that sometimes one of us would put down a card and then pick it back up without realizing that the other person didn't put any down. Or we would just grab both cards without thinking of who won. And then there was the time that I put a card down and literally a second later got really confused because I didn't realize that I had put that card down. It was pretty funny! And then going down the escalator at the Salt Lake Airport and seeing my parents waiting there for me was special! I missed them so much! They gave me a couple of balloons, one of which is still floating at my ceiling in my bedroom over a month later! 

I miss Europe and can't wait until I can one day go back! It was definitely the best 16 days of my life! I am so so so grateful to my parents for paying for it and I don't think I will ever be able to say thank you enough. Thank you Mom and Dad! I wish you guys could have been there with me! It was an AMAZING experience and everything that I learned there will definitely stay with me the rest of my life. I wish I was back in Europe! :) Thanks for  reading about my adventure! Go to Europe someday, it is incredible! 

LIECHTENSTEIN AUSTRIA ITALY

I know that three countries for one post might seem like a bit much, but two of those we spent less than a day in.

Liechtenstein. A small country with a population of 37,000. We went through this country on our way from Switzerland to Austria. I slept the whole way there, woke up for our one rest stop, and then slept the whole rest of the way out of the country. Hi Lichtenstein. Bye Lichtenstein. It was really that small!

All through Europe I had this thing where I counted all the dogs that I saw. Don't ask why, it's a long story. On our first night in Austria we saw a TON of dogs and I mentioned to my friends how I wished that I spoke German so that I could ask some of the people if I could pet their dog. So someone looked it up and I wrote it on my hand so that I could ask the next person I saw with a dog. I may or may not have chickened out for a little while but on our walk back to the hotel I decided to do it. Of course, the people who I chose to ask spoke English. But they spoke German too so we told them the story and they laughed. ;) One of the people in that group was from Sweden so she told us how to say it in her language and then we told her how to say it in ours. It was a great threshold experience! It was really funny too because she couldn't figure out how to put the "t" on the end of "pet". But those dogs were adorable and loved us!

Our concert was pretty fun. Except the audience was like dead. They would clap when we ended a song but they weren't into the music. I decided that was because it was sprinkling a little bit and they didn't like the weather instead of not liking our music. The cloud cover was nice while we were playing because then it wasn't horrible hot, but it was also frightening because it looked like it would start pouring rain any second and getting woodwind instruments wet ruins them. Thanks to prayers, it only started lightly sprinkling during our last three songs. But the second that everyone's instruments were put away it started pouring like no other! It was such a miracle! Although we did all have to help put the chairs away for a minute and then we all had to walk back to our hotels, which ours was about a 15 minute walk. So Megan and I and our chaperone walked in the rain getting drenched. And then, once we got back to our hotel, we decided to ditch our shoes in our room and go dancing in the rain. It was so so so much fun! It didn't last very long though. Literally. We were out there for about thirty seconds before the owner of the hotel told us to come in because the lightning was really close. But it was still a bunch of fun! Bena and I had a ton of fun taking pictures of the wet flowers and leaves too that were on our balcony.

I went into the bathroom one night to shower and I saw this huge spider on the door. And since we were a room full of girls we all screamed and Bena threw her shoe at it but we couldn't tell if it was dead or not so we went and got our chaperones husband and got him to kill it for us. It was horrible! ;)

It took 5 hours to get to Venice. Where we had 5 hours before we had to make the 5 hour trip back to our hotels. But it was definitely a memorable day! The boat ride to get across the Adriatic Sea was absolutely awful! Those boats were not meant for people who get motion sick. I literally had to sit and pray the entire half hour so I wouldn't throw up! Venice was hot. Like really, super duper, mega hot. We had our little tour around the city very first so we couldn't go get fans or ice cream or anything to cool us off. It was miserable! After eating gelato to cool us down, Megan and I and another friend went in search of our fans. And after walking around the entire square and buying a few other things, we found the perfect ones. Mine is blue, bet you would have never guessed that. ;) After we got our fans we ran into some other UAM people, there were over three hundred of us all dressed the same so it was hard not to, who told us to go eat from this super delicious gelato place and since we were so so hot we decided to. It was AMAZING! And way better than the first place we went to! It definitely helped us cool down! Unfortunately, after having 300 teenagers spend hours in a hot, humid city where we were just walking around, we stunk really bad. Thank goodness one of our chaperones thought to bring a Febreze bottle onto the coach and sprayed us all as we got on. It helped. A little. But the next morning when you walked on the bus it was like a massive wave of stench.

In Venice, we also got to go to this place and watch how they do glass blowing. It was soo cool! And then we went into another room and they showed us all the stuff they make and just how awesome it all is. Some of the glasses would just roll back up when you pushed them over, and some changed color under certain light. Did I mention how ultra expensive they were? Well, they were like an arm and a leg just for one glass. But they were so pretty!

SWITZERLAND

Switzerland is basically the perfect country. I'd be lying if I said that every time I look at our beloved Utah mountains I didn't think of the Alps and wish I was still there.

Before I went on this trip I was talking to my band teacher, who also went on it, and he was telling Megan and me this one awesome thing to do in Switzerland that we just had to do. So we did it. And it was AMAZING! We took this ski lift thing up to the top of a mountain and you had this absolutely gorgeous panoramic view. I can't even begin to describe the beauty of it! I'm pretty sure that at least half of all my pictures from this country were taken that morning.

That may or may not be my finger ruining my favorite picture

Who could forget the legendary party on the last night in Switzerland! Definitely a night I will always remember! My favorite part of the night was definitely getting kissed. By FIVE guys. Don't worry, it was only on the cheek. At the party they always have a cheese fondue and the tradition is that if you drop your bread in the cheese then you have to go around on your table and kiss all the people of the opposite gender on the cheek. And these tables are huge! There were 30 something girls on our table and only about 7 guys. Luckily I'm lactose intolerant and so I didn't eat any bread or cheese but I was considering pretending to drop my bread anyway. ;) After we ate, some Swiss people danced for us and played music. And there were these two sisters who were in their upper 80's who played the accordions for us, and then one of them played a bicycle pump, and then later used a whisk and a box to make more music. It was so much fun!

The Matterhorn at Disneyland has nothing on the real thing! It was huge and so pretty! While we were up there Megan and I stopped at this cute little bakery and ordered some soft pretzels to eat when we were at the top of the mountain thing to see the Matterhorn. Those were the absolute best soft pretzels I have ever had! They were amazing! In fact, we liked them so much that we went back and got another one to eat for dinner! I don't think any other one I ever get will be as good.

The people of Switzerland are amazing also! They are so kind and beautiful and lovely. Megan and I were walking back from the little grocery store they had there and there was this guy walking his dog. Naturally we were staring at the cute thing as we walked past and gushing over him from a few feet away when the guy turned to us and asked, in English, if we wanted to pet his dog. It was the sweetest thing! He barely spoke English and didn't understand us at first when we asked him the dog's name and we had to repeat it, but his name was Barney. I loved petting that dog so much, it reminded me of my dogs.

Did I mention that I got to go inside of a castle!? It was soo cool! It was super old so no one lives there anymore but it was still fun!

I just can't get over all the beauty in Switzerland! It was so gorgeous I can't even begin to tell you about it. I can't wait until I can one day go back. I so wish I could live there, but unfortunately for me you can't live there unless you have Swiss blood. :'( It's gorgeous, stunning, astonishing, and every other word possible to describe it and more! I loved loved loved Switzerland!

PARIS

Ah Paris, the city of love! Don't worry, I didn't come home with any French boyfriends. ;) Probably my least favorite city, but I am still missing it!

I'm pretty sure you can't go to Paris, without going up the famous Eiffel Tower. The tower was at first meant to be for some huge celebration thing but important history stuff happened and it's still standing today. It was like 660 something steps just to get to the second level and my legs were dying when we got there. The view was gorgeous though and it was totally worth it!

We took selfies everywhere!

View from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower

Basically Megan is my best friend and it's the two of us in all my pictures

I was only slightly disappointed when no boys would come

Did I mention that Megan and I got a selfie with Mona Lisa? That was pretty much the only thing we did in the Louvre, except almost die from heat exhaustion because it was a billion and a half degrees in there! And I would say that the line for the Mona Lisa was crazy, but that's not true. It was absolute chaos and there was absolutely no line, just one huge mass of sticky, hot, tall people.

Super bad quality because it was taken on an old iPod

Cathedrals. I love them. They are gorgeous and I especially love it when the choir got to sing in them! Megan and I got these crepes after we went through the cathedral and were just sitting on a wall people watching after. It was one of the best parts of the trip! Since all 300+ of the UAM people were wearing the same shirt some people recognized us. While we were people watching there was this one guy who was riding his bike down the street and he nodded at  us and waved, and then there was this lady who recognized the shirts and asked us when the choir was singing. Unfortunately we had to tell her we weren't, but it was lovely to know that she wanted to come! And then there were these two old dudes who came to talk to us as we were leaning against a gate. They asked us questions on where we had been and were going and such and then the one started telling us this story about one of the statues of the cathedral. A little after he started his story two adults from our coach came and stood by us reading a sign that was near us. And then another lady from UAM stopped and talked to them. By that time the guy that wasn't telling the story told the other guy they should go before we thought they were weird, to which the other guy responded that he was weird! Once they were gone the three ladies came and talked to us and told them they didn't feel comfortable leaving us alone with those old dudes, and it was so sweet to know that they were looking out for us! I felt like we had a little family within our coach already. (Hopefully you understood that story. If not, just know that I know what it means and that's all that matters ;) )

Notre Dame Cathedral

Who knew that the crepes that are sold in Jordan Commons (sorry for you who don't understand this because you aren't from the best city in Utah) were so un-delicious. All I had were plain sugar crepes, and I thought I was going to die because France knows how to make crepes. Just close your eyes and imagine the most perfect crepe. Now add about ten times that amount of perfection and you have the crepe I ate. And it was from this cute little crepe shop on the corner of a street. This shop was so little that you just ordered outside and there was no place to go in and sit down. And you had to be pressed against the wall because cars decided to go down that tiny little street. 

Apparently there is such a thing as the most popular street in the world. I had no idea, and I still have no idea what it's called. But it was pretty cool! We had to go under the street to cross it.....And as females, Megan and I couldn't pass up a sale! We ended up going into Gap and each buying a shirt. Megan's at least had the word Paris on it, mine didn't. ;)

This is apparently the most famous street in the world that we are looking at.