The European Summer

It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog post, so let me excuse myself and say that the summer holidays have been incredibly hectic and my literary skills have escaped me and I feel icky at the thought of having to sit down in front of my laptop and write.

That’s the thing about being- or more fittingly, wanting to be a writer. Sometimes you just kind of underestimate your ability and you spiral down into a deep pit of self-loath with a pinch of laziness added on top. The thought of writing just brings a wave of anxiety and you just kind of put it off because you know it’s not going to be a pleasant experience…

But alas, here is a blog post- I’m probably around 5 blog posts behind so this one might just be a big blundering mess as I drop all the European trips that I’ve been on avec mes parents two months ago. I hope that’s okay. I contemplated just skipping the European Trip blog post and just heading straight bang into the GLORIOUS “Norwegian Dream” post; mainly because after I came back from Norway, I felt so deep and meaningful and filled with pretentious strings of sentences… but now that a few days have passed by, my pretentiousness and deep-and-meaningfulness has dissipated so I guess I might as well just get this European Trip post over and done with.

Oh, but before I go on, please excuse the lacklustre writing that will no doubt occur during this post. And sorry for the photo spam- it’s my attempt to cover up my lack of posting during the past few months.

My parents arrived in Switzerland and I showed them around Lausanne and my university. The next few days I took them to Château de Chillon and then we walked along the lake to Montreux.

We went to Zurich and also Geneva- both of which looked pretty much the same to me aside from the fact that Geneva had the United Nations.

Our next destination was Rome, Italy. I don’t think my mum liked it very much- it’s not incredibly modern obviously but I enjoyed it nonetheless because history and ruins are pretty cool. I definitely had my fair share of lasagne and spaghetti.

We went on a train to Venice and we had to lug our luggage through all the stairs and bridges. Definitely not an ideal destination for big luggage and a short stay!

We flew to Berlin- probably my favourite destination on our European Trip avec mes parents. I think Berlin took me by surprise because I never yearned to visit Germany. I guess when you have no expectations about a particular destination it usually tends to surprise you in the best way.

It was definitely a huge contrast to Italy, that’s for sure. It was so super clean in Berlin and Germans are exceptionally nice and they have cute accents. I just loved the atmosphere in Berlin and the cool graffiti on the walls.

The next stop of the European tour was Paris. I went to Paris at the beginning of the year and I developed a prejudice because I had come to expect so much from the romanticised city but was sadly let down. Not to say that I don’t think Paris is amazing, but frankly it’s a little overrated.

Like I said before, when you go to a destination without any particular expectation, you’re more than likely to be surprised.

Nevertheless, it was nice to be there with my parents. We stayed at a really nice hotel which I highly recommend for any first-time tourist in Paris: 9Hotel Montparnasse. It’s located in a nicer arrondisement and if you’re a group of 3 to 4 people, I highly recommend catching a taxi rather than buying tickets for a hop-on hop-off tour bus. It’s cheaper and more convenient, although it might test your French speaking skills a little bit because as we all know, the French can be a little bit rude towards non-French speakers.

London was a bit of a letdown for me. The hotel we stayed at was subpar and M was sick so he was out for two days. Although, the day that he did go out, one of his YouTube viewers recognized him on the street and they had a cute little conversation, so that was pretty cool!

It was pretty weird being in England because it’s the first English speaking country I had been to this year and of course, it’s known as the mother land for Australia.

There were so many similarities, yet it was really different. The shopping was excellent though.

I will always have a soft spot for Stockholm.

For me, Stockholm encapsulates all the quirks of Europe and more specifically, Scandinavia. I love it, mainly because it’s a big city but it’s so quiet.

It’s nothing that you can really experience in a big city like Sydney unless you’re out on the streets at 3am on a Wednesday.

We also headed up to M’s hometown and our parents met for the first time which was for me, a little awkward but they got along very well! We did a little road trip to Storforsen to see the amazing rapids.

I kind of came to an almost-conclusion that I would love to have my wedding there, simply because it’s amongst the magnificent Scandinavian nature and also because it’s generally a beautiful place. Of course, that’s going to be a long way away!

Anyway, my parents went back to Australia and I’ve been spending the majority of the summer in Sweden (aside from the glorious two weeks that I spent in Norway). I booked a flight back to Switzerland just before I start classes again (boohoo!) but I’ve been kind of worried because I have a 55 minute layover in Stockholm Arlanda and I have no idea if that’s enough time for me to get from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5, especially with security etc. Fingers crossed I guess!

I guess that’s the end of this post, keep your eyes peeled for my next blog post where I’ll be recounting the adventures of the Norwegian Dream. Here’s a sneaky picture:

Hopefully I can dig deep and find that deep and meaningful pretentiousness in order to express and portray how amazing Norway is.

Here’s part one of my European summer vlog:

More later.

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Norway, my happy place

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The hectic hike in Creux-du-Van, Switzerland