Day of TRAVEL

12 September Thursday 2013

On Thursday morning (in Orem), I woke up at 7am and left to the SLC Airport. My parents didn't want to leave me, I could tell, so they came in and checked me in and we sat on a bench till the last possible moment to send me upstairs through security. When I got to my gate to wait, I saw 5 other members of my study abroad program waiting! Tanner, Garrison, Kelsee, Lexi, and Klint. We boarded at 11:20 I think, and left right before a storm hit Salt Lake I think!! We flew for two and a half hours, and landed in Detroit for a three hour layover, where I got really lost looking for a Starbucks. But I found it, and that's what's important. We took off at like 5:20 Detroit time (2 hours later than SLC) and we flew about SIX hours to Amsterdam. I thought it was going to be more around 9 so that was a GREAT surprise. It was cool because when we took off in Detroit, the sun was setting over the city, and when we landed in Amsterdam, the sun was just rising (around 6AM). We had about an 8 hour layover there. We checked our bags in some lockers...that we had to pay in Euros for! It was super complicated. Then we ran out of there and bought a train ticket and rode into the city!!! IT WAS AMAZING!!! Here are some pictures from Amsterdam:

The Central train station. We just called it Grand Central Station. Haha. 

pigeons & cobblestones

cute pizza place, cute biking man.

bikes...everywhere!

Lexi, Garrison, Tanner, Stephanie, Kelsee, Klint

*waiting in line to go to the Anne Frank house

SO, in Amsterdam, we rode in and walked around the city. It was beautiful! Nothing like I could have imagined. The buildings are all so old and huge!! There was water everywhere...bridges like crazy. We walked to the Anne Frank home and took a tour through it which cost  10 Euro. It was worth it. I learned so much I didn't know about Anne Frank, and we got to walk in her freaking house! We got to go behind the secret bookcase door to where she hid. It was incredible. There were quotes posted up on the walls. There were original papers and pictures, including her ACTUAL JOURNAL. It was amazing. My feet were hurting like crazy though (that's for the feet pigeon picture...painful walking..not too bad though). We walked back. I bought some stroopwaffel? Haven't eaten it yet.

We got back to the airport three hours before our flight. It took us over an hour to find the lockers we put our luggage in hahahaha so good thing we had all those hours of being early. Somehow, we ran into a couple who was with us using the lockers earlier, and they told us where to go!! So lucky.  Then we flew an hour and half to VIENNA! I slept the whole time luckily! Before this I hadn't slept at ALL. On all three flights I sat between Kelsee and Klint. They are nice.

VIENNAAAAAA!!!!!!! FINALLY after 22 hours of travel!!

Some little girl met us at the airport, and took us to two taxis, who took us to our hotel in the inner city of Vienna.  It was SO cute and had the coolest windows, and everything was pink.

Austria from the plane

coooolest old fashioned elevators...turns out they are everywhere

We got settled, Stephanie, Kelsee and I shared a room with two beds. At 8:30 isn we met up with the rest of the group (finally got to see Haley!) and we walked a few blocks over to a Pizza place to eat. FINALLY FOOD. I was seriously dying ALL DAY!!! And on the plane on the last flight I missed the food cause I was sleeping! So bummed about that. I almost ate my whole pizza. Haley and I split two...one with ham, mushrooms, and artichokes, then one with chicken, peppers, and corn. They were both so good! I got sparking apple juice with it. So good. 

We went back to the hotel...it was pretty cold! And raining. The power went out for a few minutes..we later learned it was from Haley's mom who plugged in something without a converter. Haha. We all showered and went to bed! So exhausted!!