May 28, 2008

Three days after graduating I got to go on the trip of a lifetime. With the team we visited some of the most well known cities in Europe and had a blast the whole two weeks. We started in London where we got to see the infamous Big Ben. We saw Big Ben so many times and took so many pictures of it that we all started to joke about the 87th and 569th time that we came across the big clock. A few of us also took the chance to go into Westminster Abbey and that was beautiful. One of the church workers recognized us, possibly because we were all wearing the same UNC jacket, and said he was going to be in Raleigh in the next few weeks. It's funny how many people we met from North Carolina or even the United States in general. We went to the flea market, Camden Market, to get souvenirs. I decided to get a snow globe in every city we went, so I picked that up there. The signature London dinner that we ate was, well, interesting. It was some form of meat pie I think. Essentially, McDonalds got a lot of business that night. But overall London was a lot of fun.

We played the London club team while we were there. The gym was interesting to say the least. Let's just say that we are very fortunate with the facilities that we have at UNC. We won the game by about 20 or 30 or something. I played my last 1:42 and then was able to officially retire as a Tar Heel! After the game we ate pizza and chips with the London team. The chips were quite interesting, steak and onion, roasted chicken, cheese and onion, bacon and onion, very different.

To get from London to Paris we took the Eurostar under the English Channel. Everyone was pretty tired so just about all of us slept the whole time. The Eurostar is just a train that goes under the water. I think they said that the average speed was about 200mph, so we were booking it.

We went to the Louvre Museum when we got to Paris. We had to do a quick tour and just hit the highlights because we were on a little bit of a time crunch. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa. I've never seen so many security precautions over a painting in my life. They had a special case for her, a special roped in area, and a special air-conditioning unit for her. She's quite the lady! I wish that we had more time to go through the Louvre because the artwork there was amazing. The detail in the pictures and the massive size of the prints was breathtaking. There were paintings the size of walls.

My favorite part of Paris though had to be the Eiffel Tower. I know that sounds so cliché, but it was amazing. We went up it the night of Monday May 16, but we got there too late to climb the stairs up. So, Meghan Walsh, our Athletic Trainer, and I decided to visit it the next morning so we could climb up the steps. We ran from our hotel to the Eiffel Tower and then climbed the stairs. When we got to the top of the stairs we were looking for the next flight because it didn't seem like we had climbed 720 steps. I'm glad that we climbed it because now I can say I climbed the Eiffel Tower! When we went up at night the view was amazing. We made it at a perfect time because the sun was beginning to set when we were at the 2nd tier and so we got an amazing view. Once we were at the top we could see for miles, the entire city of Paris. We also went on a river cruise down the Seine River. That was really pretty to see at night. We passed all the historic buildings with the old architecture. It was beautiful.

We also visited Notre Dame, walked down the Champs Elisee, passed the Centre de Pompidou, Versailles (which was beautiful and had the most amazing gardens ever) and ate enough crepes for a lifetime. For anyone who has never eaten a crepe, go to Paris and get one with Nutella and bananas. It's like heaven in the form of food!

We also played a game in France. This game was very physical and rough, but of course we won again. My favorite part of this game was our fans. I don't think the officials understood much English and so it was making things get a little out of hand. Our fans were amazing. They were rowdy and rambunctious. Sharon and Paula, the heads of the cheering section got everyone going. It was great to get to know all the fans that came with us and to really get an appreciation for them.

The only miserable part of the trip was the next part: driving ALL DAY in a bus from Paris to Lucerne. We left at 8am and got to Lucerne at about 8pm. That's quite the day of traveling. But the funniest part of the whole day to me was that once Alex and I got to our room and were getting ready to go to bed we hear this incredibly loud music. Apparently there is a night club directly underneath some of the rooms of the hotel. Personally I think that is really poor planning either by the night club or by the hotel. Anyways, Alex and I got a laugh out of that, a few days later of course.

Lucerne was by far my favorite city that we went to. Although our tour guide that was taking us around the city was a little bit long winded, I love the natural beauty of the city. Lucerne is a city that is around a gigantic lake and is surrounded by mountains. It is absolutely gorgeous. We visited the lion that is carved into stone, we crossed this amazing bridge that is made of wood and is beautiful, and Trinity, Liz (one of our amazing managers), and I met Rudi Giuliani. We were looking at one of the old churches and there he was! Small world don't you think. He was there to give some speech and was walking around enjoying the city. There are five towers up on one of the small hills in Lucerne that are all connected with a walkway. Trinity, Liz, and I climbed the towers that were opened (I think there were three open to walk up) and got a chance to look out over the city. It was awesome. I think as a whole our traveling party bought Switzerland out of chocolate, just about everyone came home with multiple bars.

My favorite day of the whole trip was when we were in Switzerland. We went to a town called Interlaken (meaning between two lakes) and had an adventurous day. First we took a train high in the mountains and had the option to hike around for a couple hours. Yoz, one of our tour guides, took some of us on a hike of a lifetime. We decided to go from one trail, through snow, mud, and cow manure, to another trail that we could see. It was quite an interesting journey filled with trips and falls, bumps and bruises, and snowy shoes. But it was all worth it because the view that we had from that mountain was absolutely breath taking. The girls kept saying that it didn't feel real, as if someone had photoshopped us onto a background on the computer. Some of the mountains were covered with snow while others had more green to them. It was amazing. After spending time high in the mountains we went back down and went on a rafting trip. That was so great fun. I think the best part of rafting might have been seeing the coaching staff, especially Coach Calder, in a wetsuit! We all split up into rafts of about 5-8 people and headed down the river. The water was FREEZING, and that might even be an understatement. Our guide told us it was 8 degrees Celsius, but that's understandable because the river is formed by the water melting from the glaciers in the mountains. I think just about everybody jumped into the river, voluntarily of course, and there were massive screams that could probably be heard all the way in North Carolina (that's how cold it was). I think Jessica and Liz were the only team members to actually fall in the river, but there were others that fell in as well. It was an amazing day, by far my favorite!

We played our final game of the trip in Switzerland. We ended up losing the game, but it showed some of the girls what they need to work on for next year. The trip was about getting to know each other better and to get ready for next year and I think that this game did just that. I'm confident that they will do just fine next year.

We then headed on our last long bus trip to our last destination, Germany. We stopped on the way to Munich at Dachau, one of the concentration camps used during WWII. Only 1/5th of the camp still exists today because when the camp was discovered and taken over the barracks were burned so that it couldn't be used for the same thing again. They actually rebuilt 2 of the living quarters so that people could see the living conditions. Today Dachau is used as a memorial to honor those who suffered through the interrogation and the hard times in concentration camps during Hitler's reign and also to be an eye-opening experience to people today to try to eliminate camps like this that still exist today. We were able to see the gas chambers and the furnaces where corpses were burned. It was a deepening experience and made me feel really appreciative of what I have in my life and how I have never had to overcome adversity anywhere near the extent of those individuals and the families of those individuals.

After Dachau we headed to Munich where we went on bus tour of the city. We stopped at King Ludwig's palace (there's about 4 King Ludwig's so I'm not really sure which one made this palace) and it was gigantic. I was thinking that if you slept in a different room every night it would take over a year to get through every room. The gardens here were nice, not as nice as Versailles, but they were pretty with the lakes and ponds. We also visited the castle that Walt Disney got his inspiration from when making Cinderella's Castle in Disney World, Neuschwanstein. The castle was beautiful and the artwork was amazing inside of it, but my favorite part of trip to the castle was the bridge that was behind it. There's a bridge that connects two parts of the mountain and overlooks the castle. From the bridge you could get the most amazing view of the castle with the rolling hills and small towns in the background. There was also an amazing waterfall that was on the opposite side of the bridge from the castle. The view was truly spectacular. We didn't have much time to walk around Munich, but I didn't have a problem with that because to me it was just a big city similar to New York (only everything was in German). Germany was nice and we finally got some beautiful weather while we were there.

I was sad to see the trip come to an end and at our farewell dinner everyone was together for one last time before heading to the airport in the morning. I was glad they saved our best meal for last, the apple streusel that we had was AMAZING! Coach Hatchell opened up the floor for gag-awards and of course, I got the "I only eat chicken award" because at every meal I had to get a separate thing because I basically really do only eat chicken! But that was fun to joke around a bit before we left. I had an amazing time with my teammates, the staff, and everyone traveling with us. I couldn't think of a better way to end my career and time at UNC!