Adventures Abroad With Jasmine Spring Break! - crescent.evansville.edu

Adventures Abroad with Jasmine Spring Break

A University of Evansville Student Experience at Harlaxton Manor

Finally, spring break! During spring break, I went to London to celebrate my birthday and then onto Paris. Friday on the way to London, I took the shuttle bus to town (Grantham) to catch the train straight to London. It took around an hour to get there. After getting off the train, I headed to the hotel I booked for the night. My friend and I both decide on a nice cheap hotel, but as soon as we got there, we did not like it. The hotel was not a hotel at all. Their online pictures did not match at all what it looked like. Also, it was in a bad neighbor.

After looking and seeing how bad it looked, we just decide to get a new hotel while in London. Finally, after a long day of traveling and then searching and getting to the new hotel we were tired and hungry. We grabbed dinner at Ciao Bella! Italian Restaurant and had pizzas for the night. After dinner, we went to a local pub. Then went back to our hotel for the night.

Saturday, next day, in London. We slept in and did not go out until noon because we had a big night planned for my birthday. That afternoon, we just walked around London gift shopping and roaming the streets. That night around 7:30, we went to The Cauldron which is a Harry Potter themed bar to celebrate my twenty-first birthday! Then got back to our room around eleven o’clock and packed our bags for tomorrows trip, Paris!

It’s Sunday! Its time to leave London and head to Paris! My friend and I took the Eurostar from London to Pairs. The Eurostar is a train that goes through a tunnel under water to France. The Eurostar took about an hour and a half from London and took us straight into Paris. When arriving at the Eurostar’s train station, we were lost and confused. When exiting the train there is no WIFI in the station to look up direction and no one spoke English to help us. We literally spent an hour in the train station asking for help and no one (not even the employees) spoke English. After that hour we finally got on the taxi line to take us to our hotel. Which was a bad idea because then we got scammed. After giving us our ride and telling us the places while we passed them, he said that would be one hundred and thirty-six euros. Which was crazy! He locked us in until we paid. So, we paid him, and he gave us our stuff back, went into the hotel checked in. We were in a bad mood for the rest of the night. Our hotel is only ten minutes away from the Eiffel Tower.

After cooling down in the hotel, we finally went out to go to the Pharmacy to get our “green card” which are covid passes that says we are fully vaccine and allowed to go into places. Then we just walked around Paris and took some dawn pictures of the Eiffel Tower and had dinner at Alfio Italian Restaurant and then back to the hotel

Monday! Our day exploring Paris. First, we made our way to The Louvre, Notre Dame, and did a little souvenir shopping for everyone back home. Then went back to our hotel and dropped everything off and rested for a little bit. Before heading back out and exploring Paris. Heading back out, we went to a big mall called Beaugrenelle then saw Paris’s statue of Liberate. Went to dinner at the Café Beaujolais and had escargot (snails) for the first time…they were okay, tasted like seaweed. Then it was finally time to go to the Eiffel Tower and go up.

The Eiffel Tower and view of the city is beautiful at night. After the Eiffel Tower, we went back to our hotel for the night. Tuesday, we got up and packed up all our belongings and head to Troyes, France. So, my friend can go see family. We arrived in Troyes around five o’clock with greetings from her family. They were so nice and welcoming to us. Her family spent the night showing us around Troyes that night.

Troyes is mostly made up of Gothic buildings, it was beautiful. Her family took us to a French pub with German food for us to try. The German food was smothered in gravy. Then we went back to her family’s house and went to sleep.

Wednesday! Her family set up a beautiful French breakfast that was amazing and delicious. Then it was time to get back to Grantham. We went from Troyes to Paris by train, then Paris to London on the Eurostar, finally London to Grantham on train. Then to get back to the manor we took an actual taxi back to Harlaxton. That trip took the whole day to get back and was very exhausting. For the rest of spring break, I just took time and got lots of rest.

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