During my mid-twenties, I began devising a bucket list. On
top of that bucket list was a trip to Europe. I felt that I was not living
until I crossed off all of the items on my bucket list. Something was always
missing. Europe is seen as a beautiful place filled with magnificent
architecture, exotic food, and beautiful scenery. It has been a dream to me
that one day I would go and see the Colosseum, cathedrals, and castles
overseas. Needless to say, my mom, daughter, and I made that dream happen
earlier this summer.
Our trip consisted of visiting London, Zurich, Rome, and
Cologne. There were so many other places that I would have loved to see but
given the time frame of 2 and a half weeks, we could only visit a handful of
places. There were many ups and downs on the trip. Some places we loved more
than others. But the most important thing is that I no longer feel the need to
see Europe. As beautiful as Europe is; nothing compares to my hometown.
In London, we stayed at a very small bed and breakfast
place. There was hardly any room for us to move around. We took the “tube”
across town and almost got lost. The bed and breakfast offered us free
breakfast so I was really looking forward to that. I was disappointed to find
the food was very strange. They offered beans and hot dogs and bacon that
wasn’t even like the bacon we are used to. Even their yogurt was different. The
area we stayed at was nice and we were able to roam around and find shops and a
park. There was a pond and lots of birds at the park. Cassidy really needed to
go pee and we could not find a bathroom, so I let her pop a squat behind a
well. Luckily, nobody saw us. I’m not sure what the law says about peeing in
public. LOL!
Zurich was amazingly beautiful and extremely clean. I didn’t
see any litter on the streets or homeless people. Flowers were a common
decoration along homes in the city. The local swimming pool was much more than
just a pool. It was like a water park and it only costed 7 Franks to get in. We
took a tour bus out to Rhine Falls and went on a boat to get a closer look. It
was beyond amazing to feel the mist as the boat neared the falls. Everything in
Switzerland was expensive. We took a 10-minute cab ride that costed us 60
franks. We laughed when I told the cab driver to pull over only to find out
that our hotel was just around the corner.
The next day, we rode over to Lucerne and Engelberg. On the
way to Engelberg, we drove by the Swiss Alps. The land was filled with cows. I would
highly recommend visiting Engelberg for its endless beauty and the fact that it
is a small town (something that I am accustomed to).
The next part of our trip, we flew to Rome. In Rome, we
stayed at a Best Western Hotel that had a pool. The hotel offered paid shuttle
services to the Colosseum so we took advantage of that. There was a lot to see
in Rome. We visited the Colosseum, Ancient Rome, the Vatican Museums, and the
Sistine Chapel. All of the sites were beautiful. People sold things everywhere.
There were even people standing at stop lights to squeegee your windshields. I
could care less to go back to Rome. It just isn’t for me. Seeing it once is
enough.
After Rome, we flew to Cologne. Cologne was gorgeous. We
stayed at the Hyatt Regency hotel and it was fancy. Cassidy and I enjoyed the
indoor pool. We walked over the famous bridge that is covered in love locks. I
have never seen a bridge that was covered in locks from one end to the other.
All of the locks had names of couples and dates. One day, my mom, Cassidy and I
took a walk to explore the area and it started raining so we went into a dollar
store to see if we could find an umbrella. I needed to use the bathroom so I
went to the back and used the bathroom, only to be yelled at by one of the
workers. For all I know, she could have been cursing at me in German. Cassidy
ended up getting really sick while we were in Cologne. She had a fever for 5
days. We tried walking to a hospital only to be told we needed to go to a
children’s hospital. I was so frustrated. It ended up being a virus. I was
worried she may have a UTI or appendicitis because she kept complaining of
stomach pain. No fun to have a sick kid while traveling overseas. I was worried
that I would get a huge bill since my insurance wouldn’t cover overseas
healthcare.
One really neat thing about our visit in Cologne was that
the national football team was staying at the same hotel as us. Everyone was
standing around waiting for them to leave and we all got to take selfies and
some got autographs. It was pretty cool!
We ended our trip in London, but we were in Heathrow this
time. We did a whole lot of nothing in London. I was just exhausted at this
point. I also just wanted to go home, but it would cost $300 per person to
change our ticket, so we stuck it out.
The food was terrible in Europe. Everywhere we went all we
could find was bread. We wanted hot breakfast, but it was near impossible to
find that. In order to get meat, we had to go to McDonald’s. I also had to lug
around Cassidy’s stroller everywhere, and it was not one of those lightweight
cheap strollers. It was so tiring to go up and down stairs with it, but I just
could not travel without one. All-in-all, it was a good trip. It was definitely
worth going, but I think I will stay in the U.S. for further travel. Flying
10-20 hours is so tiring, that it took 3 days on each end of our trip to get
back our energy.
