This trip started off on a rough note, as the Nashvillians were about two hours late for the rendezvous at JFK. But I broke off from my classmates and joined my group. I did not know it at first, but everyone in this group would share lasting memories with me. We arrived at Charles de Gaulle and took a bus to the Paris, France Hotel. The next few days were spent traversing Paris; highlights included visiting Sacre Coeure, L'Arc de Triomphe, Tour Eiffel, Musee de Louvre, and Versailles. For the last day of orientation in Paris, our group visited Versailles. We made our way through nearly the entire main house, but we were continuously distracted and upset by a repulsive modern art exhibit that had works ranging from a fluffy pink helicopter to a bejeweled octopus. However, after we finished up in the house, our group spent the rest the afternoon relaxing in the gardens, where we ran into several members from the photography group. We woke up early to catch the TGV leaving from Paris to Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
We arrived in Saint-Jean in the afternoon of the 1st of July. I met my family, and I settled in very quickly and became accepted as part of the family. My family and I spent most days going to the beach when we weren’t meeting up with the group. As a part of the home stay portion of the trip in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, our group got together with other siblings of home stay families usually once every day or two for picnics, scavenger hunts, hikes, and other activities. This picture was taken from the top of a hill on one of our hikes where we walked from the Arbonne area back to the main town of Saint-Jean. The town hosted many festivals such as the famous Fête du Thon. My family helped me understand much more about the Pays Basque region, a region trying to become its own country separate from France or Spain.
In the last week of our home stay, we left our families for a two day trip to the city of Bilbao, Spain. The first day was spent getting there, sightseeing, and a scavenger hunt. But for dinner that night we ran into one of the best tapas restaurants in town, after getting severely lost for an hour. The next day was spent mostly at the Guggenheim, which this picture is of. We made our way through every exhibit of Frank Gehry’s unusually crafted museum. We returned home after the museum visit.
After the home stay portion of the trip, we moved on to the trek and travel, the first of destinations being a lodge in Auberge in the Pyrenees Mountains. The first day was spent canyoning led by our fearless leader, Bruno, as we rappelled down waterfalls. The next day we went on an eight hour hike crossing over two mountains to get to a lake where we had a picnic. On the last day we hiked to a road that the Tour de France was going through that day and camped out for several hours. We met some nice Australians. We had a picnic and then made our way over to the road to watch the cyclists speed past us on the downhill portion of the race. We hiked back to our lodge and left for Collioure the next morning.
After a very miserable bus ride through the Pyrenees and a stop in the small country of Andorra, our group made it to the second stage of our trek and travel: the small beach town of Collioure. We spent some time trying to find our hotel, which ended up being two separate buildings, but our patience was rewarded with a magnificent swim in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. That night we found an amazing tapas restaurant and stuffed our faces. The next two days were spent shopping, eating, swimming, and seeing whatever else there was to see around town.
Although it was painful to say goodbye to Collioure, we felt very comfortable as well in Barcelona, Spain. The first day was spent doing a mini scavenger hunt, doing our laundry for the first time in a while, and seeing the city. The next day after a rather late morning, we took the metro to a Gaudi designed park that overlooked the city (see picture above). That afternoon we practically traversed the entire city, walking from the park to the beach. Though crowded with tourists, it was a beautiful place to picnic, swim, and get some R&R. The rest of our stay in Barcelona we immersed ourselves in Catalonian culture and even started to pick up on the unique Catalonian language.
We flew to CDG airport from the Barcelona airport on the 24th for our last night in Paris. We attempted to see the photography groups’ exhibitions, but we got lost along the way but we gave up and returned to the hotel. For dinner we took a Bateau Mouche along the Seine River and were served a four course dinner. It was very painful to say goodbye to people that I had spent everyday of the last month with and even harder to leave the countries that have been a home away from home, only much better.
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