The #TBT Series is coming from the fact that I have a bunch of old and older trip reports that are on another blog or I have just been too lazy to put up. Posts coming over from my other blog are going to be unedited, although I will be adding photos.
The first set of posts will be coming from August 2011, when I spent about a month in Europe. This was my first international trip without my family, and I was mainly writing the blog so my parents would know that I was ok. I will be combining posts by city, since many of my posts were quite short. Also, keep in mind I was 19 when I wrote this series of posts 
Day 5: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
August 8, 2011
Today was amazing. We got up and had breakfast and then met to go on a train ride to the top of the Jungfrau Mountain. The highest point accessible by road/train in Europe is 11,333 ft, and I was there! The train ride took about 2 hours, but for most of the way the scenery was gorgeous. The last bit was through a tunnel, so there wasn’t much to look at, but the company was great, as always. I mainly hung out with Kelly, Laura, and Laura today. We went to the observation deck, then to where you can play in the snow, had hot chocolate and lunch, and then to the ice palace. The ice palace was really cool. It was kind of a cave carved through the glacier. After that we went up to where the Swiss flag is on the mountain, I think it might be the highest point we could get to, but I’m not positive. A big thing to do is strip down to your underwear and get a picture with the flag, so Laura, Laura, and I got pictures in just our bras. We left our jeans on because it was so cold though. It was quite hilarious! After that we got back on the train down to the valley. We got off a stop before Lauterbrunnen though and did a little bit of shopping in that village, then walked down the rest of the way to the valley. It was sooo pretty! We got some awesome pictures and I also collected a few flowers. When we got back we just hung out and chatted until dinner. For dinner tonight we had cheese fondue and pork. It was pretty good! After dinner we all hung out more and just talked. A whole bunch of people went to the bar, but a small group and I just sat around talking some more. The bar was super expensive so we didn’t really want to go, but we had a ton of fun tonight! Tomorrow we are stopping by Pisa on our way to Florence, Italia!!
Day 6: Lauterbrunnen to Florence, Italy
August 9, 2011
Today was another drive day. We got up early and had our last breakfast in Switzerland and headed off. I sat next to Kelly on the bus again. It was a fairly uneventful bus ride. I stayed awake until we left Switzerland because the views were still amazing, but when we got to Italy it ended up being just a lot of farm land for a long while, so mostly everyone on the bus slept. We stopped for lunch along the way and had burritos (Mexican food in Italy? Alora.). When we got back on the road we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Then when that was over Kelly and I shared our tastes in music with each other. We made a pit stop in Pisa, just to get some pictures with the leaning tower. We were there for about 45 minutes. I did a few handstands and back handsprings on the grass outside of the tower, which was really fun! I also found a really cute floral dress! After that we were back on the road and only about an hour outside of Florence. We got to the camp and had about an hour before dinner. I brought my things to my room and then Kelly and I went exploring for a bit. We found this little deer farm or something that was right by the camp. For dinner we had pasta and pizza. The pizza was pretty good but I’d say that the pasta was just average. We are in the Chianti region of Italy, so we also had some Chianti. For dessert we had this strange lemon, raspberry, chocolate pastry type thing. It was alright. After dinner we went over to the bar to have a shot of limoncello – it is traditional for Italians to have a shot of it following meals to aid in digestion. It was reallyyy sweet, but pretty good. After that Kelly and I went exploring again. We found this guy singing at this restaurant up at the top of the camp, he was a pretty good singer! Kelly tried to teach me to cha-cha, but it didn’t work very well! I just got back to the cabin and took a shower and now I’m writing this. After my shower there was this HUGE SCARY ASS SPIDER IN THE BATHROOM though. I was legitimately freaking out. Laura (brown haired one) is my roommate and she is already asleep, so I was trying not to wake her up. I killed it with my shoe and tried to knock it in the toilet. It was connected to its web-y thing still though so when I tried to knock it down it looked like it was still alive. So scary. Now I am going to bed, and hopefully there aren’t any more spiders (or other bugs) in here!
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