"Abroad like changes you"

From left to right: Me, Jaime and Liana!

The first time I saw Benito Skinner's video about going abroad, I absolutely (and shamelessly) died laughing. Me and two of my girlfriends were gearing up for our spring break trip to Europe, and the video just hilariously mocked our obnoxious excitement for the vacation.

Me feeding pigeons in Amsterdam,
of course.

So, I'll back up a bit. Europe. London. Manchester. Amsterdam. Gent. Bruges. Paris. And then back to London again. Yeah, that was and still is our plan! People either think we're totally crazy or encourage us; nothing in between. Nevertheless, seeing as we are on the second London portion of the trip and none of us have died yet, I think we are doing pretty alright, thanks to the million of touristy travel guides we looked up beforehand.

The classic Paris pic!

I will break down all the details of our trip in posts to follow, but I just wanted to share why we chose to do this trip over break. We all know each other through music classes at UF and for me, it's my last "big break" before I graduate. Of course, I/we wanted to do something worthwhile. We know a group of friends going on a cruise to the Bahamas and while that's great, it's not as exciting in my eyes. An open bar is fun for about one night, but that's pretty much it. You really don't get to see much of the world in the process. That's why Jaime, Liana and I picked Europe.

Me chilling by a random lamp
post outside of the Louvre.

It's definitely helpful to know people abroad if you want to travel around *especially* Europe. Luckily for us, Jaime has a dual citizenship in Belgium and her father knows so many people all over the EU countries. We were babied for the first part of our trip -- picked up from airports and fed delicious meals -- but now, we feel have become seasoned travelers! We safely navigated Paris alone and we found our way back to London (thanks, easyJet).

I'll be posting more to come, but for now, here are some pictures from our trip so far! Bonne nuit, mes amis!