9 Americans, 5 Countries, 8 days, 1 Ukrainian tour bus pt. 2

Our story continues where we left off, in the steaming hot tour bus on our way to Dresden, Germany!

These girls right here made this trip one of the greatest experiences ever! It could have been a pretty awful experience were it not for our constant jokes and laughs which got us through all the tears as well. :) I really feel like I have made some amazing, life long friends. Exploring these incredible countries with them was so fun! 

The day consisted of a whole bunch of standing around and listening to our Ukrainian tour guide.

We stood in here for a very long time. Good thing there were some pretty remarkable buildings and we were in good company, but I have absolutely no idea what they are or any history behind the buildings. 

Again, some more beautiful buildings that I have no idea what they are. 

Now I know what this is because of President Uchtdorf! The Lutheran church Frauenkirche. 

After we were finally freed of following our Ukrainian friends, we decided to go and look for this beauty here. It's a building we saw on pinterest. It's supposedly supposed to make noise/music when it is raining. When we left to find it, it was raining, but was only lightly sprinkling when we arrived. 

This was one of the coolest things for me! I loved these adorable buildings and have to live here one day! It's a pretty long wait list I hear, but I got on and will patiently wait my turn ;) 

We also did some shopping in Dresden. We went to the biggest mall you could ever imagine... It was huge! We found a store where literally everything was on sale and spent the next hour or so there. It was a good time :) 

Next onto Prague again!

We drove back to Prague that night and stayed in the same hotel as the night before. The next morning we woke up and were pumped to have the whole day to explore this beautiful city and to do it alone, just us girls! 

The first stop was of course the John Legend wall. We all had to get the picture... Or like 20. So yeah, sorry not sorry for all the pics of me in front of the wall! ;P 

Cute teacher Haley and Me

Peace and blessings. God bless America! 

We tryna be hipster. Tamarah and Emery have it figured out

We wrote our names on the wall. ILP Ukraine 2016

We enjoyed the whole day, walking around the city and square. We had read about these delicious desserts, again on pinterest, and had to try! Inside was chocolate and strawberries. The cone was cinnamon and nuts. It tasted as good as it looks. 

This is the cute little square we walked around for a while. We ate delicious hot dogs. It was grand

We went to the library and went through a tour there. It was so beautiful! We couldn't take pictures of the actual library, and we couldn't even walk inside. But it was remarkable! When they opened the doors, the lights slowly turned on and it lit up. It felt like I was in Beauty and the Beast. It was so cool! This rose reminded me of the movie too. 

This is the view from the top of the tower at the library. It was so beautiful up there! The stairs going up to this point were one of the scariest things ever! So tiny and creaky. But this view made it all so worth it. 

Our last stop on the journey was Polan. We stayed in this adorable little cottage-like hotel in the mountains on our way there. 

It felt like a ski resort in Utah! 

We drove to Auschwitz first. I knew that it was going to be hard walking through this place, but I never could have imagined it would be as hard as it actually was. Just walking around, my heart felt heavy. Just thinking about those that had to suffer through this terrible place. 

We had about an hour and a half to walk around. This was almost too long emotionally but was not nearly enough time to see it all. 

There is not much that I want to say about Auschwitz because it reminds me of the feelings I felt while being there. It was something that I'm glad I could do but not something I would probably ever want to do again. 

This is the gas chamber. Walking into this was probably the worst part of the whole thing. We were in there for only about a minute but I felt like I was suffocating. I had an awful feeling inside there, just imagining the pain of all those people that were blindly led in and killed. And to think that Christ suffered every pain of all of God's children... It's unimaginable pain. How grateful I am that my Savior suffered through that so that we can all return to live with Him and our Father. 

After Auschwitz, we were all very emotionally drained. We did have one more stop though before our journey back to Ukraine. We stopped in Krakow for only less than 3 hours. We all agreed that we just needed some real food and to sit. We had been eating snacks and sugar almost nonstop for the whole week. 

So these are the only pictures I took of the actual city. It was pretty but we didn't have long here and had no plans of where to go. So, we found a cute little restaurant and enjoyed a good meal there, with wifi. 

And that's the end! Well, we did still have a days journey back home on the dreaded bus. Getting back to Ukraine felt so good! To finally be back in a house that I have called home for the last 3 months. It was a great trip and I enjoyed feeling like a world traveler for the week. I think the next trip I take though will need to include sun, sand, and fresh coconuts :)  

9 Americans, 5 Countries, 8 days, 1 Ukrainian tour bus pt. 1

Once upon a time, there were 9 American English teachers teaching in Ukraine. They thought it would be a wonderful idea to travel Europe on a Russian tour bus. So, without second thoughts, they started their journey which would turn out to be eight of the best and worst days of their lives ;) 

Getting to the bus station to start our trip was an adventure. Cram all four of us, with our huge suitcases, on a metro with a bunch of Ukrainian citizens trying to get to work. Good thing we are so used to getting weird looks from these people! 

 Getting on the bus that day, I don't think that any of us knew what we were getting ourselves into. It was nine of us girls with about 9 other Ukrainian's. And of course, our 2 drivers and tour guide--Alexander. It started off that morning with excitement and all smiles. We were even given a round of applause for coming, because this trip would not have been possible without us. We had no idea this applause was intended for us until one of the school coordinators translated for us. That also about sums up the entire 8 day trip, all us girls having absolutely no idea what was going on while Alexander spoke Ukrainian day in and day out.

After driving for almost 24 hours, stopping at least every hour for bathroom breaks, border control, and simply so that our tour guide could yell at us to get back in the bus, we arrived in Budapest! Oh and did I mention, sleeping on that bus was awful! As Tamarah would put it, we basically melted all night. So getting to Budapest was wonderful! We walked around for awhile, getting the complete history of every square foot in Ukrainian. 

We did see some beautiful things along the way. Not to mention the amazing views! 

Just have no idea about what they are or the history of it all ;P 

All smiles to be off of that bus!

We probably stood here for about an hour. It was pretty cold!

We really just wanted to get to those pools everyone has been talking about! 

And here they are. It was strange changing into a suit when it was so freezing outside! But once we slipped into the heated pools, life was so good! Just being able to relax was so soothing. We tried the sauna as well, but most of us didn't last 2 minutes in there! It was hard to breath and way too hot. 

We changed back into our clothes and went off on our own, finally!  We went and explored a cool looking castle we passed along the way! This picture was taken as we were just leaving. 

Just chilling in a park, waiting for our bus to take us to our hotel. These girls are the best :) 

After going to the hotel, relaxing some more and getting ready, we hoped back on the bus to go take an evening boat ride along the Danube river. They served us juice instead of wine and we got to just sit and enjoy the beautiful buildings along the river! The entire boat trip, there was a woman speaking in Ukrainian again. We literally cannot catch a break... 

The next morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel and climbed back on the bus to travel to Vienna. The bright side was that this trip would not be nearly as long! We still got beyond our share of the tour guides voice. 

When we arrived, we explored again with the whole group. Again, we saw some beautiful buildings. 

This is the city hall. Sure beats ours back home...

Even their crosswalk lights are cute! 

After a lot of Russian and walking, we got some delicious food! If your wondering, yes that is an entire loaf of bread, that also has a bratwurst inside. And yes, we did eat the whole thing. It was delicious! 

After doing some more exploring on our own, visiting some churches, listening to organ music, and getting ice cream, we stumbled upon this cute little park. 

We sat on the grass, it finally being warm enough to do this, and played cards :) It was a great end to our day in Vienna. 

Next, we were in Prague! Even though the whole Euro trip great and every country was extraordinary, I think Prague was my favorite :) We walked around the old town first and made our way to new town. This view was incredible! 

We found this really strange manikin and had to pose like it.  

Walking across the beautiful bridge. 

Sudden urge--lookin like a fool. 

The astronomical clock. It was pretty cool :) 

Beautiful Gothic cathedral 

We had two days in Prague, but they threw Dresden in the middle of those two days. So I will come back to talking about the fun things we did in Prague, but for now its off to Dresden, Germany! 

Stay tuned for my second post about the last half of our trip!