Mussels in Brussels!

Brian Nazzaro

4/29/16

Essay 3

Travel writing

Mussels in Brussels

    During my first and only spring break experience in college I traveled across Europe on a bus tour. “Bus2Alps” is the company that took me to 5 countries in 10 days! We started the tour in Florence, Italy then to Barcelona Spain, Paris France, Brussels Belgium, Amsterdam the Netherlands, and lastly Berlin Germany. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience. I can say that my favorite city was Barcelona because not really knowing anything at all about it, I was amazed by how beautiful the city really was. We spent two nights there after a long 18-hour bus ride from Florence, Italy. My second favorite city was Amsterdam, the Netherlands! Being an American I have heard many things about this colorful city, and I can honestly say that they are all true… and then some. The city and its people are very free, having legal weed in “coffee shops”, legal prostitution in the red light district, bike lanes going throughout the entire city. It was extremely different than any other city I have ever been to but I really like the idea of how free and legal everything is.

    A quote from our bus tour guides was “this is the week you will never, ever forget” is something that really rings true to me because I can honestly say I have never traveled, seen, and eaten so much new stuff in western Europe. Espically in Barcelona it was an extremely wealthy city with some beautiful architecture, it is a really old city but it made me want to stay longer than 2 days after being there and walking around. It really makes me want to stay here in Europe for a lot longer than 4 months. I hope to one day come back and live here again after seeing so much in my short time studying abroad, I really learned to understand that there is so much more than what I have seen and what we as Americans think of the world. I would recommend the Bus2Alps bus tour to any study abroad student I talk to because they really opened my eyes to what is out there in the world besides New England.

    Another great city we we traveled to was Brussels, Belgium. Ironically the bus group was not even there for a full 5 hours before we traveled to Amsterdam. We had no idea what was going to happen in this city in roughly three days after we first got off the bus. The terror attack by ISIS in the airport that killed many people but, when being in the city just before it happened I personally felt very blessed and happy I was not involved in any way shape or form! My parents were extremely nervous after they heard about the attack in Brussels knowing I was there during this same week. We never went near the airport while there since we were on a bus tour but we were walking around most of the central part of the city and went to a bar with over 2,000 kinds of beers. The bar was called delrium and the menu looked similar to the holy bible, expect filled with beer. A pretty breath taking view if I say so myself.

    I was very happy to go on such an amazing spring break tour and meet many European people who I spoke with for a very long time and hopefully continue for an even longer time with the help of the Internet. Being able to exchange words and ideas with all these people I could never dream of meeting without being abroad in Europe studying with Plymouth State, I could not have done it without my parents help. All I know is I will be back in Europe one day, maybe even as a citizen instead of on a student study visa.