Study Abroad at EM Strasbourg Business School : Last Minute Whirlwind European Adventures (Part Une)

Sorry it has been so long since I've written. The last couple of weeks have truly gone by so quickly. But I’ll catch you up with what I have been doing while I’m finishing up my time during this study abroad adventure.

First I went on a school trip called La route de Vines, it was a wine tour where students went to several vineyards and a gingerbread museum. It was fun to get to travel around the Alsace region. Since I have spent so much time traveling through Europe as a whole it was a good chance to visit more of France. The wine was fantastic ;)

Next I was able to go to this Gala thrown by EM Strasbourg. It was themed “One Night in Paris” I went to dinner with a group of Erasmus students before and went to the hall shortly after. It was very much like an American prom, except with a bar and a professional DJ. He was a famous French DJ by the name of Breakbot. But it did have professionals taking photos, along with girls taking their shoes off when they became too much too handle when dancing. Hundreds of kids went and it was so much fun. We danced all night, and it was a bit different than other events thrown by the school.

The next big trip I went on was to Portugal, Lisbon. It was to visit two of my close friends from the first semester here at EM. Joe went with me and it took a lot of traveling to get there. It was very exhausting. But still so much fun. We flew from Strasbourg to Porto, Lisbon. Then from there we took a train to Lisbon where Raquel picked us up at the station. Her choral group had just finished a concert a couple of hours ago. So they were all hanging out. So she drove us from the station straight to the restaurant they were all at. Once we walked in it was like a scene from a movie; they were all singing and playing instruments at the table. It was funny to experience, especially after traveling all day. We stayed there and had some traditional Portuguese food, then we walked around the city a little before we decided it was time to go back to Raquel’s house to get some sleep.

The next morning we woke up and went to the Belém Tower which is right on the water. It was early but it was still so hot out. It was so different than the weather I had been experiencing in Strasbourg in the days before. Once we finished there we went to have lunch at Raquel’s house with her family. It was an odd meal because her cousin and aunt could speak English, but her mom, dad and grandma could only speak Portuguese. This lead to a lot of laughs and translations. It was so nice getting to hang out with all of them. After our mean we were going to meet our other friend from Erasmus, Filipa, at the Rua Augusta Arch. We walked around a lot with her, catching up and seeing more of the city. It was so beautiful and so warm. Once it started getting late Filipa had to go home to finish some school work, so we went back to Raquel’s to eat dinner. We went out again to go shopping for a bit, before going to Raquel’s for the night.

The next day consisted of sad goodbyes and then a lot of traveling. Joe and I had an exam the next day, so we spent the train and plane ride studying.

Until Next Time

Your French Falcon,

Carly