Day 4---Madrid

Day 4>Madrid. EPIC DAY. Woke up. Took a free three hour tour of madrid, had a huge and amazing and cheap lunch (we may or may not have tried pig ears, but definitely had some good tapas, paella and sangria) with some cool aussies and canadians, took a siesta in el Parque Retiro, then toured the Prado Museum with our 2 new Polish friends, made it over to the 2nd largest bullfighting rink in the world to get "snuck in" to watch a bullfight in which the awesome lady next to me kept trying to explain in Spanish (which fyi bullfighting is the weirdest and sickest thing ever....i dont know how people like it! but still glad we went), and now back at the hostel for a break before going to a one euro tapas bar. Spain is awesome. Barcelona tomorrow.....

Planning

Well Clara and I have finally gotten together and started planning. And it looks like the cities we will hit are:

(Drum roll please....)

London
Madrid
Barcelona
Nice
Cannes
Monaco
Genoa
Cinque Terre
Rome
Florence
Venice
Milan
Interlaken
Geneva
Munich
Berlin
Paris
London

Boom. That's a massive amount of Europe.

Graduation: Check.... Europe: WIP

Graduation weekend: Crazy! It flew by in a whirlwind. And although in the week leading up I was a bit sad about the 4 years coming to an end, the actual graduation ceremony got me pumped. We DID IT! We graduated! And walking through the arches felt so surreal but so, so satisfying. I earned my right to walk through the arches. I earned my right to say I AM AN ALUMNI OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA!

And now, yes, my friends are not just a quick drive down riverbend...or sitting right in the other room....or a phone call away from having dinner with...But really it doesn't matter. As Mike's toast says, "There are many kinds of ships: there are big ships, there are small ships, there are ships that sail the sea, but the best kinds of ships are friendships, because they'll forever be."

Although moments of graduating have been bittersweet, I really have never been sad about friends leaving. Because what I learned in Atlanta is that, the people you really care about never leave you--distance has no effect. The only sad part for me has been thinking of all the people I like smiling at on my way to class or having brief small talks with on the bus, that I probably won't talk to anymore.

But it's also really cool thinking about how it is going to wind up being crazy in the future when I do run into those people. And how next year there is this whole new door of new people that is going to opened to me to meet!

And how this summer I get to begin the next adventure in my life backpacking Europe....getting lost, meeting new people each day, just having the time of our lives.

One season ends, but the new one begins.

So goodbye undergrad.....hello future! And especially the near future adventures in Europe!

16 days!

Planning is Stressful

Okay, I say planning is stressful but technically we are not planning at all!

But not planning at all is actually stressful as well! Just because neither one of us have been there and we really have no idea what it will be like....

which is the most exciting part

but also the scariest part!

I freaked out a bit earlier today....but I am over it now.

1 Month Away!

 Exactly 1 month from today I will be blogging in London with my old friend Clara!!!!!!!!! The picture above is us back in high school at the beginning of one of our many adventures together. If I remember correctly this evening entailed traveling all over the Atlanta area, a scenic view of downtown Atlanta, some fun at a sketchy park, and a very interesting phone call to Psychic Tonya!

And now this summer we will be able to have even more adventures in even more exotic places!!!

This summer Clara and I will be backpacking Europe together! Our flight leaves June 1st (my birthday!) and will arrive in London on June 2nd! We will be wandering around Europe until July 7th!

For 5 weeks we will be living out of our backpacks! Our plans while we are there? Well that's the best part! We have no plans! Tentatively we are going to go to England, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany!

For security purposes I made a new email account to use in the internet cafes over there! My new email is kshriver16euro@gmail.com! So if you want to reach me send emails to that!

And we probably will not be checking email often so I decided the easiest way to update everyone will be to blog! And everyone can get updates here!!