Traveling will be one of the most fun things you will do while studying here in
Europe.  You will have so much more time on your hands then you do while studying in the
U.S.  My roommate Suzi and I decided that we were going to do one big trip and visit some of the main cities on our list of places we wanted to see.  So we planned a trip that would take us to London, Dublin, Madrid, and
Paris.  We searched all of the travel sites and found that RyanAir has the cheapest flights available.  We did learn a very important thing while we were leaving the country.  As an American student you really should not get a student visa.  One of the girls traveling with us is from Canada and she got a student visa before she came to
Germany and as we were leaving the country she found out that they had made a mistake with her visa and only allowed her entrance into the country once.  So as we were leaving the Immigration officer told her that she wasn’t going to be allowed back into the country unless she went to the German consulate in London or
Dublin and got a new visa.  When she went to the consulate she was told that she never needed a student visa and that her passport was more than enough for her to enter the country and remain there for at least three months.  So we all learned that Student Visas are completely unnecessary for American and Canadian students.

            The first stop in our trip was
London.  I have to say that it is one of my favorite cities.  We visited Big Ben,

Buckingham
Palace, and all of the other major landmarks.  If you really want to get a good view of
London you should visit the Eye of London.  It is the largest ferris wheel in the world.  You could see everything from the top.  But my favorite thing we did was see Wicked.  It was an amazing production.

            From London we traveled to
Dublin.  In
Dublin we made sure to take a tour of the Guinness Storehouse.  At the end of the tour you go up to the gravity bar where you can get a 360 degree view of
Dublin along with a free pint of Guinness.  But the coolest thing we did was go on a day tour of

Wicklow
National Park.  We got to see the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen.  It is also the park where they filmed P.S. I Love You and Braveheart.

            In
Madrid we went on a free tour of the city through the website NewEurope.com.  I would actually recommend that you take a look at this website if you are planning to travel anywhere in
Europe.  They offer free guided tours throughout most major European cities.  We also went on a pub crawl one of the nights and got to see
Madrid’s famous nightlife.

            From Madrid we went to
Paris.  This was my favorite city of the entire trip.  The buildings and landscaping of
Paris are the most Beautiful I have ever seen.  I honestly do not think there is a city that compares with it.  I was also very surprised because we were told numerous times that the French people would not be very friendly toward us since we were Americans but everyone we met was so sweet.  The very first day that we arrived in
Paris, we got lost trying to find our hotel.  We were able to find the general area where our hotel was located but not the building itself.  Two French guys saw that we looked lost and offered to help us find our hotel.  But
Paris is a city rich with history and there are dozens of amazing sights to be seen.  Of course we saw the main ones, the

Eiffel
Tower, and the Louvre, and several others.  My favorite thing was the boat tour we took at night.  I absolutely loved that city.  If you get the chance you should definitely visit it.