My apologies that I have not updated my blog in well over month.
Since the last time I wrote, I've had my 'Springbreak' and since, I've become a 'world traveler'... well... kind of.
Over my break from school, I traveled to both London and Paris with my host father (he is a truck driver and had to drive there as his job... I just tagged along).
To get to London, we had to drive through the Netherlands, then go about 6 hours by ship to England, and then drive 2 hours or so to London.
My host father forgot to tell me I needed my passport however, I had brought it along anyway. The person who checked it in the Netherlands looked at it as if it was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen, apparently they don't often see Americans.
We had dinner and slept on the ship. I had to get up at about 5:45 in the morning for a small and fast breakfast and then all the trucks got ready to leave.... it was still very dark when we left the ship. When we unloaded, the passport control officer had to ask me a lot a questions about who I am and why I was with the person I was with. It was annoying however, I take comfort in the fact that they checked to make sure I wasn't there against my will and that it was safe for me to be with the person I was with.
When we got to London, we had to make the delivery and then we did some sight seeing for a few hours. I saw Buckingham Palace and many other important places.... I still don't know why they are important. I took some pictures and then my camera said the my memory was full which didn't make sense.... until I looked and found that I didn't have a memory card in my camera.... I went and bought some souvenirs and a new memory card.... that meant that we had to go back to all the places as before and retake all the pictures. After that, we had to leave for Belgium. We took a 1-2 hour ship ride to France and then drove 2 hours to Belgium where we slept in a hotel for the night.... everywhere else was closed so, I ate dry cereal for dinner.
I was in 5 countries in one 24 hour period: Germany, Netherlands, England, France, and Belgium.
The next day we made the deliveries and were back home by 9 at night.
The next week we drove to Paris. We got there really late and slept in the truck (he has a small living space with a fold out bunk bed).
The next day we made the delivery and then did some sight seeing. We had to take a train farther into Paris. We saw 'Notre Dame de Paris,' the very famous cathedral in Paris. From there we walked to the Eiffel Tower which was about 5 kilometers and lots of time away. It was a pain in the butt however, we saw many other Paris landmarks on the way.
Honestly, the Eiffel Tower is much larger than I had thought.
I bought some souvenirs and I heard many different languages throughout the day. There were tourists speaking German, English, French, Chinese.... and many other countries.
We then took the train back to where the truck was and drove straight through to Belgium.... it took about 4 hours. We arrived at about 8 at night and everything was already closed (it's common in Belgium so says my host father). We had dinner of German sausage cooked on a portable stove and then slept in the truck again. The next day we made deliveries and drove straight through home.
I have now been in 6 countries all for a somewhat significant amount of time and have eaten McDonald's in 5 of the 6 countries (we had a local burger in England).
I found Paris more interesting and I was able to see much more there... the weather was also much nicer when I was in Paris then when I was in London.
And now I know for certain that I will not be a truck driver. I found it boring to just sit there for hours and I developed some serious back pain from sitting for so long.
Still, it was an experience that no one else (or not many) have had and it gave me the opportunity to see what it's like in other places.
For pictures, check out my Facebook. I have enabled it so that friends of friends can see the Paris and London Albums. So, if you are friends with my parents but not me, you can still see the pics.
Now school has begun again and all is back to normal..... except that I have to ride a bike to school now (it's about 3.4 Kilometers according to Google maps).
According to my mother I have 67 days left before I am back on U.S. soil.
Love and greetings from Germany,
Madison Jeannine Wallace
