My second international trip came in my last year of high school. I'd been studying modern history for the past two years and had been looking forward to doing so since I was young. One day, a friend of mine who was in my history class asked why our school didn't run their old European History Tour anymore. Two weeks later forms were sent out and six months later we were all on a plane to Paris.
Being a history tour, we focused on World War One and then World War Two. We saw major battlefields in North-West France and Belgium, Concentration Camps in Germany, many a museum, many cemeteries and many tourist places. We hit up The Eiffel Tower, The Arc de Triomph, The Reichstag, The D-Day Beaches, Paschendale and more. I saw lots of beautiful places with sad tales behind them and visited more Starbucks than I can count. I wasn't impressed by the food (probably due to the fact that we travelled on a budget), but really enjoyed using new languages; French, Dutch, Flemish and German.
This trip really put history into perspective for me and made me feel emotions that I never had before.
This trip inspired me to see more of Belgium, to put HOLLAND on my bucket list, to see AUSCHWITZ (I know, depressing, right?), and someday be fluent in dutch!
Happy travels,
Jaz xoxo
