Euro Trip 2017

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Sameera and I outside of Buckingham Palace in London, England 

A few days ago, I returned from an almost two week long multi-country trip to Europe. It was absolutely life-changing. Definitely one of the top three greatest experiences of my 23 years of life. 

But before I tell you all about that, let’s rewind to my college days. When I first started school at the University of Tampa, I just knew that I wanted to study abroad… It was always my dream. Spoiler alert: It never happened. A whole bunch of issues prevented it… Procrastination, too expensive, not enough time. Excuses, excuses.

Fast forward to present day 2017. My niece, Sameera is approximately 2 years and 3 months younger than me. We’re extremely close. We kind of grew up more like siblings instead of aunt/niece. Sameera is currently a junior studying public relations and Spanish at the University of Southern California and this semester she had the opportunity to study abroad in Madrid, Spain. It’s such an amazing opportunity for her to be immersed in the culture and perfect her Spanish skills… BUT also a great opportunity for me to visit. *evil grin*

I knew that I really wanted to go visit Sameera in Spain but I just had to figure out how to make it happen. Would it be ridiculously expensive? Could I take the time off from work? Where would I stay?

I spent hours upon hours doing my research and shopping around for the cheapest plane tickets and places to stay. (Links to those posts will be included later) Sameera and I decided that the best time for me to visit would be during her spring break when she had a week off of school. This was actually perfect because it also coincided with her 21st birthday as well. And for me, this worked out well because at the beginning of the year, I had the opportunity to “purchase” 40 additional PTO hours. So I had the time, I saved the money, and I was ready to go!

Saving the money was actually the easy part. I have always been an excellent money manager so that was no problem at all. I get paid a pretty decent amount biweekly and I have no one to support but myself. No kids, no really expensive bills, just me. I’m in the process of saving to buy a car so I already save about 60% of each of my paychecks. So I was pretty much good to go.

Planning this trip was an adventure of its own. Madrid is six hours ahead so the best time for Sameera and I to talk is in the middle of my day. And what am I usually doing in the middle of the day? Working. So we tried the best we could to separately come up with ideas and then we would get together and discuss when we had time.

We decided that I would fly to Madrid to meet her and explore the city for a few days then we would embark on our journey across Europe together from there. We’ve both always wanted to go to London and Paris and they’re just a short plane ride away from Madrid and a train ride away from each other so the decision was pretty easy.

We set our dates and divided the responsibilities. I booked the AirBNBs and Sameera booked the transportation. We both compiled lists of things we wanted to do in each city so that we could have some sort of plan. We spent months counting down the days sending each other Pinterest boards and links to fun sights and activities. I’ll be separating the posts by city so you can see what kind of shenanigans we got into in Madrid, London, and Paris.

I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to let these two crazy girls explore Europe on their own, but we did it. We got lost a few times and sometimes the internet connection was a little wonky, but we eventually found our way. I was confidently wrong with all of my directions. I may have been wrong, but there was no turning back. No shame in my game. (LOL) 


We both ended up saying to each other “I wouldn’t have wanted to go on this trip with anyone else.” And it’s so true. We know each other very well and we have similar interests so there weren’t any issues with finding things to do or where to go. We honestly had an amazing time and I know we’ll be talking about it for years to come. We’re already planning our next adventure together. 

 -A.

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