The last hurrah (the end AND the beginning)

Yours truly couldn’t stay away from the blogging world for too long. Sincerest apologies to my loyal readers for my temporary time-out. The writing bug was causing a major itch. I decided it was time to scratch. So, last we left off, I was saying a bittersweet (but mostly bitter) goodbye to Sevilla to gallivant around Europe with my family. I would like to avoid belittling the amazing memories I made with my family in the most beautiful places. So, this brief (and extremely delayed) rundown of my post-Sevilla European adventure will serve as somewhat of a transition. This way it won’t be too much of a horrendous shock to your system when I begin telling you about my mundane daily life stateside. But okay, before I begin, I feel the need to add a disclaimer that my life (even stateside) can only be so mundane..you all should know by now I always have a story..and my stories tend to have a pop of flair to them. So, stick with me even though I’m no longer in exotic and foreign places; I promise I’ll try my best to make it worth your time.

Hangin with the baes on the 4th with a decent backdrop

Before you begin reading about my two weeks of travel throughout Europe with my family, I feel the need to defend my delay to the final travel blog post game. Coming back wasn’t a seamless transition. I’ve been busy catching up with everything, including my internship with the Chicago Reader (holla). While my internship is awesome, and seeing all my friends and family has been great, it’s not like I can flip a switch and pretend that my entire semester was just some amazing dream. Due to the dream-like reality I lived through, I lost a little of the motivation and excitement to do the real world stuff I’m used to. Don’t worry, I’m finding it! For the sake of ending this rant, let me just say, thank you Europe for the experience of a lifetime (though I will be back again during my lifetime)..even though you sent me back to the states with my head still in the clouds.

The first stop was Barcelona, and I loved it..again. Although, this time was not quite as magical..I didn’t see leopard man or seahorse farmer lady and Melissa wasn’t there. But I was reunited with my family so it’s a give and take. As I was lazy and waited too long to write this post, some of the details are unfortunately a bit hazy. I’ll ignore how devastating this is and explain some of the details I do remember. Our time in Barcelona involved a rude Airbnb host who blocked my brother on What’s App (so at the time this was annoying, but now it’s just pretty funny..okay it was a little funny at the time too). It also included a second hike up Park Guell hill (this time with parents in tow..props to the rents (and bros) for being young and nimble and making this sneaky lil hike to the top of the city for some of the most beautiful views in all of Spain..(note: “some of”..we were no longer in Sevilla).

Enjoying Park Guell with the endearing Pruim fam

Next up was a flight to Zurich, Switzerland where we met up with Swiss family friends and proceeded to gallivant through Munich, Salzburg, and Obersaxen together. Having friends host you in a foreign country makes the experience so much better. I had already been to (and loved) Munich, but Salzburg and Obersaxen especially were completely different than anything I had seen and absolutely, unbelievably breathtaking.

Just looking out at the alps/one of the most beautiful sights my eyes have ever been graced with

It’s hard for me to rank all the places I’ve traveled because they were all different and I had different experiences with different friends in each of these places. However, Obersaxen allowed me to hike (which I had not yet done during my semester of travels). And this hike lent itself to one of the most amazingly beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. I took pictures, but after a few I gave up because I just wanted to stare and rejoice and be part of the beauty. So, needless to say, despite refusing to rank the cities I’ve been, Obersaxen nears the top of the imaginary list.

I promise I didn’t find this on Google images

After finding the serenity in Obersaxen to continue with our trip, we were on our way to Italy. We started our tour of Italy in Cinque Terre (or should I say Cinque Terrific? Actually probably not because that’s a little nerdy..but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud of myself for coming up with that fun lil pun right there..and now I’m rhyming too. Rachel Pruim: Master of Wordplay). Tangents aside, Cinque Terre boasted a stunningly picturesque landscape as well, but in a different way. There were (MANY) more tourists, there was much more wine, and the hiking paths along the alps were swapped for hiking paths along the coast. The strenuous hiking, fine wine, and unmatched views landed Cinque Terre as my number one Italian destination.

Almost as soon as we arrived in Cinque Terre, we departed for Florence, and soon after Rome. Of course, both cities were beautiful and possessed an impressive amount of rich history and culture, but by this point the Pruim clan was pretty burnt out. We enjoyed the statue of David, the gourmet gelato, and the Vatican, but as our collective European adventure was coming to a close, we were (somewhat more) willing to accept the looming goodbye.

I realize my delayed narrative about Europe seems to be a desperate case of yearning for the past, but honestly I am just a horrendous procrastinator. Okay, maybe it’s a little bit of both. But as I leave for school in about a week and a half (!!!), let’s hope this procrastination diminishes just a touch. To wish it away completely would be akin to expecting horses to fly (pigs are overdone, I’m trying to add a little spice and variety to my figurative language skills). I digress. It has been a wonderful summer that consisted of performing exciting internship duties, bonding once again with friends, and discovering all the new and wonderful things Chicago has to offer.

So, let this post serve as a transition into what will be the chronicles of Rachel’s senior year. I feel disgusted that I said the S word just now, but let’s not dwell on it. Let’s instead be excited for the tear-jerking, laugh-inducing, thought-provoking posts coming your way. (But most likely none of the above now that I’ve oversold it).

Cheers,

Rachel