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June 6, 2012

Republished from their personal blog with permission from the authors, we’re going to catch up with Gamecock volleyball student-athletes Cara Howley and Lindsey Craft during their trip to Spain as part of their international business program. Content may be edited from its original form. These were originally posted on June 3.

After spending a week in Belgium with Juliette and her family, we are packing up and getting ready to leave in the morning for home. Juliette has taken us all around Belgium and France in only four days! Our tour guide showed us Mons, Brussels and Paris. Thank God we had her with us, because Lindsey and I cannot speak a lick of French. Any time people have spoken to us while we’ve been here, we just look dumb and then turn to Jules for help!

When we arrived on Wednesday, we got to see where Juliette grew up playing volleyball and learned all of her skills. Lindsey and I kissed the floor in hopes that we too will one day play like Juliette (We will see how that works out for us)! We then proceeded to go to a barbecue. It has been really fun meeting all of Juliette’s family and see her in her element here in Belgium.

Day two was spent shopping and eating in Mons with Juliette and her stepmom. We got to see a beautiful Belgian church and try real French bread sandwiches! Then we came home and had a delicious dinner of couscous, chicken and vegetables. The next day, the three of us caught a train into Brussels and had another day of sight-seeing and shopping. We had fun walking in and out of chocolate stores in search of free samples! We of course bought lots of Belgian chocolate for our families (but realistically for ourselves)!

Yesterday was our most eventful day by far, as we spent it walking ALL around Paris. Lindsey almost cried when we saw the Eiffel Tower in the morning, and then we all almost cried at the end of the day after walking everywhere. We were able to visit the Arc De Triomphe, the Champs Elysees, the Louvre, the Jardin Des Tuileries, the Trocadero, Notre Dame, Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, and Moulin Rouge all in one day! It was an incredible day that neither of us will ever forget. It was also really cool being with Juliette’s family, because they could show us where everything was and translate what everything meant the whole time.

Finally we are at the end of our journey. Although we are all borderline sick today and it is rainy, we are going to make the most of it. Today we plan on making crepes and watching movies before we have to pack up all the things we have accumulated over the last five weeks. Another post to come once we make it safely to Texas. Thank you all for taking our journey with us. Hopefully we can take another one soon!