Summer

This summer was one of the greatest summers of my life. It was the longest summer I have ever had, and I explored eight different countries (nine if you include the US), which was pretty rad. At the beginning of my summer, I went to Basketball Jones for a week, said bye to most of my friends, and then did Junior Lifeguards for the rest of my time in the US before moving.

We started our summer in Europe in a little town called Capbreton only thirty to forty-five minutes from Biarritz, which is where I am living now. We stayed in Capbreton for a month and spent a lot of time at beaches. A few highlights from my time in Capbreton: My family and I woke up super early and went for a morning surf session. The waves were super fun, and it was great practice for me to learn how to shortboard. Another highlight was seeing the Nelson Family and hanging out with them for a week. The final highlight for me was when we went to San Sebastion with the Nelsons and went swimming and bodysurfing at the La Concha beach. From Capbreton, we started our “Tour of Europe”.

The first place we stopped was a small town called Saint Emillion, a very old, medieval town. One of the largest monolithic churches in Europe, which is carved entirely from a limestone cliff, is there. We went inside the church, and it was huge! One of the coolest parts of the church was seeing the catacombs that were underneath it (that were still being excavated). From Saint Emilion, we drove into the Loire Valley. There are more castles in the Loire Valley than anywhere else. A few highlights from the Loire Valley were staying in a castle for two nights and in an apartment hotel that had the best breakfast I have ever had. The best part of the breakfast was the hot chocolate. It was thick and chocolatey. In my opinion, I think it was perfect.

The next place was a city called Chartres which is just outside of Paris. In Chartres, there is a famous cathedral. It has the most original stained glass windows in the world. There is an old historian who is now 92 and has been doing tours of this cathedral for over 60 years. He is now retired, but my dad arranged a private tour with him. It was super cool to hear him tell us about this cathedral and its history. Another highlight was seeing the Cathedral lit up at night with crazy colors that told its whole story by using projections and sound to create a movie of sorts. It looked amazing. Our next stop was Paris. We spent a few days there with our good friends Brittany and Luna. It was super nice to be able to speak in English to other people other than just us. We did lots of walking and some shopping. A highlight of Paris was going into the Off-white store to try on a sweatshirt and look around the store.

From there, we drove all the way to Belgium to see our good family friends, the Mignons. As usual, I had a blast. We did a lot of different things while we were in Belgium. We also went to a couple of different countries near Belgium as fun day trips. For instance, we went to Maastricht, Holland. We shopped and went a burrito place because we were craving Mexican food. Their burritos were amazing! One of the funniest parts was when the burrito place gave us options for the spiciness of our sauce. We all thought that they were not going to be that spicy because most people in Europe don’t eat spicy food. But to our surprise, the sauces were super spicy. My mom and dad had the sauce that was made with Habernero which was super spicy. Charlie had the sauce with jalapeños, and I had the sauce that was mild. Their spiciest sauce was called “FUCKING SPICY OMG”. My dad wanted to try some so he asked for it on the side. My dad’s burrito was so spicy that he thought they put in their spiciest sauce, but they said that was just their “hot” sauce. They then brought out a side of their spiciest sauce, and my dad asked what was in it. They said that it was a Carolina Reaper sauce. My dad and Charlie tried some, and they were both sweating like crazy. We finished eating, and my dad told the owner that his sauces were amazing and super spicy. The owner replied, “I like seeing my customers walk out of here sweating.” We all laughed and then rushed over to the nearest place to get a sweet frappe to cool our mouths. Another highlight was going to Aachen which is a town in Germany, and I bought myself a model car. We had a typical German lunch which was sausages and sauerkraut. My final highlight in Belgium was biking with Arsene through the woods. We carried our bikes across a raging river (that we fell into multiple times), and continued to ride through some of their “mountains” which have some pretty intense terrain. When we came back, we were soaking wet, but luckily I dried off a little. Their mountain bikes are really fun to ride because they are full suspension and electric assist to get up the hills easier, but they also let us go off jumps higher than on some normal bikes. We were going to go to the Ferme Libere (which is a famous bike park in Belgium), but we ran out of time because it took us so long to cross the river because the bikes were so heavy.

When we left Belgium, my mom really wanted to see Luxembourg. So, we took a little detour and had a Vietnamese lunch. Luxembourg was beautiful. Sadly we were not able to stay there for that long because we had to get to Strasbourg. Strasbourg is half in Germany and half in France. There is a bridge over the Rhine River and halfway across the river is the border between the two countries. We ate a typical dinner from the region which included different sausages and sauerkraut. We stayed in a little hotel on the German side that was really well-made. In the morning, we had a continental breakfast in the hotel’s little courtyard, and we drove off toward Mulhouse to see my dad’s old friends Jacques and Julie.

In Mulhouse, I had a great time! We met Jacques and Julie’s kids Victor and Elise. We played hide and go seek and had an amazing lunch and dinner with them. The only downside was that it was so hot. I can’t wait to see them all again. From Mulhouse, we drove to Switzerland. The steep mountains were breathtaking and were full of waterfalls. We stayed in a town called Locarno right on the Italian border. My favorite part was swimming in the deep rivers in the valleys between the mountains that were freezing cold which was perfect for the incredibly hot days. Another highlight, was being on a bridge and we watched a guy perform a death dive from 45 feet off a cliff into one of the deep rivers we swam in. From Switzerland, we started our long drive back to San Sebastian.

My favorite place that we stopped at on our way to San Sebastian was a town called Chamonix. Chamonix is famous for resting underneath Mont Blanc which is the largest mountain in all of Europe, only a few thousand feet shorter than Mount Everest. It was super cool to see because it was the hottest time in summer, and there was still a huge glacier on the mountain. Another cool thing about Chamonix was that there were hundreds of people hang-gliding off of some mountains surrounding us. You would look up into the sky and see tons of people floating down off the mountains.

In San Sebastian, we celebrated Charlie’s birthday and hung out with Amanda and Fam. It was super fun to see Amanda and her family again after so many years. We spent most of our time there getting school supplies and prepping for school. The best part of being in San Sebastian was when we got a call that we could move into our new home 2 days early! It gave us more time to settle in and figure out how to get to school which was a huge relief.

That was the best summer of my life!