The Christmas aspect of this tour was the cherry on top! Because there isn't much going on in a few of the countries the Christmas markets made each country even more interesting. The Christmas markets were amazing; we visited 11 Christmas markets, each country we visited had a Christmas market, extra on the Berlin because they still had their Christmas market open until Dec. 31st at 1 am. Also, being able to celebrate Christmas in the middle of the Baltic Sea on a ship with entertainment and dancing till 2:45 am in the morning was memorable! Overall tour leader and driver experience: Our tour leader Matt and driver Dennis were both impressive. Our driver Dennis was amazing! Everyone always marveled at how he maneuvered the bus and was impressed by his skills. I do get car sick and I usually can't sleep well on bus rides, but with Dennis driving, I never felt car sick and was able to sleep a majority of the time. And when we were in Berlin Matt talked about the Historical context and background of Berlin, he knew all the detailed facts. I thought he was reading out of a textbook. I am an International Relations student and my focus is on foreign affairs and policy analysis, so when I heard him talk about all the details I appreciated it. I learned all this from the perspective of the American University system, but being able to hear the European/German perspective was awesome. I appreciate his depth of knowledge because when we had the local tour guide in Norway she briefly talked about the 'Norwegian Petroleum Fund' I went up to her to ask her more questions because I wrote a policy analysis paper on it, but she actually didn't know much about it until I realized that I probably know more about it than she does. Overall, I didn't expect our tour leader to be well-versed in the realm of international relations and foreign affairs, but I really did appreciate the knowledge and information he shared. Thank you to both for an amazing experience!
