We are currently in Berlin, and we're planning our day for tomorrow! Everything is going amazingly and we're having the time of our lives!! We can't believe this trip is coming to an end in less than a week - we're definitely not ready to go back to normal life - we're having too much fun! Our eyes have been opened to so many new cultures, ways of life, people, foods, and so much more! We hope to never forget this experience and are hoping that the things we've seen and learned here will stay with us forever. It's bittersweet to come home on Wednesday, but hopefully this won't be the end of our traveling!
More city updates to come soon! Florence, Munich, Prague, Berlin, Brussels, and Bruges. You'll get to read all about it!
Love,
me
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
When In Rome
Day1:
So, remember how I said Stephanie and I have gotten quite good at getting lost - our arrival in Rome was one of those times. We made it out of the airport, and to the correct metro stop and everything, but finding our hostel was a task. We always seem to head like 5 blocks in the wrong direction, realize we've made a mistake, and then have to turn back around and walk the 5 blocks again plus the distance it actually takes to get to our hostel...with our backpacks on...in the Rome heat. Not fun.
We eventually made it though, and that's what counts...I guess. We showered and then set out to explore the ancient city! Our first stop was Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. When we got off the metro, it was really cool because the Colosseum was RIGHT in front of us. Not something you see everyday. We walked aimlessly for a bit through Palatine Hill (something Stephanie and I have gotten quite good at) and then we found a tour to slyly follow behind. That tour made all of the difference. I'm so glad we were eaves dropping because we actually learned a lot!! I really enjoyed the Roman Forum. I thought it was so cool to see the ancient city and really be able to visualize what it really looked like back then. That was much harder to do in Athens because the ruins were so scattered, as opposed to Rome where they're all still centralized and in the same area. Way cool.
After the Forum, we headed over to the Colosseum. It was cool because we got there when it was almost closing so it wasn't crowded at all. We explored it for a while and took a lot of pictures. It was crazy to read about all that used to take place there and about GLADIATORS! rawr.
After the Colosseum, we walked to Campo Dei Fiori. After aimlessly walking, we (Stephanie) finally decided on a place to eat. We got homemade pasta and bruchetta - oh Italian food. :)
After we sat and people watched for a bit, we headed back to our hostel and the Vatican was on our way! We stopped in St. Peter's Square for a bit. I'm really glad we saw it at night when it was less crowded, it was well worth it. Then, of course we stopped for gelato, got back to our hostel, showered, and went to bed.
Day2:
Wretched Rome heat. Masses of people. No AC. Blood. These words marked the first half of this day.
I'm not going to lie, Day 2 was rough for me. We woke up and went to the Vatican to go hear the pope speak! I'm not catholic, so I don't even know the pope's name, but it was cool nonetheless! He does like a mass on Wednesday mornings...which is where the wretched Rome heat and masses of people come into play. The mass is in St. Peter's Square, which isn't covered, so it was soooo hot! We only stayed out there for about 30 minutes because first of all, they don't speak English in Italy when giving mass, it was hot, and it was crowded. Being able to say I've seen the pope is a pretty cool thing though.
We decided to go over to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel. Initially, I was excited about this. My excitement quickly faded once I ran into about 20 tour groups of 50 or more people. For some reason, people find joy in annoying me - there's no other explanation to it. The groups just stood in the walkways and walked at a negative pace. All I wanted to do was see the Sistine Chapel - I didn't know anything else about this other art. Of course, the museum puts the chapel at the very end. And for some reason, Rome hasn't heard of the beauty of air conditioning. So we walked, at a negative pace, without AC, stuck behind tour groups for like an hour and a half only to get to the chapel and find it FILLED with MASSES of people. You couldn't take pictures inside the chapel, but to spite the museum, I did. The chapel itself was really cool. It was awesome to see something that you've seen so many pictures of. And I had watched Angels and Demons before I left, so it was really cool to see the pictures come to life.
We got out of the museum quickly after we saw the Sistine Chapel and then decided to go inside of the Vatican. We approach St. Peter's Square and are greeted with the longest line yet. Thrilled, we get to the back and are herded like cattle to the front of the building, only to find more people oblivious to their surroundings. Once again, the actual inside of the Vatican was cool - I tried to not let the masses of people ruin what I was seeing. I really enjoyed seeing the similarities between Angels and Demons and the real thing - I would run and tell Stephanie "this was in the movie!!"
Here's where the blood comes into play. So obviously, I'm already annoyed with the world for being oblivious, walking through my pictures, and taking up entire isle ways, so I'm just ready to move on. As we're walking out of the Vatican, we're going head to head with a huge tour group. Knowing I can't take on 50+ people, I'm pushed to the side of the walkway. It's here that I RAM my foot into something metal and proceed to bleed in the isle of the Vatican. I drop a couple inappropriate words before I realize I'm in like the most holy place on Earth. Looking back, it's a funny story, and perhaps the scar on my foot will forever commemorate it. Moral of the story - please don't be one of those people in the huge tour groups, save us all some pain.
At this point, the day got better. We saw the old popes' tombs and then headed to the Spanish Steps. We climbed all the way to the top of the steps, which in theory is fun, but in reality is quite tiring. But, cool nonetheless. We took some pictures, caught our breath, and headed back down. After we hung out there for a bit, we headed to the Trevi Fountain. It was packed with people, but we eventually found a place to just sit and enjoy the view. We sat there for a couple hours and at the Spanish steps for about an hour and then headed back to our hostel.
Day3:
We decided to head to the island of Capri on day 3. We got on a train and then a ferry so it took a while to actually get there. Once we got there we quickly bought our tickets to go to the Blue Grotto. We didn't have much time on the island because we had to be back to Naples to catch a train back to Rome by 9:30. We hopped on a little boat to go out to the Blue Grotto and it was so pretty! Capri is just a little island, and the coast is beautiful.
We got to the Grotto and then had to get in a little 5 person canoe to go into the Grotto. A grotto is like a little cave in the side of the island, and this one in particular is famous because of the blue water within. To get into the grotto, we had to lay down in the canoe and our guide guy had to pull us through.
Inside, the water was so pretty! It was a bright blue. I took pictures, so hopefully I can get them up eventually. The whole experience was quite short and we were back to the port within 45 minutes, and out 22 euro.
We didn't have much time to stray from the port, so we walked along it, got some gelato, and watched Brazil cream USA in soccer. It was a relaxing evening, and a cool place to see - I only wish we got to see more of it. Maybe next time.
You'll be pleased to know, that we did in fact make it back to Rome successfully (although it was the longest, most boring train ride of my life because I didn't bring a backpack to Naples because it's like run by the mafia, therefore I had absolutely nothing to do). We were ready to move onto Florence and had an early train in the morning, so we packed our things, showered, and went to bed.
Rome favorites - Roman Forum and Trevi Fountain
I hope these 4 posts are enough to keep you occupied for a while! We finally a free internet in Prague!! Yay! Enjoy.
hey case
So, remember how I said Stephanie and I have gotten quite good at getting lost - our arrival in Rome was one of those times. We made it out of the airport, and to the correct metro stop and everything, but finding our hostel was a task. We always seem to head like 5 blocks in the wrong direction, realize we've made a mistake, and then have to turn back around and walk the 5 blocks again plus the distance it actually takes to get to our hostel...with our backpacks on...in the Rome heat. Not fun.
We eventually made it though, and that's what counts...I guess. We showered and then set out to explore the ancient city! Our first stop was Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. When we got off the metro, it was really cool because the Colosseum was RIGHT in front of us. Not something you see everyday. We walked aimlessly for a bit through Palatine Hill (something Stephanie and I have gotten quite good at) and then we found a tour to slyly follow behind. That tour made all of the difference. I'm so glad we were eaves dropping because we actually learned a lot!! I really enjoyed the Roman Forum. I thought it was so cool to see the ancient city and really be able to visualize what it really looked like back then. That was much harder to do in Athens because the ruins were so scattered, as opposed to Rome where they're all still centralized and in the same area. Way cool.
After the Forum, we headed over to the Colosseum. It was cool because we got there when it was almost closing so it wasn't crowded at all. We explored it for a while and took a lot of pictures. It was crazy to read about all that used to take place there and about GLADIATORS! rawr.
After the Colosseum, we walked to Campo Dei Fiori. After aimlessly walking, we (Stephanie) finally decided on a place to eat. We got homemade pasta and bruchetta - oh Italian food. :)
After we sat and people watched for a bit, we headed back to our hostel and the Vatican was on our way! We stopped in St. Peter's Square for a bit. I'm really glad we saw it at night when it was less crowded, it was well worth it. Then, of course we stopped for gelato, got back to our hostel, showered, and went to bed.
Day2:
Wretched Rome heat. Masses of people. No AC. Blood. These words marked the first half of this day.
I'm not going to lie, Day 2 was rough for me. We woke up and went to the Vatican to go hear the pope speak! I'm not catholic, so I don't even know the pope's name, but it was cool nonetheless! He does like a mass on Wednesday mornings...which is where the wretched Rome heat and masses of people come into play. The mass is in St. Peter's Square, which isn't covered, so it was soooo hot! We only stayed out there for about 30 minutes because first of all, they don't speak English in Italy when giving mass, it was hot, and it was crowded. Being able to say I've seen the pope is a pretty cool thing though.
We decided to go over to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel. Initially, I was excited about this. My excitement quickly faded once I ran into about 20 tour groups of 50 or more people. For some reason, people find joy in annoying me - there's no other explanation to it. The groups just stood in the walkways and walked at a negative pace. All I wanted to do was see the Sistine Chapel - I didn't know anything else about this other art. Of course, the museum puts the chapel at the very end. And for some reason, Rome hasn't heard of the beauty of air conditioning. So we walked, at a negative pace, without AC, stuck behind tour groups for like an hour and a half only to get to the chapel and find it FILLED with MASSES of people. You couldn't take pictures inside the chapel, but to spite the museum, I did. The chapel itself was really cool. It was awesome to see something that you've seen so many pictures of. And I had watched Angels and Demons before I left, so it was really cool to see the pictures come to life.
We got out of the museum quickly after we saw the Sistine Chapel and then decided to go inside of the Vatican. We approach St. Peter's Square and are greeted with the longest line yet. Thrilled, we get to the back and are herded like cattle to the front of the building, only to find more people oblivious to their surroundings. Once again, the actual inside of the Vatican was cool - I tried to not let the masses of people ruin what I was seeing. I really enjoyed seeing the similarities between Angels and Demons and the real thing - I would run and tell Stephanie "this was in the movie!!"
Here's where the blood comes into play. So obviously, I'm already annoyed with the world for being oblivious, walking through my pictures, and taking up entire isle ways, so I'm just ready to move on. As we're walking out of the Vatican, we're going head to head with a huge tour group. Knowing I can't take on 50+ people, I'm pushed to the side of the walkway. It's here that I RAM my foot into something metal and proceed to bleed in the isle of the Vatican. I drop a couple inappropriate words before I realize I'm in like the most holy place on Earth. Looking back, it's a funny story, and perhaps the scar on my foot will forever commemorate it. Moral of the story - please don't be one of those people in the huge tour groups, save us all some pain.
At this point, the day got better. We saw the old popes' tombs and then headed to the Spanish Steps. We climbed all the way to the top of the steps, which in theory is fun, but in reality is quite tiring. But, cool nonetheless. We took some pictures, caught our breath, and headed back down. After we hung out there for a bit, we headed to the Trevi Fountain. It was packed with people, but we eventually found a place to just sit and enjoy the view. We sat there for a couple hours and at the Spanish steps for about an hour and then headed back to our hostel.
Day3:
We decided to head to the island of Capri on day 3. We got on a train and then a ferry so it took a while to actually get there. Once we got there we quickly bought our tickets to go to the Blue Grotto. We didn't have much time on the island because we had to be back to Naples to catch a train back to Rome by 9:30. We hopped on a little boat to go out to the Blue Grotto and it was so pretty! Capri is just a little island, and the coast is beautiful.
We got to the Grotto and then had to get in a little 5 person canoe to go into the Grotto. A grotto is like a little cave in the side of the island, and this one in particular is famous because of the blue water within. To get into the grotto, we had to lay down in the canoe and our guide guy had to pull us through.
Inside, the water was so pretty! It was a bright blue. I took pictures, so hopefully I can get them up eventually. The whole experience was quite short and we were back to the port within 45 minutes, and out 22 euro.
We didn't have much time to stray from the port, so we walked along it, got some gelato, and watched Brazil cream USA in soccer. It was a relaxing evening, and a cool place to see - I only wish we got to see more of it. Maybe next time.
You'll be pleased to know, that we did in fact make it back to Rome successfully (although it was the longest, most boring train ride of my life because I didn't bring a backpack to Naples because it's like run by the mafia, therefore I had absolutely nothing to do). We were ready to move onto Florence and had an early train in the morning, so we packed our things, showered, and went to bed.
Rome favorites - Roman Forum and Trevi Fountain
I hope these 4 posts are enough to keep you occupied for a while! We finally a free internet in Prague!! Yay! Enjoy.
hey case
Oh Santorini, how we miss you.
Day1:
So after our 5 hour long, noisy ferry we arrive in the Greek Island - Santorini! The ferry ride over, we weren't sitting next to a window, so our view was limited, but when we stepped off the ferry we were awed. The place is just gorgeous!! We were so excited, and couldn't have been happier! We had arranged for our hostel to pick us up, so we got there, and there was a man holding a sign with my name on it!! It was like I was famous. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but that would have been kind of weird. It was so awesome though, because our hostel in Santorini was by far the cheapest one we've gotten - 10 euro per person per night - and it was one of the most accommodating. We stayed at Perissa Aroma or something like that. If you ever go to Santorini and are looking for a cheap hostel, stay there - I'll give you the info. But anyway, our ride was free to our hostel and when we got there we were greeted with four beds in our room (who wouldn't want two extra ones), our own bathroom, and to top it off, our own kitchen! We were beyond stoked.
Our first stop was the grocery store and ATM and then...the BEACH!! We were staying in Perissa where the sand is black. Well, I wouldn't really call it sand - it's more like tiny little rocks (literally, I'm not quoting Jack Handy). There is like a volcano right off the island, and so that's why it's black. Nonetheless, it was amazing and so pretty!! We just relaxed on the beach for a few hours and then headed back to our hostel to shower and get ready to go get dinner. Nick, the owner of the hostel, suggested that we go to this place call Charlina which was along the beach and he gave us a card for free wine. We make our way down there and are walking down the road for way too long it seems, but people keep pointing us that direction. Eventually we come upon and find out after having ordered that there is another Charlina much closer to where we are staying. Oh well...they gave us the free wine anyway and they had good food. We were the only ones in the restaurant though, so it was a little awkward, but delicious nonetheless. Stephanie and I seem to have made a habit out of walking clear past our destination or getting lost. There are more stories to come about that...we don't understand how it keeps happening, but I suppose it provides a good laugh later on.
We spent the rest of the evening just sitting on the ledge that leads to the beach and watching the stars (a little romantic evening for us...haha). It was so pretty though!! I even saw a shooting star!! I had never seen one before. We went home and immediately fell asleep.
Day2:
The spirit of Santorini called for sleeping in. We needed the break, and it was quite nice not having to get up and go walk around a boiling hot city for the entire day. We woke up and ate some breakfast and brought our laundry to the laundromat. Right next door was a bakery and so we stopped in and got some balaclava! It wasn't very good, honestly. But I think we got a bad one or something. We packed a lunch and went to the beach to relax for the day. We stayed at the beach most of the day and then came back to our hostel to shower. After that, we decided to go to this restaurant called Grandma's Recipes. We ordered this huge gyro and split it - it was delicious. It was quite windy and chilly at night.
We met a few people at our hostel's pool - 2 girls - one from Texas and one from Australia, and 2 other boys, both from Australia. We hung out with them for a while, and then went to this place called Beach Bar and hung out there. It was fun. Steph and I left before everyone else, but I wouldn't exactly call it early because it was like 2:30 or 3. Sleep was definitely in order.
Day3:
Day 3 was one of, if not, the best day of our lives. We rented an ATV (a 4 wheeler) and set out to explore the island. It was so much fun to drive around, and the views were so beautiful!
Our first stop was Red Beach. It's pretty awesome to see - there is like this huge cut out of the mountain and it's all red, and so the sand/rocks are red too. The water was gorgeous - so clear!! The beaches there are all like rocks and not sand, so it's difficult to walk on, but the water makes it totally worth it. The beach was small too, so there weren't many people. We relaxed on Red Beached for a while and then saw his boat going to White Beach, so we decided to get on. White Beach was also so pretty!! But it was definitely the hardest to walk on because it was all big rocks. But I think it was my favorite. The rocks and background mountain thing were all white and of course the water was clear as day. Plus there were probably no more than 15 people on the beach.
Steph and I decided to get in and try to swim to this big rock sticking out of the water. Eventually the ground turned to sand, so it was easier to walk on, and then we noticed it wasn't getting any deeper! It stayed right below our shoulders (well, my shoulders, maybe Stephanie's chin...rofl) and so we were able to get to the big rock quite easily! We got on the rocks and jumped off of them. I pretended they were cliffs because we were sad to find out (although my mom won't be) that Santorini doesn't have cliff jumping, so the rocks were the closest I could get. It was so much fun.
After the beaches, we hopped back onto our ATV and headed to Fira, which is the main town of Santorini. We just stopped for a bit and then continued on to Oia where we planned to watch the sunset. We had heard it's really beautiful on that part of the island because it's like on the north east corner, so it sets right over the water. The ride out there so gorgeous! We ended up driving along the east side of the island, and so we had a clear view of the water the whole way there. It was awesome. My descriptions will never do it justice.
We ended up stopping at Katharos beach to wait for the sun to set. It was so empty - for a while we were the only ones on the whole beach!! The waves were huge too! We were quite early, so we sat for about an hour just watch the water. It was perfect. The actual sun set happened fast. You don't realize how fast it moves without a reference point like the horizon. It was way pretty.
Afterward we had to drive all the back across the entire island, and like I said before, it was cold and windy at night. We were in shorts and tank tops so it was quite the chilly ride. Luckily we huddled close together and it only takes about 45 minutes. We made it home safely, showered, and headed to bed. The perfect day.
Day4:
Our last day in Santorini - sigh. We didn't do much. We packed up, checked our flight info (we decided to book a flight straight to Rome instead of take the ferry because it would have taken two days of travel with the ferry - so we sucked it up and payed the money for the flight so we could spend more time in Santorini - it was worth it), bought souvenirs and got our last of Greek food. We sat by our hostel pool for most of the day with our Texan and Australian friend because it was really windy, therefore the beach would have probably been unpleasant. We took one last walk along the beach and then had to head to the airport around 7 to catch our flight to Rome. We actually had like a 12 hour layover in Athens, so that was our hostel for the night. It was fine - cold, but did the job. We eventually made it to Rome, but it was quite bittersweet. Most people would be thrilled to go to Rome, but we were already having Santorini withdrawals.
Casey - I wrote this and the Athens post in the same day, so I have nothing new to say to you...go read Athens, and you'll see.
Miss and love everyone!! Thanks for reading - I hope you all are enjoying this! Sorry that it's difficult to post on a regular basis, I'm doing my best!
Love,
Chelsea
So after our 5 hour long, noisy ferry we arrive in the Greek Island - Santorini! The ferry ride over, we weren't sitting next to a window, so our view was limited, but when we stepped off the ferry we were awed. The place is just gorgeous!! We were so excited, and couldn't have been happier! We had arranged for our hostel to pick us up, so we got there, and there was a man holding a sign with my name on it!! It was like I was famous. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but that would have been kind of weird. It was so awesome though, because our hostel in Santorini was by far the cheapest one we've gotten - 10 euro per person per night - and it was one of the most accommodating. We stayed at Perissa Aroma or something like that. If you ever go to Santorini and are looking for a cheap hostel, stay there - I'll give you the info. But anyway, our ride was free to our hostel and when we got there we were greeted with four beds in our room (who wouldn't want two extra ones), our own bathroom, and to top it off, our own kitchen! We were beyond stoked.
Our first stop was the grocery store and ATM and then...the BEACH!! We were staying in Perissa where the sand is black. Well, I wouldn't really call it sand - it's more like tiny little rocks (literally, I'm not quoting Jack Handy). There is like a volcano right off the island, and so that's why it's black. Nonetheless, it was amazing and so pretty!! We just relaxed on the beach for a few hours and then headed back to our hostel to shower and get ready to go get dinner. Nick, the owner of the hostel, suggested that we go to this place call Charlina which was along the beach and he gave us a card for free wine. We make our way down there and are walking down the road for way too long it seems, but people keep pointing us that direction. Eventually we come upon and find out after having ordered that there is another Charlina much closer to where we are staying. Oh well...they gave us the free wine anyway and they had good food. We were the only ones in the restaurant though, so it was a little awkward, but delicious nonetheless. Stephanie and I seem to have made a habit out of walking clear past our destination or getting lost. There are more stories to come about that...we don't understand how it keeps happening, but I suppose it provides a good laugh later on.
We spent the rest of the evening just sitting on the ledge that leads to the beach and watching the stars (a little romantic evening for us...haha). It was so pretty though!! I even saw a shooting star!! I had never seen one before. We went home and immediately fell asleep.
Day2:
The spirit of Santorini called for sleeping in. We needed the break, and it was quite nice not having to get up and go walk around a boiling hot city for the entire day. We woke up and ate some breakfast and brought our laundry to the laundromat. Right next door was a bakery and so we stopped in and got some balaclava! It wasn't very good, honestly. But I think we got a bad one or something. We packed a lunch and went to the beach to relax for the day. We stayed at the beach most of the day and then came back to our hostel to shower. After that, we decided to go to this restaurant called Grandma's Recipes. We ordered this huge gyro and split it - it was delicious. It was quite windy and chilly at night.
We met a few people at our hostel's pool - 2 girls - one from Texas and one from Australia, and 2 other boys, both from Australia. We hung out with them for a while, and then went to this place called Beach Bar and hung out there. It was fun. Steph and I left before everyone else, but I wouldn't exactly call it early because it was like 2:30 or 3. Sleep was definitely in order.
Day3:
Day 3 was one of, if not, the best day of our lives. We rented an ATV (a 4 wheeler) and set out to explore the island. It was so much fun to drive around, and the views were so beautiful!
Our first stop was Red Beach. It's pretty awesome to see - there is like this huge cut out of the mountain and it's all red, and so the sand/rocks are red too. The water was gorgeous - so clear!! The beaches there are all like rocks and not sand, so it's difficult to walk on, but the water makes it totally worth it. The beach was small too, so there weren't many people. We relaxed on Red Beached for a while and then saw his boat going to White Beach, so we decided to get on. White Beach was also so pretty!! But it was definitely the hardest to walk on because it was all big rocks. But I think it was my favorite. The rocks and background mountain thing were all white and of course the water was clear as day. Plus there were probably no more than 15 people on the beach.
Steph and I decided to get in and try to swim to this big rock sticking out of the water. Eventually the ground turned to sand, so it was easier to walk on, and then we noticed it wasn't getting any deeper! It stayed right below our shoulders (well, my shoulders, maybe Stephanie's chin...rofl) and so we were able to get to the big rock quite easily! We got on the rocks and jumped off of them. I pretended they were cliffs because we were sad to find out (although my mom won't be) that Santorini doesn't have cliff jumping, so the rocks were the closest I could get. It was so much fun.
After the beaches, we hopped back onto our ATV and headed to Fira, which is the main town of Santorini. We just stopped for a bit and then continued on to Oia where we planned to watch the sunset. We had heard it's really beautiful on that part of the island because it's like on the north east corner, so it sets right over the water. The ride out there so gorgeous! We ended up driving along the east side of the island, and so we had a clear view of the water the whole way there. It was awesome. My descriptions will never do it justice.
We ended up stopping at Katharos beach to wait for the sun to set. It was so empty - for a while we were the only ones on the whole beach!! The waves were huge too! We were quite early, so we sat for about an hour just watch the water. It was perfect. The actual sun set happened fast. You don't realize how fast it moves without a reference point like the horizon. It was way pretty.
Afterward we had to drive all the back across the entire island, and like I said before, it was cold and windy at night. We were in shorts and tank tops so it was quite the chilly ride. Luckily we huddled close together and it only takes about 45 minutes. We made it home safely, showered, and headed to bed. The perfect day.
Day4:
Our last day in Santorini - sigh. We didn't do much. We packed up, checked our flight info (we decided to book a flight straight to Rome instead of take the ferry because it would have taken two days of travel with the ferry - so we sucked it up and payed the money for the flight so we could spend more time in Santorini - it was worth it), bought souvenirs and got our last of Greek food. We sat by our hostel pool for most of the day with our Texan and Australian friend because it was really windy, therefore the beach would have probably been unpleasant. We took one last walk along the beach and then had to head to the airport around 7 to catch our flight to Rome. We actually had like a 12 hour layover in Athens, so that was our hostel for the night. It was fine - cold, but did the job. We eventually made it to Rome, but it was quite bittersweet. Most people would be thrilled to go to Rome, but we were already having Santorini withdrawals.
Casey - I wrote this and the Athens post in the same day, so I have nothing new to say to you...go read Athens, and you'll see.
Miss and love everyone!! Thanks for reading - I hope you all are enjoying this! Sorry that it's difficult to post on a regular basis, I'm doing my best!
Love,
Chelsea
Ferry and Athens
After wrapping my pashmina around us and huddling close together, we were ready for the train and ferry rides ahead of us, because it meant one thing - sleep. We pretty much slept all the way to Ancona, and when we arrived we experienced our first bit of rudeness. We kept being told the wrong bus to go to, so we were going back and forth between these two buses and each driver was telling us to go to the other. Well, the one we were supposed to be on was the jerk. We finally got through to him, that his bus was, in fact, the one that we needed. At this point he then proceeded to wait for 10 minutes in the parking lot just sitting and talking to his girlfriend, who was riding the bus just to keep hi company. It was ridiculous; we were the only ones on the bus and obviously had somewhere to be. I didn't want to jump to conclusions and just assume that he was waiting just to spite us, but while we were at the port, we saw him come by at least twice within about 10 minutes...so we knew he wasn't camping out at the train station like he did with us. Nonetheless, we made it to the port, got our tickets and boarded our ferry.
We were quite excited for this mini cruise. Our first goal is to find food. All we had had to eat all day was some gross cereal without milk – we were starved. I got a huge plat of spaghetti – it was like our first hardy meal we had had to eat in a while. I was satisfied. We went back to our room to go put our bathing suits on and go swimming. We ran into the girl we were sharing our couchette with and I greeted her with “hola!” our of habit of living in Texas. It was a good thing because she hardly spoke any English. Her name is Soledad and she’s from Argentina. She’s traveling around with her dad for a month and 3 weeks! She was like the only other girl around our age on the ferry – everyone else was like older Greek and Italian men..yiikes. We became fast friends and our little knowledge of Spanish was put to the test. I knew more Spanish than she knew English, so I got in a lot of practice, and my translator came in real handy!
It was too windy and cold to go swimming, so we just sat on the deck and watched the water and talked with Soledad for a while. We had dinner, explored some, took much needed showers, saw the sunset, and PASSED OUT. We were so exhausted from sleeping at the train station, our beds were much appreciated!
The next day we had to do a lot more traveling on trains which I also slept on (despite the fact that there was no AC, the conductor was blowing the horn a lot, and it was really bumpy…don’t ask me how). We eventually made it there though. We headed toward our hostel, and Soledad and her dad came along with us too because they didn’t have a place reserved yet. We got separated from Soledad and didn’t see her the rest of the evening…quite sad.
The best part of the evening was the fact that our hostel offered a home cooked Greek meal for 6 euro! There was no way we were turning that down! It was so delicious!! We had Greek salad, and the kabob things with this delicious tzaki sauce (I don’t know how to spell it) which is just like Greek yogurt, cucumbers, and garlic. We were staying in an 8 person dorm, so we tried to hatch out our schedule for the rest of our time in Greece and then we went to bed!
The next day we decided to do the walking tour put on by our hostel. It was quite hot outside, so I put on some sunscreen and we headed out. We picked up some others along the way, and our first top was the Gate of Athena! (I took a picture for you B). We saw these ruins that used to be a market. Then we went up to this hill, which was really slippery, but it was cool because you could see all of Athens from on top of it. We took a lot of pictures (which will eventually go up). I don’t remember the name right now, but apparently it was a place for judgment – like a court – in the past. And he said that Paul or Peter (from the Bible, I can’t remember which) supposedly gave a speech from that hill – so that was cool.
After that it was time for the Acropolis! It’s like one of the highest points in the city, so there was a lot of walking up hill, and through dirt paths – I did not wear the right shoes. The Acropolis was cool! We took lots of pictures in front of the Parthenon and walked all around it. There was a temple of Athena there B! But it was like under construction, so I just took a picture of the sign for you. That part kind of bothered me because I don’t want it to be reconstructed. I’d rather it stay the way it was found, just because I feel like if they reconstruct it, they’ll ruin it (no pun intended..lol). There were so many people there – quite frustrating at times.
After that, we went to the theater of Dionysus – some really old theater that used to seat like 17,000 people, but because of wars and stuff, it’s pretty much destroyed. We saw some other old temple that all that was left were some pillars. It was supposed to be like the first temple people saw when they left Athens because they were trying to create their own city, but it never worked out. It was crazy seeing all of this stuff and imagining the people who could have walked these streets. We also saw the first Olympic Stadium, the president’s house and the parliament building with the tomb of the unknown soldier, so there were funny looking guards outside of it.
Afterward, we ate some more Greek food with our group and cooled off in some restaurant. Then, Steph and I headed to the port to buy our ferry ticket to Santorini! We ended up having to pay more for the faster ferry because the slower, cheaper one was all full! It ended up being a good thing, because the ferry wasn’t any fun, so oh well. Then we headed back to our hostel, took much needed showers, realized I got burnt after all, and then ate our delicious Greek meal again! This time it was some lasagna type thing and Greek Salad. Well worth the 6 euro. We had to be up early to catch our ferry at 7:15 so we packed up all of our stuff, slept in the clothes we were wearing, and fell asleep.
Overall, Athens was cool with all the ancient things, but the city itself was a little dirty. But nonetheless, it was well worth seeing all of the ruins – I really enjoyed it, despite my sunburn.
Casey – I think about your puppies and it makes me so excited to come home!! Dad sent me a picture and they are SOOOOO cute!! I’m so glad that they are part of our family…I’m so excited to be an aunt..haha.
We were quite excited for this mini cruise. Our first goal is to find food. All we had had to eat all day was some gross cereal without milk – we were starved. I got a huge plat of spaghetti – it was like our first hardy meal we had had to eat in a while. I was satisfied. We went back to our room to go put our bathing suits on and go swimming. We ran into the girl we were sharing our couchette with and I greeted her with “hola!” our of habit of living in Texas. It was a good thing because she hardly spoke any English. Her name is Soledad and she’s from Argentina. She’s traveling around with her dad for a month and 3 weeks! She was like the only other girl around our age on the ferry – everyone else was like older Greek and Italian men..yiikes. We became fast friends and our little knowledge of Spanish was put to the test. I knew more Spanish than she knew English, so I got in a lot of practice, and my translator came in real handy!
It was too windy and cold to go swimming, so we just sat on the deck and watched the water and talked with Soledad for a while. We had dinner, explored some, took much needed showers, saw the sunset, and PASSED OUT. We were so exhausted from sleeping at the train station, our beds were much appreciated!
The next day we had to do a lot more traveling on trains which I also slept on (despite the fact that there was no AC, the conductor was blowing the horn a lot, and it was really bumpy…don’t ask me how). We eventually made it there though. We headed toward our hostel, and Soledad and her dad came along with us too because they didn’t have a place reserved yet. We got separated from Soledad and didn’t see her the rest of the evening…quite sad.
The best part of the evening was the fact that our hostel offered a home cooked Greek meal for 6 euro! There was no way we were turning that down! It was so delicious!! We had Greek salad, and the kabob things with this delicious tzaki sauce (I don’t know how to spell it) which is just like Greek yogurt, cucumbers, and garlic. We were staying in an 8 person dorm, so we tried to hatch out our schedule for the rest of our time in Greece and then we went to bed!
The next day we decided to do the walking tour put on by our hostel. It was quite hot outside, so I put on some sunscreen and we headed out. We picked up some others along the way, and our first top was the Gate of Athena! (I took a picture for you B). We saw these ruins that used to be a market. Then we went up to this hill, which was really slippery, but it was cool because you could see all of Athens from on top of it. We took a lot of pictures (which will eventually go up). I don’t remember the name right now, but apparently it was a place for judgment – like a court – in the past. And he said that Paul or Peter (from the Bible, I can’t remember which) supposedly gave a speech from that hill – so that was cool.
After that it was time for the Acropolis! It’s like one of the highest points in the city, so there was a lot of walking up hill, and through dirt paths – I did not wear the right shoes. The Acropolis was cool! We took lots of pictures in front of the Parthenon and walked all around it. There was a temple of Athena there B! But it was like under construction, so I just took a picture of the sign for you. That part kind of bothered me because I don’t want it to be reconstructed. I’d rather it stay the way it was found, just because I feel like if they reconstruct it, they’ll ruin it (no pun intended..lol). There were so many people there – quite frustrating at times.
After that, we went to the theater of Dionysus – some really old theater that used to seat like 17,000 people, but because of wars and stuff, it’s pretty much destroyed. We saw some other old temple that all that was left were some pillars. It was supposed to be like the first temple people saw when they left Athens because they were trying to create their own city, but it never worked out. It was crazy seeing all of this stuff and imagining the people who could have walked these streets. We also saw the first Olympic Stadium, the president’s house and the parliament building with the tomb of the unknown soldier, so there were funny looking guards outside of it.
Afterward, we ate some more Greek food with our group and cooled off in some restaurant. Then, Steph and I headed to the port to buy our ferry ticket to Santorini! We ended up having to pay more for the faster ferry because the slower, cheaper one was all full! It ended up being a good thing, because the ferry wasn’t any fun, so oh well. Then we headed back to our hostel, took much needed showers, realized I got burnt after all, and then ate our delicious Greek meal again! This time it was some lasagna type thing and Greek Salad. Well worth the 6 euro. We had to be up early to catch our ferry at 7:15 so we packed up all of our stuff, slept in the clothes we were wearing, and fell asleep.
Overall, Athens was cool with all the ancient things, but the city itself was a little dirty. But nonetheless, it was well worth seeing all of the ruins – I really enjoyed it, despite my sunburn.
Casey – I think about your puppies and it makes me so excited to come home!! Dad sent me a picture and they are SOOOOO cute!! I’m so glad that they are part of our family…I’m so excited to be an aunt..haha.
Venezia
Finally, I have time to update! Hooray! We just got to Munich about an hour ago (quite early in the morning - we had a night train, I slept on the floor...I feel so clean...not). But now, we're sitting in our hostel doing laundry! Oh how excited I am that laundry is being done!! (No sarcasm there). Even though it was two weeks ago, I'll tell you about Venice
Getting to Venice from Interlaken took a while. It was a day of train rides. I slept a lot on the train and only had some peanuts to eat, so I was definitely ready for real food. As soon as you step out of the Venice train station the Grand Canal is RIGHT there. It was a cool sight to see! It made us really feel like we were in Italy! There was water everywhere and it was such a nice day outside. But of course, our first task was to find our hostel, because these backpacks aren't getting any lighter! It was a bit difficult to find a hostel in Venice because Venice itself is an island and so most of the less expensive hostels were on the mainland. So we had to get a bus ticket and find the correct bus and then the correct stop, relying solely on our directions from Hostelworld.com and the zero Italian we knew. Well, if you haven't guessed by now, we got a bit lost. We were on the right bus but the stops didn't announce where they were, so we didn't know where to get off, and we were being whimps and were too intimidated by the new language and culture to ask someone right away. Well, we rode the bus all the way to the end, and then asked, and rode it back the other direction and the driver showed us where to get off (wish we would have done in the first time, but oh well). We walked in the wrong direction at first, and so we had to back track a little bit. At this point, gelato was definitely in order. We stopped and got our first Italian gelato! Delicious! After we get our gelato, we make the trek to our hostel. We seem to be walking through a sketchy bit of town, and through some underpass with graffiti everywhere, but nonetheless, we make it safely to Camp Jolly. We checked in and had our own little cabin thing, so that was nice.
Unfortunately, we got there so late in the day that the shuttle was only making one more trip and we wouldn't have time to go explore Venice for the evening and get our real Italia meal :( We could have taken the bus again, but we didn't want to walk through the sketchy area again. So we were stuck. We spent the rest of the evening just hanging out. Took some much needed showers, ate some pizza, and did some laundry.
The next day we finally got to go see Venice. Well, after some delay. We had to wait an hour and a half to catch the shuttle because it was booked until noon. Then we had to immediately go to the train station to book our train ticket the next morning to Athens and store our bags. And of course there were lines. So we didn't actually get to explore until like 1:30 or so. Blah. But of course, first stop - gelato. Just a forewarning, we got a lot of gelato while in Italy, so this may get redundant.
We didn't really have much of a plan for Venice, just walk around, and take it all in since we only had one whole day there. I thought it was really pretty. The walkways are really tall so it's sometimes hard for the sun to get through, so it makes it seem a little dodgy at times, but it was fine. We walked to Piazza San Marco; it took a while because Venice is hard to navigate! But we made it eventually. The Piazza as cool - big, pretty palace thing, and a bell tower. We didn't feel like going into anythig because there were lines, so we took some pictures and walked toward the water (which was like at the edge of the Piazza). We just walked along the water and looked at the little vendor stands and people watched. There were so many people - and pigeons! It was fun to just mosey around though. We sat for a bit and then went to go get some food.
After finding some calzones from a little store, we walked a bit more. We felt a little bad because we didn't actually DO anything in Venice besides walk around and see a couple of things from the outside, but we were happy with what we did. And it turns out, that's what most people suggest to do - just walk around and take it all in. A day was definitely all we needed.
WARNING: Mom, if you don't want to know, don't read any further. :)
We had a 6:30am train ride to Ancona the next day so that we could make our Ferry to Greece by 1, so we could NOT miss our train. We were afraid of another Madrid-Barcelona incident and so we decided to camp out at the train station. We weren't sure how early the buses started running, and the shuttle from our hostel didn't start until like 9. Our hostel was so far out, we would have had to get up at like 4am to make it in time, and we were just really afraid we would over sleep. So we canceled our hostel and decided to be brave. I had read in a couple of my Europe books, that if you ever find yourself without a place to stay, the train station is usually a good place to go - and sure enough it was. We went to a cafe/bar until 2am, and then made our way back to the station. There were a bunch of people doing the same thing. We thought we were going to be able to hang out inside the station, but it closed until like 4am. So we sat outside, next to some other English speaking kids our age until they opened up the doors. I was grateful for our safety, but boy was it a miserable night. I was a little too scared to sleep, and so I maybe got 30 minutes, and it was FREEZING! I was not dressed for it. Nonetheless, we made it through the night with no problems, eventually defrosted and successfully got on our train to Ancona!
Venice = success; next post - Greece!
Friday, June 19, 2009
New blog coming soon!
Sorry for not blogging recently!! We have been lacking internet for a while now! We're in Florence now (absolutely loving it) and we have internet. I'll try and get a new blog up soon! Hopefully even one with pictures!! We're having a great time and soaking in every bit of the time that we're here! I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks!! We've been here longer than what we have left =( We're in Florence for another day and then we head to Munich, Prauge, Berlin, Brussels, and Bruge! We're so excited! Florence is definitely our favorite place in Italy so far, even though we've been here the shortest amount of time. I'll definitely post all about each city eventually. We have learned that even though hostels advertise free wifi doesn't mean it actually works. But overall, everything is going great, and we're having the time of our lives!!
Monday, June 15, 2009
America, I mean, Interlaken: The Beautiful
Stephanie and I were quite excited to go to Interlaken - and thanks to my dad, I know that that means "between lakes." We had our night train and our little couchette beds, so I passed out. That's one thing that's changed about me on this trip, I can now sleep anywhere! I used to not be able to fall asleep on car rides, planes (as you learned from my first post about getting to Paris), or anything other than my bed. If I go somewhere (even just to spend the night) I'll usually bring sleeping pills just because I guess my brain gets angry when it's out of its element and it wont shut down for the evening. Anywho, back to the train ride - I passed out and didn't wake up once. I remembered Ilona telling me one time that when she took a night train it was really hot, and sure enough we woke up and were like drenched in sweat...not so pleasant. We had to make a stop in Geneva to get on another train to Interlaken at 5:45am. So we do all that jazz and finally arrive in Interlaken! We get off the train and start making our way to our hostel and are awed by how beautiful it is. We stopped and took a few pictures but had to get to our hostel because we were carrying our backpacks.
We start walking down this road, because we saw a sign pointing us to our hostel. We continue walking and realize we have been walking way too long and we were in a neighborhood....with houses and yards and everything. This couldn't be right. Tired and hot, we turn around and figure we must have passed it somehow. A 10 minute walk back in the other direction we come up on it. We had literally walked RIGHT passed it, we had even read some of the signs in the window but didn't realize it was our hostel. For the record, the sign was hard to see from where we were walking, so I blame that - not us.
Yay for getting to our hostel. We immediately sign up for hang gliding!! My mom's voice was in the back of my head and I could hear her freaking out, but I decided to ignore that and go for it. Sorry mom. We drove up the mountain and did a couple practice take offs, signed our lives away and then it was time! Surprisingly, neither of us were nervous at all. It was comforting to know that the guys we were flying with do it like 4 times a day. My favorite part was take off. You run down a hill until the wind catches you and then you're flying! They said it was a perfect day for flying and we got lucky because they didn't have any other appointments that day so we stayed in the air for 45 minutes!! I felt like Superman! And I can not emphasize how beautiful this place is, and to see it from that height - it was just stunning. He did a couple tricks which made me feel a little motion sickness, but we landed shortly after that, so it was all good. Unfortunately, the camera died mid flight so I didn't get a little video like Stephanie did, but we got some cool pictures before it died. They're on a CD, so I won't be able to upload those until I get back home.
After landing, they took us back to our hostel and Stephanie and I planned to go explore or go hiking or something. But our 4 hour nap changed our plans a bit. We woke up, said "whoops", but decided to satisfy our hungery rather than hiking, so we walked into the center of town to go to a pizza place that the hang gliding guys suggested. The walk there was just awesome. Interlaken is just so quaint and perfect. It was nice to be out of the big city, because we've been in them for about a week and a half at this point. (I'm not Interlaken right now, so writing this is making me remember how much I loved it). Our pizza was great and afterwards we stopped to get some good ol' Swiss Chocolate!! We split a pizza for dinner and so we ended up paying like 5 euro each, and then we spent about 10 euro each just on chocolate. It was so delicious!! We sat outside and just enjoyed the atmosphere and ate some chocolate - it was perfect. For the first time, I really felt like I was in a different place. The mountains, lakes, and rivers are just beautiful. I would go back in a heartbeat and definitely suggest it to everyone.
We headed back to our hostel and just sat outside and looked out onto the river (our hostel was right on the river). We just chatted and relaxed - it was (and I know I've said this three times by now, but it's true) perfect.
The next day was quite rainy and cold when we woke up. We had to check out of our hostel, but we sat in the kitchen for a couple hours trying to wait out the rain. Once it cleared up a bit we headed over to our other hostel (we had two because of our train mix up from Barcelona, when we went to try and change our reservation, our first reservation was booked the new night we needed, but we didn't want to completely cancel because we would have lost our deposit, so we figured we'd just stay two different places). It was like siesta time or something when we showed up, so we had to put our backpacks into lockers and we decided to go walk around for a bit and then go back to our hostel to check in at 3:30 because the lockers seemed a bit dodgy. We walked around longer than expected, so we didn't get to back to our hostel until like 4:30 and then it started raining. We were pretty bummed because we hadn't done anything all day, and it didn't look like we were going to get to go up to these waterfalls we had planned to go to.
We hung out in our hostel for a bit (we were sharing with two boys again - they were kind of weird). Then we decided to go hiking. What an amazing idea that was, for one it was free, and two, it's Switzerland - who wouldn't want to hike through it? Well, our hike wasn't really hiking, mostly just walking down a trail - but it was probably the prettiest trail I've ever set foot on. To your right is a river and you're like immersed in the wilderness, so it's quiet and just so pretty. We walked for about an hour and a half or so until we came up on the lake. It was so worth the cold and rainy weather, because the view was just amazing - my pictures don't do it justice. We sat on the lake for like 30 minutes just taking it all in. Behind the lake were the Swiss Alps, so it was just an awesome view - I miss it. We had to pry ourselves away because it was getting dark and cold (silly Stephanie wore shorts - I was smart and had on jeans and a jacket).
We were told that we could take the bus back into town, but when we came up on the bus stop, we couldn't read the schedule (because of the fact that we don't speak German) and we hadn't seen any buses, so we just decided to walk back. Mom, you'll be happy to know that we turned down a ride from a friendly looking stranger who was going into town - minimal eye contact was made. This walk was ridiculously long and we were already quite beat from walking to the lake. Then, it started raining. Luckily, we FINALLY made it back before the rain got too hard. We defrosted and chatted with some people in our hostel. They were all from Texas and went to A&M (we thought about Michael and Tracy). But, like I said before, I have this new ability to sleep under any condition, so I kept falling asleep on the couch while talking to them (Stephanie was doing most of the talking since I was dosing off), and then I went into our room and fell asleep with all my clothes still on, but it was a good sleep nonetheless. We had to be up early the next day to catch a train to Venice, and we didn't want a Madrid-Barcelona repeat, so sleep was justified.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Barcelonaaa!
So sorry that I'm not good at updating this blog! It's hard to get to the internet at the end of the day because we're always go-go-go and I end up just passing out, or wasting our one hour of paid internet on emails or something. I'm actually writing this in word right now while in Santorini because we don't have internet here - so I'll save it and post it as soon as we get to an internet spot. But we'll get to Satorini later ;)
Let me tell you a little bit about Barcelona! Like I said in my previous post, we were supposed to wake up early on wednesday to catch a train to barcelona at 8 - remember that first class reservation I told you about that we lost because we over slept. Well...luckily we eventually got to Barcelona. We hurried to the train station and tried to explain in broken Spanish that we had missed our train. We ended up just having to buy another ticket and eventually made it to Barcelona in the afternoon. Our hostel was pretty cool. So far we haven't had a single issue with our hostels (I hope I didn't just jinx myself). Well, the hostel was good, but we're in a mixed dorm and we find out we're sharing with two boys! We were a little creeped out just because, i don't know that's weird, but we didn't have time to worry about it when there is a beach near by! We immediately drop our stuff off and start walking to the beach. We walked down Las Ramblas and along the port and still a little bit more until.........THE BEACH!! We were so excited to just sit and relax and do nothing for a while after a stressful morning. We walked along the beach with our shoes off (and averting our eyes from the masses of naked people - yikes to nude beaches). The weather was beautiful and the water felt amazing on our feet. We decided not to put our bathing suits and get in because we got to Barcelona late and didn't have as much time to just chill on the beach like we originially planned. Nonetheless, we sat on the beach for an hour or two. It was so relaxing! The tide kept getting higher so we kept almost getting wet - but no worries, because it's the mediterranian sea - it can do what it wants. Stephanie laid back and chilled, while I proceeded to dig a big hole. And then a tunnel going to another hole. I was quite proud of myself! I'll try and post some pictures of that if I can - you'll be impressed.
We eventually had to peace out, so I ruined my canal/tunnel so no one could claim it as their own, and we headed back to our hostel to cook some dinner! We realized that we need to start utilizing the kitchen because we're spending too much money on food. So we stopped at a supermarket and picked up some noodles and croquettes, these delicious things we had in madrid. Once we were in the kitchen cooking, this boy, Alex, came and helped us figure out how to use the oven. We got to talking and it turned out that he was one of the boys in our room! Sweet! This made us a little less nervous because he was cool and harmless and he also said that the other guy was cool too - so our stressed there were relieved. We cooked our cheap dinner - it was delicious, ad then headed back to our room to figure out what to do for the night. One of Alex's friends, Jason, stopped in and he was from Texas too! We decided to embrace the fact that we were in Spain and drink some Sangria and then we headed to some bar that Alex and Jason had heard of called The Nevermind Bar. It was pretty sketch - especially the walk there, but we made Jason promise us that he would walk us home. We hung out in there for a while with those two boys and these British people! It was so fun because I got them to do American accents and we tried Brittish ones. I don't know, maybe it was one of those things you had to be there for, but we had a good laugh. We hung out with them for a while and all of us were staying in the same hostel so we headed back and hung out for a bit. Stephanie and I were exhausted and had to take advantage of our one day in Barcelona the next day. Oh, I think I forgot to mention that - we had to cut a day off of Barcelona, because when we were making our train reservations in Madrid we had read the train schedule wrong when making our itinerary and the overnight train from Barcelona to Interlaken only left on certain days. So we had to either cut a day out of Barcelona or add like 3 days to it and cut it out of somewhere else. We were bummed, but the choice was pretty obvious. So now we're actually a day ahead of schedule, but it's cool because I think we're going to add Bruges, Belgium to our list because a few people have told me it's awesome (shout out to Tosha and Aubree). Anywho...we went to bed. P.S. Esteban (the other guy in our room) never did come home, so we never met him.
We woke up the next day and showered because we stank of cigarette smoke thanks to the sketch Nevermind Bar. That's one thing that's really surprised me about people over here - they all smoke! It's pretty ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if lung cancer was like the number one killer over here. Anywho, we checked out of our hostel because we were leaving that night, and we headed over to the Travel Bar to meet up for our free walking tour of Barcelona's Gothic area. I really enjoyed it! We learned a lot of the history behind all of the sights - which of course made it all more interesting. My favorite part was the Christopher Colombus informatio and when we saw Queen Victoria and King Ferdinand's castle (they were the ones who granted Colombus the money to come discover America - or something like that - I learned about it in history class so I semi-remembered what it was all about). We even saw the wood Colombus brought back from the New World. Our tour guide also took us to places you shouldn't ever go, includig Geroge Orwell Plaza, A.K.A Trippy Plaza because that's where all the drug deals go down. She also said that at night in that area you have like an 85% chance of being robbed - but don't worry mom, I was with like 15 other people and it was only like 12 in the afternoon - I didn't go back at night. Overall, the tour was a great idea and a great way to see a lot of Barcelona in the little time that we had.
Afterwards, Stephanie and I headed to one of the tapas places our tour guide reccomended and got some delicious tapas (which got their name from - in the older days it used to be a law that bartenders serve food with people's drinks and then they started becoming customary. And the people, in order to keep bugs from going into their drinks, would put their little plates of food on top of their drinks and the Spanish verd for to cover is tapar - hence, tapas. We learned that on the tour too, if you couldn't tell). Our food and Sangria was delicious - we decided to indulge since it was our last day in Spain.
After lunch, we hopped on the metro (I'm starting to hate metros - it was cool for like a day), and headed to La Sagrada Familia. It's this huge church that has been being built since like the 1890s. Ghadi devoted his life to it and they're still buildind it according to his plan. it won't be done until like 2030 or something! It's insanely big and very detailed - it was really cool. We went inside and looked around and took pictures, and did the tourist thing. We left, picked up our bags from our hostel, and headed to the train station to catch our train for Interlaken! We didn't miss it and we were at the right station this time - so definitely a less stressful experiece than Paris and Madrid. We had a couchette (which is a little cabin room with four beds in it) so we got to sleep on our over night train. Overall, Barcelona was awesome, but honsetly, I liked Madrid better. Barcelona did have the beach on it's side though, so that was a plus. Perhaps if we got to experiece more, it would have surpassed Madrid, but that wasn't the case.
I'll leave Interlaken to it's own post because it definitely deserves it.
Hi to Casey - I've been taking some pictures of some dogs to make a European dog album for you - you'll love it, i can't wait. But me telling you this will probably cause you to convince yourself to hate it. But whatevs.
Hi to Grandma! My parents told me that you were going over to Aunt Jayne's to read my blog! That makes me feel special! I hope I can get to the internet soon enough in order to post this! Love and miss you and grandpa - and the rest of the Lasco's!
Byeeeeee!
Let me tell you a little bit about Barcelona! Like I said in my previous post, we were supposed to wake up early on wednesday to catch a train to barcelona at 8 - remember that first class reservation I told you about that we lost because we over slept. Well...luckily we eventually got to Barcelona. We hurried to the train station and tried to explain in broken Spanish that we had missed our train. We ended up just having to buy another ticket and eventually made it to Barcelona in the afternoon. Our hostel was pretty cool. So far we haven't had a single issue with our hostels (I hope I didn't just jinx myself). Well, the hostel was good, but we're in a mixed dorm and we find out we're sharing with two boys! We were a little creeped out just because, i don't know that's weird, but we didn't have time to worry about it when there is a beach near by! We immediately drop our stuff off and start walking to the beach. We walked down Las Ramblas and along the port and still a little bit more until.........THE BEACH!! We were so excited to just sit and relax and do nothing for a while after a stressful morning. We walked along the beach with our shoes off (and averting our eyes from the masses of naked people - yikes to nude beaches). The weather was beautiful and the water felt amazing on our feet. We decided not to put our bathing suits and get in because we got to Barcelona late and didn't have as much time to just chill on the beach like we originially planned. Nonetheless, we sat on the beach for an hour or two. It was so relaxing! The tide kept getting higher so we kept almost getting wet - but no worries, because it's the mediterranian sea - it can do what it wants. Stephanie laid back and chilled, while I proceeded to dig a big hole. And then a tunnel going to another hole. I was quite proud of myself! I'll try and post some pictures of that if I can - you'll be impressed.
We eventually had to peace out, so I ruined my canal/tunnel so no one could claim it as their own, and we headed back to our hostel to cook some dinner! We realized that we need to start utilizing the kitchen because we're spending too much money on food. So we stopped at a supermarket and picked up some noodles and croquettes, these delicious things we had in madrid. Once we were in the kitchen cooking, this boy, Alex, came and helped us figure out how to use the oven. We got to talking and it turned out that he was one of the boys in our room! Sweet! This made us a little less nervous because he was cool and harmless and he also said that the other guy was cool too - so our stressed there were relieved. We cooked our cheap dinner - it was delicious, ad then headed back to our room to figure out what to do for the night. One of Alex's friends, Jason, stopped in and he was from Texas too! We decided to embrace the fact that we were in Spain and drink some Sangria and then we headed to some bar that Alex and Jason had heard of called The Nevermind Bar. It was pretty sketch - especially the walk there, but we made Jason promise us that he would walk us home. We hung out in there for a while with those two boys and these British people! It was so fun because I got them to do American accents and we tried Brittish ones. I don't know, maybe it was one of those things you had to be there for, but we had a good laugh. We hung out with them for a while and all of us were staying in the same hostel so we headed back and hung out for a bit. Stephanie and I were exhausted and had to take advantage of our one day in Barcelona the next day. Oh, I think I forgot to mention that - we had to cut a day off of Barcelona, because when we were making our train reservations in Madrid we had read the train schedule wrong when making our itinerary and the overnight train from Barcelona to Interlaken only left on certain days. So we had to either cut a day out of Barcelona or add like 3 days to it and cut it out of somewhere else. We were bummed, but the choice was pretty obvious. So now we're actually a day ahead of schedule, but it's cool because I think we're going to add Bruges, Belgium to our list because a few people have told me it's awesome (shout out to Tosha and Aubree). Anywho...we went to bed. P.S. Esteban (the other guy in our room) never did come home, so we never met him.
We woke up the next day and showered because we stank of cigarette smoke thanks to the sketch Nevermind Bar. That's one thing that's really surprised me about people over here - they all smoke! It's pretty ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if lung cancer was like the number one killer over here. Anywho, we checked out of our hostel because we were leaving that night, and we headed over to the Travel Bar to meet up for our free walking tour of Barcelona's Gothic area. I really enjoyed it! We learned a lot of the history behind all of the sights - which of course made it all more interesting. My favorite part was the Christopher Colombus informatio and when we saw Queen Victoria and King Ferdinand's castle (they were the ones who granted Colombus the money to come discover America - or something like that - I learned about it in history class so I semi-remembered what it was all about). We even saw the wood Colombus brought back from the New World. Our tour guide also took us to places you shouldn't ever go, includig Geroge Orwell Plaza, A.K.A Trippy Plaza because that's where all the drug deals go down. She also said that at night in that area you have like an 85% chance of being robbed - but don't worry mom, I was with like 15 other people and it was only like 12 in the afternoon - I didn't go back at night. Overall, the tour was a great idea and a great way to see a lot of Barcelona in the little time that we had.
Afterwards, Stephanie and I headed to one of the tapas places our tour guide reccomended and got some delicious tapas (which got their name from - in the older days it used to be a law that bartenders serve food with people's drinks and then they started becoming customary. And the people, in order to keep bugs from going into their drinks, would put their little plates of food on top of their drinks and the Spanish verd for to cover is tapar - hence, tapas. We learned that on the tour too, if you couldn't tell). Our food and Sangria was delicious - we decided to indulge since it was our last day in Spain.
After lunch, we hopped on the metro (I'm starting to hate metros - it was cool for like a day), and headed to La Sagrada Familia. It's this huge church that has been being built since like the 1890s. Ghadi devoted his life to it and they're still buildind it according to his plan. it won't be done until like 2030 or something! It's insanely big and very detailed - it was really cool. We went inside and looked around and took pictures, and did the tourist thing. We left, picked up our bags from our hostel, and headed to the train station to catch our train for Interlaken! We didn't miss it and we were at the right station this time - so definitely a less stressful experiece than Paris and Madrid. We had a couchette (which is a little cabin room with four beds in it) so we got to sleep on our over night train. Overall, Barcelona was awesome, but honsetly, I liked Madrid better. Barcelona did have the beach on it's side though, so that was a plus. Perhaps if we got to experiece more, it would have surpassed Madrid, but that wasn't the case.
I'll leave Interlaken to it's own post because it definitely deserves it.
Hi to Casey - I've been taking some pictures of some dogs to make a European dog album for you - you'll love it, i can't wait. But me telling you this will probably cause you to convince yourself to hate it. But whatevs.
Hi to Grandma! My parents told me that you were going over to Aunt Jayne's to read my blog! That makes me feel special! I hope I can get to the internet soon enough in order to post this! Love and miss you and grandpa - and the rest of the Lasco's!
Byeeeeee!
Monday, June 8, 2009
Madrid Madrid
So we arrive in Madrid via night train and the day starts out quite rough, im not gonna lie. We have a stop in irun and then from irun we went to madrid. Well, we have to pay 10 euros about to reserve a 2nd class seat and 25 euros for first class. We dont really understand why because we have a first class eurail ticket...but hell if we're paying 25 euros. So we suck it up and sit 2nd class. Well, when we arrive (STARVED, i might add) in Madrid we go to make a reservation for madrid to barcelona and then barcelona to interlaken and we're hit with even more fees!! Another 25 euro for our first class seat, and then 72 euro for a couchette (a little room with beds because our train from barcelona to interlaken is over night). Pissed, we pay and go to find our hostel. We have to hop on a local train (luckily we didnt have to pay for that) and go to the other train station. We get off and I immediately have to put my 1st grade level spanish to the test. It takes forever for us to get on the right street; i asked probably 5 people "pardon, donde esta?" and then pointed to the spot on the map. Walking up hill, with very little sleep, in the heat, not knowing for sure if we were going the right way was a bit taxing. FINALLY we find our hostel, and our spirits are lifted a bit because they ran out of the room we requested and we got the next room up - one full size bed, a twin bed, our own bathroom and shower, a tv (we didn't watch), and a safe. We loved this hostel.
First, showers were in order. Steph took one and she decided to dry her hair since we had a rough day and we had time. While i was in the shower, i heard this loud BANG. I came out and she had dropped our power transformer and broke it! So with half dry and nappy hair we had to figure out what to do next. We asked the front desk and they directed us to a store called El Corte Ingles. We set out to go find it and discover there are about 10 different El Corte Ingles with like 7 stories each - oy. Well, luckily we brought the transformer with us and after about 100 "donde esta?" and pointing to the transformer, we find the right section! Luckily someone speaks english there too. Well, we soon learn that we dont need the power transformer for electronics with smaller voltage electronics like our laptop and cameras. And sure enough, we didnt - we just needed the adaptors...which we didn't break. Nonetheless, it was still a good experience because we got integrated in some culture and we didn't have to buy anything. Although, now we're just carrying around a blow dryer and straightener for no reason - I'm considering just leaving it somewhere.
After this whole ordeal, we headed to eat some TAPAS! We were walking around La Plaza Mayor (i think) and spotted some guys playing the accordian and tamberine and noticed it was the same guys we had seen in a subway station in Paris! Crazy! Well, we saw some people taking pictures in their general direction and noticed they were speaking English, so we figured it would be a good converstaion starter. Well, they were actually taking pictures of their two friends right next to the little band who had just gotten engaged - whoops, not so much of a convo starter after all. Well, they were actually really nice, and excited to come across some english speakers - they were from georiga (Mandy, I thought about you! They go to Moutain Lake Church if you've ever heard of it). So they were actually in madrid on a mission trip. They invited us to go have dinner with them and so we did! It was kind of funny because they were there celebrating the engagement and we were just two random girls...but they made us feel welcome. It was really fun, we got some tapas and sangria and just talked with them for the evening. After that we went back to the hostel.
The next day we went to the REAL MADRID stadium and took a tour!! It was awesome. We went up in the stands, went to the mueseum inside, the trophy room, the bench and the locker room. We took a ridiculous amount of pictures. Then we hopped on the metro and headed across town to the bull fighthing stadium! We didnt actually see a bull fight or even get to go inside but the outside was cool looking, and i saw what the inside looks like on a post card...so that was enough. Getting tired, we got back on the metro and went to the Royal Palace. It was pretty and big, but that was about the extent of its excitement. Then it was time to head back to the hostel and do laundry for the first time. I'm not going to lie, this was the most excited i've ever been to do laundry. Clean underwear - yay! We met some funny mexican guys while waiting for our laundry and then we heard about a tapas tour that our hostel was putting together. We had to wait for our laundry to finish so we were late to the tapas tour and they were already at the last bar but we got some gross cider and met some cool people. Afterwards, our new friend Guilliam invited us to his hostel cause he said he had some sangria so that we didnt have to pay 15 euro to go on the pub crawl. Well once we got to his hostel we met some of his friends and we all just chilled outside on a bench for a few hours just talking. It was a lot of fun! Guilliam is french candian, and we met three girls who are exchange students in spain, one is fro germany, another from the US, and the last from Switzerland. Then there were also two boy from mexico, and another guy from spain. It was lots of fun to talk to them and learn about life outside of the US. We were a bit embarassed because we were the only ones who werent fluent in a different language, but they said it was all good. The girl from germany, theresa, knew german, spanish, english, french, and some hungarian. Wow. Anywho, we had to head back to the hostel because we had that 25 euro reservation to barcelona at 8am.
Well, if you're smart you could have probably guessed I can't get up that early. We missed our train and woke up 2 hours after it had already left. We freaked out a bit but then got on another train at 11:30 or something. But we lost that 25 euro and had to pay another 10 euro for stupid 2nd class. Don't think I'm stuck up, we were just mad because we bought a first class eurail and have yet to use it by this point! I'll leave Barcelona to its own post, but all in all we LOVED madrid!!! It'll always have a special spot in our hearts. ;)
hi casey! i hope your dog search went well! i can't wait to meet him!
First, showers were in order. Steph took one and she decided to dry her hair since we had a rough day and we had time. While i was in the shower, i heard this loud BANG. I came out and she had dropped our power transformer and broke it! So with half dry and nappy hair we had to figure out what to do next. We asked the front desk and they directed us to a store called El Corte Ingles. We set out to go find it and discover there are about 10 different El Corte Ingles with like 7 stories each - oy. Well, luckily we brought the transformer with us and after about 100 "donde esta?" and pointing to the transformer, we find the right section! Luckily someone speaks english there too. Well, we soon learn that we dont need the power transformer for electronics with smaller voltage electronics like our laptop and cameras. And sure enough, we didnt - we just needed the adaptors...which we didn't break. Nonetheless, it was still a good experience because we got integrated in some culture and we didn't have to buy anything. Although, now we're just carrying around a blow dryer and straightener for no reason - I'm considering just leaving it somewhere.
After this whole ordeal, we headed to eat some TAPAS! We were walking around La Plaza Mayor (i think) and spotted some guys playing the accordian and tamberine and noticed it was the same guys we had seen in a subway station in Paris! Crazy! Well, we saw some people taking pictures in their general direction and noticed they were speaking English, so we figured it would be a good converstaion starter. Well, they were actually taking pictures of their two friends right next to the little band who had just gotten engaged - whoops, not so much of a convo starter after all. Well, they were actually really nice, and excited to come across some english speakers - they were from georiga (Mandy, I thought about you! They go to Moutain Lake Church if you've ever heard of it). So they were actually in madrid on a mission trip. They invited us to go have dinner with them and so we did! It was kind of funny because they were there celebrating the engagement and we were just two random girls...but they made us feel welcome. It was really fun, we got some tapas and sangria and just talked with them for the evening. After that we went back to the hostel.
The next day we went to the REAL MADRID stadium and took a tour!! It was awesome. We went up in the stands, went to the mueseum inside, the trophy room, the bench and the locker room. We took a ridiculous amount of pictures. Then we hopped on the metro and headed across town to the bull fighthing stadium! We didnt actually see a bull fight or even get to go inside but the outside was cool looking, and i saw what the inside looks like on a post card...so that was enough. Getting tired, we got back on the metro and went to the Royal Palace. It was pretty and big, but that was about the extent of its excitement. Then it was time to head back to the hostel and do laundry for the first time. I'm not going to lie, this was the most excited i've ever been to do laundry. Clean underwear - yay! We met some funny mexican guys while waiting for our laundry and then we heard about a tapas tour that our hostel was putting together. We had to wait for our laundry to finish so we were late to the tapas tour and they were already at the last bar but we got some gross cider and met some cool people. Afterwards, our new friend Guilliam invited us to his hostel cause he said he had some sangria so that we didnt have to pay 15 euro to go on the pub crawl. Well once we got to his hostel we met some of his friends and we all just chilled outside on a bench for a few hours just talking. It was a lot of fun! Guilliam is french candian, and we met three girls who are exchange students in spain, one is fro germany, another from the US, and the last from Switzerland. Then there were also two boy from mexico, and another guy from spain. It was lots of fun to talk to them and learn about life outside of the US. We were a bit embarassed because we were the only ones who werent fluent in a different language, but they said it was all good. The girl from germany, theresa, knew german, spanish, english, french, and some hungarian. Wow. Anywho, we had to head back to the hostel because we had that 25 euro reservation to barcelona at 8am.
Well, if you're smart you could have probably guessed I can't get up that early. We missed our train and woke up 2 hours after it had already left. We freaked out a bit but then got on another train at 11:30 or something. But we lost that 25 euro and had to pay another 10 euro for stupid 2nd class. Don't think I'm stuck up, we were just mad because we bought a first class eurail and have yet to use it by this point! I'll leave Barcelona to its own post, but all in all we LOVED madrid!!! It'll always have a special spot in our hearts. ;)
hi casey! i hope your dog search went well! i can't wait to meet him!
Saturday, June 6, 2009
As much as I can fit without pictures
So Im on a computer in my hostel in Interlaken, Switzerland! Our laptop isnt picking up the wifi, so I cant post pictures :( Ill do it in a different post. Also this keyboard is in german! Its funny! The y and the z are switched and the exclamation point isnt in the same place...neither is the apostrophe key. So if this post has a lot of bad punctuation and mispelled words, then thats why. öäéà£üè...theres some fun symbols for you!
So to try and finish off Paris, the second day we went to Sacre Couer! It was a bit north of paris and it was huge!! We got a little lost along the way, despite its massive size, but we got there eventually. Standing on the steps, you can see all of paris! Well not all of it, because some trees were in the way, but it was still cool. I think the view from atop the Notre Dame was cooler though. After Sacre Couer we hopped back on the metro and went to MOULIN ROUGE!! Stephanie and I were so excited, because thats only like our favorite movie! We were such tourists and were singing the songs and taking a million pictures, ill post them later. After Moulin Rouge we went to THE EIFFEL TOWER!! We got some fruit and cheese and some really bad wine that we ended up throwing away, and sat in the grass and watched the sunset and the eiffel tower light up. THEN, it got all sparkly, and we went to the summit! It was so awesome to be on top of the eiffel tower!! We headed home, and we had to switch hostels, and i took a shower and it was THE coldest shower of my life, I thought I was going to get hypothermia. But when steph and emily took one the next morning it was hot, so either im stupid or it wasnt working, i dont know.
Our third day in paris, we had to bid Emily farewell *tears* and we headed to the Lourve late in the afternoon. On the way I got a little mini quiche, oh french cuisine. Steph got this raspberrz torte, it was delicious! The Lourve was really pretty, and hugeee! We got a million pictures, I saw mona and got so tired walking around. Im pretty sure we insulted the artists because we did the poses of the statues when we were taking pictures; it made us laugh at least :)
After the Lourve, we went to the Arc de Triumphe. It was way bigger than I thought it was going to be. The roundabout that surrounds it, is insannneee! Im surprised I didnt see a million accidents, it was pure madness. After the Arc, we went to this Fondue place we were trying to find the previous day near the Sacre Couer. It was such a cool little place!! It was small and we got there right as it opened. There are just like two long tables inside and you have to step on the chair and hop over the table. We made some friends and we got cheese fondue and they got meat, and we all shared. It was delicious!! Its funny because they serve wine in baby bottles! Its something to do with the fact that wine glasses get taxed so they decided to serve it in baby bottles. We had a great dinner, and by the time we left, there was a line outside waiting to come it!
We then headed to the train station because we had a night train to Madrid. We get to the train station and realize we`re at the wrong station! We had to haul butt across town via the metro and we got to the correct station just in time...phew! We get on the train and we didnt reserve a sleeper in time, so we had to sleep sitting up in chairs the whole time. Luckily they reclined, so it made it a little better, but still i didnt sleep that well. And I was paranoid the whole time about my bag getting stolen. But we got to Madrid safely and had all of our belongings, so it was all alright.
Hey casey, I hope your dog search is successful! Ive seen lots of dogs here...they`re such angels and I want to take all of them home with me! Everytime I see one I do a high pitched voice and think of you.
Well, Ill make a different post about Madrid, its kind of hard to concentrate in this room cause there are several people in here. I hope all is well in the states!
So to try and finish off Paris, the second day we went to Sacre Couer! It was a bit north of paris and it was huge!! We got a little lost along the way, despite its massive size, but we got there eventually. Standing on the steps, you can see all of paris! Well not all of it, because some trees were in the way, but it was still cool. I think the view from atop the Notre Dame was cooler though. After Sacre Couer we hopped back on the metro and went to MOULIN ROUGE!! Stephanie and I were so excited, because thats only like our favorite movie! We were such tourists and were singing the songs and taking a million pictures, ill post them later. After Moulin Rouge we went to THE EIFFEL TOWER!! We got some fruit and cheese and some really bad wine that we ended up throwing away, and sat in the grass and watched the sunset and the eiffel tower light up. THEN, it got all sparkly, and we went to the summit! It was so awesome to be on top of the eiffel tower!! We headed home, and we had to switch hostels, and i took a shower and it was THE coldest shower of my life, I thought I was going to get hypothermia. But when steph and emily took one the next morning it was hot, so either im stupid or it wasnt working, i dont know.
Our third day in paris, we had to bid Emily farewell *tears* and we headed to the Lourve late in the afternoon. On the way I got a little mini quiche, oh french cuisine. Steph got this raspberrz torte, it was delicious! The Lourve was really pretty, and hugeee! We got a million pictures, I saw mona and got so tired walking around. Im pretty sure we insulted the artists because we did the poses of the statues when we were taking pictures; it made us laugh at least :)
After the Lourve, we went to the Arc de Triumphe. It was way bigger than I thought it was going to be. The roundabout that surrounds it, is insannneee! Im surprised I didnt see a million accidents, it was pure madness. After the Arc, we went to this Fondue place we were trying to find the previous day near the Sacre Couer. It was such a cool little place!! It was small and we got there right as it opened. There are just like two long tables inside and you have to step on the chair and hop over the table. We made some friends and we got cheese fondue and they got meat, and we all shared. It was delicious!! Its funny because they serve wine in baby bottles! Its something to do with the fact that wine glasses get taxed so they decided to serve it in baby bottles. We had a great dinner, and by the time we left, there was a line outside waiting to come it!
We then headed to the train station because we had a night train to Madrid. We get to the train station and realize we`re at the wrong station! We had to haul butt across town via the metro and we got to the correct station just in time...phew! We get on the train and we didnt reserve a sleeper in time, so we had to sleep sitting up in chairs the whole time. Luckily they reclined, so it made it a little better, but still i didnt sleep that well. And I was paranoid the whole time about my bag getting stolen. But we got to Madrid safely and had all of our belongings, so it was all alright.
Hey casey, I hope your dog search is successful! Ive seen lots of dogs here...they`re such angels and I want to take all of them home with me! Everytime I see one I do a high pitched voice and think of you.
Well, Ill make a different post about Madrid, its kind of hard to concentrate in this room cause there are several people in here. I hope all is well in the states!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Some of Paris Day One...I got too tired to finish
After arriving at our hostel and putting our bags into the luggage room, we set off to explore! We were given a map of Paris and set free to see the city. Our first stop - find food. We were starved because we hadn't eaten since the plane and by the time we got everything settled it was around lunch time. We just started walking down steets to see if there was anything we wanted and we kept seeing people carrying these big sandwiches on baguettes, so we decided that sounded good. We stopped at a little place and were a little confused how things worked. Instead of someone seating you, you just sit down and they'll eventaully get to you. So we sat there and ate our sandwiches and took in the view of the Notre Dame which was right next door.
Scenes from our walk to lunch
More scenes
Me and the river on the way to lunch
The place we ate lunch
Me and my French cuisine
After lunch we noticed a line right across the street, so we decided to wait in it because we figured it was to get into the Notre Dame. It turns out it was to go on top of the Notre Dame! We had to pay 5 euros, and we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into when we embarked upon the thousands of stairs, but the view was worth it; it was so pretty! A great first sight to see! We saw the gargoyles, and it was cool because I saw some things I learned about in my British literature class this past semester. We went inside of the Dame after we were finished on the roof and it was so big and everything was so detailed. It was really pretty.
So tired from climbing the stairs!
Looking out onto the city
Looking out onto the city
Some of the view
A gargoyle for Allie and Alex ;)
Notre Dame steeple with the river and city
In front of the Notre Dame
We stayed at the Notre Dame for a while because it was really big and really beautiful. After that we went to the Pantheon and had a boat tour down the river at sunset. I'll tell more about that later I suppose or try to post pictures of it. Posting pictures on this blog is really difficult because when i upload them they all go to the top of the post, instead of at the bottom, so I have to drag them down and try to place them where I want...it's really annoying, especially on this tiny comptuer. So if you get less pictures in the future, that's why.
Well, currently I'm still in Madrid, we did laundry today (yay) so I need to pack my bag because we have to be on a train to Barcelona at 8am in the morning! No bueno!
Adios!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Departure and Paris!
Hi everybody! Sorry it has taken me so long to update! It's been difficult getting to the computer in Paris. I'm actually in Madrid now, but I'll tell y'all of our trip so far. Oh, and this computer is a little difficult to type on, so if there are mistakes, bear with me.
So on Thursday, Stephanie and I were really nervous about leaving - not bad nerves, just "oh my gosh, I can't believe we're leaving for a month and living out of a backpack nerves." I'm sure y'all know what I'm talking about ;) Anywho, Stephanie follows me to the airport and we meet Emily up there. My friend from UT (Emily) is studying abroad in France for several weeks this summer and so we booked the same flight so that we could all hang out in Paris together for a while. All was going well until Stephanie and I go to check in our bags. Stephanie is trying to discretely navigate through her money belt (a difficult task, I might add) and realizes when she made copies of them for safety reasons, she left both her debit and credit card in her printer! Neither of could even be upset, we were just SO grateful that she noticed before we left, because we didn't even need our cards throughout the check-in process. This was sign number 1 that God was watching out for us. Her dad ran home real quick and grabbed them for her and got back in pleantly of time.
Me, Emily, and Stephanie spelling out DFW
Once on the plane we were quite excited because these young French kids were sitting behind us. We thought it was cool to listen to them talk and thought perhaps they could be our friends for the trip over. Things did not go as planned. For some reason, these kids never sat still! I didn't get a wink of sleep because they kept kicking my chair. Arg. There was one point where you're in that stage where if you're not waken up you'll fall into your ever so pleasant slumber, and right before I was about to dive into the realm of this beautiful thing we call sleep I feel a BANG on the back of my chair. The French were not getting on my good side! Emily and I were both up the whole time. They played two movies, and for Ilona I will tell you which ones - Yes Man and Horton Hears a Who. But despite the lack of sleep, the plane ride was fine - nothing too exciting, and something I think I've already gone into too much detail about.
Stephanie on the Metro
Stephanie and me waiting in line to buy our metro ticket at the airport. Backpacks in tow!
Me, Emily, and Stephanie spelling out DFWOnce on the plane we were quite excited because these young French kids were sitting behind us. We thought it was cool to listen to them talk and thought perhaps they could be our friends for the trip over. Things did not go as planned. For some reason, these kids never sat still! I didn't get a wink of sleep because they kept kicking my chair. Arg. There was one point where you're in that stage where if you're not waken up you'll fall into your ever so pleasant slumber, and right before I was about to dive into the realm of this beautiful thing we call sleep I feel a BANG on the back of my chair. The French were not getting on my good side! Emily and I were both up the whole time. They played two movies, and for Ilona I will tell you which ones - Yes Man and Horton Hears a Who. But despite the lack of sleep, the plane ride was fine - nothing too exciting, and something I think I've already gone into too much detail about.
Once arriving in Paris, the excitement kicked in! All of our planning was starting to play out. We found our way through the airport, bought some metro tickets and proceeded to follow the directions to the hostel we were staying at.
Our depature stop on the RER from the airport
Our depature stop on the RER from the airport
Stephanie on the Metro
Stephanie and me waiting in line to buy our metro ticket at the airport. Backpacks in tow!Luckily, Emily had great directions from her teacher about where the hostel was, so it didn't take us long. But, as I feared, when we got there, they had no record of me making a reservation. Luckily thought they had a room open for one night so we got that. It was really nice and the lady at the desk was so helpful. We loved it. We were told to check the next day to see if anyone would cancel their reservation so that we could stay the next night as well, but unfortunately, no one did. The place was called the Mije (pr
onounced me-juh..kind of)
These pictures are being difficult, but the top two are the inside of our room (with Emily and Stephanie passed out on their beds from a long day)
The bottom two are the Mije from across the street and the French street, and then that's me obviously cheesin' in front of the sign. I don't look like a tourist at all! (sense the sarcasm via interne
t please)
We got into Paris in the morning so we had the whole day to go explore, which I will get to in another post. I desperately need to go to bed, it's nearly 4am and I started this like an hour and a half ago. Sorry I couldn't go into more detail yet! I'll get there eventually, even if it takes until November to finish.
Thanks for all your prayers! I hope to update again very soon!
onounced me-juh..kind of)These pictures are being difficult, but the top two are the inside of our room (with Emily and Stephanie passed out on their beds from a long day)
t please)We got into Paris in the morning so we had the whole day to go explore, which I will get to in another post. I desperately need to go to bed, it's nearly 4am and I started this like an hour and a half ago. Sorry I couldn't go into more detail yet! I'll get there eventually, even if it takes until November to finish.
Thanks for all your prayers! I hope to update again very soon!
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