It's Been Tooooooo Long

Wow, where does time go? Almost three months have passed by since my last post, and quite a few things have happened, well at the beginning anyway.. I still have to update on Italy.. quick summary, pretty much amazing.. and my two weeks I spent in Germany! If I ever write just one more blog post, it'll be about Germany.. WAY too many great and amazing stories from that country to not share.

America, on the other hand, hasn't been so entertaining. Don't get me wrong.. I am SO very glad to be home where things are familiar and to be around family and friends again, but going from backpacking across Europe to having no summer job and not a whole lot to do has been a more difficult transistion than packing everything up and moving to Wales for four months. A few years ago, I would have been nothing short of excited to have a summer off and have all kinds of time to myself, but I'm not gonna lie, it's not been a real eventful summer.

However, on the bright side, I have had time to do a little bit of reading (I'm just about to finish "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, it's brilliant; I'd suggest it) and I've even started studying and reviewing what I've learned throughout the years in Psychology, which is lame, I know, but I'm hoping it will help later this semester.

And then there's my attempt at planning the rest of my life. Yikes. I'm about 95% sure that I won't be going to school to further my studies in Psychology. Instead, I want to try and find a job right after graduation, working outdoors. I'd eventually like to receive my Master's in Outdoor Education, however, in order to do so, I first have to have loads of experience in several different outdoor activities. And so I've been doing a little research and I've found that not only do Utah and Colorado both have amazing venues for hiking, rock climbing, etc etc, but they are also ranked in the top, economical states to live, not to mention, absolutely breathtaking. And yes, my mind will most likely change again here in the next few weeks, but as of right now, that's the plan and I couldn't be more pumped!

Annnnnd I think that's it for the updates! I'll try to keep up with the posts, but I can't promise anything, especially after school starts up and I'll actually be busy once again!

But until next time..

As Promised....

.... even if it is a little late..

Ah, well, Venice, or should I say, Venezia: the city of canals and gondolas! It was fabulous! Well, minus the whole getting completely lost part and eating our weight in gelato every day. Okay, the gelato thing wasn't that bad, not gonna lie. But the layout of the city definitely presented us with some challenges throughout our stay.

Just trying to find our hostel took us WAY too long. Good thing I knew a little bit of Italian, or rather, that Lacey didn't know a lick.. so when we stopped and asked a policeman for directions and he explained them to me in Italian and I was nodding and pretending like I knew where I was going, Lacey didn't have a clue (ha ha, sorry Lace. We found our way though, didn't we?).

Yes, in fact, we did. It wasn't too much wandering later that we found ourselves just off the Grand Canal, in our very unique hostel. It was called the Museum, and rightfully so. It was an old, not really renovated, building that definitely had the potential of being a museum back in the day. I think it would have been cool, if it hadn't been for the creepy cherubs and random faces that stared at you throughout the entire building. Oh well, the fact that Brad and Angelina and the dwarves were staying right across the canal from us, made up for the creepiness.

Yes, they were seriously staying in the building across from us. No, I didn't see them myself, but when I was out trying to orientate myself one night, I guess one of the kiddos came out onto the balcony and the paparazzi were going mad! Oh well.. I think I'll live.

Plus, there were WAY more exciting things going on. I mean, it was Venice after all. Lacey and I filled our days there with impromptu meals of bread, pizza sauce, and cheese, gelato for breakfast, and long walks window shopping and sitting on the edge of the canal. It was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of our overnight trains and the super-quick day trip to Vienna. We had the chance to just relax and have dinner at our hostel and made tons of new friends!

But before too long, we were packing everything back up and headed for Florence! Good thing we were traveling by train too! That ash cloud could have seriously messed plans up! Although, not gonna lie, I wouldn't have been too terribly disappointed to have been stuck in Venice....

Stay tuned... Florence is next!

Until next time!

My promise..

Okay, excuse time.
I did get to see Venice, Florence, Naples, and Rome, and I do have LOADS of stories about each and every one of them, but as you can see, I've gotten WAY behind, but I will start catching you up on everything.. However, I have 4 assignments due by Monday, and so I'm having to focus on those at the moment. But hopefully, I will have them done and will be able to write by Sunday! So check back then!

Sorry again!

Prague and Vienna

Yep, gotta group these two together. I am WAY behind, hence multiple posts in one day. I'm trying to catch up!

So, Prague was SUPER neat. The train ride there wasn't too bad and our hostel was absolutely amazing! It was newly renovated and the rooms were ginormous! Yes, gin-or-mous. It has most definitely been my favorite hostel thus far. And the town of Prague wasn't bad either! We got a pretty early start the next morning, and just started wondering around town. We first came across the atomic clock, a clock that has been telling time since the 1400s. In the same plaza, we got to see an amazing church. Seriously, the Europeans know how to construct and decorate a church. I feel like I've seen so many great works of art, just by stepping inside of random churches. Okay, they're not random, they're actually very well known tourists hot spots, but still cool, all the same.

We then continued to walk awhile to find this castle building off in the distance. We walked across the St. Charles bridge, stopped and bought a charm, then stopped in for coffee, and then finally made it to the castle. It turned out to be a cathedral, filled with much more intricate artwork and stained glass. Beautiful!

That night, we took off for Vienna on our first overnight train. It wasn't ideal, to say the least. We were stuck in a compartment, in normal seats, between people we didn't know. Yah, we didn't get a whole lot of sleep. So when we arrived at the Vienna station at 6:30 in the morning, we were pretty much like bumps on a log. We actually sat in the train station for the longest time and tried to catch a little shut eye. Around 11, we finally mustered up enough energy to grab some lunch and find our way to the historical downtown.

We found some pretty neat buildings and then happened to stumble across a museum. Since we had nothing else to do, and a lot of time to kill (we were catching yet another overnight train to Venice that night at 8:30pm), we decided to go in and check it out. It was pretty cool. We seriously considered sneaking into the dressing rooms at one point and falling asleep in a stall on the bench.. yep, we were that tired. But the huge collection of preserved animals kept us entertained for long enough. This museum also had the largest collection meteorites. And yes, we found meteorites from Indiana!! Woo-hoo! Go Indiana!

Around 4ish, we headed back towards the station, and found a quick place to get coffee.. we needed it. Then it was back to the benches to wait out the remainder of our time before we boarded our second and last overnight train. Finally, we were allowed to board and...

Well, I'll save that story for next time!

Berlin!

I know it, I know it. I’m behind. Bear with me. It’s just been a whirlwind of a week so far, with two overnight trains in a row and just not much time to sit down and connect with the social world, let alone write blogs.

But here we go.. Berlin! Beautiful city! Wow, I just realized I am wayyyy behind. Okay, anyhow. Yes, big, mostly clean, and friendly! Lace and I arrived around 5 or so and had help right off the bat in trying to buy a metro ticket. Little did we know, Germany believes in the honor system (dang, we could have taken advantage of that), but no, we were good tourists and bought our tickets. Then, once we arrived at the closest station to our hostel, we had yet another kind German help us find our way.

So we checked into our hostel and just vegged for the night. At least, I think we did. Ha, all the nights are starting to run together. But yes, I’m almost positive that’s what we did, then we hit the city early the next morning, since we had all day to explore! We ended up seeing the Brandenburg gate, the Reichstag (Germany’s version of the Capitol Building), Checkpoint Charlie (my favorite), Hitler’s Bunker, and the Holocaust Memorial. That last one was unreal. Kinda put a bit of a damper on our day. But by the time we got pretzels and shared them with the birds, we were in a much better mood.

The next morning, we took advantage of the hostel’s ridiculously-priced breakfast and stuffed our faces, then packed a lunch of cheese sandwiches and tea and headed out for the train station. We caught our train and were on our way to Prague before we knew it!

Well, I’m going to stop there and start a new blog for Prague. Hopefully, it’ll be a little more detailed. Until next time!

Luxembourg City and Brussels

Okay, well these two are going into one blog, because, to be honest, there wasn’t much to either of them. Actually, going into this trip, I expected very little of Luxembourg, and a lot more of Brussels. Turns out, I enjoyed Luxembourg much more than I enjoyed Brussels, but I think that had to do with many contributing factors. Let me explain.

We didn’t arrive in Luxembourg until 10 past midnight. From the train station, our taxi driver took us the scenic route (sly, greedy rascal), but really, we got a feel for the town. Within our 10 minute ride, we went up and down several hills, across a couple of neat bridges, spanning across the rivers below them, and around several, hairpin curves. However, it wasn’t until morning that we really discovered what a gem Luxembourg really was. So, instead of leaving at our pre-planned time of 11 o’clock in the morning, we decided to delay our departure until 1:30pm, so we had some time to check out the town. Our hostel was situated in quite a nice area, just a short walk away from the main center. We quickly found out that Luxembourg City was definitely a ‘posh’ city. Everything was very immaculate and fancy schmancy. But the thing I liked best was the valley the town square overlooked. It was absolutely picturesque, with a little river running through it and the green grass and the neighborhood houses of all different colors and then the remnants of medieval buildings up on the hill. Ahhh, it was cool!

Unfortunately though, we did have a train to catch, so we hauled our luggage up the giant hill to the bus stop and carried on towards the station and then departed for Brussels. Here’s where the town didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I don’t know if it was because we were in a ‘strange’ part of town or if it was the fact that we just didn’t have a whole lot of time or a map to plan out where we wanted to see, but I didn’t necessarily care for Brussels. Our hotel was nice though. Yes, I said, ‘hotel.’ It was actually one of the cheapest accommodations around, even though now I realize that the price was probably because of where it was located. Although hotels like the Sheraton and the Hilton were just a few blocks down, there weren’t a lot of main attractions nearby.

Since we were tired anyhow, we took advantage of our dull location and decided to go for a quick walk. On our walk, we found a delicious Italian shop, got pizza, a bag of potato chips, chocolate covered waffles (kinda like doughnuts), and a fruity beverage and headed back to the hotel to devour our ridiculously unhealthy meal and watch Sandlot. And by watch Sandlot, I mean, I made it insofar as I could while eating, and then passed out around 8 o’clock.

Don’t worry, I still slept in until 9. Yup, got 13 hours of much needed sleep. Because we slept in though, we had to skip our day-trip to Amsterdam in order to make it to our Berlin hostel on time. Even though we had to miss Amsterdam, we both agreed that the extra sleep was quite worth it!

Well, sorry, but that’s all for now! Until next time!

Ciao, Paris!

Well, I’m happy to say that Lace’s and my last day in Paris was a success! We were awake at a decent hour, hopped the metro to the train station, had a little snag while trying to make reservations for our next train to Luxembourg (we had to catch a 7:30pm train instead of the 2:30 that we initially wanted), and saw some pretty neat sights, including Notre Dame and the Sacre d’Coeur.

Notre Dame was ridiculous! There was so much intricate detail. The stained glass windows alone were amazing! We took a tour inside it, but to be honest, I liked the outside better. There was a small garden one side that Lacey and I sat in and just enjoyed the view for a while. The cathedral actually is situated on an island of sorts, and so the river runs on both sides of it. From our little garden bench, we could watch the boats go by as well as the ducks, which, of course, made Lacey very happy. Ha ha ha.

From there, we had a little look-see around the nearby streets. Crossing over the bridge to get to the mainland was like something out of a French book or movie. Actually, it kind of reminded me of Madeline, I think, when they cross the bridge and there are artists painting or selling their paintings.. I’m pretty sure that’s Madeline, at least. So yes, it was pretty neat to see that, and then we made our way through the winding streets, trying to find a place to grab a bite to eat. It wasn’t too long before we came across a delicious looking Gyro stand and so we got some food and then found yet another park to sit in and enjoy our food. I’ll tell you one thing, the French sure do have a lot of cute, little parks.

After lunch, we headed back to the hostel via metro. Once there, we had a quick Facebook break and then headed to the Sacre d’Coeur, which, unbeknownst to us, was just a block behind our hostel. There, we found a comfy, little spot on the hill and settled in and just people/pigeon watched, enjoying the sunshine and our last few hours of peace before we had to rush off to the train station for our 5-hour train ride to Luxembourg.

All in all, it was a great day! Couldn’t complain one bit! So until next time!