Home safe and sound

Sorry the blog somewhat disappeared into thin air but after Prague the group somewhat went their separate ways. After learning that it would take a 15 hour train ride to get from Prague to Amsterdam we all quickly weighed our options. John and Mitch decided it would be best if they just fly directly to London, stay a couple days, and catch their flight out to Seattle. Sam, Keagan, Darrick, and Drew bit the bullet and hopped on the train. Justin and I stayed an extra day in Prague and flew to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam was by far one of everyones favorite places. The character of the city is addictive with its uneven buildings and canals. Our hostel was in the red light district which created plenty of entertainment. As we were there Drew and Sam were the last to leave the group and fly home. From there Darrick, Justin, and I had to start making decisions for our last week. We decided to head out to the Flying Pigs beach hostel in Noordjik on the coast. It was nothing more then a sleepy beach town which allowed for some much need decompressing. We ended up staying two nights because we really had nothing planned.

After the beach we headed to Brugge, Belgium. The hostel was definitely the most un-liked of all. We assumed it used to be an asylum. Brugge itself was really cool, much like a medieval fortress. The chocolate was unreal and the beer was never ending. We had one great night at the Druids cellar, an underground Irish pub. The three of us had plenty of time to contemplate life and whats to come.

After Brugge we had a long traveling day. We headed back to Amsterdam to catch a flight to London, and then on to find our hostel somewhere around Hyde park. The hostel was nice with a great location. We spent most of our one day there wondering around Hyde park. The boys took a nap at one point. In the morning we had to be up at 5 and on the tube to get to Heathrow International. It was a long morning to say the least. After 18 hours of traveling we all landed in Seattle around 5. It has now been 5 days since we have been home and I am still feeling the ends of jet leg.

There are no words to sum up the trip we just had. All we know is the real world is looking awful. Some are already at work and others are avoiding at all costs.  But at least were all alive =)

Go Cougs

Prague

We are in Prague but unfortunately havent seen much of it yet. Yesterday we checked in to another St. Christopher's hostel which was built in 2010. After all 8 showers we napped and headed to dinner. Chinese/Teryaki was just what we needed. Prague is strange because of its currency. Every bill is a 100 or higher. When we pulled money out of the ATM all we got was a 2000 bill....its been strange to get used to. Plus Czech is a whole other language that we have no comparison or familiarity with.

After dinner we went to a local brewery and had sampler beers, including coffee, banana, sour cherry, and nettle flavors. We also learned that Caechs drink more beer per capita then anywhere.... impressive. After the beers we went back to the hostel and hung out in the bar/restaurant for the night with tons of other travelers. This morning we got up late and had burgers at the hostel. Just as im looking forward to having a salad...its smart that I dont because of the e.coli breakout.

Afterwards we headed to the train station to plan our travels to Amsterdam and hit a massive wall in the plans. Turns out the night trains are full and the available day train has 1 transfer, no reservations (so we would have to jump around), and is 15 hours long. After throwing out every idea we have come to the plan of splitting up as of tomorrow. Keagan, Sam, Drew, and Darrick are headed to Amsterdam on the 15 hours train. JW, Mitch, Justin, and I are staying in Prague another night and flying out on monday. JW and Mitch are headed to London since they have to fly home from there and Justin and I are just flying to Amsterdam to save train travel days on our pass. From their Drew, Keagan, and Sam are flying home and Justin, Darrick, and I are continueing for another week. Where we are going is still unknown but we hope to go to Ireland.

Tomorrow the four of us are going to see the Prague castle...the rest saw it today. Were just hoping that all travel plans go as smoothly as possible from here on out. Its simple to say tonight will be wild being our last night together!

Munich

Once again we failed to have reservations on the trains to Munich because the train station people don’t even know how their own system works. We sat on two trains for 5 hours stressing over whether our seats were going to be taken. We hopped around crossing our fingers that we could stay in one place long enough to get some sleep. Once in Munich it was still raining but we lucked out having our hostel only half a block from the train station… and it was called Jaeger Hostel, with a free shot for staying there. To say the least we were more than pleased to have in-suite bathrooms and amazing showers. We also split up in two 4-man rooms making it a lot easier to function.

For dinner we headed straight to the famous Hofbrauhause. There we had giant steins, brats, dumplings, and pork. Germans simply know how to do it right. On the way we saw the gaudy Munich town hall and shopping plaza. After dinner we hung out for awhile and eventually continued the night at the hostel bar and cheered each other with our free Jaeger shot. To put it simply, it was Justin’s turn to have a not-so-memorable, but good night. A KFC run was also in the mix.

The next day we slept in and saw the Oktoberfest grounds. Eventually JW, Sam, and I headed out to Dachau to visit the concentration camp. For me it was really special and something I had to do before I die. The camp is relatively small and a lot of it is reconstructed to keep it intact. It is free to visit and only 2.50 euro for an audio tour. We saw everything including the gas chambers and crematoriums.

The rest stayed back and wondered around, not realizing it was a German holiday and everything was closed. We all met back later and went to the Augustiner beer-garden. It was basically a giant berr-garden set-up like a park with hundreds of tables, a stage, children’s park, and hanging lights everywhere. Definitely another place to visit again. Afterwards we were all happy campers and continued the night at the hostel. Some went to bed and others ventured to another bar where old Germen men sang songs until late into the night. An old German guy had a lovely dance with Drew while they all sang. He has nothing to comment except that he is embarrassed =).

This morning we got up early as always and got on another train to Prague. We are here now staying at another St. Christopher’s ostel that was built in 2010. Let’s just say were finally livin’ on the higher side of life. Get back to yah later… we found Teryaki!

Interlaken {The Extreme Sports Capital of the World}

We once again had an early morning train to Interlaken which consisted of mostly sleeping. Once we reached the mountain area we all woke up to the most beautiful terrain yet. We had to transfer to a local train 20 min outside of Interlaken and got to ride along the lake with the windows down. Yes I was an extremely happy girl being in the mountains. Once we were off the train we were so happy to see a real sized grocery store and not so crowded streets. Sky-divers were parachuting between the hillsides and you could see chateaus on the peaks. Off in the distance were snow-capped mountains and seemed to be so close.

We stayed at Balmers hostel which had three lodges, bar, beer-garden, club, and a tent village 10 min away. Everything was very Swiss themed with fresh spring water fountains. After checking in we all signed up for canyoning and Justin, Keagan, Darrick, and JW also did a canyon jump. They left immediately to head up to the canyon where they free-fell for 150 ft. and swung like a giant swing at 250 ft. They all agreed it was the most intense thing they have ever done.

The rest of us hung at the restaurant/bar for the evening for happy hour. Over a matter of hours we watched a crazy thunder and lightning storm roll in right over our heads. The sky turned to dark blue as lighting came down throughout the valley. We stayed out until it started to down-pour…a little reminder of home. Later everyone went down to the underground (and only) club in town. The hostel also had a tent village down the road so plenty of people came down.

In the morning we had free breakfast and went tandem biking. As if three guys on one bike isn’t funny enough, JW and Keagan road one that faced opposite directions. JW steered and peddled forward while Keagan faced backwards and peddled the same direction…. It really was hilarious and you will understand when you see pics. It started to downpour again, and lasted all day. In the afternoon we went canyoning. It was easy to say we definitely wanted more time but it was really fun. The water was ice cold but we got to repel down rock faces, swings around cliffs, jump into waterfall pools, and slide down rock slides. If we had more time we would have done every extreme sport there was.

For dinner we (I should say the guys) couldn’t resist the urge for some Hooters wings. We hit the pillow the earliest that night of the entire trip. We could not have survived another night together in that tiny room. It continued to pour the next day as well and left the rest of Interlaken for another time.

Pictures!

We are now in Interlaken and I have a free computer to use so I've uploaded a post of just pictures. I cant do a lot because it takes forever but I know many of you have been begging for some. They are an array of everywhere we have been so far. Enjoy!



Beach in Barcelona

Barca: Darrick paid for the 'free' flowers

Barca: The worst sunburns you will ever see

Barca

Monte Carlo

Night out in Cinque Terre

Hike in Cinque Terre looking down on Vernazza

Hike in Cinque Terre

Rome: The Colosseum

Rome: Vatican, The Last Supper on Tapestry

Florence for the Man-U/Barca game

Florence

London: Buckingham Palace

Leaving London

Paris: The Louvre

Barcelona: Mitch had a candy meltdown at the market

Monte Carlo and the Meditteranean



When in Rome

After I last left off we met up with our friend Chelsey Elliott from home, and her two friends. We went down to the Scholars Irish bar for beers and enjoyed having other friends to hang out with (one of the little things you learn to appreciate). There was no doubt we all had a good night =). The next day we got up and made our way to the Vatican for a tour of the Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Our tour guide was awesome and extremely knowledgeable about art. He’s also written a few journalistic articles on Michelangelo and others for National Geographic. We got to see Da Vinci’s Last Supper on tapestry and the best of Rafael. As they say in Rome, everything that is of importance or rarity is in the Vatican. That is why Rome seems to be half vanished. Every piece of art and marble has been put in the Vatican as a literal Storage unit. They have 86 corridors of just statues of all kinds. The Sistine chapel was by far the most breathtaking. It is everything that it is anticipated to be but you wouldn’t nearly appreciate it as much without the history of a tour.

After the tour we went over to St. Peters square in the Vatican City (everyone knows what this looks like from the Da Vinci code). We then went into St. Peters Basilica (the largest church in the world). It also is truly incredible. Mass was going on in part of the church so JW crossed it off his bucket list. The marble floor is incredible and the mere size is unreal. It’s something you can’t miss if you’re in Rome and its free! Afterwards we planned to see the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, and the Spanish steps, but were way too tired and ended our day early. We saw the Pantheon and Trevi fountain in the morning and decided to save the Spanish steps for later in life. You would literally have to be in Rome for a month to see it all anywhere. We then made our way to the train station to head to Florence. We had our first sprinting-through-the-train-station moment after buying reserved tickets minutes before it was going to leave. The ride was only an hour and we bee-lined for McDonalds once in Firenze.

Here we also have two apartments that sleep 4 each in an awesome location. Ironically this is our third experience with a faulty water situation. The last two either had awful water pressure to the point of dripping and one would run out of water completely. Here the showers only have hand-held shower heads in a bath-tub. Justin went to turn on the shower and the hose went flying around the bathroom. I had an ab workout this morning just sitting in the tub trying to hold the shower-head. We’ve now named it the shath.

I finally got my shopping time in when Justin devoted a few hours to escorting me =). Later we headed to the bar across the street for the Manchester-U/Barcelona game and had the time of our lives. Justin and Mitch wore their new Messi Uni’s and we had giant tubes of beer. Darrick successfully drenched himself in beer and had to go home. Barca won and we went crazy. After the game we went back to the apartments and more friends from school who are studying abroad came over. Once again it was so nice to see other friends, especially girls =). When we went back out the streets were crazy and people partying everywhere. Mostly because of the Barca win and everyone was a college student wanting to rage in the streets. We saw more friends from home back inside the bar, two girls from my sorority, Lou and Shannon! I was loving life. The party lasted all night and everyone was having way too much fun. Unfortunately Keagan wondered off into the night thinking he was going home and managed to find himself miles away. John woke up to him yelling from the street early in the morning once he found his way home. He made a record of 50 calls during the night, but it was another great story in the morning.

Today was an extremely lazy and slow day. We somewhat slept in for the first time and walked around the river. After only 30 min and a lot of gelato we all agreed we were just way too tired. Our Pullman bodies are now having a hard time keeping up. We took naps and did just about nothing all day. We’ve all made dinner again and agreed to lay low tonight. We have another train at 9 tomorrow to Interlaken where the real fun begins =)…. A few are going bungee jumping asap.

Roma and the Colosseum

Last night we all ended up staying in and contued drinking Italian wines and playing cards. A few people tried to go out but no bars were open (were not used to that). This morning we got up and made our way down to the Colosseum and Palatine Hill where all of the ruins are.

We started with a walking tour that covered both the Coloseeum and Ruins, as well as skipping the long line to get in. Our guide in the Colosseum was hard to understand but no doubt it was mind blowing. From the inside it felt a lot bigger then the outside. Of course the outside is missing two corridors from the existing outside wall. Half of the upper portion is also missing, partly from earthquake damage. All of the original seating is also gone but it wasnt hard to imagine ampitheatre seating like any modern day stadium. We learned about the Gladiators, animal fights, and the efforts it took to construct it. During our hour and a half break Justin, Darrick, Mitch, and I grabbed some baguettes and salami and ate outside. We then continued another tour on top of Palatine hill, where all of Rome was founded and built. The emporors all built their palaces on the hill, as well as chariot racing tracks. There is so much history in the small area it felt impossible to take it all in. There were also areas below in the valley that are currently being excavated.

After the tour we all met back at the apartment. In no time, we were all passed out from the walking and muggy heat. Once we woke up everyone went to the grovery store and got more creative with their pasta dishes. The kitchen here is definitely not ideal for 8 poeple cooking different meals. It only contains two small burners and one counter space. We are now increadibly full. Our good friend Chelsey Elliott from school is coming over tonight with some friends that are all studying abroad and theres no doubt we will be hitting the bars!

Tomorrow is a Vatican tour, the Pantheon, Spanish steps, and the Trevi Fountain...