I am heading back to Seattle and I am quite excited about it (in some ways I'm even excited to get rid of my tonsils). This trip was so different from SE Asia... different reasons for going and a different mind set completely. I had a great time and I am very happy that I was able to meet up with Katie. I've found out, while abroad, I like staying in a place for more than 3 nights and I like being able to connect with the locals. I feel that I really didn't get to do that on this trip. This trip was about seeing as much as possible in a very short amount of time. We were very much tourists were as in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand I was living there for a month so after a while I knew my way around and it became my home (even though I wasn't all that long). Packing up every three days becomes a drag after a while. I managed to take the same amount of stuff with me for 5 months in SE Asia as I did for 6 weeks in Europe... I wish I could have a Mary Poppins’ bag that I could just keep pulling stuff out of, however, my pack didn't do that and I am happy that I haven't killed the zipper on it with all my traveling.
The last week or so of the trip: Katie and I went to Berlin to meet Katie's boyfriend who is taking a 6 week architecture trip with WSU. Katie was very excited, however, because he was there on a class trip we were only able to hang out during the evenings with Evan and the rest of his class. The first day we did another “free” walking tour hitting all the main points – part of the Berlin Wall, Check Point Charlie... In the evening we went to the Sony Center and saw Angels and Demons. After spending so much time on my feet seeing the sights I was really excited to sit in a movie theater and feel that it was okay sitting still for two hours. I think this theater had the most comfortable seats I have sat in, it had assigned seating, and sitting in the back half was a little more expensive than the first half. Day two was spent looking around a little more, we spent two hours in Starbucks where I slept and Katie played cards. In the evening we went to see an Ballet. I had been wanting to see some kind of show and the last three places we had been to you either couldn't see, it was sold out, or too expensive. At the Berlin opera house if you were a student and showed up 30 minutes before the show you could have any open seat in the house for 13 euros! I was very excited and it was well worth it. It wasn't anything Katie or I had heard of before and we made up the plot as we went, but it was good. The next day we got up at 4am to catch our 7am flight to England.
Two years ago my mom, Liz, went on an exchange to England for work where she met Caroline. Then in September, Caroline came to Seattle and stayed with us while she was visiting Liz's work. Caroline and her friend Jan picked us up from the airport and took us out to breakfast before Caroline drove Katie and I to her home in Kent. After recovering from our early morning we drove with her grown son, Nick, to the seaside of Whitstable. We looked at shops and ate an authentic English lunch of fish and chips before heading back. On Tuesday we went into Canterbury where we curled up in Starbucks finishing our books, waiting for the rain to stop, before we ventured out. We did a little shopping and Nick met us and showed us around the town. On Wednesday Katie and I went into London for the day. We saw Buckingham Palace (the Queen was in but we didn't see her), Big Ben, the Eye, walked along the South Bank, took a bus ride, and more. Over all it was a great day for only having one day to spend in London. We even went to King's Cross Station to try and find platform 9¾, however, we couldn't find a good wall to try and run through to get to the Hogwarts Express.
I think that Sicily and Paris were my favorite places. There were no places that I didn't like – Vienna is probably the lowest and that just has to do with how miserable the weather was even though we had a wonderful tour guide, Susi. I was amazed with how many Americans were traveling over there. It made sense, that most of them were just getting out of school after studying abroad but I wasn't expecting it and am disappointed that I didn't get to meet more people from other countries - they were out there but the majority of the people were Americans.
If I had to pick where my next trip would be to I would say Africa or Australia but I might just go back to SE Asia first. There is so much of Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia that I didn't see and that I really want to. But first I need to get my tonsils taken out, recover, and spend a little time at home before I start making grand plans about traveling again. This summer I will be working at REI and hopefully taking a few small trips into the mountains. I will post pictures of Europe while I am recovering. I can't wait to see people while I am home!
I have now been home for 24+ hours and am loving the weather! My plane ride was fine other than being too long and for the last three hours I was having a hard time sitting still. Going over Greenland and the Rockies was great because the weather was so clear that we got amazing views! I was blessed by my doctor for surgery and go in at 8:30 on Monday morning.
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