The last week and home again

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.

Prague with lost lots of art

Prague is beautiful and is my favorite for the eastern countries we have been to. This morning we did a "free walking tour" - that is you tip at the end. Our tour guide did a very good job so it was well worth it. After finishing that we had a nice lunch and rested our feet before going to a few places we went to earlier in the day to take more photos. The afternoon was spent wandering around some more and finding a bench in the shade to read. It didn't feel like a very productive day but we saw tons on our tour and my feet hurt because of it. Prague also has lots of interesting modern art!

Katie and I at Lennon Wall.

Me!

David Cerny's peeing men - interesting modern art. If you text some number supposedly they will pee out your message!

Me and creepy no face babies.

More love locks.

Walking to Buda and back

So we have made it to Budapest. If you can tell here my ice cream/gelato is shaped like a flower! It was very pretty until I started eating it. It lasted all of 5 second before it was destroyed. It tasted wonderful but not as good as in Italy.
I have seen this in a few places now and think that it is a interesting idea (sort of cute). You write your initials or names of you and your significant other on a lock, or have it engraved, and then you lock it to a post.
This is a memorial tree at the largest synagogue in Europe. There is a name of a family on most of the leaves.

A view of Pest from Buda. We took a "free" walking tour today and saw lots of the sites. Katie and I both aren't feeling that great... we can't quite figure it out but maybe it was our breakfast. We plan to do a little more wandering around tomorrow and on Tuesday we will take a 7+ hour train ride to Prague.

The weather was beautiful today! We were even able to read in a park for a bit enjoying how nice the shade felt.

The rest of Paris and all of Vienna

Me at Schloss Schonbrunn with Vienna in the background.

Susi, me, and Katie in the Mazes at Schloss Schonbrunn.

Me, Susi, and Katie at Schloss Schonbrunn.

Katie and I at the Eiffel Tower again - this is the day we climbed it.

Me at the Arc de Trimuph.

Katie and I at the Eiffel Tower.

Me on top of the Louvre.

Elizabeth, Katie, me, and Peter eating lunch in Nice.

There is so much that I could write about Paris... all the places we went, saw, ate... but I'm going to shorten it a bit. We went, we saw, we conquered... all and all we had a great time. I think I was the most excited to see Paris because I knew the most about it. Here are a few pictures from Paris. We walked around so much that I think we exhausted ourselves for Vienna. We were out the door before 9am and weren't home till close to 8pm with only small breaks in between. And, because we are being so cheap we wouldn't spend the 1 euro to take the metro but would walk for a hour instead...


We flew to Vienna on Wednesday and had a friend of mine meet us. Susi and I met in Nong Khai, Thailand, while we were teaching English together. Susi has been wonderful and a great tour guide for us. Katie and I walk around looking at things while Susi makes sure we get on the correct metro/trains to get to where we need to go. We have been to the Mozart museum, to see "The Kiss," to Schloss Schonbrunn... and we even have had Wiener Schnitzel and Radler (beer mixed with a lemonade drink...) both were good but not things that I need to eat everyday. Wiener Schnitzel was just like a breaded pork that was fried... German is a lot harder to deal with vs French or Italian. Trying to remember which stop we need to get off at or trying to pronouns anything is a mouthful and I am not doing a very good job with it.

The weather has been gray like Seattle the last few days and hasn't been all that warm. A little disappointing but it could always been worse. At least today was dry.

Next stop is Budapest. I go home in less than two weeks.

Pictures and Paris!

Me in Venice.

Katie and I eating gelato!

Katie on the train to Venice.

Me at Cinque Terre.

We walked from the left hand side to the right through all of the towns.

Here I am in Venice with St. Mark's behind me.

Me looking over Verona.

Paris has been amazing! Katie and I have been all over Paris and while we didn't get to see everything we wanted to - but we had a blast doing it and our feet hurt like crazy! We have been making sure to try all the wonderful pastries that are here as well. Here are some pictures from the last few places. More pictures hopefully to come soon - they are taking too long to load tonight. Tomorrow we head off to Vienna for a few days.

Southern France

Again my blog post is being written on the train... it really is a good way to use up time. If you hadn't already figured out I have a computer on this trip. I found out about Netbooks a month into my SE Asia trip and was really miffed that I didn't know about it before... it could have paid for itself with the amount of money I spent on internet. So for this trip I thought it would be a good investment – so far I am very happy with it. Even when you have to pay for internet it is a third of the price when you have your own computer.

Katie and I just got on the train in Nice, France and are headed to Paris. So are about 15 mins into a 5+ hour ride where family friends of Katie will be picking us up. Jumping from friend to friend is a great way to go. We just had a lovely time with Elizabeth and Peter. Elizabeth and Peter were next door neighbors to Katie's mom, Karen, when she was growing up. And Elizabeth still says in contact with Katie's grandmother. Also, Karen came and stayed with Elizabeth and Peter when she was doing her backpacking adventure years ago.

We have been busy walking around different towns and eating a lot! Elizabeth was making sure we stayed plump before sending us off to another home. On Wednesday we went to Monaco and walked around. We saw the Monte Carlo casino, the set up for the Grand Prix, plus lots of boats and yachts. On Thursday morning I check our tickets for the next day and found out that we has miss booked our tickets to Paris. So we changed our plans and went into Nice to figure out what we had to do to make sure we could get to Paris. After finding out that buying tickets on the internet was half the price than at the train station we went exploring Nice. Nice is huge! It goes on and on and on! I didn't realize that it is the 5th biggest town in France. We took a tourist train ride and saw the sights. Afterward we drove to Villefranche and had a drink before heading home. Then today (Friday) we went to Antibes and saw the huge yachts! I have picked myself out two favorites. My first pick has its own helicopter! After our days out sight seeing Elizabeth would prepare a wonderful spread for dinner. I haven't had some many courses for a regular meal. Every dinner Elizabeth would serve us appetizers with drinks, we would have our starter course, main meal, cheese course, dessert(s), and then coffee/coco with cookies! I never went hungry while I was with them.

Katie and I had a lovely time, we are now well rested, well feed, and excited to be moving on to Paris. I do have to say though that I wouldn't have minded staying with Elizabeth and Peter – it was just the right pace. We cannot thank them enough for our time with them. Elizabeth even packed us a wonderful picnic for the train! Next stop Paris and then we have to book our tickets and rooms for the rest of our trip. I'm half way through my trip and can't believe it.

I just looked out the window and was amazed to see what looked like something out of Utah or Nevada on one side and the sea on the other!

Trains, trains, and more trains... into France we go

Right now I am writing this post while I am on the train. We just passed Genova, Italy on our way to Ventimiglia, Italy. This is our second, and longest ride of the day, of three different trains. We started out this morning leaving our campgrounds at 6:30am on a 15min walk in the rain(!) with all of our stuff. Our trains today are Venice to Milan, Milan to Ventimiglia (which we are on) and then we have Ventimiglia to Cagnes Sur Mer. We just went through a tunnel and it blocks my ears – I really don't like that feeling. Cagnes Sur Mer is in the Monaco/Nice area. We will be staying with family friends of Katie's mom/grandmother.

I really enjoy the train, but feel that I mostly sleep on them, which really is too bad because the scenery is great. Our compartment is full today with six of us all crammed nicely into a Harry Potter type compartment. It was a little funny trying to get our stuff above the seats on this train. There were three Italian women who were telling us what to do in Italian (how to move the other bags so we can fit our packs up there) while Katie and I pushed our big packs over our heads. So far everything is still above us – I would hate for any of the bags to fall down.

On Monday Katie and I took the train to Verona for the day. We had about four hours to roam around the town before we went back to the suburbs of Venice to sleep. I really liked Verona, it is very pretty and not as tourist as Venice. We were able to see both Romeo and Juliet's homes. The weather was beautiful and warm! It was great. Plus we walked up a bunch of stairs and got a great view of all of Verona.

Sunday we spent the day in Venice. We wandered around trying to find the main sites so I could see them. Katie was here at the beginning of her semester on a class trip. St. Mark's was amazing! The ceiling is covered in mosaics. I'm not religious but I do like to see the different churches and how intricate the detailing is. We took at ferry ride to the island Murano (where glass jewelery is made). Katie hadn't been here before and we were both interested in what it would be like compared to all of the jewelery that you can find in the main parts of Venice. It seemed like it was just more expensive on Murano and neither of us found anything that we couldn't live without. I had found a shop that I liked earlier in the day so we went searching for it. Luckily we were able to back track our steps and I was able to buy a few things.

Venice and Florence have both been cities that I am glad I was able to visit but they were just too tourist for me. I like much smaller cities that aren't so crowed. I found this out in SE Asia but it surprised me and I thought that I may enjoy bigger cities in Europe.

We still have 2+ hours of traveling before we will be able to relax and get to know Elizabeth and Peter, the family friends we are staying with. After a few days with them we will be off to Paris where we wills stay with more family friends of Katie.

The tunnels are killing my ears! I need to chew gum but that means I have to pull it out of my bag.

Depending on internet connections I will be adding pictures soon.