I'm Back!

Yes, it has been exactly one year, one month, and one day since I last wrote, but I'M BACK! So much has happened, where do I even begin? Here is my attempt to fill you in on the rest of my trip and the past year since then in 15 minutes or less:

ROME:
In my last post I was about to take a train from Florence to Rome. Rome was incredible, it was a beautiful, historic, bustling metropolis. We saw the Roman Forum, Colosseum, Vatican City, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, and a million other things. Not to mention, I had the most amazing ricotta and spinach filled ravioli of my life. Rome was our last Italian city. I have to say, Italy was pretty cool, but I think I expected it to be a life changing cultural experience, and that I would fall in love with it and never want to leave. Maybe I just had high hopes, but I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it was great and I don't regret a single minute of it, but I'll go back someday I'm sure, and I think it will be more amazing the second time around!

GERMANY:
After Rome came Munich, Germany. WOW! So much more that I expected. I actually think I was meant to be born in Germany, everything was so clean! The trains, the streets, the public restrooms (maybe because it cost 1 Frank to pee?) was sparkling clean and sterile! Oktoberfest was the most amazing carnival/beer garden heaven I have ever experienced. Doin' the Puyallup will never be the same. I drank a few steins, ate a few pretzels and brats, rode a few of the biggest roller coasters I have ever set my eyes on, and sang a few German songs (and a few American songs, who knew they loved 'Sweet Caroline' as much as we do) with people from all over the world wearing lederhosen. You can't make this stuff up. On a more serious note, we got to visit Dachau, a German concentration camp. It was a very interesting experience. I remember learning about Holocaust in 7th grade, I was fascinated with learning more and couldn't believe that something that horrific could even happen. Visiting Dachau was an experience that I will never forget, I can't even put it into words.

SWITZERLAND:
We took a train from Munich to Zurich and then from Zurich to Lugano, a smaller city in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. They actually speak Italian, German and French in Switzerland depending on where you are geographically, who knew! Sarah and I's friend Nicole was an Au Pair in Lugano, so we visited her and stayed with her family (of three young boys, a pregnant Olympic medalist Mom, and a Tour De France cyclist Dad) seriously cool. It was beautiful, everything was green and we were surrounded by mountains and lakes. Nicole was one lucky girl. While we were there we booked our flight from Milan Italy (back to Italy for a few hours!) to Barcelona! And, we convinced Nicole to come with us. So we took a shuttle bus from Lugano to Milan, and then flew into Barcelona, so excited!

BARCELONA:
This city seriously has the best of all worlds. It is a huge city, with so much culture and nightlife, and it is right on the beach. Absolutely beautiful. If someone were to offer me a job and give me a place to live while I was there, I would have canceled my flight home and stayed. In a second! We stayed at Kabul Hostel in Plaza Real, right off of Las Ramblas, we ate tapas, sangria, cava, shopped at La Boqueria, took a bicycle tour, visited all of Gaudi's famous architecture, Parc Guell, the Olympic stadium and hung out at the beach. That being said, I am an excellent nanny, cook, house cleaner, teacher.... You provide me with a little spending money and a place to live in Barcelona, and I am on my way! Any takers?

PARIS:
Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Barcelona and Nicole.Our travels were coming to an end with only two cities left on our itinerary. I did not have very high hopes for Paris, and I am glad, because it was probably my least favorite city. It was dirty, like, afraid of stepping in pee or sitting on a dirty needle dirty. And it smelled like Body Odor. Everywhere. It wasn't that awful, I'm just a clean freak. I spent a day at Disneyland Paris with a few Australians I met at our Hostel, we saw the Louvre, we climbed the Eiffel tower in the morning and ate dinner next to it at night, we tried escargot (yes, snail, and it was yuuuum), ate tasty pastries, saw the arc de triumph, saw the Moulin Rouge and shopped on the Champs Elysees. We definitely experienced Paris.

LONDON:
Our last stop, London England. How refreshing, everyone speaks English again! We stayed in a Hostel off of the London Bridge Tube exit, right by the Tower of London and the beautiful famous bridges! We Saw Platform 9 3/4 (Harry Potter nerds), Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards, Westminster Abby, Abbey Road, the parliament building, Big Ben, the London Eye, we went to the Camden Market which is a giant flea/farmers/shopping market, and ate Bangers and Mash in Notting Hill.Wow, we were busy, there is A LOT to see and do in London. Phew. Time to head back to Seattle, I had an amazing trip, and would not change a single thing if I could, but I was sooooo ready to come home.

HOME & the past year:
I came home to find out that I was fired from my job at Paroba College (via a letter in the mail containing my last paycheck), how nice. But, it truly was a blessing in disguise and I was actually relieved. Although I had spent pretty much all my money in Europe and was looking forward to coming home to a job with a paycheck, I was ready to move on. I had lived at home for 9 months after graduating from Western, it was time. Mission: Find a better paying job that makes me happy in Seattle, then find an apartment in Seattle. Live happily ever after. So...when I got home in October I started staying at Jon's place, searching for jobs, interviewing and looking for apartments. I found a part time job as a Nanny in Madison Park for a family with Three adorable kids, Emily, Alli, and JT. It worked out great because not only did I love it, it payed my bills, and allowed me to sleep in:) Then, in January, I got an apartment in Wallingford with my friend Nichole. In May I was offered a position at a Preschool for their summer camp program and the upcoming school year, which is great because I could start working full time. I am now teaching at the Preschool in Capitol Hill, still nannying those three kids in the afternoon, and living with Jon in Seattle. Mission Accomplished. Whew. I think that's it, in a nutshell.

I do not even know where to begin...

It's been 10 days since I've written, and I've been stressing about having to catch up. So much has happened, and now I'm going to try to fit it all in without spending too much time on the computer. We purchased our ferry tickets to Venice, and trying to save some money we decided that we did not need a cabin and we could be deck passengers. We ended up in a community lounge area for 30 hours sleeping on the floor. It was nice to catch up on sleep though, the first night we slept 12 hours! But, we both ended up with bruises on our hips from sleeping on the ground. Our plan was to take a train straight out of Venice to Rome and work our way up the "boot" of Italy, but since the ferry took us to the top, we decided to work our way down and take an overnight train out of Rome once we hit the bottom! We got into Venice at 9:00 am where we met Patrick, a Canadian traveling by himself, in the line for the shuttle. He had not found a place to stay there either, so we pulled out Rick Steves and found a hostel that we searched for FOREVER and finally found. After we dropped off our bags, we had the day free in Venice. We walked around, got lost several times, visited San Marco Cathedral, took pictures of the Gondalas, and had our first Italian Gelato. Mmmmmm. Everyone told me that Venice was dirty, not really worth the trip, and that you only need one day there. I liked it! I think I expected the worst, which made it all the better...and it was not as dirty as I thought it would be! But, we did only need one day, so the next day we checked out of our hostel and bought a train ticket to Cinqe Terre.

We got into Monterosso, which is one of the 5 towns in Cinque Terre, and we went to one of the T.I.'s (Tourist Information Offices) who hooked us up with a hotel. Patrick joined us for the part of our trip as well, and we ended up all sharing a room.  After we got settled, we decided to grab some pizza to-go at Ely's, if you're ever in Monterosso go to Ely's, the owner is so friendly and the pizza was great! We took our beers and pizza to the back and ate with an incredible view! Cinque Terre is famous for their 5 towns and the beautiful hike in between them all, so the next day we planned on doing the hike! We woke up...and it was raining...POURING rain. We decided to get ready for the hike, and walk around a bit, hoping it would clear up, and it did! We started the hike in the 1st town, where the hike between town #1 and #2 was called La via dell'amore. There were love locks all along the 30 minute hike, as well as graffiti and carvings of initials of couples, it was soooo cute! The hike between town #2 and town #3 was the most beautiful! The views were incredible. The next hike, between #3 and #4 was a lot more difficult. The trail was wet from all of the rain, which made it very slippery! We decided against the last hike from town #4 to town #5, which was Monterosso where we stayed, because we heard it was the most difficult and we thought the last one was difficult. Maybe next time! After our long hike we relaxed for a bit and then went out for dinner. I had the best pesto pasta of my life! The next morning we took a train out of Cinque Terre to Florence!

Florence is huge and it is a busy city, which we hadnt really seen since Athens. We didnt have hostel reservations, but we had the name of a few options. We walked (in the hot weather, with our backpacks, for a very long time...) to our first option, which was full. He called around to find an open hostel, and after almost losing hope and freaking out, we found one! It was the worst place we have stayed in thus far, but we had a bed and a place to put our stuff. We immidiately did our first, and very much needed, load of laundry and went to the internet cafe next door to find a new hostel for the remainder of our stay in Florence. We planned on meeting up with a family that we had met on the train from Cinque Terre that night, and they had invited us to join them for dinner. Sarah and I met them at one of the nicest resturant I have ever been to in my life, right on the river with a view of the Ponte Vecchio bridge. Afterwards we all went to gelato, and ended up finding a square where there was live music and a merry go round, so we hung out there for a while before returning to our Hostel. The next morning we moved to our new hostel, which is much cleaner and less scary! We shopped, went to the Uffizi Gallery, found amazing resturants and mercatos, and had a night out on the town in Florence! We heard about a resturant called Tratoria Za Za, it was pretty amazing. We went there with our roomate in the Hostel Damien, from Madrid and another girl staying here Merrit, from Sydney Australia! Yesterday we did a walkabout tour, "The Best of Tuscany". It took us to Siena where we saw yet another Cathedral, this one was one of my favorites though! Then to lunch at a Farm outside of San Gimignano, they had over 200 acres of land with olive trees, vineyards, gardens, and farm animals! The lunch was a four course meal, that was 90% produced at this farm and included wine with each course. It was THE BEST meal I have had on the trip. Afterwards we visited the town of San Gimignano and had THE world champion winning best Gelato in the world for the past two years. It was reeeeeally good. The tour then took us to Pisa, where we took about 40 pictures "holding up" the leaning tower! I am so glad we went on that tour, I know that the lunch and wine tasting are going to be a highlight of my entire trip! It was our last night in Florence, and so far it has been my favorite city in Italy. My pictures and this short explanation will not do it any justice, but you have a bit of an idea.

We are taking a train to Rome this afternoon, ciao Firenze, I'll be back someday.

Santorini was the most amazing place I have ever been. We left our Athens International Youth Hostel at 6:00am on Tuesday morning and took the metro to the port where we caught the four hour ferry to Santorini. When we arrived, we took our hotels shuttle to Hotel Perissa, where the black sand beaches were! The first day we relaxed by the pool all day and then walked into town for dinner. We were so tired from not getting very much sleep, that we went to bed right after that and got more sleep that night than every night in Athens combined. The next morning we took a bus back to the port, and got on a sailboat that took us to an island that is the last active volcano in Greece. We climbed up to the crater, and could feel the steam coming out! Next, the sailboat took us to a hotspring and we got to jump off the boat and swim in it! Then we spent a few hours in Thirasia, where we had lunch. I had the most amazing moussaka, it's my new favorite Greek dish! It's a potato, eggplant, and meat lasagna type thing. The sailboat dropped us off in Oia, which is another city in Santorini. We rode donkeys up the cliff to the beautiful town, it was terrifying! You would not believe the pictures I got, this city is where a lot of famous photos from Greece are taken, it was incredible! Oia is famous for their sunsets, so we got desert at a place that overlooked the sunset! We met some new friends on the tour, two from Australia, one from Korea, one from New York and one from Philly, meeting so many people from all over the world has been one of the best parts about this trip! The next day, Sarah and I left our little town of Perissa for Fira, a more lively city 20 minutes north. We were waiting for the bus to pick us up when our new Australian friends rode by on their rented ATV's and picked us up! We rode 20 minutes on the back of their ATV's with all of our bags! In Fira, we checkend into our hotel and then explored the city. We bought 2 euro gryros and a sangria and hung out at two brothers bar for a few hours before going back to our hotel. The next morning we went to the travel agency to book our ferry tickets out of here, and ran into our Australian friend again, they are everywhere! He let us borrow his ATV for the day, so we didnt have to rent one like we had origionally planned! Sarah and I cruised along the black each, and rode out to the red beach where we had to hike to see the red sand and swim! It was incredible, I would move to Santorini in a second! We left this morning on a ferry to Athens, then took a bus to Patra, where we are currently waiting in an internet cafe for our midnight ferry to Venice Italy! I know I will come back to Greece someday...I absolutely loved everything about it and I think I could easily spend the next 5 weeks here, but I am ready for Italia!

Yassou Athens! That also means goodbye.

Our adventure in Athens is coming to an end, were catching a 7:30am ferry to Santorini and I could not be more excited! Athens was fun, but I don't feel like I need to spend any more time here. We went out with some people we met in our hostel last night, two from Ontario and four from Orange County. We ended up at a club called Havanna, it had a rooftop bar with a view of the Acropolis lit up at night, it was beautiful! Then we danced the night away to some classic greek music...Lady Gaga and Kesha! The bartender gave us all free shots of tequila, the reason is still unknown, but I think it may be because we all tipped him tips are uncommon at bars here? We woke up early to enjoy our free continental breakfast of cold bread with jam and warm oj, then hit the town! We took the metro to the Acropolis.  First we went to the new museum located across the street, it was incredible! Rick Steves just posted on his facebook wall today that it has his "vote for the best new sight in Europe"! It was really cool, the floor is made of glass and you can see the archaeologists excavating below! Maybe I'm an anthro nerd, but it was my favorite part of the day! We were starving and couldn't handle the thought of climbing up to the Acropolis without food, so we went to a tiny local cafe. I had the most amazing lunch, Ciabatta bread with mozzerella, tomato and pesto. Mmmmm, I love the food here. The hike to the Acropolis was much easier than it looked, but it was extremely sweaty. Once we got to the top it was completely worth it. The view was unreal, once I figure out how to post pictures on here, you'll see! I could not believe how big it was, it took them 9 years to build the entire thing and it is just crumbling to peices now. There is a huge renovation project that has been going on since 1983, I doubt it will ever end.

Sarah and I just booked our Hostel in Santorini. Were staying in Perissa, where there are black sand beaches! We are going to be more than happy just laying on the beach all day, but it sounds like there are tons of outdoor activites to do there too. So long Athens.

Yassou! That's hello, in Greek!

We made it! The past 24 hours could not have gone by more slowly. We got to Sea-Tac at 6:00am, waited in an extremely long line to check in, THOUGHT we had printed our boarding passes but got sent back to the counter for the correct boarding pass after waiting in another extremely long line at security. Finally got through security, and arrived at our gate right in time to board. After our 4 hour layover in Toronto, we were finally headed to Athens!

After we got off the plane and went through customs, we realized we had no idea where we were going. We asked the people at the money exchange counter what to do and they told us to take the metro! So, we headed to the metro station, jumped on a train, and followed directions given to us by a journalist who seemed to be the only one on the train who spoke english. It worked! We made it!

It's really hot, muggier than I expected too, especially after hauling around my 25+ lb. backpack. When we landed it kind of looked like Eastern Washington out the windows, and downtown Athens where we are is really dirty. Not really what I expected, but Ive only been here for a few hours! They sell beer in the vending machine at our hostel, that may come in handy?  We took a walk around the neighborhood, but most places close down for a little "siesta" from 1pm-5pm, so were going to take a nap until dinner. It's 5am in Seattle right now, 3pm here, and I havent slept more than 4 hours in the past 24...

Is this really happening?

I've had four months to get ready for this journey...why do I feel so unprepared? Could be because the only things we have are a round trip plane ticket, a total of two nights booked in the Athens International Youth Hostel and a long list of things we want to see and experience. It appears the rest will be determined as we go! I'm freaking out a little bit. I like everything to be planned out and I actually like to do the planning, but this is part of the adventure and I know everything will work out!

I started packing tonight. I'm realizing that I may want to think twice about some of the things I want to bring, that backpack gets real heavy, real fast. I love Rick Steves, and I know his advice will be incredibly helpful over there, but he says to bring one pair of shoes. I just don't think that's going to work for me, sorry Rick.

Well...six nights in a cozy bed, one mariners game, three days of work, one weekend with my amazing boyfriend, and two seriously long plane rides from now...I'll be in what could quite possibly be the most beautiful country in the world. Greece, watch out!

25 days to go! Yeah...I have a countdown.

I'm off on my first European adventure in less than a month! Myself and two of my closest friends, Sarah Epperson and Tiffany Moore are heading out on September 5th, 2010. Our First Stop: Greece. There is no country in the world that I have wanted to visit more. Second stop: Italy. I cannot wait for the adventures that Italy has to offer, especially the gelato. Stop Three: Germany? Watch out Oktoberfest! Stop numero cuatro: Barcelona. Tapas, art, mercados, and struggling to speak Spanish, what about that does not sound increible? Next Stop: Paris! Who doesn't want to see Paris? The home of croissants and pastry, yes please. Last Stop: London. Our adventure comes to an end here, but not before we get a chance to ride a bright red double decker bus. We'll fly back home on October 13, 2010, and start planning the next adventure!