I'm home (at least in the States)!!!

So much to tell!!

I guess we left off in Vienna. A lot has happened since then! We stayed in Vienna one night and then our first day in Prague we took it easy. It was rainy and ugly and we took a glorious nap :D. After that we went and had an amazing dinner at a typical Czech restaurant. It was so nice to have a whole meal (meat, potatoes, vegetables, a Coke and a beer) all for under 10 dollars!!! I love the Czech Republic and it's exchange rate!

The next day we actually got up and got out of the hostel. We went on a free walking tour of the city that took us all over. We went all around the city and saw castles, gardens, the famous Charles Bridge, the Jewish ghetto, and lots more. Prague is one of the only European cities that was untouched by WWII, so the architecture was phenomenal and everything was so original and old!

After our walking tour we had a great lunch with people from the tour group. We all had goulash and big dumplings and beer and just too much food in general...it was a cool place with a bunch of locals, and even some ancient old man playing the accordion.

When we went to pay the bill we were trying in vain to decipher the check and had to call the waiter over. They had actually charged us a cover charge (to sit and eat) a service charge, AND they charged us about $1.50 (35 crowns) for the music!!! They actually CHARGED us to be in the same room with the accordion! Ridiculous, but pretty funny. Way to go Czech-ies, they are making up for lost time and taking advantage of us capitalists :D.

That night Alison and I had to go to this club we had heard about. It was 5 levels all together. The bottom level was like a tacky American club, with a dance floor and a stage to dance on, and then a balcony all around it to look down upon all the dancing fools. The next level was a "techno" theme, with lots of flashing lights, fog, awful electronic music and a huge female robot hung on the wall with lasers that came from her eyes that looked around the crowd.

The third floor was an oldies level, with hilarious 80's music mixed with other songs like "Twist and Shout" and plenty of other funny music. And each of these levels had its own bar (but the 80;s floor had 2!!).

On the 4th floor was the hip-hop level, with every 13 year old Czech thug dancing in their baggy pants being tough. It was just too funny. The last level was a lounge type of bar, with big overstuffed black leather couches, bean bag chairs, and lots of candles on the low coffee tables. It was a nice place to chill out between dances, so we went up there a few times.

The rest of the night we spent running from floor to floor avoiding bad songs and making complete fools of ourselves. We got there around 10pm, and were definitely the oldest people until about 1am. I think the drinking age there must be 13, because there were middle school age kids dancing with us most of the time.

This club was the best people watching opportunity ever. We had dragged an Australian guy from the walking tour with us to the club, and he and I never stopped laughing at the kids around us. It was a very interesting mix of people, to say the very least.


After that we went back to the hostel, got a few hours of sleep and got on our train to Berlin....my last stop :'(

We got there and Carrie (Alison's fiance's sister) met us at the train. She was there studying abroad, which is why we were going to Berlin. We found a hostel and then grabbed lunch!! Brats and sauerkraut and beer!! It was a great German cure for the night before! After that we climbed to the top of the Reichstag (the Parliament building). It was an awesome view from the top of the dome on top, and we could see all of Berlin.

We then decided to try to find a beach bar. These are apparently all the rage in Berlin right now, and are supposed to be fun. Most of them are just a regular bar with sand trucked in and dumped on the floor and lounge chairs instead of tables...and it sounded pretty good to me! WE never found the one we were looking for, and we walked waaaaay to long trying to find one, so I ended up parting from the girls and going home to bed.

The next morning the girls wanted to go to a museum, and I wasn't in the mood that early, so I stayed in bed. When I woke up and started chatting with the people in our room. They were 3 Norwegian kids, and they were absolutely hilarious. It was 2 guys and a girl, and I think they are some of my favorite people I have met on the trip. We wandered around the city for a while trying to find a Subway (because apparently Subway sandwiches are very expensive in Norway, and cheaper in the lower European Union). We never found that either, and ended up going to Dunkin Donuts instead, which are all over Berlin. After a good hearty breakfast of mysterious German cream cheese and bagels they decided they had to go to the museum I had tried to avoid earlier in the morning.

I reluctantly agreed, and we took a long leisurely walk toward the Pergamon Museum. This museum has the gates of Babylon INSIDE of it (they are huge!!!) and the Pergamon altar. They are huge ancient building/gates that were stolen from their original locations and pieced together inside this ginormous museum. It was pretty cool.

I had to leave the awesome Norwegians and meet up with Carrie and Alison, and we did the free walking tour of Berlin. We had a very excited British girl as our tour guide, and learned a lot about the history of Berlin through WWII and the Cold War, and all the way through the fall of the Wall. It was actually fascinating, and I don't usually care too much about history. But everything in the city had been blown up, flattened, and rebuilt (some buildings 3 or 4 times) and so many significant events happened there.

After our walking tour, Brett (Alison's fiance) and his parents arrived from the US and we met them at the hotel we were all staying at together. The whole family was going to go have dinner together, but I really wanted to do a Pub Crawl I had been told about by everyone who visited Berlin. I left the group and bravely went to the pub crawl alone :D.

It was a really great group of people, and we hopped from bar to bar all night, and ended up at a whacky German dance club. I had a blast and was really glad I decided to do it, even if I did have to start it off by myself. By the end we were all very friendly, and I crashed in a hostel near the last bar with a group of Australian girls (since the metro wasn't running back to the hotel by the time we ended the night!!)

In the morning I met back up with the family and went on a bike tour of Berlin with the whole gang. It was the same tour company that ran the tour we did in Paris, and we rode around everywhere! We had lunch at a cute German biergarden and then saw even more places.

In the two days of tours we saw the site of Hitler's bunker, Checkpoint Charlie where you could cross from East to West Berlin (and into American territory), the Brandenburg gate, and my favorite Holocaust monument. It is this maze of 2711 giant concrete blocks. They are arranged in straight lines, but they are all different heights and widths, and they are on different gradients....so when you walk through even though they are in straight lines sometimes you feel really lost. I'll have to put up pictures for you to get a real idea, but it was really moving for me.

Anyway, after the bike tour we had dinner with Carrie's German teacher (who had been teaching her the language for the last 6 weeks during her study abroad). This woman had lived through the entire drama of the Berlin Wall and had a lot of interesting things to tell us. She was like living history!! She was so patient with all of our questions and took the time to explain everything we asked. She was a really nice old lady, and told me to come back and live with her in Berlin and study at Humboldt University (where Einstein and Karl Marx studied!!). I considered it....

It was my last night in Europe :'( I packed up everything after dinner and made arrangements to get to the airport. I was flying out of Tempelhof, a tiny little airport in the heart of Berlin that is being closed down next year. It is the world's oldest commercial airports. In my infinite wisdom I left for the airport at 4am for my 6:55 am flight. I arrived there at about 4:40am...and the airport was definitely closed. I had to go all the way back to the hotel, went back to sleep for an hour and then tried again.

I was successful on my second try (and got rid of ALL my "extra" Euros on the way to and from the hotel). I hopped onto the plane to Brussels. I got to Brussels, went back through security, and got on the transatlantic leg of the flight (delayed by 2 hours of course).

I got to NY NY, and my aunts and uncles were nice enough to hire me a car from JFK into Jersey so I didn't have to deal with the buses after 14 hours of being in a plane.

And here I am, back in the US. It is pretty surreal, and it hasn't set in that I was gone for over 5 weeks. It went in the blink of an eye....


I will be uploading pictures as soon as I can, so keep checking back!! Tell me what you guys thought of the blog as a whole! I hope you liked it, because we probably spent a ton of US dollars trying to find the internet to keep you guys updated ;)

I wish it weren't over, but there are a lot of other adventures ahead, and maybe we'll fire this back up one day for Europe round 2!

Be back to FL on July 7th!!

Cheers, Auf Weidersehen, Aur revior, Ciao, and Zbohem....
Kristyn

Venica...and Vienna

After a very grueling train ride here (a 10 hour ride that was only supposed to take 4.5 hours) we finally made it to Venice last nite!! We dumped all of our stuff and ran to the city. We carefully explored the canals (it is SOOOOO easy to get lost here) and got our mandatory gelatto. We were only staying here for one nite, so today we went back into the city, and then to the island of Murano to look for their famous glass. I'm pretty glad we aren't staying here longer. Its a pretty city, but it is SO overrun with tourists, its driving me nuts.

Tonite we are for some reason voluntarily getting back onto a 12 hours train ride (our first, last and only overnight train!). We are going from Venice to Vienna and are staying there for one night before we go to Prague for 2 nites.

Hopefully all is well back in the states, all we hear about are floods and fires here, so stay high (and not too dry) over there!!

Only one week of travel left :'(
Love you guys!!!
Kristyn

When in Rome..

Hello from Roma!!

We have had a couple more awesome days in Florence! Yesterday we did a 23 kilometer bike tour of a vineyard, and we got to do wine tastings and olive oil tasting right where they bottle their products. The whole operation was run out of a castle built in 1199, and after a few grueling hours of biking we got a nice big lunch with wine, pasta, dessert, coffee, and more wine.....Then we had to get back on our bikes and try to get up a 900 meter hill. It is needless to say that not only did we not make it up the hill on our bikes, but that nobody in the tour group made it up. We all ended up walking the bikes (after about 50 meters, haha) and huffing and puffing up the giant hill. I guess we have been eating too much pizza (and pasta and gelatto, and foccaccia, and olives...). We didn't do a whole hecl of a lot after that, and we spent a relaxing nite back out our "hostel."

We spent our last 2 nites in Florence camping in an olive grove near the Piazza Michelangelo, which is on a big hill that overlooks the whole city. We got to watch some amazing sunsets from up there, and camping wasn't even that bad!! We were in an aluminum frame tent (like a little hut) and it had a locking door and everything. It even had adorable little bunk beds inside, so it was barely even real camping. It was almost nicer than our last hostel, because as soon as the sun went down the tent was a lot cooler than a builing with no AC.

Today we tried to make it to Rome starting pretty early. We had heard there was going to be an Italian train strike, which apparently they do about once a month, leaving all the major intercity transportation in shambles for a while. We had the joy of trying to figure out how to get here with no regional trains running and no reservations for the EuroStar trains (the nice trains with big cushy seats and AC). We teamed up with abotu 6 other people from our campground that were also trying to get to Roma, and finally found a train that was actually leaving and going to Naples...We hopped on right as the doors closed and had to stand by the bathrooms on the train for the 2 hour ride!!

Oh well! It wasn't that bad considering it was one of the nicer trains (and it was airconditioned). And I don't know if you are sensing the common theme here, but I think I'm a pretty sad Floridian....Its so hot here!! We are taking about 3 cold showers a day. I don't even miss the AC that much, but I really, really, really, miss ice cubes. Why don't they drink cold beverages here?!?!? Its insane!!

Either way, we made it to Rome without too much trouble, and our hostel (although its a little scary here this time) is really close to the Colosseum. We went all through that today, and of course re-enacted several scenes from Gladiator (just for you Brittany!!). Tomorrow we have plans to wait in line for the Vatican, probably forever. We want to make sure to see everything here, but there is just so much to do! Tomorrow night we are also doing a pub crawl, so we may sleep in on Sunday instead of dealing with Rome on a Sunday :)

I can't believe I only have a little more than 2 weeks of all this left! I'm a serious travel addict now guys, and I think I'm going to be nomadic as much as possible after this. Seeing this many places is just so amazing.

Anyway, we still have a lot more gelatto to go find, so I must go explore more of Rome! Hope everyone is doing great - keep up the comments!

XOXO (on both cheeks),
Kristyn

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” -Jack Kerouac

The Alps are Amazing

Hey Everyone!!!

We just arrived in Gimmelwald - WOW. We had to take a train, then a bus, then a cable car to get here, but we are now on top of a mountain surrounded by waterfalls. After all of our extreme adventures we are happy to be here...no cars, very few people and even fewer tourists. Of course we are sitting here using the computer and run into a slew of Floridians from UF!!

We are planning on doing nothing but hiking, and picnicing and staring at the mountains for today and tomorrow, but then we have a loooong train ride from here to Italy, so we are resting up.

We should be able to load pictures soon - so keep on the lookout!

We love you guys, talk to you soon!!

Kristyn

Paris and Switzerland!!

Hev Everyone,

Our last few nites in Paris were really great! We ended up taking a 4 hour bike tour through the streets of Paris at nite which included a stop at the best ice cream store in towm and a river cruise on the Siene. On our very last day we took a train out to Vesaiiles and wandered through the chateau and the gardens. It was so pretty!

We are now in Switzerland and it is one of the most amazing places I have ever seen. We went paragliding today, which is where you basicaly run off a mountain with a parachute on your back and float down. We took off from over 2700 feet over the valley into the clouds and over the crystal clear alpine lakes!

Tomorrow we head off to Gimmelwald, where we plan to do a lot of nothing other than eat cheese and hike.

Hope everything is going well there at home, we love you guys!!

Kristyn

So Many Stairs

WOW

We have really packed a lot in here! Yesterday we climbed the Effiel Tower (we took the stairs, be proud of us!!) and then did a 4 hour bike tour of Paris at night which included a river cruise on the Siene. It was a really great day.

We also had our first chance to do laundry, which has really been one of the highlights of our trip, haha. We were getting kind of smelly!

We are leaving tommorow for Switzerland, and can't wait to get to a peaceful retreat....this vacation is exhausting ;D

Should we go skydiving or try something else crazy in the Alps?? Who knows!

Love you all, and keep the comments and e-mails coming, its nice to know you guys are reading this!!

Kristyn

Watch out for the bike!!

Hey guys!!

Another day in Amsterdam! We woke up yesterday and headed to Vondelpark and wandered for a while! It was so much better than Hyde Park in London (which was so boring, just grass and trees, no lanscaping). Since we were close, we headed over to the Van Gogh museum for a little bit of culture in the city of sin ;). It was a cool collection, but a little smaller than we both expected. After that we headed to another open air market to forage for food. I found an amazing sticky pancake drenched in caramel! We are learning quickly in the city to watch out for the trafficof which there are 4 kinds: the above ground trams, the cars, the people, and the insane amount of bicycles!! They have their own lane to ride in and their own traffic lights!

After all that walking (which included a few wrong turns around the canals - you can't help but walk in circles!!) we went back to the hostel for some quiet time before the night began. We had a good rest - naps are a frequent occurence on this trip - and then went back out for food and fun. There is this fast food company here called FEBO. You put you money onto a little slot on the wall and open a little hatch with a window and grab your food. Its like a giant hot food vending machine!!

Strengthened by rest and food, we explored a couple bars and coffeeshops, and Alison found her new favorite beer (Belgian Peach flavored lambic beer!). Its so much different in the city at night: its so peaceful and pituresque and quiet (away from the Red Light district). But the wierd thing is the long long days since it gets bright starting at about 4:30 am and the sun doesn't set until 11 or 11:30! It makes it feel like the days are so long no matter how late you slept in or how many naps break up the day.



Today, we slept in super late and went to the Anne Frank house. The line was so long we gave up pretty quickly and went for food (writing this all out makes me realize we eat a lot!!). We went to the train station to book our tickets to Paris, but as we got our number to stand in the hour long line the computers went down for some unknown reason. Since nothing was going right, we decided to go to a museum we knoew would be entertaining, adn went to the Cannibis College. It was a free informational "museum" with a huge marijuana garden in the basement. The people here are very serious about their weed, and its kind of funny to hear them talk about it.

After that we went back to the Anne Frank house and just sucked it up and waitied in the line. We toured the whole thing and it was a pretty moving place. After all that seriousness we went for falafel! I finally got Alison to agree to try something new [;)] and she loved it.

Tommorow we're going to try to get up early and rent bikes (probably a bad idea with my coordination skills) and go to the Heineken brewery and do a canal tour and the comedy show that we've missed 3 nites in a row!

Hope you are all liking our updates - still can't find a place that will let us upload photos, but we sure have some good ones (just think Sex Museum).

I'm starting to miss home a little (and my own bed), one week down, 4 to go!

Kristyn

Oooh Amsterdam

Hey Familiy and other internet stalkers,

We have arrived in Amsterdam!! I can neither confirm nor deny what we have done so far (my grandma reads this!!) but I can tell you that we have seen some unique sights. The'"red light district"is really quite entertaining, and we spent all day yesterday wandering it with some fellow travelers we met in Belgium. We also went to the Sex Museum, and did a lot of walking through Vondelpark and strolling along the canals of the city.

Today we woke up late and went to the Van Gogh museum. We went to an open air market and searched for deals and cheap food, and will probably go to a comedy show later!

We'll try to keep updating regularly!

Love you all,
Kristyn

One country down....

Hey everyone!!

So sorry we couldn't post lately! When we tried to get onto the blog in London, the hostel computers wouldn't let us (apparently our site is in suspicion of having porn related content....HAHA!)

Anyway, we did so much in London. I'm just going to list all the awesomeness:

• Big Ben (at nite and during the day)
• Saw Parliament and Westminster Abbey
• Trafalgar Square
• Buckingham Palace (and the changing of the guard)
• Tower of London (and a tour by a real Beefeater - and PS that diamond they have in the collection of crown jewels is utterly amazing!!)
• Harrod's - totally awesome, that place puts Macy's to shame
• Hyde Park
• Tate Modern Museum
• AND, we did our very own pub crawl for my birthday. There was a train line (in the shape of a bottle) that runs in a circle through central London. At every stop you are supposed to get off, find the nearest pub, and have a pint (I tried having a different type of beer at each place too!!). It was really fun, and we did pretty well for a couple of girls!

We also ended up doing a whole lot wandering/meandering/aimless walking. My leg is holding up for the most part, but it slows me down a little by the end of the day.

Anyway - we also went out to a couple of awesome bars in some cool neighborhoods. The only real problem with the UK is that its so freaking expensive. Its about the same as trying to find food and drinks in New York City....but our money is worth half as much!! That put a serious drain on our fun at some points.

The hostel was really fun, and a pretty good deal overall (only 17 pounds per person per nite, or about 35 dollars). We were in a room with 4 bunk beds (8 people total). It was 5 girls and 2 guys for most of the time, and it seemed to work out pretty well. There was a bar on the first level, and it was open really late (most of the pubs shut down around 10 or 11, which is also when the tube staops running) so it was nice to be in a place that was busy until the wee hours. We met people from the US, Australia, Britain, Nigeria, South Africa....and on the last nite I stayed up and watched the sun rise (at 4am!!!! way too early) with a bunch of the kids by the rooftop hot tub! A lot of people we met are going on to Brussels and Amsterdam just like us, so we already have plans to meet up with friends.

Finally, we are safe and sound across the English Channel, and are now in Brussels. The train was so fun! We're going to be here tonite and tomorrow nite, and head to glorious Amsterdam on Sunday morning.

We miss you guys (but not too much yet ;)

Love you all lots!

Kristyn

PS - I'll keep trying to find a place that will let us put our photos up, we have some funny ones already

We're here!!

I'm in London!!! The weather really sucks here - rainy and about 45 degrees. But we are both here safe, the hostel isn't too bad (4 bunks beds in a room) and we wandered all around the city today.

Tomorrow is our big London-y tourist day: Big Ben, the tower of London, etc...

I can't wait to get some sleep...I don't know what day or time of day it is anymore!!

Hope you are all great - we miss you already!
Kristyn

PS - I'll post our awesome pics ASAP