Soooo obviously I did not do a wonderful job of keeping my blog up to date this last year, but it is a new school year and I am going to really try to do better! We'll see...
I had an amazing summer! I went to 9 different countries and 21 different cities in a little over 7 weeks. I had a blast and traveled with a few different groups throughout the weeks. I started my summer off in Venice, Italy with one of the teachers from my school (Tony) and his friend from home. I had heard that Venice was amazing lots of times and was sure I wouldn't be one of the people singing it's praise, I was wrong! I absolutely LOVED Venice! It is definitely one of my most favorite places. It is absolutely gorgeous, the architecture is amazing, every time I turned a corner it was another picture perfect place. I spent my time in Venice just wandering around the city, enjoying the sun, eating delicious pasta and gelato, and relaxing! It was a great start to the vacation!
After Venice we took a train ride through Italy and then got on a bus to go to Split, Croatia. We were told the bus would take 6 hours. Well when we got to the 6 hour mark and it didn't seem like we were there we asked how much longer and they said 6 MORE HOURS!!!!! It didn't help that we had a borderline mentally insane lady from Naples sitting next to us that was so obnoxious the police officer she was sitting next to stopped responding when she talked to him and would always get off the bus if we were stopped and she tried to say anything to him or that we got yelled at every time we put our feet on the seats. Hello we're on a 12 hour bus ride and it's the middle of the night. It was interesting to say the least and when we got to our hostel they had given our room away... Thankfully, they just put all of us (me and the two boys) in an all girls room and we instantly passed out being as it was 4am. Split was a neat city with a cute city center made of old Roman Ruins and a beautiful waterfront. We spent 2 days in Split and then took a ferry to Hvar, Croatia. Hvar is another one of my very favorite places. It is such a beautiful, sunny, little island. We spent 4 days in Hvar wandering around the city, going out at night, eating amazing Italian food (that's pretty much all they had), gawking at the gigantic yachts, and laying out in the sun. I really hope I get to go back to Hvar someday!! I loved it!
After Hvar we (Tony, Vito, and I) took a train to Ljubljana, Slovenia (it's capital city) we hadn't planned on going here, but the train ride was so long and we had an extra day so we decided to stop here. I'm so glad we did. We only spent one night, but it is a great city. It actually reminded me of Portland and the northwest because people were wearing rain jackets and outdoorsy clothing. I never see this anywhere in Europe. I'm always the crazy person that is severely under dressed at the grocery store :). It had a big outdoor market, like all the farmer's markets in Portland, and they had this great thing where they have Outdoor Libraries on the weekends in the summer. The library brings books to this shaded overhang of trees right on the river and you can just sit there and enjoy reading a book. It was so neat! After our day in Ljubljana we took a train to Bled, Slovenia and were there for 3 days. Our hostel was on top of a bar and when we got there they said "Here have a shot of Limoncello" good first impression lol. I also met a girl from Washington on the way who was staying at our hostel who had been student teaching in Prague and we discussed all of our favorite Trader Joe's foods that we missed and Tillamook Cheddar Cheese. It was so great to know someone missed the frozen, red box, TJ's mac and cheese as much as I do! :) Bled is a really cute little town. It is one of the most popular outdoorsy places to go in the region. We walked around the lake and rented bikes and rode them to Vintgar Gorge where we hiked the waterfalls. They were so pretty and really, again, reminded me of Oregon. Slovenia was one of the most beautiful countries as a whole that I have been to. It was so green and the water was so blue. I loved Slovenia.
I split with the boys after Bled. They were both going back to Canada and I was going to meet up with Meg, her parents, and the Bauders in Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg was a neat city. It has lots of neat buildings and a cute center. I ate a a delicious apple strudel and had dinner and beer at a Monk house where they brew Ausustina beer. It was good! I liked Salzburg, but it was a big city and I think I prefer the smaller ones usually. There are of course a few exceptions. Gosh I'm realizing as I'm typing this that I have not typed in awhile. I was using my ipod touch the whole summer and my fingers are our of typing practice.
After Salzburg we trained it to Munich, Germany. Meg and I had been there before for Oktoberfest, but we obviously didn't see much of the city then so we took a free walking tour (Sandemans) and it was amazing! I have actually never had a bad tour when I used Sandemans. I learned so much on the tour and got a really good feel for the city. I learned that Hitler started gaining a following in Munich and he pretty much forced it upon people. In Munich he did a march with some of his following and at some point they met the opposing side that was waiting for them and had a battle. Hitler's bodyguard laid on top of him and was shot 11 times. He miraculously lived, but Hitler had him killed a few years later, being the compassionate person that he was. It's crazy to think about how different history would be though if just one of those bullets had hit him... There are many other crazy and frustrating facts I learned, but you might just have to come visit me and go to Munich to learn the rest :) We also happened to be there on the day that they were announcing who got the Olympics and Munich was one of the contender cities. They didn't end up getting them, but it was a really fun atmosphere anyways. After Munich we went back to Frankfurt and Meg's parents flew home. It was so nice to see them and be with parents. It made me miss my own, but the Luttrell's did a nice job of giving me a little taste :) Meg and I spent a few days in Frankfurt doing laundry, hanging out with teachers at her school, and just relaxing it was a nice little break. I had the best Pad Thai there! I miss Thai food.
Then we head to the Greek Islands!! We started in Kos where we had a cute little apartment owned by the sweetest little Greek lady. We spent almost all of our time here just laying on the beach and relaxing. The city of Kos was really neat and we had fun exploring it, but we staying in a tiny little town about 25 minutes away from the city. The beaches by where we stayed were so nice! Next, we went to Santorini. I loved Santorini!! We stayed at a nice hostel right by the beach, so we spent some time again just laying on the beach and swimming. There were also really neat bars right on the beach and we had fun going out there. We made friends with a bartender who gave us 4 free shots and the biggest drinks ever. That was a fun night :) There was also a bakery that was open 24 hours a day right by our hostel, which was quite dangerous. After a night out Meg and I always found ourselves there and we also had lunch there almost everyday. The owner of the bakery was sad when we left. He was the cutest big Greek guy! The bakery was seriously the best bakery I have ever been to though. We had this amazing croissant filled with nutella with chocolate on top and we think honey. It was the best thing ever!! We also had a million other amazing pastries!! We also ate Moussaka and Fava, two dishes that are really good and very Greek! I enjoyed the food a lot, can you tell :) Santorini also has a great view and is just gorgeous. Meg and I went to Fira one day thinking that was where we would find all of the picturesque places and blue domes. We didn't see them and we were a little frustrated. We learned on our last day that we needed to go to Ois. So, we went up there just in time to see the famous sunset. It was beautiful! We went back the next day as well since our ferry didn't leave till late and shopped, took pictures, and just enjoyed the great view. Santorini was one of the most beautiful places ever! After Santorini we went to Ios. We had heard it was a fun place for young people...what we didn't realize was that young people meant 17-19 year olds. We felt a little old in Ios. It was a small island and we spent a lot of time on the beach, playing cards, and wandering around the town. We stayed at a nice hotel while there, but it was a little interesting. First the internet didn't work and when we told them they said we could use their computer, but every time we did this the owner stood over our shoulders and watched everything we did...kinda creepy...not the safest when you're checking your bank accounts. We also couldn't get our air conditioning to work, but felt like complainers so didn't say anything till the last day when we were literally starting to melt we were so hot. The owner told us to shut the window, we were like ok but the air conditioner won't work, he came up shut the window and the AC came on! It was working the WHOLE time, but on a sensor and we were SO DANG HOT that we never shut the window! UHHHHH!!! Lesson learned always try to shut the window first lol. Next, we went to Mykonos. We stayed at a campsite/hostel place in a little bungalo the size of two twin beds right on the beach. It was a neat place to stay and they had one of the best known clubs in town. It was huge and just happened to be having one of their biggest parties of the year on the night we got there. We went to it and had a lot of fun dancing and making new friends. We spent lots of time on the beach here as well, but also went into the town and it was so cute. It might be one of the cutest towns I've been to. I loved wandering around and taking pictures. The crazy part about Mykonos is the bus drivers. I am not sure how someone in the bus or in the cars/scooters around the bus did not die while i was there. The roads are two ways roads, but only wide enough for one car or especially bus and the drivers will take you out if you get in there way.
Next, Meg and I headed to Pompei, Italy. This involved flying into Rome and catching a train. We thought this sounded quite simple... In actuality this meant that our flight was delayed, we couldn't get on the first bus at the Rome airport so had to wait an hour for the next one to get to the Rome train station, we missed our train by seconds because people were so slow at hitting the buttons on the ticket machines, and then we decided to stop in Naples because their pizza is supposed to be so good. The pizza was delicious! The train station was a little sketch (drugged out people next to me, small boy pretty much took Meg out for her seat, and crazy mobsterish people all around). Then, we realized we didn't know the name of our hostel let alone how to get there. Thankfully, Meg texted her dad who checked her email and we got a name. We thought awww easy we'll just get a taxi when we get there since it's like 11:30pm...no taxi's. So we walked to a restaurant to have them call us one and they informed us that Pompei doesn't have taxis (later we found out they were wrong) so we walked for forever with our giant bags getting cat called the whole time and finally made it to our hostel, which thankfully turned out to be quite nice, yet locked us in and wouldn't let us leave that night...still not sure what was going on. Pompei was pretty neat! We walked through the ruins one day and then that night met archeologists who were working at the ruins. We hungout and partied with them a bit and the next day they got us into their site and showed us all the cool artifacts they'd found and explained everything they were doing. That was definitely the highlight of Pompei! We also had an amazing meal at our hostel where Meg and I both ate squid without an breading and with the heads on and long tentacles! We were quite proud of ourselves :)
The next stop was Sorrento, which was gorgeous! I found throughout the summer that I just love water. I think if anywhere is on water I will love it. In Sorrento we did a lot of eating and shopping. We walked around the town center looking at all of the Italian pottery, trying limoncello, eating the best gelato ever, and drinking wine on the port. The gully down to the water in Sorrento is really pretty and the town is just so quaint. I really liked Sorrento!
After Sorrento Meg and I trained to Cinque Terre which also turned into an adventure. Megs cards weren't working so we kept booking the tickets, but then when we went to pay the card wouldn't work so we would start over again, well by the third time we did this their weren't any seats lefts so we had to sit in the aisle of the train for 6 or 8 hours or something. We had woken up at 4:30 to skype our friend Ally and everyone at her wedding so we were also quite tired. We ended up laying our backpacks down between two of the fold out seats and sleeping like that in the aisle ways. It worked really well until someone with a massive suitcase came through. Cinque Terre was stunning. We went to all of the 5 towns and they were all so cute! We hiked the trails between the towns and that turned out to be a harder hike than we thought it would be, but lots of fun and had the most amazing views! We stayed in Levanto, which is right outside of Cinque Terre, the next stop on the train, and it just so happened that we were there for their big town festival. It was really fun to walk around and see all of the locals out the night before because the town was shut down for the day. We saw tons of old couples walking or just sitting by the water enjoying the night and all of the people. I had amazing seafood pastas, lots of gelato, tons of cheap wine, and great focaccia pizza! We met a really nice couple from Canada and had some fun adventures with them. I loved Cinque Terre!! It was beautiful!
After Cinque Terre Meg went back to Frankfurt and I went to meet up with a teacher from my school (Ari) and her friend in Florence and I will continue that in the next blog because this is super long and I am tire and have already taken a million breaks typing this. Hope you weren't bored! Sorry for the length!
I had an amazing summer! I went to 9 different countries and 21 different cities in a little over 7 weeks. I had a blast and traveled with a few different groups throughout the weeks. I started my summer off in Venice, Italy with one of the teachers from my school (Tony) and his friend from home. I had heard that Venice was amazing lots of times and was sure I wouldn't be one of the people singing it's praise, I was wrong! I absolutely LOVED Venice! It is definitely one of my most favorite places. It is absolutely gorgeous, the architecture is amazing, every time I turned a corner it was another picture perfect place. I spent my time in Venice just wandering around the city, enjoying the sun, eating delicious pasta and gelato, and relaxing! It was a great start to the vacation!
After Venice we took a train ride through Italy and then got on a bus to go to Split, Croatia. We were told the bus would take 6 hours. Well when we got to the 6 hour mark and it didn't seem like we were there we asked how much longer and they said 6 MORE HOURS!!!!! It didn't help that we had a borderline mentally insane lady from Naples sitting next to us that was so obnoxious the police officer she was sitting next to stopped responding when she talked to him and would always get off the bus if we were stopped and she tried to say anything to him or that we got yelled at every time we put our feet on the seats. Hello we're on a 12 hour bus ride and it's the middle of the night. It was interesting to say the least and when we got to our hostel they had given our room away... Thankfully, they just put all of us (me and the two boys) in an all girls room and we instantly passed out being as it was 4am. Split was a neat city with a cute city center made of old Roman Ruins and a beautiful waterfront. We spent 2 days in Split and then took a ferry to Hvar, Croatia. Hvar is another one of my very favorite places. It is such a beautiful, sunny, little island. We spent 4 days in Hvar wandering around the city, going out at night, eating amazing Italian food (that's pretty much all they had), gawking at the gigantic yachts, and laying out in the sun. I really hope I get to go back to Hvar someday!! I loved it!
I split with the boys after Bled. They were both going back to Canada and I was going to meet up with Meg, her parents, and the Bauders in Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg was a neat city. It has lots of neat buildings and a cute center. I ate a a delicious apple strudel and had dinner and beer at a Monk house where they brew Ausustina beer. It was good! I liked Salzburg, but it was a big city and I think I prefer the smaller ones usually. There are of course a few exceptions. Gosh I'm realizing as I'm typing this that I have not typed in awhile. I was using my ipod touch the whole summer and my fingers are our of typing practice.
After Salzburg we trained it to Munich, Germany. Meg and I had been there before for Oktoberfest, but we obviously didn't see much of the city then so we took a free walking tour (Sandemans) and it was amazing! I have actually never had a bad tour when I used Sandemans. I learned so much on the tour and got a really good feel for the city. I learned that Hitler started gaining a following in Munich and he pretty much forced it upon people. In Munich he did a march with some of his following and at some point they met the opposing side that was waiting for them and had a battle. Hitler's bodyguard laid on top of him and was shot 11 times. He miraculously lived, but Hitler had him killed a few years later, being the compassionate person that he was. It's crazy to think about how different history would be though if just one of those bullets had hit him... There are many other crazy and frustrating facts I learned, but you might just have to come visit me and go to Munich to learn the rest :) We also happened to be there on the day that they were announcing who got the Olympics and Munich was one of the contender cities. They didn't end up getting them, but it was a really fun atmosphere anyways. After Munich we went back to Frankfurt and Meg's parents flew home. It was so nice to see them and be with parents. It made me miss my own, but the Luttrell's did a nice job of giving me a little taste :) Meg and I spent a few days in Frankfurt doing laundry, hanging out with teachers at her school, and just relaxing it was a nice little break. I had the best Pad Thai there! I miss Thai food.
Then we head to the Greek Islands!! We started in Kos where we had a cute little apartment owned by the sweetest little Greek lady. We spent almost all of our time here just laying on the beach and relaxing. The city of Kos was really neat and we had fun exploring it, but we staying in a tiny little town about 25 minutes away from the city. The beaches by where we stayed were so nice! Next, we went to Santorini. I loved Santorini!! We stayed at a nice hostel right by the beach, so we spent some time again just laying on the beach and swimming. There were also really neat bars right on the beach and we had fun going out there. We made friends with a bartender who gave us 4 free shots and the biggest drinks ever. That was a fun night :) There was also a bakery that was open 24 hours a day right by our hostel, which was quite dangerous. After a night out Meg and I always found ourselves there and we also had lunch there almost everyday. The owner of the bakery was sad when we left. He was the cutest big Greek guy! The bakery was seriously the best bakery I have ever been to though. We had this amazing croissant filled with nutella with chocolate on top and we think honey. It was the best thing ever!! We also had a million other amazing pastries!! We also ate Moussaka and Fava, two dishes that are really good and very Greek! I enjoyed the food a lot, can you tell :) Santorini also has a great view and is just gorgeous. Meg and I went to Fira one day thinking that was where we would find all of the picturesque places and blue domes. We didn't see them and we were a little frustrated. We learned on our last day that we needed to go to Ois. So, we went up there just in time to see the famous sunset. It was beautiful! We went back the next day as well since our ferry didn't leave till late and shopped, took pictures, and just enjoyed the great view. Santorini was one of the most beautiful places ever! After Santorini we went to Ios. We had heard it was a fun place for young people...what we didn't realize was that young people meant 17-19 year olds. We felt a little old in Ios. It was a small island and we spent a lot of time on the beach, playing cards, and wandering around the town. We stayed at a nice hotel while there, but it was a little interesting. First the internet didn't work and when we told them they said we could use their computer, but every time we did this the owner stood over our shoulders and watched everything we did...kinda creepy...not the safest when you're checking your bank accounts. We also couldn't get our air conditioning to work, but felt like complainers so didn't say anything till the last day when we were literally starting to melt we were so hot. The owner told us to shut the window, we were like ok but the air conditioner won't work, he came up shut the window and the AC came on! It was working the WHOLE time, but on a sensor and we were SO DANG HOT that we never shut the window! UHHHHH!!! Lesson learned always try to shut the window first lol. Next, we went to Mykonos. We stayed at a campsite/hostel place in a little bungalo the size of two twin beds right on the beach. It was a neat place to stay and they had one of the best known clubs in town. It was huge and just happened to be having one of their biggest parties of the year on the night we got there. We went to it and had a lot of fun dancing and making new friends. We spent lots of time on the beach here as well, but also went into the town and it was so cute. It might be one of the cutest towns I've been to. I loved wandering around and taking pictures. The crazy part about Mykonos is the bus drivers. I am not sure how someone in the bus or in the cars/scooters around the bus did not die while i was there. The roads are two ways roads, but only wide enough for one car or especially bus and the drivers will take you out if you get in there way.
Next, Meg and I headed to Pompei, Italy. This involved flying into Rome and catching a train. We thought this sounded quite simple... In actuality this meant that our flight was delayed, we couldn't get on the first bus at the Rome airport so had to wait an hour for the next one to get to the Rome train station, we missed our train by seconds because people were so slow at hitting the buttons on the ticket machines, and then we decided to stop in Naples because their pizza is supposed to be so good. The pizza was delicious! The train station was a little sketch (drugged out people next to me, small boy pretty much took Meg out for her seat, and crazy mobsterish people all around). Then, we realized we didn't know the name of our hostel let alone how to get there. Thankfully, Meg texted her dad who checked her email and we got a name. We thought awww easy we'll just get a taxi when we get there since it's like 11:30pm...no taxi's. So we walked to a restaurant to have them call us one and they informed us that Pompei doesn't have taxis (later we found out they were wrong) so we walked for forever with our giant bags getting cat called the whole time and finally made it to our hostel, which thankfully turned out to be quite nice, yet locked us in and wouldn't let us leave that night...still not sure what was going on. Pompei was pretty neat! We walked through the ruins one day and then that night met archeologists who were working at the ruins. We hungout and partied with them a bit and the next day they got us into their site and showed us all the cool artifacts they'd found and explained everything they were doing. That was definitely the highlight of Pompei! We also had an amazing meal at our hostel where Meg and I both ate squid without an breading and with the heads on and long tentacles! We were quite proud of ourselves :)
The next stop was Sorrento, which was gorgeous! I found throughout the summer that I just love water. I think if anywhere is on water I will love it. In Sorrento we did a lot of eating and shopping. We walked around the town center looking at all of the Italian pottery, trying limoncello, eating the best gelato ever, and drinking wine on the port. The gully down to the water in Sorrento is really pretty and the town is just so quaint. I really liked Sorrento!
After Sorrento Meg and I trained to Cinque Terre which also turned into an adventure. Megs cards weren't working so we kept booking the tickets, but then when we went to pay the card wouldn't work so we would start over again, well by the third time we did this their weren't any seats lefts so we had to sit in the aisle of the train for 6 or 8 hours or something. We had woken up at 4:30 to skype our friend Ally and everyone at her wedding so we were also quite tired. We ended up laying our backpacks down between two of the fold out seats and sleeping like that in the aisle ways. It worked really well until someone with a massive suitcase came through. Cinque Terre was stunning. We went to all of the 5 towns and they were all so cute! We hiked the trails between the towns and that turned out to be a harder hike than we thought it would be, but lots of fun and had the most amazing views! We stayed in Levanto, which is right outside of Cinque Terre, the next stop on the train, and it just so happened that we were there for their big town festival. It was really fun to walk around and see all of the locals out the night before because the town was shut down for the day. We saw tons of old couples walking or just sitting by the water enjoying the night and all of the people. I had amazing seafood pastas, lots of gelato, tons of cheap wine, and great focaccia pizza! We met a really nice couple from Canada and had some fun adventures with them. I loved Cinque Terre!! It was beautiful!
After Cinque Terre Meg went back to Frankfurt and I went to meet up with a teacher from my school (Ari) and her friend in Florence and I will continue that in the next blog because this is super long and I am tire and have already taken a million breaks typing this. Hope you weren't bored! Sorry for the length!
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