Good bye Spain!

This is my last blog of my europe trip! It's that time already! We are headed back to Vancouver and are all excited to not be in the heat and to be back at home.

It has been 37 degrees here and since the metro strike the metro hasn't been working for the past 2 days. Good thing Madrid is a very walkable city. It is very easy to walk to your destination it's just super hot and dry.

Yesterday we made our day trip to Toledo and it was a small city and we went through it pretty fast. Nothing too exciting there but it was cool to see another part of Spain. The Soccer craze has been following us on our Europe trip from Germany, Czech, France, and Spain. After coming back, we decided to watched the Portugal vs Brazil in the common room. Not big on soccer but when in Spain you got to watch football.

I think that's all I have to say! See you back in Vancouver!

Protesting with the locals of Madrid

So far, not many pictures of Spain. Since my last update we have been having a chill time in Madrid. With the extra days in Madrid we don't have a whole lot planned so we do an activity each day.

After I finished writing my last blog in the common room at hostel numbero uno, I saw a guy in an Olympic shirt on the computer next to me. I asked him if he was from Vancouver and funny thing is, he is from North Vancouver as well and went to CapilanoU. We departed after chatting for a bit and for the next 2 days he was a 5th member to our crew for going to the Prado and Reina Sofia museums.

Our third day in Madrid was moving day. We had to change hostels, that was most of the day but good thing it was cool out with a bit of rain. After we moved in we went to the street market. It was like the chinatown night market but minus the food and a whole lot more nic nacks and cheap goods. Now we are in the new hostel and it seems like a whole new Madrid with the switch in location.

Today we slept in even though our small room is like a little boiler. After dragging our selves out of bed Ells, Paige, and I decided to explore the city. We went around town and did some shopping. Along the way home we walked by a huge group of people waving flags and making a whole lot of noise in the middle of the street. Naturally we joined in and waved our flags. Turns out it was for the transit strike going on in Spain.Oooops, at least it was fun at the time and we did feel like locals!

Missing the cool crisp Canadian air in Vancouver, and excited to go home in 3 days. Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to Toleto. Until then, that's all I have!

Back in London!? what?

Wow updating a blog is more difficult then I expected. I am very behind. Since the last time I blogged we have gone to Paris, back to London, and today we just arrived in our final destination on the trip, Madrid.

We spent 5 days in Paris and everyday was packed with activities and attractions. You name it we saw it Notre Dame,Arc de Triomphe,Père Lachaise Cemetery, Eiffel Tower,Louvre,Catacombs( a little scary for me to see so many real bones and skulls) and lastly shopping of course. In the Jewish quarter they have many vintage shops that had great stuff you just had to rummage through it. There is just so much to say about Paris that I don't have time to write all about it! I'll have to give everyone the 411 when we speak.

Let me tell you how we ended up in London second time around. This is a long complex story, I hope I don't confuse you. Well our plan was to go Nice after Paris, however we discovered in Bruges that there was no where we could stay. We randomly decided to go to a place called San Sebastian where they have good shopping and beautiful beaches. The plan was a couple nights there then Barcelona, Madrid, then Vancouver. We book our hostels while we were in Bruges and continued on. When we were in Paris we tried to make reservations for the train to San Sebastian but there was not a single seat for us with our Eurails. The only way was to paid the price of a regular ticket, which was out of the budget for us. On that note San Sebastian was no longer a place we would go. With the Eurail being so unreliable with booking and reserving tickets we decided not to go to Barcelona. We didn't want to be stuck there with no way of getting to Madrid and having to put down hundreds of euros to get to there on time.
After weighing our options we decided to train back to London for a couple days. The train ride was only 2 hours or so and we were all happy to be able to be in London again and especially with sunny weather. We got there around 1pm and decided to see some Musicals. We talked about how we missed our chances last time in other cities so we went for it. Paige, Caitlin, and I went to see We Will Rock You, which was really good and who doesn't love Queen? Elliott went solo and saw Billy Elliot. We all had a great time and the weather was beautiful. Our last day in London we shopped till we dropped, and lets just say some suitcases were overweight.

Now we are in Madrid and it is so hot. The others are napping because we had a horrible plane ride. We got up early took a train to Gatwick airport( who knew we would be back there) and the plane was suppose to take off at 7:40am however with some strike complications in France all planes were delayed. We got on the plane at around 7:30 and had to sit on it for about 2.5 hours before we finally left the runway.

That's it for now

La

Shout out to my Father

Happy Father's day Dad! Have a great one! I hope all the other fathers out there have a great day too!

Sensobus just made my day!

Berlin is packed with history and since we all wanted to see different stuff in the city we split up for some things to utilize our time there. During our 3 days there I saw Checkpoint Charlie, which was the only section where you could cross the Berlin wall when it was up. At this point they had a museum all about the History of the Berlin wall. It was very interesting reading about the different ways people escaped to the other side of the wall. Elliott and I spent our afternoon there. The next day Squaynlee (Elliott,Caitlin, and I)went to to Topogragphie des terrors a free museums about the history of Nazis. After that we went to a Jewish museum that we kinda rushed through because we had to meet Paige. It was huge and about 4 floors. The last day we went to the East side gallery, which is paintings on the Berlin wall. We also went up the TV tower and got a great view of all of Berlin.

From Berlin we Traveled to Bruges. We spent 2 nights in Bruges and just explored the city. We arrived in Bruges around 7pm and we didn't leave the hostel till about 8:30pm and we were bummed to discover that most of the town was closed down at 9pm. The last day in Bruges we stumbled upon the Sensobus! We were just curious about it and when the lady came out and asked us if we wanted to go in the bus and eat cake we were practically running to get free cake. In the Sensobus we got to do a quick survey, drink water, and eat 6 pieces of cake and rate best to worst. After they let us take the cake and gave us free chocolate for doing the survey. Note to self manage a sensobus!


Today we left Bruges and arrived in Paris this evening. We will be spending the next 4 days here. We will be having packed days here so I better sleep now so I can wake up tomorrow. I will try and load more pictures later.

Do Europeans know what Air Condictioning is ?

Since Munich we have been around, and I haven't had time to right a good blog. I know Caitlin has been a lot better keeping up with all the updates so I apologize for the lack of blogging.

After Munich we went to Fussen, Germany where we spent 2 nights. It was a nice little town and we had a pretty cheap hotel with a free breakfast. When we got there it was really hot and we had to find a place to stay. After some research we found a place to stay and settled in. This is my dinner from that evening.

The Next day we traveled in a taxi for ten minutes and were in the next little town, Schwangau where we saw the castles Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. It was a beautiful day with an exhausting walk from 1 castle to the other (40min walked, walked in 20 because we were late). Paige had mayor hay fever but I think we have a few pictures of us 4 together.



After Fussen we headed to Nuremberg. Caitlin left Fussen in the early morning to visit some family so we were -1 member on the train/bus ride to Nuremberg. We were in Nuremberg for 2 nights and did some shopping and went to the Nazi Documentation Museum. Here is me and Ells with our cool audio guides.

We left Nuremberg and headed to Prague. First 2 hour train ride was brutal no AC and our window wouldn’t open until Paige and I got all supernatural and forced the window open. After that train and then a hour bus ride and then another 2 hour train ride, we arrived in Prague. Throughout the whole journey it was hot and humid. Arriving in Prague it was just drizzling rain. Once we got out of the station it was raining even harder. We trekked the streets looking for our hostel the rain started to pour down on us and it became a monsoon and streets were turned into rivers. My suitcase leaked and my new leather belt was a casualty due to water stains. When we got to the hostel we looked like 4 drowned rats dripping wet. After the thunder and rain storm that evening the weather was the hottest we ever encountered for the next 3 days.

We arrived in Berlin today and just had all you can eat burgers at the hostel. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with my blog a little better It is hard trying to recall what we did in each city.

Well I know my parents have been impatiently waiting for this blog so though I have not proof read I am posting it now.

Vienna best city in the world?

Don't worry I'm not dead, I have just been unconnected to the world without internet. During this period we were in Vienna. It was a very beautiful city, and didn't smell like sewer which was an upgrade from Italy. It is ranked the best city in the world but in my opinion it has nothing on Vancouver. One thing about Vienna is that on Sunday most of the city is closed and on weekdays everything closes at 6 so we did a lot of relaxing during our three nights there.
Our last day in Vienna we went to an all you can eat Chinese restaurant. When I said the one in Florence was AMAZING I didn't know what was to come. This one was EPIC! They has a place where you choose what you want to they fry it up for you in any sauce and on top of that they had cooked food at the buffet as well. Different thing like wedged fries, fired rice, pot stickers,fruit salad and mini deserts. I'm drooling just thinking about it again. Here a few pictures because the internet is too weak to load all that i want too.




Since we were in Venice the weather has changed drastically. From super hot and sunny to weather more like Vancouver, rain, cold, cloudy. We arrived in Munich two days ago and even though it is gross outside the city is still really nice.
Yesterday, Elliott and I had a field trip to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. It was a very good informative day. During this time Caitlin and Paige went shopping. After our separate days we met back up at the hostel and went for dinner at the Munchen HardRock Cafe.

Sorry for the lack of picture there is just never enough time! I will try and post more.

You say ciao and I say hey

Florence was beautiful and very hot. I'm glad to have a new scene in Venice. We ended our trip in Florence with an all you can buffet that was AMAZING! It was 7.50 euros so we ate like kings. After the delicious meal we rolled ourselves to the bus stop and headed to Piazza Michelangelo and watched the sunset over the city and enjoyed some ice cream.

In the morning we woke up early to go to the Uffizi museum. We couldn't get tickets for it on Tuesday so decided to go the morning before departing. No pictures were allowed but I tried to reenacted a famous painting with Elliott's new apron can you guess which one?
We arrived in Venice 2 days ago and have been just relaxing and exploring. We walked around last evening and there was a sign pointing to Chinatown, however when we walked in the direction we never came upon it. I was a little disappointed when we reached the end of the island with no Chinese to be seen and no Chinatown.
The island in small and boats are the number 1 for transportation. Today we took an hour boat ride to a beach where we spent most the day. On this journey I saw an ice cream boat, Police on a boat(that looked like they walked off the scene of Miami Vice), gondolas, water taxis,pirate ship, and even a ambulance boat in action.


Tomorrow we head off to Vienna for 3 nights. I read we don't get internet so don't worry I'll be back to blog when I get a chance.

PS. This was in Florence. Too bad it wasn't a T&T market, it was a clothing and furniture store.

Pictures tell a thousand words so here is lots of pictures

These pictures pretty much sum up the things we did in Rome. If I get more organized I will load more but I just might scrapbook when I get home, it is much easier to organize manually.

Since Rome we took a 1.5 hour train to Florence and arrived 2 days ago. The new hostel is really nice it is like a university dorm set up. We got separated in different rooms, Paige and Caitlin are together in 6 person room and I am in an all girls 6 person room and Elliott is across the hall from me in a 4 person room.

Yesterday we did some street shopping. It was really hot and the line up for the Duomo didn't appeal to us but we will be seeing how long they are today. Museums aren't open on Monday so we are reserving tickets today to go on Tuesday. We also plan to see a castle or something today so we will see how that works out.

We are in Florence for another 2 nights so I will try to blog again, the wifi here is really good!

What day is it?

My god it has been some time since I blogged. Time has just flown by and I haven't been good with keeping track of what we did and when we did it. I will try to give you a quick review of what has been happening... starting with us leaving Mykonos. We left Mykonos on May 16th I believe, it was a beautiful day It was sad to say good bye especially to the nice place we stayed in. I gave our host lady some Canadian Pins to remember us by and we were sent off on another 5 hour boat ride.We got to Athens at 9pm and had already booked it the night before because it was cheap and we just needed a one night stay. We learned quickly why this place was so cheap. There was a creepy guy there that was standing at the door when we emerged from the old school elevator doors. We continued to a creepy lobby and stood there awkwardly until we paid and were shown our rooms aside from eerie vibe the rooms weren't as bad as you would imagine, lets just say that guy gave us all the heebie geebies. That was the first place we actually locked ourselves into the room using the skeleton key given to us. The next morning we high tailed it out of there as early as we could.

Traveling to Rome was a long journey. We left Athens on a boat which took about 16 hours. Good thing we rented a bed to stay in. It was really nice like a small hotel on the boat. 4 beds and a bathroom. We were soo glad there was a shower since we were all too scared to shower at the creepy hostel. After the boat we switched between train and bus about 5 times or more I couldn't even keep track. After two days of travel we arrived in Rome safe and sound on May 18th.

Yesterday we had a long day. We got up and got a unexpected free breakfast from the hotel we are at and then were off to tour Rome. We went to the Musei Vaticani, Pantheon, and the Trvei fountain. Our night ended with a last minute Pub crawl, our first Pub Crawl in Rome! How crazy is that? It was super fun and we all have awesome tee shirts to show. Everyone we met at the crawl where tourist as well so we made some new friends and even bumped into some old ones that we met in Bari on the way to Rome.

Well we are now off to the Borghese Gallery.

PS. If we get some time we hope to post lots of photos of our adventures on photo bucket or something for all to see. Until then sorry no photos.

Behind on blogging here is pictures of Athens and Mykonos fun!

I am blogging from a beautiful spot in Mykonos. I am outside sitting on a small beach with a view of the bay and the beautiful lite building in the back round. I haven't blogged in a long time because the internet has been hard to connect too. Surprisingly, sitting here on the beach we get great wifi. I didn't get to writing a blog on our Athens trecking. If you want the 411 on those 2 days of sight seeing you can check out caitlin's blog for a detailed entry. Instead I will post some pictures of what we did in Athens.






We caught a boat in Athens to go to Mykonos at about 5 am. The boat ride was about 5 hours. It was a little cold since we had cheap seats, which ment sitting on the deck. We didn't have a place to stay In Mykonos so we hoped we can find a place when we docked. When we docked there were people left and right trying to get us to stay in their place. I guess we worried for nothing. We were like fresh meat to a pack of wolves, all arguing for our business. Once we decided on a place to stay we were driven to our new place of residence. It is only 10 euros a night and it is a private room, kitchen, and bathroom for the 4 of us maybe I will take some pictures of it.

Our first night in Mykonos we did some dancing till the AMs and today we had a really relaxing day at the beach. I just finished a delicous meal, pork stew in a lemon sauce with rice and fries. French fries seem too be in many meals in Greece but I anm not complaining they are pretty good!

That's it for now folks, passing the computer off to Caitlin.

What are the chances!?

So the last time I blogged we had not talked to many people at the London hostel. The clubbing room mates left and we had new ones move in just as we were getting ready to pack for the morning. However, Paige and I meet a girl in the common area who was also from Vancouver and she lived in North Vancouver too! She still looks very familiar too me but I can't put my finger on where I have seen her before the London encounter.

We left at 6am in the morning to catch the train to Gatwick. The Train was only 30mins and we were ahead of schedule. We walked through the busy airport all tired and hungry, looking for where we check our bags. As we slithered through the hundreds of people rolling our suit cases I heard someone say "sorry" to bumping someone with their luggage(both "excuse me" and "sorry" are very uncommon words said in public in London). I looked to the person and realize it is my cousin, Courtney! We were both shocked to see each other on our traveling adventures. After the "oh my god, this is my cousin!" introductions to our friends, we caught up a bit and said our farewells for the second time once in Vancouver and second in London. See you in a year Court!

After that 1 in a million encounter we checked our bags, ate breakfast and boarded the plane at 9. The plane ride was an 3.5 hours long but we are safe in Greece. This hostel is way nicer than the London one, and I have free internet on top of a free breakfast as well! One of the guys in our room is from Vancouver as well! Seems like we re not the only Vancouverites in the hostels, however we have been the youngest.

That's all I have for my fellow followers I hope you enjoyed it.

London Adventures

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there! You know if I could, I would be making breakfast for all. Did I ever mention we get free breakfast at this hostel? It is simple but it is free so we love it. It is also good motivation to get up in the morning. Oh we also have 2 room mates at we rarely see, they go out in clubbing outfits and never come back if they to it is usually the next day in the afternoon. We have yet to sleep in our room at the same time as them. You can't wonder where they sleep...?

Just so there is an alternative, my friend, Caitlin who is on the trip with me also has a blog so here is hers link http://eurocate.blogspot.com/ she has up loaded some pictures but i have yet to do so.

Lets see what we have done so far. We went to the British Museum and the National Gallery, of course only one a day. It is hard even for our young feet to do so much slow walking. We saw many cool things in the Museum and I took many pictures of artifacts. The Gallery was huge and we loved seeing all our favorite art pieces we learned about in school. It was a shame we were not allowed to take any pictures, but we all bought some short or memorabilia at the gift shop.

We also did some shopping. We went to Oxford which is the biggest area to shop in London. We went on the weekend so it was super busy in every store we went in. The price of things is more expensive then at home, but all of us girls were able to find things to buy.

Tomorrow Elliott is going to lunch with some family so the rest of us are going to do some more sight seeing and shopping. Caitlin and Elliott are going to go to the show Wicked in the evening so Paige and I are going to do some exploring maybe I will go to a place with free Wifi so my blogs aren't so rushed.

That's it for today my internet is running out. If I missed anything it could be in caitlin's blog.

Getting ready to sleep in London.

The 9 hour flight to Amsterdam was a restless. We left about an hour late because the plane was being fueled up. I watched a couple movies and listened to KLM's music selection.Every time I thought I was going to sleep a baby would start to cry or fuss that would cause a chain reaction and then there were about 3 babies crying. All and all I didn't get much sleep but we rested at the Amsterdam airport and then headed to board the next plane. To our surprise it was a very small plane no more then about 100 seats. The flight was only an hour long and we all got some good shut eye, even though we missed the snacks and drinks it was worth it. When we got off the plane we went through customs. After Paige went threw I was next and the lady asked if Paige was my sister, I said no and she kinda starred at our immigration information.She then realized Paige was a Godfrey and and I was a Lee she replied saying "oh different names". We smiled it off, but it is funny considering we are two completely different races. We trekked our way to the hostel using the busy trains and all was fine and dandy until we realized we had to carry our luggage up to our room. Room 17, which is about 8 flights of stairs up from the check in/ reception desk. With team work we all made it up we were just a little more burned out. That's all I have for now we have to pay 1 pound for every 40mins of internet we use so I will be passing the computer off to Caitlin.

The count down begins!

Exams are over, and summer has officially started! The count down begins with only 1 week and 4 hours till we depart from Vancouver and start our adventure. We are getting ready with last minute planning and starting our packing.

Europe is so close yet so far.

Me and three of my friends are headed to Europe in less than a month, and we are all pretty excited! Here is a list of where we are going and when we plan to be there. We leave on May 6th!

May 7 – Arrive in London
May 11 – Fly to Athens
May 13 – Boat to Mykonos
May 15 – Boat to Santorin
May 17 – Boat to Athens/Train to Patras
May 18 – Boat/Train to Rome
May 23 – Train to Florence
May 27 – Train to Venice
May 30 – Train to Vienna
June 2 – Train to Munich
June 3 – Travel to Neuschwanstein
June 4 – Train to Nuremberg
June 5 – Train to Prague
June 9 – Train to Berlin
June 12 – Train to Brussels/Travel to Bruges
June 14 – Travel to Brussels/Train to Paris
June 18 – Train to Nice
June 20 – Train to Barcelona
June 24 – Train to Madrid
July 1 – Fly to Vancouver