Elephants Are Big, Reeeaaallll Big

I may have had a mini heart attack. Kristen saw her life flash before her eyes. All while hanging out with a bunch of elephants whom all of the sudden decided to start a fight with each other while we were standing next to them. This is Kristen’s story.
　
We thought it would be a good idea to visit an elephant sanctuary today. We heard stories about it from others, saying it was “life changing”. People told us that they had “left a piece of their heart there”. Awww, elephants are cute and gentle, right? Sure, they can be gentle. But they also weigh 10,000 pounds and have the capability to crush you with one stomp of their gigantic foot. After learning a bit about the elephants, and receiving a two minute “safety lesson”, we got to feed the elephants. There was a small barrier, however, and we were somewhat above the elephants, so although they technically could have pulled us off the feeding dock with their enormous trunks, there appeared to be no real threat.

Yeah, the elephants seemed pretty darn cute. Then, we left the safety of the dock and were lead out to the river. With the elephants. Wild elephants. As we stood there with maybe thirty other people, more and more elephants began entering the river, coming closer and closer to us, and freaking me the fuck out. All I kept thinking was, “What the fuck are we doing out here? Thirty elephants, each weighing ten thousand pounds, and we’re walking next to them. That ain’t right”. I tried to hide my fear as everyone else seemed to be having the time of their lives, splashing and touching the elephants in the river as if they were playful dogs.

The attempt to hide the fear quickly came to a close as we heard one of the elephants loudly trumpet, and our teeny Thai leader yell, “Over here, come over here!”, as she ran away from the group of elephants. Fear in her eyes meant, ohhhhh fuck. As we ran towards our leader, the elephants became more riled up, trumpeting and stomping their feet. My life literally flashed before my eyes. I could see the headlines, “Stupid American tourist gets stomped on in wild elephant habitat…they had it comin’.” This is not a zoo, man, this is a wild fucking sanctuary filled with wild fucking elephants. Who are angry. And we are within five feet of them. We are going to die. What a shitty way to end our trip…..these are the thoughts that were going through my head. I needed a bag to hyperventilate into. Tiffany tried to remain calm and offered to hold my hand. I gratefully squeezed as my heart continued to pound through my chest. Just when we thought the elephants had calmed down, we heard a few of them start to grunt. A deep, incredibly disturbing grunt that could mean nothing but doom. In the distance, we could see another elephant heading toward us. “This is it, we are dead”. Our teeny Thai leader reassured us that the elephants were just moving towards each other, not us. Suuuureee. She told us that they were trumpeting to communicate to one another. Mmmm hmmmm, keep talking, Teeny. We stood together, a short distance from the elephants for what seemed like an eternity, when finally our leader gave us the word that it was safe to walk back to the dock. I didn’t let go of Tiff’s hand as we made the trek past the elephants into safety. We were told that a new elephant had just been introduced to the sanctuary yesterday, and apparently the other elephants weren’t havin’ it. Perrrhhappps it wasn’t the best idea to introduce this new elephant to the others when thirty people were in death crushing distance. Or, more reasonably, perhaps we humans shouldn’t have left the dock at all. I went with number two, and stayed at a safe distance for the rest of the day.

Just when we thought the drama was over, as we were standing peacefully on a viewing platform just above the elephants, we heard sounds of chaos. Branches snapping, pop, pop, popping, like a gunshot, and frantic Thai words being yelled out to the other workers. The elephants below us began to grunt and trumpet, and we suddenly realized that a domesticated elephant, one that had been trained to give “rides” to humans, had escaped from its camp and entered the sanctuary. The elephant, with the seat and harness still attached (luckily without any people in it), came stomping through the fence, breaking it, and anything else in its path.

It quickly crossed the river, and ran into nearby farmland. The elephants of the sanctuary were not pleased with this intruder, and made it clear that it would not be welcome in their home. Can you IMAGINE if that would have happened while we were “playing” in the river with them? Ohhhhhhhh, hell no. It was yet another reminder to me that humans and the largest walking animal on Earth do not need to “play” together. We were later told that in the 15 years that the sanctuary has been around, nothing like this has ever happened before. Oh, what a great day to be here, right?

Drama aside, the sanctuary was actually a wonderful experience. (Honestly). Lek, the founder, began the sanctuary in 1995, with only two rescued elephants. There are currently thirty-six elephants that happily reside in the sanctuary. Lek purchases them from their owners, who have abused and mistreated the animals for years. Some are totally blind, some have broken legs and broken backs, and many remain mentally and emotionally traumatized. Lek is giving them a second chance at life in this sanctuary, with no fences or barriers. The elephants are free to roam, but they stick around for the daily feedings. The camp costs $250,000 a year to run, and is funded completely by eco-tourism. So while I still felt more comfortable watching the elephants at a distance, I was content in knowing that I had contributed to sustaining their freedom.

Ever Been Stuck on a Plane?

Famous last words from Tiffany while sitting in the airport tonight: I’m probably going to jinx myself, but I’ve been pretty lucky that I’ve never been on a flight that got completely cancelled, where I had to fight lines of people to try to get on a new one.

Present moment: I am trapped on a plane. Trapped I say. And I might just kill somebody.

So. Today’s itinerary was supposed to be: Berlin to London (Stansted), London (Heathrow) to Dehli, to Bangkok - a solid 24 hours of traveling. Brutal. Hot weather awaits me though, so I am prepared to make the best of it.

Well, it was snowing and the first flight was delayed, but no big deal because we had plenty of time in between flights. Then we were at Heathrow. This flight is delayed a bit because they had to “clean it.” Okay. We have a 2:45 layover in Dehli, so I can handle a 30 minute postponement. It’s easy to make up that time in the air. We board around 10pm (our flight was supposed to take off at 9:30). Then we start backing out. The plane is making crazy noises. We stop. For a while. They announce that we are having mechanical difficulties and that we have to pull back in for someone to look at it. They say it’s going to take a half hour. Then an hour. Then they serve us snacks. Then we get dinner - read: we’re not taking off anytime soon so get comfortable.

Three hours later they announce that ‘regrettably’ they can not fix the plane, so we are not going to fly out tonight and that it was a fuel problem and that safety is their number one concern, blah blah blah. Okay, okay. I’d rather not fly then have my plane blow up mid-air. It’s 1am.

Deep breath.

P.s. This means that we are missing our connection to Bangkok. But wait. It gets better.

Theeeeennn, they say that they’ve called all of the hotels in London for us and everything is booked because of the weather. It flurried today. There should be no reason that all of the hotels should still be booked because of the flight delays/cancellations from yesterday. THEN they tell us that because it is so late, and Heathrow is essentially closed, and immigration won’t let us hang out in the airport, that we have to stay the night ON THE PLANE. Whaaaaattt??? I’m not kidding. We are not allowed to get off the plane… until sometime maybe between SIX and EIGHT in the morning. Maybe. Maybe, because they have no idea how long it will take to fix the plane. People are (rightfully) pissseeeddd off. I’m taking deep breaths - of recycled air.

Then they made an announcement that if you live in London you could go home and call back at 6am to see what’s going on. Strange. Then they changed that time to 8am. I just wanted to sleep in the terminal and they said no. Why would I want to sleep on a plane that is having it’s fuel-something-or-another fixed? Now, I understand that things happen. And I’m trying to be calm. However, the man in charge of this shit-show should jump off a bridge. He is clearly not telling us the entire story and is beating around the bush with his stupid answers. For being in charge, he doesn’t know shit. I want to punch him.

Deep breath.

Back to the fixing-of-the-plane. So. This flight is not cancelled. Only delayed. Delayed indefinitely. In a roundabout way, he basically said that the plan is to spend the night trying to fix the problem. If they do, we get to fly. If they don’t then they’ll try to put us on other flights. Buuuttt, there is only one flight to Dehli a day. And tomorrow’s is full. And it’s not until 9:30 at night. And they don’t fly directly to Bangkok. And there are no employees in the airport right now to help anyone try to get on a different flight. That is why we are sitting here. Still. At 3:30am. I’m going to be stuck on here for over TWELVE hours. Is this legal? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler? I feel like this should be a story on CNN, about human cruelty.

I’m phone-less, internet-less, and probably will get sick from being on this plane for so long. Dammittttt, the lady in front of us and behind us are hacking up lungs.

P.s.s. Even if they do get this plane fixed, why the F would I want to fly on it for 8+ hours halfway around the world? I hope the don’t fix it so I can fly on something else.

Stay tuned.


Update 4:29am: Kristen is sleeping on the floor, in the aisle. Oh, and some jackass keeps smoking in the bathroom and no one is stopping him. I’m gonna freak.

Update 6:30am: They turned on the lights and let people going to Bombay & Bangkok get off the plane. Hooray!! We had no idea where we were going, but we were getting of that plane. That’s all that mattered at that point. Then we were told to go to baggage claim, go through customs, and go to the Air India desk so they can put us on another plane, to somewhere. Literally - somewhere. Nobody knows….

Okay, by boarding the evil plane, technically we left London, meaning we had to go back through immigration and get our passport stamped, yet again, in order to access the airport to get another flight. Thankfully the few of us in a hurry were whisked to the front of the line, where we had to try to explain to the agent why we were entering London, if we just left. Too many questions. It was reeaalll confusing for them.

Update 7:00am: At baggage claim. Watching the bags go round and round. Ours is no where to be seen. Okay, now the belt just broke. There will be a delay in getting our bags. Nice.

Got bags. Ran to ticket counter.

Update 7:45am: First we were told that the best they could do was a flight to Delhi at noon, then sit in the airport for 13 hours until we could get a flight to Bangkok. We’d be losing another entire travel day. Then they said that we could take a flight to Bombay at 8:45am, have a one hour layover, then head to Bangkok. Okaaaaay. Me likey. Problem: Flight is in less than one hour…

Update 8:22am: Finally got checked in. Ran to security. Ran to the gate. The farthest gate by the way. Literally the last one at the end of the terminal. They held the plane and now we’re boarding.

Update 9:53am: Still haven’t left. Toilet is apparently clogged. We were supposed to leave at 8:45, but instead I’m staring at Heathrow crew members with hoses sucking out shit from the toilets. Awesome. And, mysterious air freshener is being sprayed throughout the cabin. If we all pass out, I’m blaming it on that. We finally leave sometime around 10:20am - an hour and a half late. We only have a one-hour layover in Mumbai. Not good.

Update 2:15pm: Mid-air announcement - A passenger needs medical attention. If anyone can help, please come to the flight deck.

Update 5:14pm: We find out that we get free wine. Excelleeeennntttt. We just got reeeealll happy. Keep 'em coming.

Update midnight: Landing late… have 25 minutes to make connecting flight. Stay tuned, yet again.

I’m sorry - we didn’t have 25 minutes. Apparently Mumbai’s time difference is 4 and a half hours, so we had negative-five minutes to catch the plane. Awesome. Thankfully we hear that they were holding the plane for us, but we were told to cut security lines and run. Here we go again.

We made the flight. It left late too, but whatever. We are so tired.

We left our hostel in Berlin at 7:15am on November 30^th.
We got to our hostel in Bangkok at 11:15am on December 2^nd.
Almost 48 hours of traveling.

Bedtime.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Germany. What can I say? It’s Germany. And it’s winter. Think gray skies and freakin’ cold temps. I wasn’t really sure what to expect in Berlin, but everyone I talked to about it loved it, except for our friend Christian. He wins. Berlin wasn’t all that fantastic. EXCEPT for the Christmas markets. I loved them.

We still had a great time. It just wasn’t my most fav. The first night was the best. We went to see Chromeo, a fantastic band I saw in Chicago over the summer and fell in love with, who just happened to be playing while we were in town. They put on a great show, and even though we had to wait in line in the freezing cold for over an hour to get in, it was well worth it. Gotta love Berlin’s clubs.

We saw the Berlin Wall - which is covered with art & graffiti, something we orginally thought was the Berlin Wall,  some Christmas markets, ate some sausages, drank some Hefeweizen… and that’s pretty much about it.

Oh, at this market, we found a one-legged, pregnant Barbie doll for sale! So creepy, but it made us laugh real hard.

Berlin was our last stop in Europe.  We had such a fantastic time there.  Now, off to Thailand!

Thanksgiving in Prague

We took an Orangeways bus from Krakow to Prague. It’s like our Megabus. Cheap and comfy. We ended up spending Thanksgiving here. Even though we were away from home, we had a darn good time. The plan was find a bar that was showing football - NFL football, not the soccer crap - and to make hand-print-turkeys out of construction paper. That we did. Google is magical. Kristen found a few places online and we checked a couple of them out that morning. One of them was showing the games, serving a turkey dinner, and taking reservations. Done and done. We ended up meeting some guys at our hostel who tagged along, then since the bar was crowded, shared a table with a few other people and we had a blast. Even the arts & crafts session was a hit. People got creative.

Oh, and the dinner was actually really good. They gave us a huge plate of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables & croquettes.

It probably sounds like all we do is eat. It’s kind of true. What can I say though? We love food. We usually go to a grocery store the first day in city and buy enough to make most of our meals at the hostel, then try to find a good recommendation for a meal in each city. So far, those have been sooo good, and sooo much fun. Prague’s tasty meal was at Café Louvre. Recommended by a friend and two of the receptionists at our place, we had what I consider my third fav meal of the trip: pea soup with garlic, mashed potatoes, & bacon, an avocado tomato mozzarella salad, then potato gnocchi with salmon. It was delicious!

We spent a lot of time walking around the city, surprise surprise. It is super beautiful. We skipped out on the free walking tour here because we were scarred by the ones in Poland. As with every other city, there were lots of cathedrals, castles, etc. We saw the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra one night, which was ah-mazing.

Pierogi, Vodka & Poland

I really really really liked Krakow. This city was prettier than Budapest. It was a bit cold though, especially on one of the three-hour walking tours we did… that sucked so bad Kristen and I left in the middle of it. We tried a second one the following day that was much much better. (We got to see some places where Schindler’s List was filmed.) A different day was spent doing laundry at a fantastic place that was laundromat/café/bar. Yes, if you wanted, you could order drinks while doing your laundry. That night we hit up a jazz bar.

Our hostel was great. Voted Best Hostel in Europe, it was basically like having our own apartment, furnished by IKEA, with a flat screen tv. It even came with free meals - fantastic.
The food here might have been what made this city. The pierogi were ah-mazing. And we found this restaurant, U Babci Maliny, full of locals, that is competing with our Il Latini meal in Florence as ‘best meal so far.’ We had amazing soup called Zurek: it was a sour rye soup with mashed potatoes and sausage in it; cheese pierogi, Hungarian potato pancakes (Placki po wegiersku), and a fruit boiled water. Everything was soooooo so so good. So good, we went back the next night.

We embarked on a vodka tasting one night that was organized through our hostel. It was a bit of a disappointment, with he highlight being a shot they lit on fire. (sarcastic oooooohhhh, aaaahhhhh) We had our own (better) vodka tasting the next night. There was a bar called Tiffany’s that I begged Kristen to go to. And they had a drink called Drink Tiffany: It was wodka cranbeery (yes, that‘s how it was spelled), Bailey’s, Malibu & pineapple juice. Kristen made fun of it. I typically would have too, but I liked the name. I made her drink it. She loved it.

Zubrowka vodka might be my most favorite vodka, ever… or at least, it’s a tie with the cucumber vodka that they make at Beat Kitchen in Bucktown. You mix the Zubrowka with apple juice and it’s to die for. Kristen emailed Binny‘s to see if they carried it and they do! We tried a honey wodka which was interesting, but I wouldn’t have it again. They also carried a vodka that was 95% alcohol - yes percent.  Not proof.  They apparently put in tea. We didn’t want to die, so we stayed away from it.

The HUF

We opted for a 13 hour overnight train from Venice to Budapest. It was the quickest, the cheapest, and we wouldn’t have to pay for a hostel that night. The train itself looked to be from the 1970’s, but it was comfy and we each got our own 2^nd class double seat on which to sprawl out. Yeeeah, I said seat. We were too cheap to get the 1^st class sleeper beds. All in all it was a good trip. Much better then I thought it would be. We even got in on time, after a short delay where we all thought the train broke down because it was making some crazy noises. The only qualm I had with the trip is that because we passed through Slovenia & Croatia, we were woken up four times by “Passport Control” to check & stamp passports (yes, they stamped us four times), and numerous other times by police to check our tickets. As Kristen said, “It feels like we‘re heading to Commie-town man“…

Alas, we made it.

We are finally done with the Euro, for now. And, thank gawd for that because it destroyed my bank account. According to books, specifically Rick Steves, we are now on the HUF, or forint. Therefore, prices are listed in HUF or ft. Assuming they meant the same thing, and not knowing what a HUF was, when we asked how much something was, we’d ask, “How many “huffs”?” Sometimes we’d get an answer, but mostly we’d get strange looks. The kicker was when we were paying for our hostel, and Kristen asked how many “huffs” it was. The girl was so confused, so Kristen repeated herself. The girl had no idea what she was saying; “Hoof? Hoff?” Kristen tried saying, “forint”, and the girl understood. Kris thought maybe her pronunciation was off, and didn’t think twice about using “HUF”.

I’m not going to lie, we would giggle every time we’d say the word because a.) it sounds funny, and b.) we had no clue what it stood for. Apparently one night at dinner I jokingly said to Kristen, “I wonder what “huff” is short for, maybe huffington?” Again, we laughed reeeeal hard because obviously I just made that word up. Even spell check is trying to get me to fix it right now. Anyway, by day three we were still calling it that, and later found ourselves on a free walking tour of the city. About 2/3rds of the way through, our tour guide was telling a story and says something about something costing x-amount of “Hungarian Forints.” It clicked. I looked at Kristen and said, “Oh my god… HUF. Hungarian. Forint.” We stared at each other like we were nuts then laughed harder right then and there than we have this entire trip. I’m pretty sure the entire tour group thought we were insane. All I kept thinking after that was what I would think of a foreigner calling the USD (US Dollar) an: oo’-said.

Budapest was fantastic. We liked it enough that we ended up spending an extra two days there. We saw most of the main sights while on our walking tour. We spent one evening at the Opera - for $2.50. Even though it was sung in German, had Hungarian subtitles, and we had to look on Wikipedia when we got home to see what it was actually about; it was pretty to listen to. The next day was spent at the Szechenyi Baths - basically pools that are naturally heated from thermal springs. It was pretty amazing. It was so cold out, but the water was so warm, and there were waterfalls & jets, and, it was just fantastic…minus the large, burly, extremely hairy, Hungarian men wearing speedos.

Of course we had fantastic Hungarian food. There was a huge Market super close to our place that sold lots of authentic goodies. We had some amazing goulash, stuffed cabbage, some sort of cauliflower lasagna, this fried doughy thing that I don’t know the name of. I don’t even remember what else, but it was all tasty. Hungarians are big into hot wine. They just heat up red wine and add some spices - usually cinnamon & cloves - and serve it. Perfect for cold weather. Their beer wasn’t too bad. It just made for a crappy hangover. I’m more excited for the Czech beers in a few days.

Our hostel & the people were what made this city though. Our hostel was small - only slept 25 - but it felt like home. The employees were fantastic. They karaoked with us, (at a cowboy and Indian “exclusive dress up” karaoke party ), cooked us breakfast, & gave us superb recommendations - for Budapest and cities beyond. The people staying there were pretty darn cool too. Without sounding too dorky, it was a little sad leaving them.

Capisce?

We took the train from Florence on the 14th - a quick three hour ride - and spent a day and a half in Venice. We sat by these cute little Italian kids on the train who were apparently just learning how to speak English, because they kept asking us questions like: What's your name?  How old are you? What's your favorite color? Do you have pets? etc.  It was pretty fun-slash-interesting trying to talk to them, being that we didn't know a lick of Itailan.  We had to refer to my Italian Phrasebook which wasn't all that helpful.  The little 4 year old kept saying things in Italian, then looking at me like I was nuts because I wasn't answering, and just couldn't comprehend the fact that I did not capisce.

We stayed in a cute hostel about five minutes from the train station right in the middle of the city.  We had our own room there which was a nice change.  There wasn't a whole lot to do in Venice, but we saw a few sights and ended up taking a gondola ride, which was actually kind of fun!

It Don't Get No Better Than This Right Here

Yup. "It don't get no better than this right here."  Those words came out of some hick-American's mouth while looking at some sub-par church in Siena.  While I was laughing so hard I almost pee'd my pants, all I kept thinking was gawd dangit, he's gottabe from Texas, and he is probably the reason why these Europeans think Americans are all cowboys. (Refer to previous post.)

In his defense, Florence was gorgeous.  Definitely better than Rome.  We spent three days there then took a bus up to Siena & the Chianti region for a day.

The most amazing meal of our trip so far was on our first night in Florence at Il Latini.  It was recommended by two of Kristen's friends, Rachel Ray & the Food Network.  Apparently they only have two seatings a night, and we just happened to get there at the right time.  We sat at a table of six - it was family style seating - they just kept bringing food out - in huge portions.  First was prosciutto. Then salami. Then a caprese salad. Then sun dried tomatoes. Then pate. Those were just the appetizers. Then we had bowls of ravioli and a wild boar pasta.  The main course was beef & lamb, with spinach & the most amazing potatoes I've ever had.  Dessert was panna cotta, some sort of cream puff thingy, and moscato.   They then brought little biscottis with brandy.  Oh, and this all came with unlimited wine. Yuuuuummmm.  I'd post pictures, but they don't do the meal justice.  All I can say is if you are ever in Florence, eat there.

That meal pretty much consumed our entire budget for Florence, so from then on it was grocery store meals for us... which brings us to our evening(s) at the Duomo.  

On our walk home from Il Latini, we turned a corner and bam, there was the Duomo.

That was a nice little surprise.  It was amazing.  We just sat there, stared at it, and took pictures of it. 

With our now limited budget, the next night in Florence was spent on a bench in front of the Duomo with a box of wine (1.60 euro) & a picnic of bread, salami & cheese, and our new plastic silverware & cups from the Euro Store (Dollar Store).  Not sure if it was legal or not, but we did it anyway and made friends.  Later that evening, they blocked off the plaza with fences and started laying sod.  Turns out there was going to be a Benediction there tomorrow and someone was about to become a saint.  (Or at least that's what we were told.)

We wanted to spend one of our days in the pretty-winery-esque-rolling-hills of Italy, so the last day we took a bus to Siena, a little over an hour away.  Even though the bus ride up was pretty, it turns out Siena is just a little town to walk around in.  A little disappointed, we boarded another bus to Castellina, a town in the Chianti wine region that was recommended by the bus station worker as the most popular town, with lots to do, and that was easy to navigate without a car.  It was supposed to be about 40 minutes away, but it took an hour.  No complaints here though because the view were absolutely stunnnnnning.

We ate. We drank. We took lots of pretty pictures, then decided to catch the bus back early because there really wasn't a whole lot to do.  Having difficulties finding the bus stop, we went to the tourist info booth only to find out that we just missed the bus. It leaves every three hours. Extremely confused, because we should have had 15 minutes to catch it, we come to find out that we were not even in Castellina. We were 20 minutes past it in a town called Radda.  Whooopsie.  Having time to kill, we did what we are becoming good at - eating & drinking on park benches. 

We eventually found the bus stop and made it home safely.  Now, off to Venice!

I Feel Like All This Shit Is Real Old

We made it to Rome.

We've been pretty spoiled in the lodging department up until this point, and now it's hostel time. Kristen summed it up in one word: downgrade. After staying in apartments, it was a bit of an adjustment moving to a seven-person, co-ed room with bunk beds and having to share a bathroom with the entire floor. That all being said, it was a super nice hostel called The Yellow. Great location, bar downstairs, served cheap breakfast, friendly/helpful staff. Our roommates turned out to be cool and gave us great advice and hostel recommendations for the next few cities we're planning to visit.

Rome was all about the walking and sightseeing. As Kristen put it, "I feel like all this shit is reeeeeal old." That's true. Among other things, we saw the Coliseum, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, The Vatican, St. Peter's, the Sistine Chapel, and the Spanish Steps. We ate lots of pasta, pizza, tiramisu & gelato, and of course loved us some wine.

By the last night in Rome we were exhausted. We have constantly been on the go since this trip began. Not wanting to do much of anything we decided to go see a movie. We found a theater not to far from us that showed movies in English and saw the Wall Street movie with Michael Douglas. I knew that Europe would wear us out, but it's hard to justify taking a day to do nothing when you are only spending three or so days in each city.  I do have to say that it was nice to take a break from looking at museums & cathedrals for an evening. 

Ryanair

A fantastic airline if you are looking to travel on the cheap.  We took it from London to Dublin to Barcelona to Rome. The first two flights were great.  No major problems, but we were also drunk for those so I'm not sure if that's why they seemed so fantastic. 

I wanted to kill them on this third flight.  We had to stand in 47 different lines to get our passports checked, to checked in, & to check our bags.  The actual plane is not comfortable. The seats don't recline and man they're flight attendants are nuts.  I realize it's their policy, but they were Nazis about the size of your carry on.  Now, we knew ahead of time that our bags were too big and that we'd have to check them, but we witnessed one get all crazy telling a passenger that she couldn't carry on her bag, even though it clearly fit in  to the carry-on-checker-cardboard-box-thingy that she was using to do the carry-on-size-check.  Oh, and they try to sell you stuff the entire flight.  I would hear an announcement and turn off my iPod thinking it was important, just to listen to yet another sales pitch.  Don't get me wrong I like cheap, so I'll take it again in a heartbeat. I just had to vent.

Ma Gutha Barthalona

High school Spanish classes did not properly prepare me for the Barcelona accent.  They sound like they have a lisp.  Let's be honest, I don't remember that much anyway, but now I don't feel so bad for forgetting about my Spanish lessons that I signed up for before I left.  I wouldn't have been able to understand it anyway.

Barcelona was beautiful.  We were so lucky to have been able to stay with my friend Allison's friends, Missy & Christian.  They had such a cute apartment in El Raval, not far from Las Ramblas. We were able to walk to pretty much everything, and walk we did.  We saw the Barcelona Cathedral, Segrada Familia (Gaudi’s masterpiece), many other churches, and the Picasso Museum. We grabbed food and ate at the beach on the Mediterranean Sea one day and took a lift up to Montjuic, which had stunning views of the city, another. We ate lots of paella and tapas - the Patatas Bravas from Bar Tomas were to die for.

"I Thought All Americans Were Cowboys..."

I'm not sure where these people are getting their opinions of Americans, but yes, people actually said this.
1.) We met our new friend David the first night. He was a Barcelonian who spoke little English, but enough to hold a conversation. He later says that it was fun meeting us, and that up until that night he thought all American’s were ditzy, loud girls from Texas. (He even pretended to fluff his hair and talk with a drawl.)

2.) The second night we met an English Rugby team at an Irish Pub. They were hilarious...drunks who liked to take their shirts off.  One of them said that hey thought all Americans were cowboys like John Wayne, and all of his friends agreed.

3). The next day, Kristen told me a story about her foreign friend's impression of Americans, which was that we were all cowboys on horses who like to throw money in the air.

I'm not sure why, but I thought this was all hilarious.

Guinness, Jameson & Car Bombs

November 4 -

Those are the only words that can sum up Dublin.

Kristen and I didn’t go to bed Sunday night, opting to go straight from the bars to the airport which seemed like a good idea at the time.  We barely made our bus to the airport that left at 5:50am, and thankfully we made our flight.  Now here is where it gets funny.  We never got the address of the place we were staying in Dublin, so we got off the plane, had no idea where to go, and didn’t have a phone number to get a hold of anyone.  Kristen somehow remembered the name of the apartment company, so we asked the airport info people if they could look up the number for us.  The guy who answered figured out where we were staying and gave us the address.  We then were told to take the bus, then walk a bit.  Well, the address he gave us didn’t exist.  We asked tons of passerbys, no one knew.  Finally a guy used his iPhone to map it, then led us on a ten minute walk around the city before realizing he was lookin at a map of Dublin, Australia. Waaaaaat the F?!  So that happened, then we got in a cab.  The cab didn’t know the address either but graciously used his cell to call the number.  Turns out the ass on the phone gave us the wrong address! So we spent an hour walking to nowhere.  Cabbie saved the day.  To make this funnier, our friend, who’s flight wasn’t until 10am, beat us there.  He was waiting at the hotel when we arrived.  All I could do was shrug my shoulders and laugh.

After that Ireland was great. We spent two days in Dublin & one in Galway.  We  toured the Guinness Brewery and saw Dublin Castle &  St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Stopped in quite a few Irish pubs and spent quality time drinking the (American) Irish way: Guinness, Jameson & Irish Car Bombs.  We saw lots of live Irish music and ate tasty food.  We even watched the Giants win the World Serieswith other SF fans  - in a bar that stayed open late just for us.
*Side note about Car Bombs:  Apparently it is okay to call them that in Ireland, just not on the north side of the country.  

"You Are Ruining the Pleasures of Other Guests"

Those were the exact words from our waitress on our first day, which pretty much sums up London. Take the first coffee shop for example: Kristen, our friend Josh and I were in a café having a chat. It was early - we had not been drinking - and apparently we were already too loud. We received lots of stares from the locals.

This same day (after a few cocktails) we end up at a bar near our apartment that was recommended by a couple we met on the street - who wound up coming in with us for a drink. We were having a grand time and apparently got a bit loud. Now, not only were we American loud, but Kristen and I picked up British accents as soon as we stepped off the plane. You can imagine how that turned out… Anyway, apparently our server came over and asked us to leave because, as the title of this blog states, we were “ruining the pleasures of the other guests.” Oooopsie.

Then there was the second night. It was the first of a few nights at O’Neill’s - our favorite late night bar. After closing, we ended up at Hung’s - a fantastic Chinese restaurant that is open super late, conveniently located next door to O’Neill’s. I’m sure there are different versions of the story, but this is mine: Right after getting seated I was playing with my chopsticks and one of them snapped and flew across the room and into a plate of some customer’s food. The guy jumped up and started yelling saying that we were ruining everyone’s meal. So I get up and go over and apologize to these Londoners, but apparently I do so in my British accent which didn’t go over so well. This was all before we even ordered our food -haha. Thankfully we were allowed to stay, even though I was grounded from talking. But that was fine because the food was real gooood, well what I ate of it anyway.

Although we did do quite a bit of partying in London, we did go see the sights as well.  We did lots o’ walking, lots o’ Tube riding, lots of eating, and among other things saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, London Eye, London Bridge, Tower of London, the houses where Oscar Wilde & Mark Twain lived, Harrods, Trafalgar Square, & Tate Modern. We ate a lot of Fish & Chips, tried a few (not good) English beers, and went to the 49ers/Broncos game on Halloween which was a blast.  We had so much fun and this was such a great way to start off our trip! 

October 27th - We made it!

We left Chicago Tuesday afternoon, had a stopover in Charlotte, took our transatlantic flight to London, and arrived Wednesday morning at 7. That was the longest flight I’ve taken to date - I'm not looking forward to some of our longer ones. It wasn’t too bad though. I was hoping to sleep the entire time so I’d arrive well rested, but ended up watching movies most of the time. They gave us dinner shortly after taking off and breakfast right before landing. We landed on time. From there took a bus into the city, figured out how to ride the Tube, and made our way to the apartment which was a gorgeous place in Chelsea.  This is where the stories begin....

Packing

Packing for any trip is a pain in the butt.  Packing up a backpack to live out of for five months is a bigger pain.   What size bag to I need?  Will it be big enough? Will it be too heavy?  How many shoes?  How many socks?  Do I really need a hairdryer?  And the list goes on.

It's amazing to realize what you can and can't live with out... or THINK you can and can't live with out.  Twelve hours until my flight and the bag is almost packed.  I'm definitely bringing more than three outfits, but I really did decide to leave the blowdryer at home.  We will see how that goes.

The first stop is London.  Tomorrow's forecast is Strong Storms & Wind, with talks of tornadoes.  Let's just hope we get there...  

Why?

The idea of backpacking for a long period of time has always been an alluring one to me.  Honestly, I'm not really sure why it took me so long to do something like this.  Well, actually I do, and it's because I'm probably the most indecisive person you'll ever meet, but we don't need to talk about that.

Those of you who know me well know that last winter I wanted to move to St. Thomas, USVI for the winter.  My friends Mary & Tim had made the kinda-crazy-but-amazing decision to do it, and I thought it was the best idea.  I mean, who wouldn't rather be working on a beach than freezing in Chicago?  I went to visit them right after they moved and loved it.  When I got back to Chicago, I unsuccessfully tried to sublet my apartment, and when that didn't work out, I pretty much chickened out on the whole thing.  I regret it.

This year I decided that I wasn't going to let an apartment lease stop me from doing something different.  When my lease was up in April, I moved in with a friend who's lease ended when the baseball season did.  Perfect. I had nothing holding me here.  I was either moving to an island, or traveling...