Back to Bordeaux and beyond...

04/06/2012
The week in Bordeaux went well. I didn't write last while in town, just spent my time with my family. It was wonderful to see them. We will be gone for a bit longer this time and I'm glad we had the chance to go back now. Danielle was able to get her contacts (or her eyeballs as I call them. We both switched out our clothes in preparation for spring and summer! We have about 2 weeks left and we will be on 4 months and counting that we have been gone! Time is flying by! Seeing people in Bordeaux that we met the first time we were there was very nice and great to share stories with them. It was especially nice to speak with Charlotte, as I already mentioned in another blog. Just sit there, eat cheese, drink wine, smoke and talk for hours. That was the best time I do have to say. She is an amazing woman and a wonderful mom/wife. Louis is very lucky to have met her! They are lucky to have met eachother! Well, we spent our time in Bordeaux and left to Milan on Wednesday the 4. We are officially illegal lol! Only by a couple of weeks. I figured this would happen (we would stay past our 3 months). We are leaving Italy in 2 weeks and heading for Croatia for this reason. Croatia isn't part of the Shengen agreement, we just realized! So we plan on spending at least 1 month there, since we have to be out for 3 months. The pictures I have seen of the country are just incredible!! The next few months will be very exciting, there are many amazing places we plan on going. The temples built into the rocks and ground in Jordan and the beaches and cascades in Croatia are what I am most looking forward to. Israel will be enjoyable for many reasons. We are planning on taking a ferry over to Croatia unless we can find a cheap flight. At this point taking a flight out of a Shengen country is taking a risk. So, we are going to try not to :) currently, we are on a 5 hour train ride through Italy going from Milan to Florence. It's an amazing trip!! Great views! We are taking the trip during the day this time, so we can see Tuscany and the surrounding regions on our way. We are going back to Giuseppe and Vincenzos home. Jenny will be there too! She moved back to her home town on the island of Alba since she couldn't find a job in Florence. We have created a great friendship with them and I am thankful we met them via CS. We all clicked very well from the beginning and its a wonderful chemistry. Even with the language barrier, it doesn't limit our conversations or ability to share great food and times out together. It's wonderful! It's a type of relationship that I have never had with anyone else before (with the language barrier and all). I'm going back to sleep :) im going to wake up when we hit Tuscany. Miss you all! Xoxo

04/12/2012
We left Florence and spent a few days in a small seaside town called Livorno. Our host here is very cool! He speaks Japanese and Italian fluently and a little English. We all manage to communicate just fine though. He has 2 apartments in town and he lives in his home in the country side outside of Livorno. His homes are beautiful! The apartments are are very well designed inside and he has a stereo system set up so you can hear the music you play in the living room throughout the entire place! It's the coolest set up I have ever seen! His home in the country side is gorgeous! He has it completely renovated to accommodate parties with over 50+ people! It's impressive! His grill is the biggest I have ever seen! Danielle took a picture of it. You can roast about 3-4 full size pigs on the grill, its that big! We had seafood spaghetti last night. It's the first time we have had seafood in Italy and I was very happy with the dinner! Today we are all going to Pisa to see the leaning tower and then to the port. That should take up most of the day :) I think we will BBQ tonight! Second time that we will have had a BBQ since leaving home. Gosh, I'm excited for that! Well I have to finish getting ready for my day out! Miss you all! Xoxo

04/17/2012
We are on the train heading to Alcona, Italy. We will be taking a ferry later today to Croatia. We are going to a city named Split. It's the second biggest city in Croatia. It's located on the coast and from the pictures, it appears to be absolutely breathtaking! They don't use the Euro there instead they use a currency called the Kuna. It's about 75 Kuna for €10. They speak Croatian, which sounds similar to Arabic and their official religion is Roman Catholic. Lol the mix of all of this makes me wonder what type of a feel you get being there. Sitting here writing I just looked out the window and all I see are the green rolling hills of Tuscany. My goodness do I hate the idea of leaving Italy. I absolutely love it here. It really sucks to leave. I have moved a lot in my life and I have lived in many different places but leaving here is not like any other feeling I have ever had, not even leaving home for this trip. I think thats because I assumed I was going home after we were done traveling. I'll stop talking about how much I'm going to miss Italy now lol...it makes me sad to talk about. I love the Latin countries! Ugh! So, I made grilled cheese yesterday for Danielle, Jenny and I. It was delicious! I used Swiss and asiago cheese! Mmmmm...it came out very well! We had spritz and sausages on the side :) We stayed up super late last night because we figured we could sleep on the trains today lolololololol! I should know better by now! When we are traveling all day I get tired anyways so I figured it wouldn't matter how much sleep I got. It does. But its a bit late to go back and change that now.

04/19/2012
Well, my o my have we had a few very interesting days!... I have never dreamed it. Have you ever dreamed a night like this...its the chorus to the song I'm listening to right now. A song from Caro Emerald. I love the song, nice beat! So, let's get back to the story of the last few days! Lol! We arrived and realized we didn't have enough money on us to purchase our tickets, the research I did was only for tickets purchased online. Now, we didn't know this at first so we had my mom put enough money in our account and money to last a few days for food, etc (for once we got to Croatia). At this point we figured we could still leave that night to Croatia. We got the money and went to the port. Getting there was fun! We got lost on the buses in one of the smallest cities we have visited yet! For some reason they have double lines for each individual line itself, both going to different parts of the city. Let me explain, the sign to the center was bus 1/4 (who uses numbers like this for bus numbers first of all). The sign explained which stops like a normal sign does. So, we got on. Then we made it all the way to the end of the bus line and realized everything was getting off, so we did too. We asked where the bus that was going to the center was located and the driver pointed at another 1/4 bus, so we got on it and thought for a brief moment that maybe there was some switch or something, just to get to the center. The bus took off and we noticed fairly quickly that it was going right back to the train station. At this point it was around 4pm. We had only a couple more hours before the ferry left. So, we made it back to the station. Tried taking the same bus again, thinking we just missed the center and didn't notice it. Lol...we were wrong. We finally decided to get off at a stop half way from the station and just figure it out from there since it seemed like a big bus stop area. When we did that, Danielle was bombarded by elderly people and couldn't get off the bus in time so she kept going. Hahaha this is now the 3 time we have been separated due to public transportation. I knew what to do this time and I stayed put. She eventually made her way back to me! So, we finally figured out with help from an old Italian woman which bus we needed to take and we were off. Once we arrived in the center, we realized that it wasn't going to be so easy to find WiFi to contact my mom to say we needed more money. But we tried. To make this story shorter, 3 out of the 4 bars that are "free WiFi", didn't have access for one reason or another. By the time we found WiFi, we had missed the ferry. So, we decided to hang at a cafe and have a coffee. We didn't want to waste $ on a hotel for 1 night, since the cheapest hostel was 18€!! That's pretty expensive for those of you who don't know. We decided to hang at the train station for the night, get up in the morning, see some more of the city and just leave. That was the plan until I went online and realized the next ferry going out at the price we wanted wasn't for 2 more days. At that point, we just decided to take that price in 2 days and we figured we would just rent a hotel room or hostel. Wouldn't be a problem...that's what we thought...in our minds, which forget about reality at times. We bought the tickets, which are non-refundable due to the low price they are purchased at. Then we went to look for a room for the next 2 nights and I put up requests on Couchsurfing. We discovered immediately that ALL the hotels and the only hostel in Ancona were completely booked for the next 3 days because of some big military event occurring in the next day or two. So, we went to the station that night. We ended up meeting some really cool guys who worked at the train station and we all had conversations about all sorts of things. We all really clicked! They invited us to Porto Nuovo the following day and said they would bring us around and show us the coast. We had a blast the next day! It was one of the most beauty coast lines I've ever seen! I took so many pictures! That night we went to see if any hotels "maybe" had an extra room since we didn't want to sleep at the station again! Nope they didn't BUT, one hotel, Hotel Fortuna allowed us to sleep in their back lounge since they knew our situation and didn't want us going back to the station. The station was fine, at least it was warm. Just a lot of homeless people and kind of sketchy. We even offered to pay just to sleep in the lounge. They just let us rest on the couch. In the morning, we met the guys one more time for lunch on the coast in another city near by and we went to several other cafés and pastry shops along the way. It was a great ending to our time in Ancona. Even with the circumstances of our sleeping arrangements, Danielle and I had an amazing time in Ancona because of these men! They brought us to so many neat places and great restaurants! So, we were on the ferry that night off to Ancona. Getting through customs was insane! I'm not sure if describing what happened can be incriminating to me, but I want to share our experience! So, we were 3 weeks past our date of having to leave Shengen countries. Ok, so because we "were" 3 weeks past our date of having to be out of Shengen countries Danielle and I were a little scared to go through customs just incase they did check. Although anyone you ask will tell you, they don't check Americans. But that's the right attitude to have, so we were scared. We walk up to the customs booth and see 3 men inside. Now we are freaking...one of them may check. We turn the corner and the entire is lined with customs officers!! I almost had a heart attack! We haute sat and smiled and didn't say a word. They took the passports, stamped them and let us on our way. They didn't even look to see when we came in! People are right I guess :\ its still not a good feeling. All it takes is one person who wants to actually do their job and we would have been a bit screwed! Anyways, we ande it to Ancona the next morning. I remember riding the overnight train from Granada, Spain to Barcelona, Spain and waking up in the morning on the rain, riding the coast on the edge of the cliffs. Watching the waves hit the sides of the cliffs and seeing the sun rise was one the best mornings of my life. It was wonderful. Well, this ferry ride tops that. Only a little :) I woke up to the sun rising on the hundreds of islands off the main land in Croatia. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. Really. I took soooo many pictures! I know I can't capture what I saw with pictures alone but it helps! So, we arrived in Ancona and started our mission to find WiFi and a cheap hot cup of coffee. We found both pretty quickly! It took us about an hour to find a place but we did! I think being in Italy so long made us forget the rest of the world does use and offer WiFi in public places! That's one downfall about Italy, technology sucks there. Not sure why. I figure since they get so many tourists they would shapen up. So, we put out some Couchsurfing requests or look for hostels and let my mom know we were still alive and kicking! I wonder what she will think if she ever reads this blog! There is so much we don't tell her because we don't want her to worry...lol...hopefully she will read this in years to come and not now! One of our requests was answered 30 mins after I sent it! We made the plans to meet that evening and Danielle and I were off to see the city for the day! We eventually found a hostel that allowed us to drop off our backpacks for a few hours (free of charge). I will not pay to have someone watch my bag of clothes!!! It's clothes!! Not some valuable shit! We always make a joke that if they loose our stuff it will be ok...lol! I just think its dumb, just let us put our bags down, if somethings happens it happens. If not, then we still have our stuff. I have learned very slowly that my personal belongings have no value. My passport and camera maybe haha but everything else can go, if it had to. After having to toss pajama pants (at the airport in Barcelona) that I paid $50 for and other items, I have realized that clothes and other things CAN be replaced even if you don't think so at that moment. Ok, so we dropped off our bags at this cool hostel and went walking down the boardwalk in Split. It's a wonderful place, reminded me a lot of south beach. The set up was very similar. We kept walking towards this really big hill and walked up it until we realized it turned into a small mountain pretty much. Lol. At that point we were so far up we just decided to keep going. We had some amazing views of the city! We met a woman who was on vacation with her parents, they were from Colorado. Very nice lady. We spoke for a while and laughed a lot. It was nice to speak to an American for a while :) Our CS host was a bit off. We didn't care for him. He kept making comments about us being American and every time we did something he would say "ugh Americans". We didn't feel so comfortable so we planned to leave earlier than we had said. He was nice just very short with us. I don't understand why you would have someone come to your home if you don't like the nationality they are. He could clearly see we were American on my profile. O well. He gave us a warm place to sleep. It disappoints me to meet people like that though. He really shouldn't do CS for this reason. You have to be really open to all cultures, religions, races, etc if you do CS. It's just part of the gig. The last day we were there he said we should be up by 730-8 so we could get ready, eat and leave. He said not worry about setting our alarms that he would wake us up. He woke us up at 8 and then said we had 5 mins to get ready before his friends were there to leave. I was pissed. That wasn't cool and he definitely did it on purpose to us. I was annoyed we listened to him. We should have set our own alarm. We had time to throw on our clothes and run out the door. It was ok though, we were away from him! Even though we stayed with an idiot our time in split was great!

Pictures from:
Milan
Porto Novo

Under the Tuscan Sun and back to family :)

03/21/2012
I am going to start writing on my note application everyday and uploading the entries to my blog weekly. This will allow me to have a more accurate account of our daily activities and not have to write in my journal as much :) I want to save my journal for the more personal accounts of my journey.

We are on the train currently waiting to leave for Siena. We are a bit behind schedule but that's ok, who's keeping track anyways! I have researched the hell out of Siena and the surrounding area in search of hotsprings, FREE hotsprings to be exact! I found numerous locations. So, we will spend today, Thursday and Friday in Siena and the national park just south of Siena basking in the sun and enjoying the wonderful hotsprings of Tuscany! It will be quite relaxing I'm sure. We don't have a place to stay yet but I sent a bunch if CS requests out and hopefully someone responds or to a hostel it is! I'm ready to do some more CS. We stayed in 2 different hostels and with a host in Rome. That was enough hostel time for me. I enjoy CS because of the types of people we meet. Although, we have met some fantastic people in the hostels we have stayed in. Danielle and I decided that the saying "bent out of shape" comes from somebody who probably dropped their water bottle numerous times in a day and bent the bottle out of shape. Sort of like what Danielle did today! Lol! I think she dropped the bottle 6 or 7 times already and she's only been holding it for 2 hours!

Dinner was great last night. There were 6 of us at a man's house named Alex. He is friends with our hosts. Nice guy! We had 2 bottles of wine that Danielle and Jenny went and picked out at a wine shop. They tried several kinds and once they picked the one they wanted, the associate transferd the wine into a bottle fresh from the barrel! How cool is that! We had a pasta dish with a delicious white sauce that included eggs in the ingredients. Very interesting recipe I do have to say. I didn't write it down, though I wished I had. I have so many recipes at this point. I'll have a new dish for each night of the week for a good 2 months with all the recipes I have written down and learned how to cook! We had nutella pie for dessert! I love that Italians love nutella! Danielle and I were wondering if this is where nutella was created because of the love they have for it here. I don't mind either way though lol.

Well we are on our way now...the train is moving. It will take about 1 hour and 30 minutes, not bad at all. I can't wait to enjoy the hot springs!! We want this to be our trial run to determine how difficult it is to get to the hot springs without a vehicle. I'll update on our conclusion.

I'm going to take a nap now. I only had 3 hours of sleep last night and I'm sure we will have a long day today.

Well, Siena is wonderful! We love it here :) its a much smaller city than Florence and almost reminds me of Granada. When we got off the bus we met a Mexican girl and 2 women from the US. We were all looking for the center so we walked and talked searching for the center and/or the main plaza. We eventually found it and said our farewells to our walking partners. As we stood there a man approached Danielle and I and showed us his phone with our picture on it. He asked us if that was us?! We just looked at each other and weren't sure what to say to him. It was super strange! All I thought was, why does this man have our picture on his phone. He quickly stated, you sent me a request this morning for CS. I was shocked! Lol! We figured we would stay in a hostel since we didn't really plan accordingly to stay with a host! I knew exactly who he was once he said he was from CS. He said he had just responded to my request and said we could come, when he looked up and saw us standing in the plaza!! How random?! We had just gotten off the bus walked to the center and in a crowd of over 200-300 people we just happened to be standing right next to him as he looked at the request! What luck!? So, he gave us directions to his place and we were on our way to explore Siena. The main plaza, Plaza Campo is very cool. It's a crescent shape and has many cafés and shops along the inside. Danielle and I sat and had coffee and a quick snack. We decided to get on the bus before nightfall. As we got on the bus, the woman in front of Danielle didn't move in on time and Danielle couldn't get on! The doors closed and I said very loudly not to move so we didn't have another incident like back in Bordeaux! Lol! I got off at the next stop and started walking very quickly back towards Danielle. It was too funny! What a day! Well, we are here with our host now, about to go to dinner. I'll update tomorrow night on how the hot springs turned out :)
Miss you all! Xoxo

03/23/12
Well, we had a late start yesterday and decided not to head out ti the hot springs but rather enjoy Siena. I'm glad we did too, we had an amazing time walking around the city and seeing the hills of Tuscany in the distance. We had lunch in a park near the center and then enjoyed some wine and cheese at the top of a hill overlooking Florence and miles of hills in the back round. It was amazing. We stayed for the sunset and I was able to capture some incredible moments on my camera. So, we have decided we will just cone back another time and dedicate more than 1 day to the hot springs.
Last night our host taught us how to plat a new card came, similar to euchre. Was had a good time. I had a bit too much wine and passed out during the movie we watched, No Strings Attched.

We are on the train, waiting to depart and head back to Florence. I am tired today. I want to take a nap when we return back to our CS house. I'm sure we will be going out since its Friday :)

Well, I m going to take advantage of being on the train and catch some zzz's while I can. It disappoints Danielle that I fall asleep every time we are traveling because she says I miss so much. I just have the hardest time staying awake when I'm traveling. If I absolutely have to stay awake I will but otherwise I'm out within 10-20 minutes after boarding lol. So....here I go. Write more later. Miss you all! Xoxo

03/27/2012
We leave to Bologna tonight. We fly to Bordeaux tomorrow. We are sitting in the Santa Maria Piazza its the plaza by the train station in Florence. It's a very nice evening tonight, perfect weather! The last few days have been wonderful. We relaxed and took advantage of the nice weather by taking walks and going out at night for drinks with everyone. Last night Danielle, Giuseppe and I went for sone beers and eventually met up with some Vincenzo and all went for some more drinks. I rolled my ankle last night, I figured it would happen at some point in the trip since we do so much walking and my ankles are so weak! I walked it off though and today its not so bad. I'm excited to go to Bordeaux and see Louis, Charlotte and the baby! I am looking forward to having wine, some cigarettes, cheese and sausage with Charlotte and Danielle while we talk about our travels and hear about the last few months of what they have been up to! I am also looking forward to getting new clothes and packing up my winter clothes!! Its a 2 hour plane ride to Bordeaux, its going to be quicker getting there than riding by train to Rome from Florence (that takes 3 hours).

I cooked sloppy joes for everyone for lunch the other night, that was cool! They enjoyed it. I made it from scratch for the first time, it came out very well. I am impressed with how well I have been cooking! I never realized how well I could cook until this trip. I made basic meals before, I have now learned to make some more complex meals. It's a good feeling. I am happy. I have been happy for some time now. I think this trip is allowing me to slowly learn so much about myself. It's funny cause everyone says, you take a gap year to travel and "find yourself" but that's exactly what happens! I can't explain what that means or how it happens, it just sorta does? I have gone through points in this trip where I thought traveling alone would have been better but I am very happy (now that we are several months into the trip) that Danielle and I are doing this together. There are too many occurrences to remember and I am truly pleased to have her to laugh with.

Well, I can't really think of much else to write for today. I am going to start my non stop questioning of wether or not she will play some card games with me. Lol. It usually takes about 3-5 times before she gives in and says yes! So, farewell for today! Miss you all! Xoxo

03/29/2012
Well we made it to Bordeaux safe and sound. No issues on Ryanair this time. Lol. We had a bit of a mission getting to Louis and Charlottes place. The trams stopped running while we were on it, not sure why, so we had to start walking. It's ok, it was really nice out!! Charlotte, Danielle and I sat and drank wine, ate cheese and spoke for hours! It was really nice! I enjoy times like this. It makes me miss not being able to live closer.

Today we went out into the center, just Louis, baby Louis, Danielle and I. It was nice. We walked around, had lunch at a great little spot off the main shopping strip and then we went food shopping. I'm cooking dinner a few nights this week. I'm excited to show them what I have learned in the last 2 months! Tonight I'm making a typical sausage and vegetable dinner. It's all mixed with olive oil (i add some wine and water for extra flacos) and you bake it. It's so yummy and simple to make! I'm making sloppy joes for lunch tomorrow! Charlotte has never had them! We r staying in tonight and relaxing, as a family. It's really nice.
Miss you all! I need to finish cooking and enjoy this glass of wine ;)

Pictures of our week in Bordeaux!

Florence...Round 2

So, we booked our flights to head back to Bordeaux. We are back in Florence! We love it here! We are taking this week to visit some of Tuscany. We are leaving very early tomorrow morning and heading to Siena. It's a smaller city south of here in the hills of Tuscany. There are many things to see and do but what has attracted us to this wonderful piece of land situated in central Italy are natural thermal springs. There are many of them in the hills of Italy. We have been trying to see hot springs since we were in Spain but haven't been able to find a way to get to any! I'm very excited! The pictures look amazing! But seeing them in person and swimming in them will probably be one of my favorite things ill do this year! We are going to dinner at a man's house named Alex. He is friends with our hosts. Neat guy!

So, our plan is to stay in Siena for a few days. Come back to Florence for the weekend. Go to Pisa on Monday (for the day). And head to Bologna on Tuesday to spend the day there since we fly out Wednesday. That's the plan. I'll write next week and update if that's actually what happens. Lol. I have learned that planning doesn't seem to work out very well. We have just kind of adapted to "living in the moment" and seeing what each day brings! I like it this way. We get to see what we want and even more! Some weeks are more planned out than others and sometimes those plans actually work out! Other weeks we just go day by day and enjoy wherever we are and the company we have! Well, that's enough for now. I need to get ready for that dinner :)

**To revisit my past blog and explain what happened in Morocco trying to get through customs**

We were in line with 30 mins left before the ferry took off to Spain. There were many people in the line to get through. We were at the end of the line. Everyone got through. When we walked up to the stand, happy to leave and excited to embark on a new journey in a new country, the computers crashed! They couldn't process us! Hahahahah! At that moment we both just started laughing! There was nothing more we could do. If you remember my past blog, our journey to the port was ridiculous. Lol. I didn't think we were going to be able to leave Morocco that day. This was just the topping on the cake for that day. Writing it now I'm laughing. I remember when it happened, Danielle and I just looked at each other and smiled. The man in the booth must have been able to see the frustration in our faces. He told us to go sit down and relax while they fixed the problem. So, we went and ate, had coffee and spoke with a very kind woman who worked there in the customs booth. Eventually the problem was fixed and when we went back down the line was once again extremely long! At that point I decided we were just screwed! There was no way we could get through the customs baggage check and have our passports checked, etc in time to get on the ship. The man who originally helped us, saw us and signaled for us to come forward. That wasn't uncomfortable at all. Nope. Standing in a room with Moroccans and we are the only white females and are allowed to go before everyone. They didn't know why we were pushed ahead. It was shitty walking up to the front with everyone just staring. Lol. But needless to say, we went and got through. Made it on the ship and the rest is history! Or at least has been written down in past blogs :)

Pictures of:
Florence
Siena
Tuscany (Pisa, Livorno & Volterra)

Northern Italy

We are in Rome, many more days than planned. We like it here but not as much as Florence! Florence was amazing! Great food, things to do and a hot nightlife! That's rare to find in a city, or so we have decided. We came to Rome on Monday and spent the first 2 days just seeing the city and taking it all on. We spent the yesterday by our hosts home, enjoying the park and taking in some Sun :) we decided to leave our hosts home and stay in a hostel for a few days before leaving for Sardinia. It's nice to stay in a hostel every now and then to get a break from couchsurfing. It's refreshing! Let me start from our time in Venice and staying in Padova.

We arrived in Padova after a 2 hour plane ride from Barcelona. Leaving Barcelona was a mess! My backpack was to big for our airlines liking and they made me throw away 3 pairs of pants and 4 shirts so I didn't have to check on my bags (and pay €50 to do so). I was pissed, to say the least. After arriving we made it to the bus and took the bus from Trevisio airport to Padova. It was a nice ride. We were able to see many small towns and some of the country side. After arriving we walked around while waiting to meet our host, Stefano. He eventually came and we were off. Stefano was a very nice man. He lives by himself in a condo close to the bus station in Padova. We each had our own rooms which was a strange feeling since we have been sharing a bed or sharing a couch since we left. It was very nice though! Stefano spent the following day in Venice with us, showing us the city. That was nice to he wit h someone who knew what they were doing or it would have taken much longer to figure things out. He brought is to the hospital in Venice which looked like it should have been a museum! It was beautiful and has a garden inside. I took many pictures, of course! Venice was definitely much more than I expected. I'm not sure what I thought it was going to be like. I've seen movies obviously, that portray it to be a city full of canals. It was much more. The atmosphere and architecture was great. There is a cathedral that is covered in gold and the docks are surrounded by the small boats with the men who are dressed like clowns lol. Stefano brought us from one side of the island to the other. It took several hours but we made it in one day. That was a cool city to visit. We watched a lady and her child get off a taxi boat and arrive at her home, get off the boat and enter their home. That was cool. Just to think that she has to do that every time she wants to leave. A canal is her front yard! Lol! We left Venice and headed for Verona on a Sunday.

Verona was a great city. Lots to see and our host was very welcoming. It was our first female host! She was very knowledgeable about the city and even spent a day walking us around showing us stuff! There was an area very high up that she brought us to and it allowed us to have wonderful views of Verona from above. I took some neat pictures! My tooth was hurting one night so Danielle and Paola went out for wine and spritz. A spritz is a mix of champagne or white wine and campari. It's delicious and a very popular drink in Italy for an apparative. An apparative is a drink you have before appetizers or your dinner. So, we left Verona and headed for Florence! That was a long train ride, I think it took about 3 hours.

When we arrived in Florence it took us a little bit to figure out which bus to take to get to our hosts home. Once we did we then had to ask which stop to get off at since they don't state what stop tu are at anywhere! Lol! It's been a mission in Italy while riding the buses! Thankfully the people are very willing to help!

Our hosts we very cool! There are 6 flatmates. Jenni, Vincenzo and Giuseppe were the 3 we hung out with. Jenni was an awesome woman! Very interesting and well spoken. She could speak the most English which was nice. Vincenzo is a chef so he cooked some amazing meals while we were there! Giuseppe is the actual person who contacted me about surfing. He was such a sweetheart! He even let Danielle and I have his room and he shared with Vincenzo! They brought us out several nights and showed us an amazing time! We were there for international women's day and Giuseppe bought Danielle and I flowers, mimmosas to be exact. It's what the women in Italy receive on this holiday. Needless to say between the museums, amazing food, great hosts, the nightlife and wonderful sightseeing we had a spectacular time! We love Florence! We are even planning a trip back :)

We left Florence after almost 1 week there and headed for Rome! Our original plan was to fly out from Rome to Bordeaux. Well, our plans change way to often haha ...so...we decided to go to Sardinia instead after Rome. That was until Danielle lost a contact. So, now we are back to square one and going to Bordeaux!

Pictures from:
Venice
Verona
Florence
Rome

Barcelona in 4 days...

so we left Granada at 10pm on an overnight train to Barcelona. When we arrived the next morning we arrived hit the ground running and saw as much as possible. Park Greull is our favorite sight in Barcelona. The port was pretty cool too! The park has amazing views of the city though and interesting architecture. We left that night to a city about 20 miles north named Mataro. We had a couchsurfing host there. This host was very nice too! He was friendly and very informative about Barcelona another surrounding cities. He introduced us to some of his friends and brought us to a local cafe. Danielle tried a chocolate milk that she is claiming is the best she has ever tried, and she loves that stuff! Lol. Its made right here in northern Spain. We spent the next afternoon with our host, he drive us to some beautiful towns about an hour north of Mataro. One place we went to is called Calella de Palafruegell. It is a beautiful beach town, very populated in the summer time by Spaniards and other Europeans. We took pictures that look like they could be postcards! We went at sunset and had the most amazing views. Just unreal. The second place we went was to a small stone village called Peratallada. It was built back in the 13th century and is still fully functioning! That was like being in a movie or something. I felt like it was all a prop! So awesome! All the places we have seen like this have been museums or just abandoned, not literally livable. Please Google these two towns and look at pictures, etc. They are some really neat towns!and we were so thankful that our host brought us there! Well, wanted to get the bog going for this week....haven't had time to write much this week. Ill finish tonight....need to say what happened through customs in Tangier! Forgot about that, lol so funny!

Pictures from:
Barcelona
Mataró
Girona, Calella de Palafruegell & Costa Brava

Granada

We left Seville on Monday the 13. It was sad to leave. Everyone was so kind and welcoming. We made many friends some of whom I presume we will see again. Even if not, we have Facebook to keep us in contact! It was a 3 hour bus ride to Granada. Danielle gotand I had no issues this time with trying to leave, maybe that was a sign...lol. We arrived and stayed in a hostel our first night. We went out for dinner at a local bar and had delicious bocadillos! The following night we went to our first couchsurfing home. The man I was in contact with was named Hendrick. He is from Germany. He lives in a flat with 4 other people and they all go to school at the university here. They were awesome! Very warm and interesting individuals. They are all from all over the world and have couchsurfed themselves. We drank and played a card game called Bang. It took Danielle and I a bit to understand though once we did Danielle kicked our asses! I cooked a dinner for everyone. It was chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella wrapped with bacon and cheesy mashed potatoes. Boy o boy was it delicious. The following day Danielle and packed up our stuff, said goodbye to everyone and were on our way to our next home in the mountains. The group told us we could stay and even offered to cook us a meal but we wanted to keep moving on with our trip. I kind of think maybe another night there would have been fun. But we didn't. We actually stuck to our plans lol. So we waited for a bus on the other side of town to bring us into the mountains. While we were waiting this homeless drugged up man wouldn't stop talking to us. He had on a pink and orange neon Colombia jacket with gold crosses hanging from his ears. He looked marvelous! He started to sing flamenco for us and then attempted to convince Danielle that she should trade her jacket for his since they were both Colombia jackets, I almost died when I heard him trying to ask her in Spanish. She just kept saying, "no cambio"...it was great. We finally got on the bus and were on our way to our next host in the mountains. We happened to be passing through a tiny town and I saw a man running next to the bus shouting, "I'm Tom!" I realized that was our host! I asked the bus driver to stop. We grabbed our stuff and met Tom. He was with 2 other girls. They were hippies from Sweden, with long dreadlocks and baggy clothing. They had 2 dogs with them. He said he needed to come to town to buy some groceries and saw the bus coming (guess not a lot of buses come through). He said he recognized me from my pictures and figured he would just drive us up. Worked out well, Danielle and I were able to buy some groceries this way. The drive to his house was fun, all of us packed in. The view was amazing! He lives on the top of a hill in a tiny little pueblo called Baes de Granada. He showed us our rooms and ins and outs of his home. He taught me how to make Tortilla Espanola. That is my favorite meal I have had here so far! I wrote down the directions because I can't wait to share this simple meal with everyone at home! We had some wine and shared stories. Tom played his guitar and played some of the music from his band. That was nice. The girls shared some of their stories of hitch hiking from Sweden down to Spain (with 2 dogs), still can't believe they were able to do it. We went to sleep late and slept in the following day. When we woke up we had some coffee and were on our way through the mountains for the day. We started off with the girls too but they found some almond trees and decided to stay there and sick some almonds to eat. They said it was meant to be that they found the trees and needed to stay and eat. So...Danielle and I went on our way up the mountains. We picked a point and walked up. We kind of had to go side to side due to the hills, drops and valleys, etc. We made it though and had the most amazing view ever of the Sierra Nevada mountains!! We had some oranges and sausages and played some music on my cellphone. It was just grand. Once we made our way down I cooked dinner for Danielle, Tom and I. The Swedish girls were vegetarians. I fried potatoes, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, and some cheese together and added chicken towards the end. It was very good. I took a nap afterwards. We have been sitting on the couch listening to the girls sing music for us for a while now. Tom and Danielle got some wood and we are all going to enjoy the fire in the living room and have some drinks! Boy do they like to drink in Spain. So, farewell for now. I'm sure I will have a few more things to add by the weeks end. We were supposed to go to Barcelona tomorrow. We have decided to stay here in Baes for a few days and will probably leave Saturday or Sunday. We have host there too. He lives in a town outside of Barcelona and has offered to show us the city if we stay with him. We will probably do that. So, goodbye, again, lol. Hope you all are doing well! Miss u all! Xoxo

Pictures of our time in Granada!

The Dilemma

Well as I stated in the last post, we must be out of Europe after 90 days in. Since we didnt know this until half way through the trip, we didnt plan accordingly. We decided that since we have only a certain amount of time, we are going to split up for the rest of our time in Europe and do the countries we want to visit on our won since they are not the same. Danielle´s boyfriend Matt is coming to meet up with here while we are in Ireland and will go on with her through Italy and Croacia. I will stay in Ireland for about one week, do London for one day, one week in Amsterdam, a few days in Switzerland and a few days in Germany. We are going to meet in Bordeaux to say a final farewell to our brother and go to Paris for a flight to Beijing. Thats the plan. We are going to Granada, Spain on Monday for a few days. We have heard great things about Granada! There are hotsprings just outside the city, that I am going to make sure we get to! We will only be in Granada for a few days then onto Barcelona for a few days. Our sister-in-law told us the architecture is like nothing else in the world there. A man by the name of Antoni Gaudí created most of the work that you can find online, etc. We have heard so much about it and couldn´t imagine leaving Spain without seeing Barcelona. I am sick right now. I have been drinking tea all day and sleeping. I though I would write a bit on my blog. We have met so many neat people since we have been at this hostel! Many of whom we are now FB friends with. I hope to meet these people again at some point in life. We plan on stopping in Argentina to meet a guy who hosts in couchsurfing. We met him at this hostel in Seville. As I am writing this now I am listening to some great soft rock music being played over the speakers in the common area. Danielle is talking to two great girls we met from Belgium and one of the guys from Texas. This place makes you not want to leave! We had spanish sausage with cheese melted on top of it, on pieces of baguette. We let that heat up for a bit in the toaster then put olive oil on last. It was yummy! It helps that it was spanish sausgae lol...I dont care for american sausage, I have come to figure out. Well, I am going to make some more tea and go lay down for a bit. We have a a movie date with our roommate tonight. She is from Australia! Se is here taking classes trying to learn spanish. She is a very cool lady! Miss you all!! xoxox