Dover, Brighton, & Hampton Court.
April 27th-29th, 2012! It was that time again for a program weekend trip and we headed to the southwest of England for a long and rainy weekend.
Dover is a beautiful city. On our way to our hostel in Alfriston, we stopped to see the white cliffs of Dover and to tour the largest castle in England. We were literally only like 15 miles away from France! My phone texted because it thought I was there and told me the rates, etc.
That evening, Alecia and I decided to be crazy and go on a 2.5 mile run. It was amazing running along the English country side right by the sheep. I’m definitely grateful for this experience and enjoyed the run a lot.
On to the next day! Brighton is said to be the gay capital of Europe and one of my friends was very excited about this. To our sadness, the city was gray and depressing while we were there because of the lovely English weather. Even still, it was a nice city and we saw some interesting things.
We started out with a tour of the King’s Palace. It honestly looked like we had gone to India! I definitely enjoyed the inside and outside of this building.
After that, I won’t lie when I say that I spent my entire day with some friends at Starbucks. I had homework to get done! And our hostel didn’t have Wifi for me to do it later. I did meander through the city for an hour or two once my butt got sore, but there wasn’t a lot to do since it was rainy.
After our visit to brighton, I spent the evening working on my Graveyard powerpoint and chatting with fellow friends and professors. It was a nice evening :)
On Sunday, we spent the day on the coach driving through the rain (again). We stopped for a while to tour Hampton Court which was cool for a little while, but then it was just cold and wet.
It was good to finally get back to Worcester after this trip. I love England, but the stupid weather really puts a damper on things!
Barcelona - 3 April - 8 April 2012
When we arrived in Barcelona, we weren’t completely sure of where we would be staying because no one had replied yet on Couch Surfing (and hostels were expeeeensive). We didn’t arrive the the BCN airport though until after 2am because our flight had been delayed due to riots in France. We made our way to a corner by some chairs and settled in for a rough night sleep. I never imagined I’d sleep in airports so much during this trip, but hey, it’s better than paying to sleep when you arrive that late.
The next morning, we’d heard from a host in a good part of the city that said he could host us for the first night (of 3) in Barcelona. He would be leaving on holiday after that for Easter so he couldn’t host us the other nights. We woke up, had some food, and then made our way to the train station and got our tickets so we could head to town. It was roughly a 30 minute train ride, and once in town, we decided to explore a bit.
Since our host was busy until that evening, we had about 8 hours to kill before heading to his flat. We had our packs on us all day and it was rainy! So needless to say, we decided to stay in most of the day, get coffee, and wander only when it wasn’t raining as much.
We saw a lot of the city our first day and one of the really cool buildings we ran into looked like it was from Dr. Seuss! It’s an architecture museum I am pretty sure and it’s supposed to be pretty good, but we didn’t end up making it in.
After meeting our host for honestly less than five minutes, he left for work, and we settled in at the top floor flat with a cute balcony. This was the only time we saw our host. For the next two nights, I would get a text from him saying he’d decided we could stay another night! We ended up staying at his apartment the entire time and only saw him the 1 time because he went out of town.
Seriously, the faith of some people amazes me! Of course we’d never take advantage of his apartment, but I can’t believe he let us stay there.
The next day was rainy as well, so we slowly creeped around town. During our time in Barcelona, we saw one of the famous churches, spent a few hours at a famous park that overlooks the city, and went on Wifi a lot at McDonalds. The weather was horrible and really put a damper on our trip.
The last day, however, was nice enough to go to the beach! We finally had a little bit of sun and relaxed for the day before our flight.
It was a decent time overall, but I was really disappointed in the rain all weekend. It might not have been so bad had we had umbrella’s, but hey, what do ya do I guess.
Maybe my next adventure in Spain will be better.
Pisa & Florence - 29 March - 2 April 2012.
Well, it’s time again for another long journey around Europe! This time I made my way all the way over to Italy and then Spain. If you remember correctly, I already went to Italy back for Christmas and I went to Rome, Venice, and Milan. This time around we went to Pisa and Florence and I just have to let you know now that Florence was AMAZING. Alecia and I made our way at 5am all the way down to Stansted Airport in London (a 4.5 hour journey away). Once we arrived at the airport, it was pretty quick and easy to get to the gate and board the plane. When we landed in Italy, we were surprised by how teeny tiny the airport was!
We went through the airport, go a map, and a €1,10 bus ticket to get to the city center. While one the bus, we met another American father with his family who was also trying to get to the center. We ended up looking really silly when we missed our stop, but we got off a few stops later and just walked to the ever so famous tower. It was a beautiful day and even though we had our packs on, it was a decent walk. We got twisted a bit, but we finally made it!
No make-up on, little sleep, looking frumpy with our packs, and there we were taking photos with the tower. It’s honestly crazy just how much it actually leans! It was beautiful though. There were people everywhere taking photos, lying on the grass, and really just enjoying the day. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer arrival. At this point, we were trying to get a hold of our Couch Surfing host, but it was ages before he finally got back to us. It was a bit upsetting when he did because he was stuck in Rome and would not be home until late that evening. This being said, we decided to try and get a hostel. Lucky for us, we found one! A cute little two person room just five minutes walking from the tower.
(The view from our hostel patio).
After checking into the hostel, and of course having some Italian pizza and gelato, we decided to rest for a bit. This hostel was nice and had a kitchen AND wifi! Woah. We eventually went out to explore some more and get some groceries so that we could make our own dinner and keep it cheap. Plain pasta and sauce! Om nom nom, keeping it classy. Then 9pm came around and we were beat. So we went to bed like the old ladies we are.
The next day we bummed around literally all day. We were supposed to meet our host at 11am, but he had some things to do so we had to be until 1pm. We decided to stop walking for a bit and have a beer! Later when we met our host, Aldo, we were definitely surprised by his apartment. Aldo is a plastic surgeon that specializes in burn cases. He is currently taking the year off though to travel, and wow! He had a huge flat right in the center of town and we even had our own room. In Pisa though, you really only need a day there and we had two. So yeah, we wandered around a lot, had gelato a lot, and laid in the sun a lot. That’s about it.
On Saturay the 31st, it was finally time to make our way to Florence and to meet up with Jessica. We left Aldo’s flat fairly early and headed to the airport where we would catch a coach bus to Florence. Traveling over an hour away to another city, and it’s only €6!? That’s what I like to hear. We got there quicker than we had anticipated so Alecia and I were awesome and ate french bread and jam for breakfast like a bunch of hobo’s haha ;) Then we got on the coach and made our way to Florence. Once we arrived in Florence, we walked about 15 minutes away from the train station to the hostel we were staying at (Plus Hostel - Florence). Jessica wasn’t due to arrive for a few more hours so we had some time to kill.
Our hostel was actually really nice! We checked in, and then went to explore and get some lunch. Then Jessica was there and we got settled in! Alecia had met two girls recently who were actually studying in Florence. They are Cassy and Brittany from California! They ever so graciously agreed to show us around Florence and take us out for some good food and dancing. So that evening, we picked up some wine (actually pretty good wine and it was only €2!!!). We got to their flat in town which was super adorable, chatted, and then left for dinner. Dinner was absolutely the best pasta and bread I have ever had the opportunity to have. And that’s saying a lot considering how many meals I’ve had in Italy/Malta/Greece/etc. The rest of the night was really fun. We got a drink at a local pub and then went dancing at the club part of House of Sizzle. If you go to Florence, GO TO THIS RESTAURANT. It’s not Italian by any means, but they have seriously the best everything and we ate there a lot. Oh, and they speak English! And there is a fantastic gelato shop across the street that has the most amazing cheesecake gelato I’ve ever had.
Sunday was a day to explore. Cassy and Brittany were awesome and showed us around every single day that we were in Florence. On this day, we went all around town, saw lots of buildings and monuments, and then hiked up what was basically a mountain (I definitely chose a good day to not wear tennis shoes). The views from the top were amazing and we could literally see all of Florence. Up there, we saw the gardens, some live music, and lots of people. That evening was pretty low key. We just explored a lot, got dinner, and met some of their friends.
On our last day in Florence, we went with Brittany BACK up the hill. Why we were crazy is ridiculous. For one of our classes (Graveyard Culture), Jessica, Alecia, and I have to go exploring in some graveyards. We tried to go to this one the day before, but since it was Sunday, it was closed. This cemetery was actually really neat and interesting. The stones and statues were a lot different than we had seen before AND the author of Pinnochio is buried there.
Even though we had to be up early the next day to check out and for our flight to Barcelona, we were still up pretty late talking with our roommates in the hostel. I got about 4-5 hours of sleep and then we were off. We walked around in the rain most of the day before deciding to just go to the airport. The airport in Florence was also pretty small and it took forever for us to finally get through everything. The flight was amazing though! We EVEN had leg room which is almost always unheared of on a cheap European flight. I had to take a photo of it.
Bath & Stonehenge - 23 March 2012.
Rise and shine! Friday morning came and it was time to make our way South to the beautiful city of Bath and then onward to see Stonehenge. It’s funny. Back when I first arrived here and put all my trips into my calendar, I remember thinking how far away it was going to be before this trip. Next thing I knew, we were on the coach and heading there. I can’t get over how quickly this year has gone by and how much I have done. In the 7 months that I have been here, I have seen more countries than I have states.
Anyway, once we arrived in Bath, I was amazed by how beautiful it was. Not only was it a gorgeous day, but the city of Bath just had a great feel to it. We walked a few blocks from the coach parking lot to the Roman Bath’s and went on a tour here. It was crazy how warm that water was and that you could actually feel the heat when you stood by it. I would love to sit in a hot spring, or you know, a warm Roman Bath :) The tour was really interestnig and had some neat artifacts.
Once we were done with that, we were able to tour the city on our own for a few hours. Needless to say, we didn’t get a lot done. We walked around for an hour or so, and it was just so nice out! We ended up at a huge park and found a few other friends there. We got to lay in the sun for a bit and chat and people watch. There were people everywhere.
Before we knew it, it was time to make our way back. We had Stonehenge to get to! An hour or so later and another nap and we were there. I can’t even express how beautiful it was at Stonehenge. There were sheep and fields all around, and then the mystical rocks. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t get closer to them, but we were still pretty close. It’s so odd to think about how these rocks formed and where they came from. Not to mention that fact that they have been there for so long. To think, I used to have Stonehenge as my computer desktop picture. Now I can replace that photo with my own.
We were only at Stonehenge for an hour, but it was long enough to learn some good information and get our photo’s done. Once back on the coach, we had about 2.5 hours of driving to do before we’d be back in Worcester.
The day was a success I would say. We saw some very important places in England and got to do it on a beautiful day.
Being productive in Brighton.
Like I said, I am being productive, sitting at a Starbucks in Brighton, England in order to get some homework and such done. We have been here now for over 3 hours and at first I was kind of like this:
Then I was like this:
And now I’m on to this:
But I’ve been productive. I types 6 pages in total and worked on a powerpoint! I’ve also done a bunch of research and such.
P.S - I promise I will get back to updating this about my travels and such. Homework and internship are just kind of killing me at the moment.
London 9-11 March 2012.
Surprise! A week before I made my way down to London, I got a very enthusiastic skype call from Alayne, Alexis, and Abby. The were going to be in London for spring break!!! And what a perfect weekend for them to be there: my program had a day trip there planned for that Friday. So! Starting with the day trip, our group headed out of Worcester at 7:30am. It took several hours before we made it to our destination: London’s Parliament. From there, we took a very intense tour of the building and learned a lot about England’s history. After the tour, we were pleased to meet Worcester’s very own, Lord Faulkner. He was a very pleasant guy and actually had a lot of cool things to tell us about.
After Parliament, we headed to the other side of town to the Kensal Green Cemetery. Kensal Green is a HUGE cemetery. We were here for a few hours, got to explore a bit, and again learned a lot of history. My favorite part of this though, was that we got to go down to the catacombs and see that part of the cemetery. Our tour guide told us that there was room for 4,000 coffins down there. It currently had about 3,000. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but it was still a creepishly cool experience.
Once our tours were finally done, I headed to the Underground with Josh and Alecia who were also staying in London. After 4 stops, they left me to finish my 18 stop journey (with one change). It took ages to get to the other side of town, but I was extremely excited to be meeting up with some American’s! Once I arrived to the Stratford station, I walked about 15 minutes to where their flat was. Since the girls and there dad had only been in London for a few hours, they were all super tired! Which was definitely fine by me. I was pretty exhausted myself.
After chatting for a bit and giving hugs, we headed back towards the mall and got dinner at Giraffe. This restaurant is seriously so so yummy! Their food is quite diverse, but I’ve yet to be disappointed. I ordered a falafel burger with beetroot, rocket, and like 5 other things I didn’t really know what they were. So yeah, dinner was good, and then we headed back to the flat to shower and get some rest.
On Saturday, we left mid morning and started off at the V&A Museum. This museum is crazy. There is just SO much to see; you definitely need more than the few hours that we spent there. One cool thing about it though is that it’s free. After seeing some really cool artifacts, we got a snack, and then made our way to see if we could buy tickets to see the musical, Jersey Boys. We got the last five good seats! And when I say good, I mean amazing. The seats were fantastic and the show was great! This was my first London musical and I was certainly blown away.
It also made me really want to go back to London and see Wicked or Les Miserables. Hopefully before I leave! If only the tickets weren’t always sold out/expensive.
The rest of Saturday was good though. We saw Jersey Boys, got a delicious meal at Ed’s Diner, and saw a lot of the town. By the time we finally made it back to the flat, it was well after midnight. We still had showers to do, and we had to figure out what we were doing Sunday/when I was leaving.
We ended up making plans to go to the London Tower (not the bridge, but the castle) and to really just do a bit of sight seeing in town. Once we awoke on Sunday and I’d packed my bag up, we headed for the overground. Sunday was seriously beautiful! The weather was amaznig and I barely wore my jacket all day. Once we made it to the castle, we started to explore. My favorite part that I saw was definiely the jewels. I cannot even imagine how much the royal crown jewels are worth.
After exploring for a bit, we got into a huge group for a tour. Once the tour started, I began to feel really quesey and faint. Between the sun beating down and the mob of people around me, I just couldn’t do it. I left my friends to continue on and went to sit down for a bit while they finished the tour.
People watching in London though is definitely interesting. Since we were in such a touristy part of town, I could definitely tell that there were a lot of out of towners. I had an apple and watched the people passing by me. It really made me think how insane and lucky this experience has been for me. There I was, sitting in London, Enland and just enjoying the day. The London Tower and Bridge were within sight, I could see double decker buses, and many many people.
After their tour, we decided to bus it to town and do the window view of London. We ended up getting Chipotle for an early dinner YUM YUM YUM *end excitement* and then they came to Paddington with me to wait with me before my train arrived.
Overall, this trip to London was far more successful than my previous experiences with London.
A day in Liverpool; 24 February.
Our next program trip was a day trip to Liverpool. I honestly wish Liverpool would have been a weekend trip because it felt like such a great city and we didn’t get to do a whole lot. What we did do though, was super interesting and pretty fun! We started out at The Beatles Museum because did you know, they came from Liverpool! The museum had all sorts of interesting facts and set ups telling us about good ol’ John, George, Paul, and Ringo. After the museum, we explored another museum and then walked around town for a little while. We didn’t have much time to explore, but it was nice walking along the water.
Next, it was time for a coach tour of the city and places famous to The Beatles. We got to see some famous streets and even got to see some of their houses!
My favorite part is when she told us a story about how John’s aunt said, “That guitar is okay, but you’ll never make a living with it.” Well clearly, she was wrong. Years later when they were famous, Paul bought her a house and a house warming gift. The gift was a plaque with this quote on it.
The tour was surprisingly interesting. We got to see a bit more of the town and it was definitely a good day for it. Although it had been rainy earlier in the day, by the time we got on and off the coach for this tour, it had really brightened up.
So yeah, we didn’t get to see that much in Liverpool, but the things that we did do were definitely fun. I would love to go back there again someday!
Dublin, Ireland. 16-18 February.
Dublin Dublin Dublin. You were a little piece of America! I cannot even explain to you how excited Jessica and I would get when we’d turn the corner and see a Papa John’s, or Quizno’s, or a store FULL of American food! It was definitely something unexpected.
Dublin was seriously great though. We got there mid afternoon and spent an hour on the bus to get into town. Our host, Rui, met us at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and walked us to his flat. He was great! He showed us all around the city, gave us recommendations, and even introduced us to a really yummy vegetarian restaurant. On our first night in Dublin, we did some exploring, got dinner with Rui, and went to The Temple Bar. It was insane!! It was a Thursday night and it was PACKED. There was seriously some fantastic music though! It was three guys: one playing/singing guitar, one on the accordion, and one switching on woodwinds (weird clarinet type thing/flute/etc). They were so enthusiastic and into it, I don’t know how someone wouldn’t like them.
By the time we got home, we were exhausted. I took a shower and into bed I went! The next morning, we left mid morning with Rui and headed straight for the castle. There wasn’t much left of a castle, but it was still interesting to see. We even snuck into a tour group and got to hear some information and stories about it. We also went to a famous library/museum type place in Dublin that was interesting.
After this, we headed over and saw the old Parliament building and Trinity College. The one thing about Dulbin that I didn’t really care for was all the people. You could barely walk in a straight line in Dublin because of all the people. There were also a lot of people begging for money.
After our little tour of Dublin, we headed to a really good restaurant, Nando’s for lunch. This is about the time that Rui left us to explore on our own. Jessica and I decided to get some tourist stuff and gifts for people back home, and then we walked around a lot of the city. For a while, I had been wanting to get my cartilage pierced, but in the states it is always like $50 or more. We found a nice tattoo place in Dublin that did them for $27! So we did it :) And it was surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be.
One thing about Dublin is that things are expensive. Restaurants weren’t cheap, and drinks were ridiculous! We noticed that most pubs charged at least £4 just for a beer! We asked a local where cheap drinks and good food would be and well… they told us honestly that the place to go was the Hard Rock. Don’t judge us, but this is where we ended up! The rest of our night was pretty mellow. We had some food and a few drinks, and then we waited for Rui so that we could head back for bed. We had a pretty early flight the next morning and we were tired.
It was really nice that we didn’t have to use public transportation for anything besides getting to and from the airport. We were really able to walk everywhere we wanted to go! I do wish I could have seen more of Ireland, but there just wasn’t enough time. I defnitely hope that I can visit again sometime and go to other cities!
York & Whitby - 10 to 12 February 2012
It was time again for another program weekend trip! This time around, we spent Friday and Saturday in York and Sunday in Whitby. These two cities are located a few hours north of Worcester. Let me just say, York was so unbelievably COLD. I was wearing several layers and was constantly frozen.
It was definitely an interesting trip though. We got to see a beautiful town, learn about England history a bit, and get hypothermia in my feet.
On Friday, a few of us just explored the city, and bought things to make dinner at the hostel. Of course our dinner was an amazing noodle and pasta sauce simple combination. I quite enjoyed it though because it only cost us a pound each for a good dinner! After dinner, our group played a few games of Mafia and enjoyed some cocoa.
On Saturday, we had a tour of the York Minster (a cathedral) and went to a service there. We were outside most of the day in York and it was just extremely chilly. We were happy to finally warm up a bit when we went inside. Again, we had a cheap dinner and I did some homework. I know, this trip sounds kind of boring, but it was honestly really good to see another part of England.
Finally, it was Sunday and it was time to head to Whitby for the day. I got up early, met my friends for breakfast, and ate a traditional English breakfast: scrambled eggs, beans, toast, bacon and sausage (but I didn’t eat the meat part). Then we hit the bus and made our way to Whitby. Whitby was an absolutely beautiful city. We went there primarily to see the Abbey and the Whitby Cemetery. There were some amazing views here. In order to get into the Abbey, we were supposed to pay and go through a specific entrance, but we didn’t know this… So a few of us, even our professor! ended up climbing over the wall to get in because we were so frustrated and didn’t know what was happening.
After the Abbey, some of us headed into town to explore. We only had a few hours, so we made the best of our time by going into some cute little shops, buying a few things, and I even had fish and chips for the first time! It was pretty good. We found this one chocolate shop and I bought dark peppermint chocolate pieces. They were SO amazing. I wanted so badly to go back and buy more. I found out from one of the shop owners that Whitby is the 3rd most visited city in England. It was a beautiful city. I can definitely see why. At the end of the day, we got back on the coach and made our way back to Worcester. It was nice to be home.
A month later, what happened.
I know I have been slacking in my updates and for that, I am truly sorry. Things have been crazy on this side of the world. I’ve been going to my internship at least 3-4 times a week, we’ve had program trips, classes have started, and I just can’t find enough time to fit everything in. Time management baby, time management. I’m getting better at it.
I want to give you all at least a little bit of information about my trips last month, so here goes. It’ll be semi brief, but it’s better than nothing.
After Budapest, Alecia and I headed to Vienna, Austria via train.
It was a fairly long train, but definitely better than dealing with a flight! Our host, Dani, met us at the subway station and then we headed to his seriously amazing flat. His flat was HUGE. We got our own room, bed, blankets, pillows, AND towles. Talk about heaven. We even got to meet one of his friends on our first night and she introduced us to lychee - a weird fruit! But really delicious.
Vienna was definitely a really fun time. We saw so much while there and explored a lot. We did the typical tourist stuff, and went out with Dani one evening for dinner, drinks, and dancing. The place we went to for dinner was a brewery and SO delicious. The beer was great, and the food was just crazy and yummy. We told Dani to just order us something traditional. This ended up being a RAW meat platter, yes, raw, a veggie/bread/cheese/toasted/deliciousness thing, and a lasagna type dish. All of it was seriously amazing. Food is a big part of our travels, can you tell?
After dinner, we met up with two of his girl friends and went to a new place in town for dancing. This type of dancing was something I’d never experienced before. Everyone was dancing like they were children again! They were all so free and lively. At first, we didn’t know what to do, but eventually, we just went with it.
Then finally, it was time to head to Prague. Once again, we packed our bags and headed for the train station. This is where we met Emily. A girl from Virginia, heading to Thailand to teach English! We got together with her everyday that we were in Prague and would love to visit her now in Thailand. Prauge was a truly beautiful city.
And did you know that in Prague, beer is cheaper than water? It was a bit ridiculous. Our first day, we spent 3 hours on a free and really good guided tour. We learned a ton about the history of Prauge and litterally got to see almost all of the major sights. Definitely worth the almost hypothermic states. After the tour, we headed for a quick snack and more sight seeing.
The next day was really great because we got to meet up with one of my good friends and her boyfriend, Molly and Hubert! We met for dinner at a really yummy restaurant, chatted, ate, told stories about our travels, and then after we headed to a few of the local pubs. One of the pubs was actually called, “The Pub” and there was a tap actually ON the table - so you poured your own beer! It was great seeing them. Molly is the reason we ended up going on this trip. We were in the process of heading to Warsaw, Poland to meet up with them, but got to meet early because we were both in Prague!
We saw a lot a lot a lot in Prauge; The Palace, the old Jewish Town, the Old Town Prague, famous building, cool statues and monuments, and even met some great people.
We boarded yet another train late one evening to head to Auschwitz, Poland. This train was NINE hours long, but the worst part about it was that halfway through, we literally stopped in the middle of no-where for three hours. And then moved again. When we got to Auschwitz at 4:45am, we were unpleasantly surprised to fight a ton of unsheveled snow on the ground… Not only this, NO ONE spoke English here and everything was closed. We spent an hour trying to find a warm place to sit and chill, but eventually we ended up back at the train station. It was freezing in there, but not as bad as it was outside.
Since no one spoke English, we headed out again to find food. At 8am, guess what we found open… KFC! What!? It was honestly the only open place. And yes, we got chicken for breakfast. A few hours later, we headed to the Auschwitz Museum for our 4 hour tour.
I cannot emphasis how emotional and intense it was at the museum. We chose the perfect and worst time to visit with snow and our 20 pound packs. There are truly no words to explain everything we saw here. While on the tour, we met two people from London who were actually staying in Krakow; Callum and Ila. They were great! We ended up meeting up with them the next morning/all day in Krakow. We started off at Schindler’s Factory just a five minute walk from our hosts apartment. Here, we spent two hours reading about the Holocaust and everything that happened.
Needless to say, this was honestly the only big thing we did in Krakow. We spent the rest of our time there eating, talking, wandering, and having a few drinks with our new friends. Since we only had a day and a half in Krakow, it was already time to leave the next morning.
On to Warsaw we went! Molly met us in town once we arrived that evening, and then we headed for a traditional Polish dinner at a cute/cozy restaurant. The food was definitely different from what I was used to, but delicious! After dinner, Hubert met up with us and we went to a cafe for live music. The lead singer of the band was a 19-year-old Polish girl and she sang some songs in Polish, some in England. AMAZING. They were so good!
Warsaw was really good. We got to explore a lot and relax a lot. Our host here, Bartek, was really nice and offered us traditional homemade lemon liqueor. Different again, but yummy. My favorite part of Warsaw would definitely be the Old Town. It was absolutely beautiful and just such a cozy environment.
Being able to see Molly was great. We had nearly 3 days of exploring and stories and I mean, we were in Prauge and Warsaw together! So great. I miss her!
After Warsaw, we headed for the worst airlines company with rude service to go to Sweden. The whole system was just ridiculous! Then when we arrived in Stockholm, we were basically ready to just give up and go home. The airport was an HOUR AND A HALF away from the city. We had to pay over $30 for roundtrip bus transportation. Once we arrived at our hosts apartment just outside of the center city, we were extremely glad we stayed! David and Elin are a young married couple and have been together for 7 years! They are honestly just the cutest and nicest people I have ever met. We arrived at their apartment, and Elin had prepared a delicious meal for us (homemade tomato soup, bread, cheese, feta, wine). We were in heaven. And not only this, they had a super comfy blow-up mattress for us, a full bathroom, AND an attached shower head.
If you can’t tell, Sweden was by far my favorite part of the trip and a great way to end our traveling. I’m not going to lie though, Alecia and I were pretty lazy here. It was so so so cold in Stockholm that even with 4 pairs of socks, layers, a hat, you name it, we were still freezing. Also, Sweden is expensive! We didn’t buy very much here at all. Except for Swedish meatballs. OF COURSE we had to order some.
In short, the things we did: explored the Old Town of Stockholm, saw the major sights, went to the Vasa Museum (really cool!) and hung out with David/Elin. We made breakfast for them one morning and really had some great conversations about Sweden, England, the States, and of course, Harry Potter! One night, the four of us went out to the cinema and saw the Marilyn Monroe movie. It was so good and so much fun! Then the next day, Elin made us a traditional Swedish dessert with bread, almond, creme, and powdered sugar. Delicious.
It was really sad saying goodbye to them after three great days, but hopefully someday we will reunite again! Heading back to England was a huge journey in itself. It took us over 12 hours to get back and by the time we arrived, we were going a little bit crazy.
Traveling for over 2 weeks really takes it out of you. 4 outfits maximum and jeans/tennis shoes everyday is not my fancy. Even still, however, it was a fantastic trip with loads of good memories. Minus the cold. There was a lot of being cold.
But seriously!! Why can’t I upload photos directly?!
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