what do you mean i go home tomorrow?!?!

so, i suppose the time has come to stuff everything back into my pack for one last time, spend one more night in another smelly hostel, and board a plane back to the states. i'm not sure whether to be happy or sad...this has been an incredible experience, but it'll be good to get back home and see everyone again!!

since i last blogged, i've been to budapest, vienna, munich and berlin. and because i can't fit all of that into one blog right now, i'm going to write about a few universals that i've discovered since being here. in no particular order:

1. in every country you go to, it's always 'taxi'...even on the canals in venice; they're taxi boats

2. WC is universal for toilet. who's the genius who came up with 'water-closet?' probably some english dude...

3. it doesn't matter where you go, you will always run into australians. and as a general rule, these australians will be awesome. tip: befriend them immediately for good times, good friends, fun stories...the time you spend with them will be 'heaps good' :)

4. apparently i'm generic european to the max...everywhere i've gone, i've been confused for a local and asked directions...sometimes for kicks, i'll actually try and give directions

5. coffee is best in italy and vienna. mmmm...cappuccino.... and contrary to popular belief, starbucks is NOT everywhere

6. mcdonalds, burger king, pizza hut and sometimes kfc are always the first things you see when you exit a train station, it doesn't matter what country you are in

7. european men dress WAAAAAY better than american men

8. internet cafes are great places to people watch

9. if all else fails, just keep walking...you'll probably end up somewhere interesting

10. train conductors hate it when you put your feet on the seat. everywhere.

that's only a little tidbit for now...i've got so many stories and so many wonderful things to say about my adventures. i wouldn't have traded this trip for anything. thanks to everyone who's kept up on the blog or even checked in once in awhile. i'm gonna post pictures when i get home, so the blog's not done yet. so tomorrow, back to the states, and time to enter the real world, unless i can figure out a way to put it off for a little while longer...

cheers!! au revoir!! ciao!! auf wiedersehen!! bye!!

when in rome....

wow, so much to talk about...never enough internet time. anyway, life has been excellent.

after florence, i went to rome for a few days. originally i wasn't sure if i wanted to head that far south, but having now been there, i can't imagine not having made the trek!

rome is AWESOME!! i learned much more about the city than i had ever known, and holy moly those romans were flippin crazy!! i was blessed with awesome weather...brilliant blue skies warm(ish) temperatures, and amazing sunsets. i couldn't imagine walking around with all that history every single day. incredible. the first day i was there, i wandered from my hostel and made my way to the ancient city. it's pretty much as cool as it sounds. everywhere you turn there is something.

and the food....omg, the food. so i love italian food as it is, but when you can get the real thing on every corner for super cheap, life is incredible!!!

rome was also cool because i happened to run into a few aussies that i had met in paris, so we got to hang out again! and half of the people from the hostel i stayed at in florence ended up coming to the same one in rome, so it was like we were old friends already. the first night we went on a pub crawl...it was really fun, and kind of surreal when you just happen to stroll by the pantheon on your way to the next bar. awesome.

i think the pantheon has become one of my favorite buildings. i made a point to walk by it or into it every day i was in rome, and it never became less incredible. i still can't believe that even with all our modern-day technology, etc., that we still have NO idea how they managed to single-pour the concrete of the dome of the pantheon without it collapsing. flippin sweet.

oh, and did i mention that i saw the pope?! i went to the vatican on sunday only to find a bunch of people outside and looked up to see the pope speaking out of the window!! (but don't get too excited...turns out he comes out every sunday and wednesday. still cool, i say.

the vatican really went all out during their counter-refermation stage. st. peter's basilica and the sistine chapel really are as impressive as i've always heard them to be.

so i really had a great time in rome, and was sad to leave it and all the friends that i had made there.

but, off i was back up to northern italy. i opted not to give pisa the benefit of the doubt, so i got off my train, snapped some pics, then got right on the next train. the tower's still leaning, don't worry.

and then i went to cinque terre, this beautiful collection of five small villages on the italian riviera. i wish i had more time to spend there and relax amongst the houses in the hills and to do the 5 hour hike between villages along the via dell' amore...walk of love. it's this beautiful path along the cliffs of the mountains that leads from one village to the next...think malibu with gelato. and more brilliantly colored houses.

alright i don't have much more time, so i'll post this now, and write about the rest of my adventures soon.

ciao bella!!!! (to no one in particular...)

blonde or brunette?

my goodness, i'm in love with florence!!

it's an amazingly beautiful city with so much character and so much to see!! it's very friendly, the gelato is AMAZING and there's no possibility of "bad food". awesome.

i went to see the david yesterday...people talk a lot about this thing, so it's been built up quite a lot in my head, but i was far from disappointed. it's really incredible, almost takes your breath away. it makes you wonder how michaelangelo did it...the man was talented...more so than anyone else in his field, but the real question that needs to be answered is, if david were real, would he have blonde or brown hair? i say blonde. i don't know why, but it just seems appropriate. boy would he be a looker! all the girls that i talked to that have seen the sculpture get this dreamy look in their eyes and usually follow it up with "he's hot." one girl figured that michaelangelo had to have been gay because there's no way he could have created something that beautiful if he weren't. hahaha...hilarious.

but seriously though...florence...belisimo! i could easily be happy just wandering the streets all day, walking in and out of museums, snacking on gelato, walking along the river banks. i think i need to watch "under the tuscan sun" again when i get home. there's something magical about this place.

tomorrow though, i leave and head south to rome. i'm really excited to see the ancient city...hopefully it will be as enjoyable as it has been here.

side note: italy's been the coldest place i've been to yet...seems like the further south i go, the colder it gets...doesn't make any sense to me, but i guess it just means layer up or head north?

i've only got a little over 2 weeks left of travel and...i'm torn. i'm sick of living out of a backpack, and it does get tiring finding a new place to stay almost every night, but i've become quite accustomed to my lazy life of looking at beautiful things and wandering aimlessly through storied cities. ahhhh....

speaking of looking at beautiful things...i was hanging out in the piazza republica, doing a little drawing, thinking and chillin, when this guy came and sat down next to me. he was speaking italian at first so i did the, uhhh...sorry, i don't speak italian thing, but then he switched to english. he was friendly enough at first but then he moved on to the, so, i'm from india and i'm trying to find a girlfriend. his story: he's been in italy for 2 years, working for a telecom service and according to him, italian girls want nothing to do with indian men, etc. etc. i told him that i had a boyfriend (clearly) and wished him luck and all, but then he started on his speech: "see, i like american girls because they always speak true. italian girls always speak false. they tell you they have a boyfriend and the really don't. i trust you, you're honest. you have beautiful eyes. like paris hilton. but for me, paris is number 2 and you are number 1." hahahahahahaha oh my goodness, he was so full of it!! it was really funny though, but i had to soon take my leave and wished him luck on finding a girl. so much for being an honest american.

venice....don't get your feet wet!!

so i made it to venice from prague (via vienna) on an overnight train. i slept...ummm, well...more or less. but the waking up in the middle of the night part was well worth it when i woke up at 4 in the morning, only to realize that it was snowing in (insert name of small town i was in here)!!! so of course, i put on my boots, grabbed my jacket, and ran outside like the awesome tourist i am and started snapping pictures of...my feet, the other trains, the snow in general, and tried to get some good self-portraits. i bet i looked even more awesome because not only was i acting like a total idiot all by myself, i was also having so much fun that i was laughing out loud...i caught the guy working at the station staring at me with his jaw dropped, and then saw him quickly close it up and turn away when i caught his eye. whatever...i finally got snow in Europe!!!!

the only downside to the snow, was that it meant rain for me in venice. that didn't really matter though...i got to venice and somehow managed to find my hostel in the winding little pathways that make up the city.

before i actually got there, i had no idea that venice is actually an island...on my "things to do in venice" list, i had *check out the canals, maybe take a ride* like it was an option. there ARE NO streets in venice...no cars, no scooters, none of that. just boats that take you through the canals and drop you off near(ish) to wherever you're going. pretty sweet. my hostel was right outside one of the little canals...tucked away in a random corner of the city.

so like i said before, it was raining a bit. not so bad that it wasn't manageable, but just enough to be a bit of a pain. but for venice that means that during high tide, there's an even greater chance of flooding...i.e. this city is literally sinking into the ocean. when i dropped my pack off in the luggage room, there was a sign that said "don't put your stuff on the floor, in case of high tide". pretty gnarly if you ask me...but it's common enough that when the water level gets too high, local businesses just pull out long wooden planks that they use to raise up walkways for people to get around. needless to say, my feet were pretty much soaked the whole time.

it's a gorgeous city, despite being water-logged. piazza san marco, the only piazza in venice is home to the basilica san marco and palazzo ducale (doge's palace) and a gazillion and one pigeons. you can pay for some bird seed and let the pigeons climb all over you to eat it...makes for a great photo-op, but i chose not to get myself all covered in pigeon poo. it was bad enough just walking around...with the combo of pigeon poo and flooded ground, your chances of eating it were pretty likely. don't worry though, i made it out ok.

like so many european cities, venice is a great one to just sort of wander around in. getting lost doesn't matter, 1. because it's an island and 2. because it's not all that big in the first place and 3. usually you end up finding something cool anyway. the endless canals and bridges everywhere make for a really romantic atmosphere. gondolas may be cliche and cheesy, but you can't help but be a little jealous if you're not one of those folks who gets to canoodling someone and share some wine and cheese on a ride around the canal.

all in all venice gets two thumbs up. i didn't stay too long, because there's really not all THAT much to do, but i'm still glad that i at least got a chance to explore the city. ok...next stop, florence!

ciao for now!!

still going, and going, and going...

geez louise...i don't even know where to start.

sucks when the internet at your hostel is either too slow, or too expensive to use. anyway, life is good...i'm 23 now!!! sweet!! and had a really interesting/fun time turning 23 in an irish pub in barcelona, hanging out with 4 older blokes from england (we're talkign married with kids older). it wasn't exactly the bday celebration i had in mind, but i had a bunch of fun...i even got a cheesy rendition of happy bday from them in the pub.

sooo, since i last wrote, i've been to quite a few places...after paris i went to montpellier, then barcelona, then interlaken, and now i'm in prague. here are a few highlights from each:

*montpellier: cool small town in southern france...home to france's first botanical gardens (which are awesome!!) and i found richter park there!!!

*barcelona: the most colorful place i've ever been to. the city literally turns orange at sunset...it's gorgeous. i've decided that gaudi, the architect who designed much of barcelona it's both a genius and on crack...his designs are incredible, it's like he brings dr. seuss's illustrations to real life. and barcelona's reputation for being a place to party and stay out all night is definitely true...the first night i was there, i went on a pub crawl and didn't get home until 6 in the morning!!

*interlaken: beautiful town in a valley in the swiss alps. breathtaking views, and tons of cool adventure stuff to do. i was considering going snowboarding in the alps (how could you not?!) but apparently there's more snow falling in malibu right now than there is in the swiss alps. i also visited luzern, bern and zurich...the taxi cabs in switzerland are all mercedes benzes and bmws!!! after walking around a bit, i was convinced that it must be illegal to have dirt on your car in zurich (the banking capital of the world) because the cars were absolutely immaculate!

*prague: i still need to go and visit the city, but so far, awesome...it's been super windy (but luckily not very cold) and i've been hanging out with these cool chileans that i met while in switzerland. life's good!

so that's just a spot of everything right now. life's terrific and each day brings something new. i'll try to blog a little more frequently so i have better updates, but that's all for now!

au revoir!!

Like they say in Paris.....blee blea bluh bleh

well, it's been awhile since i've written now...2006 is gone, i had my first christmas in england, and now i'm in paris!!

christmas and new year's were awesome...mom and kate were out to celebrate and we got to spend christmas with a friend of mom's from seminary in this awesome little english village called alrewas. the only thing that could have made it better is if it had snowed, for a white christmas. hopefully, we'll all keep in touch and get to see each other again some other time!

after our relaxing almost-week in the countryside, we headed into london to see the sights, etc. new year's eve was fantastic...katie and i headed out into the streets in search of people celebrating, and boy did we find them. first we tried by going to picadilly circus, but although there were bunches of people hanging out...it didn't really look like they were hanging out for anything in particular...so we followed the crowd, made our way down to trafalgar square, where there were wall-to-wall people, quite a sight to behold! but while we were there, we realized that we weren't very far from where the fireworks were going to be taking place, so we continued on our journey. eventually we set up camp near the River Themes, making sure we could see the london eye, because apparently you had to be able to see the london eye to see the fireworks. sooo...we hung out there for awhile, watched the cool projection on to a nearby building, and started to count down the minutes, you know, all those new year's things... after awhile, we realized that not only could we see the london eye, but when we looked down the road, we also had an incredible view of big ben!! so when midnight came, we got to count down while big ben struck 12....sweet!!

while we had been waiting, kate and i were debating whether or not there were people allowed to be in the london eye to watch the fireworks...well, that question was quickly answered when the fireworks started...they were actually being shot off FROM the london eye! it was an incredible fireworks show (katie even said that they were comparable to disneyland...that's a pretty big deal!). at one point, all the fireworks shot off were this sparkly-gold-dust-looking type, and it made me think of fairy dust...you could practically see peter pan in the distance. (well, i was thinking happy thoughts anyway) Quite the new year's experience.

A few days later, it was time to continue on to Paris...the next first big step on my european adventure. i flippin love this place...it's quaint, it's sophisticated, it's snazzy, and i haven't had the "bitter snobby french" experience with people here at all. in fact, everyone's been quite nice, and even above and beyond friendly.

before i came here, my thoughts of paris included berets (sp?) and bauggettes (more sp?)...turns out sometimes stereotyping people is pretty on target...the first thing i saw when i got of the train in paris was a dude wearing a beret and eating a bauggette. i win.

i've been doing all the ultimate tourist stuff...i met some people in my hostel to hang out with at nights, which is great...a bunch of aussies and south africans, and even a few americans, etc.

so apparently, the parisians originally hated their big dumb eiffle tower. i tried to look on in with distain like a local, but i couldn't help but get all giggly inside. for me, the eiffle tower is a symbol of romance, of defiance, and of creativity and innovation...kinda like paris itself. in fact, i sort of now look at paris like it's an aged ornery teenager. i also think that paris (if it could speak) would go around saying "i do what i want!!" haha

oh, and news flash!!: the eiffle tower LITTERALLY sparkles (pun intended...get it...news flash? :)) some genius decided that they should install stroble lights all up and down the tower and have them go off at random, so it actually looks like the tower is sparkling. i'm not kidding when i said this place is awesome!!

the french part of it all has been kinda interesting...i can't help but think of the friends episode where joey's trying to learn french from phoebe. je flue! (that doesn't mean anything...i think, but it sounds cool though) his dumb phrases keep going through my head as i walk around.

sheesh...there's so much more to say and talk about and all that good stuff, but i think i need to go eat a bauggette or something...i heard they put you in jail if you don't have a pastry every half hour or so.

i don't think we're in africa anymore...

phew. i made it.

after calculating that i've spent over 100 hours on a bus in the last few weeks in africa, not to mention the plane trips and trains etc, etc, etc, i've finally made it to europe. i'm now in amsterdam chillaxin with a heiny (the way life should be).

two things i've already noticed:

1. i learned about two different blacks today: in tanzania, the people are black-skinned, but they all dress themselves in the most brilliant colors with flowing fabrics, but then there's the londoners who are mostly white-skinned, but they all don themselves in black jumpsuits of coats and slacks, etc. i'm not exaggerating...i was astaunded by the amount of black coats i saw on the tube today. i was thinking about how it might be kind of strange not to be surrounded by africans anymore, but then i was weirded out by this new type of black that was all around me. but then again, there was me, tuesday morning on the tube in london, dressed in the clothes that i'd been wearing since friday (no, i'm not joking), and a sweatshirt that's grey and says 'las vegas' that also hasn't been washed for three months so it looks more brown than grey, and i'm pretty sure i have a distinct smell but i can't really tell because i'm a little clogged in the nose right now. not to mention the fact that i wasn't carrying a briefcase or reading today's Metro, but lugging a backpacker's backpack with strange african goodies all over the place. i stuck out like a sore thumb, but i loved it.

2. in amsterdam's airport, i learned that "geen doorgang" means 'no entry'. well, i don't know what geen means, but if there is a doorgang, i don't know why you'd want to enter in the first place. seriously people.

ok, i'm having a great time...more updates on life in europe as it continues on.

kwa heri!