It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to...

Wow, it's been awhile. So, Barcelona was basically like Mexico...except for instead of Mexican people, there were Spanish people...soo yeah. Nice beaches, but not that nice of a city. We went to the beach for a couple hours and I got so sunburnt that I couldnt wear pants for a few days and had to buy a dress. That sucked. Also, in Antibes we had another bedbug attack...well, Aud was fine but Andrew and I were attacked. So, now it's my turn to look like a leper. Madrid was amazing! We had a great hostel with a private bathroom (very rare) and the city was really nice and much cheaper than Barcelona. We had tapas and sangria, and we shopped (of course). Then, we were going to Paris via overnight train, thinking we had a sleeper compartment with beds...so, we get to our part of the train and go in and WHAT DO WE FIND THAT WE HAVE PAID 40 EUROS FOR?!?! Chairs. For 12 hours. Chairs. So, that sucked. Worst sleep of my life. But then we arrived in Paris and it was lovely. We had some great food, saw the Eiffel Tower, etc, shopped...yada yada. Basically it was awesome, and the people were (surprisingly) really nice to us. Although this was the only place i've ever been to where people immediately pegged me as an English-speaker...and sometimes they would yell things at me on the street. Normally people think I speak German before they hear me speak, so it was a little weird.
We had to take a bus to the airport from Paris, so we got to the bus station and we ask this guy if its the right bus and he YELLS AT US and says, "your bus left 30 minutes ago! You're late! Put your stuff under the bus and get on, OKAY?!" So, we were freaking out about missing our flight for the hour bus ride, then we get there and had like 30 minutes just SITTING AROUND at the airport. So, that was stressful. Then, we get to the hostel in Dublin and I go up to the front desk and say my name and give them the confirmation number and they say, "ohhhh YOU'RE Jessica Wilson, this came for you" and they gave me a HUGE box from my Dad and Stepmom with chocolates and champagne, and then they told me that I have no reservation and the confirmation number was for a room July 17th...so I start SOBBING because I didnt want to be homeless on my 21st birthday. After about 2 hours trying to find a new hotel, we decided on this hotel right in the middle of the main street in Dublin which is really nice and fairly inexpensive, AND the guy at reception gave us free full breakfast because of what happened at the other place and because it's my birthday :)
Then we had a lot of Guinness. Then life was better. And now we're going to go to the Guinness Brewery for my birthday! Woohoo! :)

I know it's been a while since either of us blogged, sorry. So, the trip to Barcelona was LONG and we didn't get in to our hostel until around 11pm. We saw Laura in the lobby there and it was SO great to see her. We visited a lot about our travels so far that night (we had many stories swap). The next day we meant to go straight to the beach, but we ended up trying to find a swimming suit for Laura (she shipped hers home...not sure why). Since it was a Sunday in a predominantely Catholic city, nothing was open. We ended up walking around the city for a very long time before making it to the beach. When we got there though, it was SO worth it. The beaches in Barcelona are amazing. Needless to say, we all got burnt...even Andrew. In the evening, we tried to find some tapas without much luck. We went to this crappy place late at night and were not very satisfied by what was offered on a Sunday night. The next day we took a fast train to Madrid. Madrid was AMAZING. We all loved it (especially in comparison with Barcelona). We had the BEST hostel of the trip, churros and chocolate around the corner, beautiful sites, nice people, great shopping, unbelievable tapas and sangria, and some of the best gelato I've ever tasted. Madrid has it all. After Madrid, we went on an overnight train to Paris. We thought we would be staying in either a 4-bed or 6-bed cabin (hoping for a 4-bed)...and got a chair. Yes, a chair. Aparently, in booking everything, we booked a seat instead of a bed. And these were the most UNCOMFORTABLE chairs ever. We hardly slept at all. It was horrible. We got to Paris in the morning and made it to our hotel pretty easily. Since it was the morning, however, we couldn't check in. So, we left our stuff and walked around the city all nasty and smelly from not having showered yet. Andrew did his own thing while we ate an amazing brunch, saw Notre Dame and shopped. We saw quite a lot of the city and we loved it almost immediately. In the evening, we met my friend Anne, who lives in Paris, and my friend Danielle, who I go to school with but was here on vacation, for dinner. We had a lovely classic French dinner followed by some good ice cream. Mmmmm. We also saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle from by the Louvre! It was a really fun night. Today we had an amazing brunch once again, seriously, best food of the trip or close to it...I'm sure Jess will share more. Then we just kind of walked around, saw a lot of good sites, shopped, and just relaxed (although we walked A LOT). Andrew was with us this time. Tonight we met up with Anne again for a drink at this really classy place. That was a lot of fun too. Tomorrow we part ways with Andrew (unfortunately) and Jess, Laura, and I are off to Dublin!!!! We'll update you soon, love you all!

Audrey

Wine is cheaper than water? Ok!

Ok, so Jess basically covered Fussen...it was awesome. The next morning we went to Munich. We checked into our hostel, which was nice, ate at a cool small street restaurant place (delicious gyros...) while waiting for our laundry to dry. Next we went to Dachau, the memorial site to the concentration camp. It was eery and sad, and unfortunately we were only able to be there for about 30 minutes before it closed. So worth it though. In the evening, we walked A LOT (surprise, surprise) and went through the biggest city park in Europe to a biergarten called Seehaus (by Carrie Taylor's recommendation). It was really fun. Jess and I had a liter of beer each with a pretzel and some fries. SO good. We had some really good laughs and conversation, met up with Andrew then eventually found our way back to our hostel. The next morning we left for Antibes, France. This day was to be a travel day...and it was. Italian trains suck we decided because the German trains are super nice and extremely punctual, while the Italian trains are never on time and made us miss 2 connecting trains. Long story short, we didn't get into Antibes until almost 1am (it was supposed to be 5pm) and we had to take a taxi to the apartment we were supposed to stay in. We met our host, Romain, and he let us in and showed us around. Romain's a really nice young french guy who studied computer science in school and now works for an IT company nearby. We basically crashed and slept in the next day. Jess and I leisurly made it downtown and to a beach by mid-day. After getting a bit fried, we tried to find lunch. Little did we know, nothing is open after 3pm for lunch. This one restaurant, however, let us eat cold salads. It was SO good. The salads were very filling and we really needed the produce after eating nothing but bread on the train. After lunch and some shopping, we headed back to the apartment to meet Romain and Andrew for the evening. We decided to go downtown for a late dinner (about a 40 minute walk), which was fun. We had REALLY good local food at a very reasonable price. It of course took about 3 hours, and we didn't leave the restaurant until after 11:30pm, but it was so worth it. This morning we slept in just a little and started our laundry (we haven't had much luck thus far). Jess and I headed downtown again and just sort of walked around to get a feel of the city. We had a great lunch and a nice conversation with a German couple. Today was much hotter than yesterday so we kind of took it easy. Tomorrow morning we head off to Barcelona, Spain and meet up with my friend, Laura from school. Barcelona means more beach time...YAY!!!

Also, I only had €4, my student ID, and my camera...which was out of battery

Seriously, where are we?

Okay, so after Vienna we headed to Munich...or so we thought. As we pulled in to the main train station in Munich Andrew informed us that we had to get on another train for a "surprise" and wouldn't tell us where we were going. I was pretty sure he was taking us somewhere along the lines of a concentration camp. After a two hour train ride we ended up in Fussen, Germany. It was POURING and freezing cold, so we ran to our hostel and got completely soaked. By this time Audrey and I were really confused as to why we were there, but then we saw the view. There are three huge castles in the foot of the alps surrounding Fussen, at the end of the Romantic Road. One of these castles was the inspiration for Disney's Cinderella castle. We took a bus up to the castle, it was still freezing and raining, but it was AMAZING! I can honestly say it was the coolest castle i have ever seen in my life...and I've seen some castles in my day. The only word that can describe it is mystical. It was so cool. So, then we walked back down from the castle and found out that we had missed the last bus going back to Fussen. Great. There seemed to be a trail with signs and it said it would be about an hour walk, which was fine. So, we started off on the trail, went past this big lake with Swans, and it was all very beautiful...but the signs stopped pointing to Fussen. Since it had been raining all day there were puddles everywhere and some of the paths were flooded, so we were all freezing, wet, and hungry...IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE IN THE MOUNTAINS. We had also picked up a girl at the castle from Michigan, and she needed to get back to Munich that night...and it was getting pretty late. So, finally we came across a german family...the ONLY germans in germany who didnt speak english. But they had a map! I pointed to the direction we were heading and said, "Fussen?" the mans eyes got really wide and he said, "Nine!" and pointed in the exact opposite direction. At this point we had been wondering for about an hour or so... So, we followed where they said to go, climbed up a mountain and then down again, and suddently we saw civilization! We were in Fussen...then we left Fussen...then we got back to Fussen...then we found a Chinese restaurant...and we ate A LOT. They actually openned the restaurant for us, which was really nice... we really must have looked desperate... So, everything was fine.

Vienna is FABULOUS

So Jess basically said all that we did here except that today we saw an amazing palace and walked around the sweet sweet gardens. That was awesome. The pride parade yesterday was definitely the highlight for me because it was SO different and unexpected. It stormed really bad last night so we unfortunately had to stay inside. Also, we slept with the lights on all night because we are so paranoid about bed bugs, lol. With good reason. There were none as far as we could tell. Vienna has a ton of culture and things to do. We didn't even see a lot of the city. I definitely wanna come back here some day. Tomorrow we are off to Munich which I here is super awesome but extremely touristy (as if the places we've been already haven't been...right...). So, we'll see. It should be a good time no matter what though!

Umm... whats Wein?

Alright, so let me first start off with what I neglected to put in my previous blog post, due to sleep deprivation. The overnight train to Budapest was interesting, to say the least. I didnt think that you could get any worse than the train from Moscow to St. Petersburg... I was soo wrong. Instead of 4 person compartments, we had 6 person compartments, which were actually smaller than the 4 person compartments we had in Russia. 6 people could definitely not stand in the middle of this cabin. Luckily for us, onlz 4 were booked for our cabin...which was still a struggle. Also, the train rocked ALL NIGHT! It stopped every other hour, Im really not sure why, but it kept waking me up. Needless to say, not a very good night sleep.
Also in Budapest, we saw a real prostitute!! It was crazy!! We even saw her trying to figure out a price with this creepy guy. Pretty cool, eh?
So, we are currently in Vienna. Our first day here Aud and I stumbled upon a gay pride parade! It was fab-u-ous! Audrey and I marched in it to get free rainbow Absolute Vodka bottles (obviously empty)...we felt like we were very accepted there. :)
Today we had a bit of a late start, and walked around downtown for a long time. We took naps on the fiberglass couches in the Museumquarter area (totally normal, everyone does it), had a nice dinner, and then stumbled upon a jazz festival at the Rathaus building! The jazz wasnt very good, but it was free! Right after we left, we stumbled upon a free film festival in front of the Rathaus building! We didnt have time to actually stay for the film, but we hung out and saw previews...we felt posh.
Sooo yeah, now we are back at our hostel waiting to do laundy which will probably take all night. Tomorrow we leave for Munich!

Buda and Pest are better than best!

Ok, sorry for the lame cheesy title, but it's REALLY late and I thought it was clever. I know I haven't blogged in a while but I need some sleep so I'll keep it short. Bed bugs are the worst first of all. The bites look a little better, but I still look horribly diseased. Budapest may be my favorite city so far. It's a lot less touristy than Prague and it is absolutely beautiful and unique (pretty much what I say about every city, I know). The city park in unbelievable and the hiking in Buda is great. Budapest has kind of kicked our ass with all the walking (which is good), but it TOTALLY paid off tonight in the Turkish baths. It was insane. Jess was wrong, first of all, the bath was originally built in 1566 (it was on the wall), so 16th NOT 17th century. This authentic part of the bath house was open 10pm-4am, which is insane but fun. There were 5 separate baths with all different temperatures in the main room. Going in the 42-degree celcius bath took a lot of guts and it was like nothing I've ever felt; it's hard to describe. The steam room was insane and extremely difficult to be in. I though my skin was gonna burn off and my lungs were gonna collapse. Going from the steam room to the freezing cold bath was SO amazing. There were two differing intensities of the steam rooms and three different intensities of the saunas. This place is basically the shit and they have like 10 other different baths in this city. So cool. I also love this hostel. Amazing all around, no complaints. Easily the best one we've stayed in so far. I loved Budapest and we leave early tomorrow for Vienna!

Aud

We've been to Buda AND Pest

So, it's our last night here in Budapest and we just got back from the Turkish baths which were AMAZING! The steam room was so intense you could barely breathe, the sauna had three levels of heat, and the baths were built in the 17th century. I'm sure Audrey will be a lot more detailed about this, but it was great.
Buda is really beautiful. We went hiking this morning and saw Buda castle and some of the monuments around. We then headed to Pest for some serious shopping. And by serious, I mean seriously touristy. Pest seems to be a lot less...mountainous? It's flat. Buda is like hiking through hell. It was also hot an sunny (also my version of hell). Thus, I am (again) totally sunburnt.
When we were around Buda castle we had Hungarian Goulash. Apparently the REAL goulash is very similar to vegetable soup with a lot of paprika... No noodles. Hmph. It was really good though.
That was very exciting. Ummm yeah... not much else up in here...
Our hostel is wonderful. No bedbugs, only 4 people, right in the middle of the main street downtown in Pest, no bedbugs, great bathroom, free breakfast, no bedbugs, really nice guy who runs the place--he's like our age. Umm... no bedbugs.
Tomorrow it's off to Vienna!

We let the bedbugs bite...

So, many things have happened since we last blogged. At our hostel in Berlin, Audrey started freaking out throughout the night saying that she felt things crawling all over her. Personally, I thought it was mosquitoes and that Aud had probably just lost her mind... The next morning, we figured it out. Bedbugs. Everywhere. We found them. Gross. We think Aud had the most infested bed because she is completely covered from head to toe with bites and they hurt and look gross. We spent the majority of the day de-bugging our stuff and doing laundry...which was our only full day in Berlin. We then hopped on a train, with all our wet clothing in our bags, to Frankfurt, where my dad was waiting with bug-free hotel rooms for us. We had a really nice dinner and we left early the next morning to go to Prague. ...Audrey STILL looks like a leper with all of her bites.
Prague is BEAUTIFUL...if i could figure out this keyboard, i would totally put an exclamation point after that. We went on a long walk lastnight when we got here. We went to this skating park where there used to be a huge statue of Stalin. It overlooks the city and to get up there you have to go up about 1000 stairs. Again, if i could figure out this keyboard I would totally put a sad face after that.
Tonight we are heading to Budapest via overnight train. Hopefully these trains are a little bit better than the one we took from Moscow to St. Petersburg, but I somehow doubt that...

-Aud and Jess

1000g of Hash

Lots to catch up on. So, after Helsinki, Finland we went to Stockholm, Sweden. Beautiful place, beautiful people, very touristy. We stayed in a boat hostel on the water in the middle of downtown on an island. That was sweet. It was newly renovated too which was awesome. Jess and I lost Andrew at the beginning of our day so we went off on our own. It was ok because we shopped and he hates that. hehe. In the evening, we went to the Ice Bar which was AWESOME! It's a bar that is kept at -5 celcius because the entire bar (counter, tables, chairs, and even glasses) are made of natural ice. You are given a parka with gloves when you walk in. We had a lot of fun and we got a lot of funny pictures and videos. Jess and I stayed in that night while Andrew explored (surprise, surprise). Favorites of Stockholm - cobblestone shopping streets and Ice Bar. We had to get up pretty early the next morning to catch our train to Oslo, Norway. It took us FOREVER to get to our hostel because it was in the mountains and the metro sucks there. We FINALLY got to our hostel, which was really nice. It had a gorgeous view of the city. We went hiking our first night. We found awesome trails and stumbled upon 2 unbelievable views (pictures to follow eventually). It took us a while to get back to our hostel because the roads are SO messed up. The next morning we got up really early, got breakfast at the hostel and headed to the city center. We walked down one of the main streets to the royal palace. The gardens around the palace were great and it was cool to see regular citizens lounging on the palace grounds. Next we ventured to the main harbour and got on a public ferry to museum island. Jess and I went to the Viking museum (SWEET!) and then we all went to the Kon-tiki museum (google that shit...seriously). Following the museums, we went to the hot-spot beach nearby. It was PACKED! It was so hot out that day I thought I was going to die. The beach was amazing and really big! We also walked through the nude beach part...awkward. I mean, I'm comfortable with that kind of stuff, but you cannot prepare for this kind of nudety. I tried not to stare. We lounged on the beach for a couple hours which was really relaxing. Jess and I got burnt; Jess more than I of course. It was nice to finally get some sun and color though after not having much luck in Russia. We went back to the city center and tried to go to the castle and fortress, but it wasn't open due to a concert. So, we did what we always do, Jess and I shopped while Andrew explored. We met up to get dinner at a grocery store (that's all we can afford in Norway) before heading back to the hostel. We made an awesome dinner in the public kitchen: 1000g of hash, scrambled eggs, and lefsa - delicious! We basically passed out after dinner because Oslo seriously kicked our ass; we did so much walking up really steep hills in insane heat (at least we're burning calories...?) General thoughts on Norway - insanely expensive (Big Mac = 17 dollars), beautiful city though. Favorite part - hiking and beach. We had to get up at like 5am the next morning to grab some breakfast (they opened the kitchen early for us) and catch the first tram downtown. We made to the train just fine. We had 2 trains with an hour and a half bus ride in between; long travel day. We arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark in mid-afternoon. Our hostel was only a few blocks from the train station and it was newly renovated. Jess and I went around the huge shopping area which we were basically in the middle of. We found an amazing tea store (2nd oldest in Europe, 5 generations family-run) and lucked out at Royal Copenhagen with beautiful sugar bowls. We met Andrew for dinner and ate at this great buffet (Denmark is actually affordable)! In the evening, to celebrate the 4th of July, we went to a Queens of Denmark drag show at a gay bar nearby our hostel. It was fabulous! Jess and I enjoyed completely fresh strawberry daquiris (delicious!). The next morning, we got some breakfast at 7-11 (way nicer in Europe). We took a bus to Carlsberg Brewery (Andrew hung out in a park). The brewery was awesome! We learned a lot of cool stuff and got 2 free beers with admission. After that, we walked around the city for a while. Copenhagen is great. We walked to a nearby island which has a famous hippy free society in it called Christania; it was SO interesting. Lots of colors, unique buildings, very different but friendly and lively people, and of course a blatent drug-filled atmosphere. It was very cool to walk around. We walked back to our hostel in search of Jazz music because the Jazz festival was going on. We didn't have much luck because everything cost money. We got some dinner and ice cream anyways and heard some music from the street. We finished off the evening at a nice wine bar across the street from our hostel. Copenhagen is my favorite city thus far. Everything about is great! Today we're going to Berlin, Germany! More blogging to follow. Gotta catch the train!

Well, now I've seen both...

So, its been a few days...we have had a difficult time finding an internet cafe...and finding the time for it. Stockholm was beautiful...and by beautiful, i mean the people. Everyone there is tall, blonde, tan, well dressed, and thin...and they all ride bikes. We finally went to an ice bar there! It was -5 degrees C, and everything was made of ice. They gave us parkas to wear and a drink in an ice cup...i ate my ice cup. It was delish. We stayed on a boat! The Hostel af Chapman, which was really cool. There was this really weird German guy in our cabin...he was really nice and we were talking to him for awhile, then Aud and I left for about 5 minutes, came back, and he was in his underwear. AWKWARD. ...and he smelled bad.
Oslo was sooo beautiful! But soooo expensive! Our hostel was a little bit outside of the city, so we were able to go on hiking trails and the view was amazing. There was a strange Asian man at our hostel and I think he was really lonely and he talked to us for...ever... He kept saying "Cheerio!" and we didnt really know how to respond to that so we said, "Thanks?". The next day we hit up a few museums and wandered onto a beach...a nude beach. Mainly old men, walking around with no clothes...not exactly a 20 year old girls dream vacation... Luckily, there was a normal beach right nextdoor so we went there and sunbathed for awhile. To sum things up, I got really burnt. :( But then I saw a sign that said "Lastenfart" and that cheered me up.
We are currently in Copenhagen, Denmark, and our train leaves in about 40 minutes to go to Berlin. Copenhagen is awesome. Its not too expensive, the people are really friendly, the city is nice, and overall it feels more like a real city than Oslo or Stockholm. We found probably the only classy buffet in the world on our first night, which automatically made Copenhagen a hit for us. Also, its currently the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, so we have heard some good music and seen a few good street performers. Audrey and I found fabulous sugar bowls at the Royal Copenhagen store. They are hand painted porcelain and they match our tea pots from Russia. Fab...u...lous. Yesterday Audrey and I toured the Carlsberg Brewery! Sooo cool. DID YOU KNOW that the company that brews Carlsberg also brews Touborg AND owns half of the Baltica brewing company (anyone who has been to Russia knows how big of a deal Baltica is). Then, we wandered over to Christiania, a huge free society in Copenhagen. It was founded by hippies...obviously. You could smell the marijuana as soon as you entered. There were murals everywhere and random sculptures. It was really cool. Lots of people out everywhere, playing music, hanging out, smoking illegal substances, and the like. It was very interesting.
So, later today we will be in Berlin and tomorrow we are going to try to do a short 1/4 day trip to Frankfurt to see my dad, who will be there for only about a day. There are trains that run every hour so it shouldnt be an issue. Im excited to get rid of a lot of my stuff! ...and to see my dad :D