We Did It - End of Trip

Made it back to London Safe and Sound. Love you Girls. Keep Me So Young. Thank you for such an amazing month. I am very lucky. 

Bremen!!! (Stoppover in Hamburg...)

We did it!!! We made it to Bremen!! Alive, Safe, In One Piece.

Bremen! Really cool gothic Buildings

Hanging with piggs

On the way to Bremen we had a change in Hamburg. We decided to get out and have a hamburger which we thought was hysterical.

We boarded the train and went back to Bremen to explore the "Fairytale City." I've posted the Fairytale below by the Brothers Grimm in case anyone is interested.

Found the famous statue!

When we were leaving Bremen to head to airport - the song "Hey Hey Hey Goodbye was blasting" outside the tram station. We took this as a great sign, and a great end to an unbelievable month of raging, eurotripping, and taking it all in.

Sorry just think this photo is hysterical

Last stop (bagel store of course). We had to kill some time so grabbed a last mean and wrote in our journals!!

Snapple. Bagels. And heading back to UK

Then we had to go home :(. We were so paranoid at the airport that I wore 7 teeshirts including 2 jackets. Ryanair was being really stingy that night. 

FAIRYTALE BELOW FOR ANYONE INTERESTED:

FairyTale: Town Musicians of Bremen

In the story a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster, all past their prime years in life and usefulness on their respective farms, were soon to be discarded or mistreated by their masters. One by one they leave their homes and set out together. They decide to go to Bremen, known for its freedom, to live without owners and become musicians there.

On the way to Bremen, they see a lighted cottage; they look inside and see four robbers enjoying their ill-gotten gains. Standing on each other's backs, they decide to perform for the men in hope of gaining food. Their 'music' has an unanticipated effect; the men run for their lives, not knowing what the strange sound is. The animals take possession of the house, eat a good meal, and settle in for the evening.

Later that night, the robbers return and send one of their members in to investigate. It is dark and he sees the eyes of the Cat shining in the darkness. He reaches over to light his candle, thinking he sees the coals of the fire. Things happen in quick succession; the Cat swipes his face with her claws, the Dog bites him on the leg, the Donkey kicks him and the Rooster crows and chases him out the door, screaming. He tells his companions that he was beset by a horrible witch who scratched him with her long fingers (the Cat), an ogre with a knife (the Dog), a giant who had hit him with his club (the Donkey), and worst of all, the judgewho screamed in his voice from the rooftop (the Rooster). The robbers abandon the cottage to the strange creatures who have taken it, where the animals live happily for the rest of their days.

BeRLiN !!!

AHHH Almost Last stop. Where did the time go?

We got on our second to last interrail train. Ali met this nice 6'7 HAHA Canadian on the train. We all moved into a shared cart after a brief scuttle with some Germans. If you've ever been yelled at by germans, it isn't pleasant. It just sounds harsh and probably a little "meaner" than intended.

We asked the Canadian where he was staying because we had nothing booked yet and decided we'd stalk him and beat him to the hostel haha. We checked into this cheap artsy hostel (which I would NOT recommend) and decided to explore berlin. We walked through a graveyard, and stumbled across tacheles - which was this art type refuge place. The place was 5+ floors of sheer 

artistic madness. We saw this lady outside who was tripping out of her mind chasing a dog screaming 

"you're beautiful!!" I mention this only because we saw the same lady for the next two days with 

increasingly bizarre behaviour. 

Just Exploring - making new friends
"Whatcha thinking about?"

Outside Tacheles

We had a pretzel dinner and headed back for the hostel. We met up with Evan and a random

Aussie in the common room to hang out for a little before calling it a night. We had to get up early

because we were going on another free walking tour of the city tomorrow. 

The next day - after a TERRIBLE night sleep, we woke up early to get started and ready for our tour.

Sharing a room with 15 people at a hostel is a nightmare -I won't describe it. We woke up and headed 

for the Brandenburg Gates stopping at a DUNKIN!!!! on the way. 

Thank God. A Medium Ice Coffee - One Cream Two Sugars Just Right
Not this dumb Startbucks "Iced Americano" i've had to suffer with!!

We met "Zabi" our tour guide for 

the next two hours. This tour was unbelievable and I recommend it to anyone. My one regret is that I 

didn't get to do all of the different tours they offered.

Zabi, Gibo, Mare
In Holocaust Musuem discussing what the Artist was thinking when he designed it

Zabi was a very captivating and passionate tour guide. We started off by the gates and saw where 

MJ dangled Blanket out of his window before walking through the gates and really starting the historical 

part of the tour. We saw the Holocaust Musuem, where Hitler's bunker (/where he killed himself was -

was crazy how much it looked like the Germans where trying to cover everything up), 

Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Humboldt University, Hilter's beloved opera house among a bunch 

of other things. What was so surreal was how recent this all was. 

Brandenburg Gates

Entrance to Hitlers Bunker (Under Green Trash Can)
Where he killed himself with his wife
Looks like they are trying to cover it up...ey?

Checkpoint Charlie

Berlin Wall
Nuts

That night we went on a pub crawl recommended by Zabi offered by the same walking tour company.

I however would not recommend this pub crawl. We left it early and just headed back for the hostel

to call it a night. Berlin was definitely up there with Prague and was very different to what I thought -

in a very good and surprising way. 

Found this amazing Burger/Frie Joint on Way Back
We averaged 2 cokes a day. Sick

Last Night out with Girls :(

PRAGUE - beautiful Czech Us Out

I loved Prague. I fell in love as soon as we arrived at the Old Market Hall. It was bustling with people, music, smells, dancing...you name it. Everyone was preparing for Easter and it was such pleasant, jovial atmosphere.



I had this fried cheese which was great - but not the best idea before skydiving - which we had booked and were doing shortly after our arrival. We went to the building where met this lovely Japanese couple who was coming with us. The girl was studying to get her PHD from Yale!! She knew Fairfield and Frankie Pepes!! We all got in the car and took a 45 minute drive to the jump site.



When we got there, there were tons of people in jump suits walking around, people falling out of the air, and a laid back atmosphere. We got signed a waiver (didn' have to pay until after the jump in case anything went wrong...), got a 5 minute instruction on what to do and was told our jump time would be in 25 minutes. Sounds good. We were so concerned with taking photos that I think our instructors thought we were a little silly..."girls - Pay attention!!" Soooo more concerned with mobile uploads duh. We all had crushes on our instructors. Ali's guy was adorable and nice, Mary's was tall dark and handsome (just her type wink), and mine was the cheekiest one, the boss (with over 10,000 jumps) and I'm pretty sure he was playing hard to get....

Airplanes in the night sky like shooting stars
I could really use a Wish right now Wish right now

Pwepf - safe and sound. We can tell our parents now

The jump was incredible and such an adrenaline rush. I think I am going to make it my mission to skydive on every continent - but we'll see. The more I travel, the longer my bucket list gets. After the jump we celebrated with a brew, and took a ride back to the city. We went on a Pub Crawl and weirdly ran into a friend that we had met in Budapest! Small World.

Boatin' Man

The next day was Easter. We walked by a church and stood out front - so unfortunately I have to count that as my mass. I think we walked about 20 miles this day. We also rented paddle boats and explored the river for an hour. We walked across the St. Charles Bridge which was wild, saw the famous John Lennon Wall, and hung out at the Castle for a while. Prague was absolutely breathtaking.

John Lennon Wall

Appropriate for our trip :)

Everything in the city from the river to the building to the art was amazing. I'd love to go back because two days definitely were not enough.

Czech yourself

Bratislava

We stopped in Bratislava because...
1. Same reason we stopped in Slovenia...to stay we've been to Slovakia
2. We couldn't find accommodation in Prague Friday night
3. Everything was dirt cheap


Bratislava is what I envisioned Eastern Europe to be like. It was bizarre/pretty? Not sure really how to describe it. We took a tram to our hostel, which I think we could have walked faster than. There was nobody on the streets - no one anywhere. I thought I was in one of three movies- the House of Wax, "Hostel," or Eurotrip (where the Dollar gets them a 5 star hotel room and servants).  We went to our room where the door handle fell off...

Ghost Town

We explored the city which perplexed us. It was a ghost town but then we found some more people in the town center. I couldn't believe it was a capital city. Apparently it picks up when hockey season starts. We met an american highschool tour group and met kids from PA - conestoga area! Small world. We found a bagel shop - which I made the girls stop at. Mine was delic although gibo got bacon with creamcheese which I think she thought was a little gross. Agreed. We took a nice nap and decided to grab dinner and stopped in a pub for some live music before calling it an early night. Had to get up early because we were going skydiving tomorrow!!!!

Found some people...

Buda Pest

Day 10:
We arrived at the main train station in Buda...finally.

When we got to the "underground" Gibo goes (and sums up Budapest quite nicely) "Ooo Vintage"

We arrived at our hostel (Interflat Hostel), which was my favorite hostel by far. They were very accommodating and we had our own huge flat overlooking the city. I would recommend it to anyone who is traveling there. - but thats besides the point.

We decided to have a calm night, cook dinner, and stay in - after the night of absurdity that was the sound of music gone wrong. Chef Mary served up a pesto chicken pasta where I took on the role of home-made guac. After a nice dinner we went to bed early and had a lie in.

Day 11:
We woke up and headed over to St. Peters Basicilla in Vorosmarty Square to meet up for the Free Walking Tour. (Which was located in Pest). Yes Budapest is a combination of two cities which I sort of knew, but learned a lot more about that and Hungarian history during the tour. ***FYI: Its pronounced "Pesht" - you havvvve to say the H or you sound like a Tourist (HA HA - just trying to blend.....) We explored the pest side of the city and walked through a park where I swear there where millions of kids - and I wondered why they weren't in school. I asked the question and Ester and Emma (our tour guides) started laughing and didn't really know the answer- but said they get out of school at 1:30/2ish and come to park to hang out. Hmm..

Tour Meeting Point

Sphinx with boobs

Gibo, Mare and I had a tendency to be groupies (not in bad way) wherever we went this trip (i.e. Band in Croatia, Skydiving in Prague etc etc) so we made it our mission to be at the front of the tour. We crossed the bridge into Buda where we saw the royal palace and had a gorgeous view of Pest. After the tour which was very informative and cool in my opinion we walked back to our hostel and cooked dinner again, calling it an early night once more.

View From Buda

Royal Palace

At the top of Palace

Day 12:
We woke up at 10:30 and made our way to a Hungarian flea market about 30 minutes outside of the city.  This was the Hungary I pictured. (I was so surprised at how commercialized Budapest was. McDonalds and Burger Kings on every corner!!! however exciting/nice/comforting it is to know that a coke and fries are universal in every country- I was expecting eastern europe). I digress. Being on the outskirts of the city...we were finally in real world: hungary. The stuff we saw at this flea market was nuts. Nazi uniforms and hitler photos, tons of world war II garb, among Russian gear. We were wondering how much of it was actually real, or had been worn- which was really eerie. Besides that stuff...there was really gorgeous jewelry, clothes, paintings etc etc. I got a really nice ring and a flashy purse which I envision myself wearing on NYE. I haggled the purse down 2000HUF from 6000HUF!!! - Only 8 EUR...ha ha gotcha

Blending in with local culture
Catchin' some rays outside Market bus stop back to Budapest

While the girls continued shopping- and gibo tried her very best to haggle this ring down to 3000HUF (which I hate to say was unsuccessful) I stopped at the market where they were selling this fried substance with cheese. I picked it out instantly - a hungarian mozzarella stick. It was delightful.  On the way back we stopped at a mexican place and had a refreshing margarita while we decided what to do for the night.

Hmm. What should we do tonight?

We went back to the hostel, got dressed, and went out to get our go to dinner: Bread, Ham, Cheese, Beer. We walked to the river and parked a seat in Buda on a bench to watch the sunset over the city and watched the lights of Parliament and the city go on. It was gorgeous.

Cheers

Getting There

City Lights - Parliament 

After, we made our way to Instant- a club Mare had found. It was an awesome place with 5 different floors and many different rooms. We explored all the areas, and while the girls loved the reggae room, I stayed on the ground floor becoming  my aggressive self and challenging Hungarian locals to foosball games.

All in all : Buda = Success.

Salzburg

Next stop...Budapest! We got on the train all set to go to Budapest. Unfortuantely we were on the wrong train headed for Munich. We flipped a coin and decided to stay on the train. This was not without the influence of the beautiful, lovely, and talented Larissa. She told us Salzburg was a gorgeous place and that was her stop because she had moved to a little town about 35 minutes outside of Salzburg. She was this cute little old woman who sat behind us. When she was kicked out of her seat...she asked to sit with us.

It turns out that Larissa is an author (Two Lands, Two Languages, Two Lives - which I advise everyone to go out and buy) from Moscow who was on a 52 hr train ride that involving 9 customs checks to her holiday home in Bad Reichenhall. We were enamored by her. As a fellow traveller and full of stories I think she was just as excited to meet us as we were her. After an hour, she suggested that we come home with her. She promised us that it was a gorgeous mountain town and there was this incredible Spa (which happens to be the reason she moved there). She told us she would set us up with accommodation, and that we wouldn't be sorry.

Larissa!!! In the bag contained vodka with bees (because apparently that is the fashion trend and good for your skin)

One thing you should know about Larissa...is that she never lies. Ever.

One may think its strange to meet an older Russian stranger and decide, sure we'll go home with you- but we had a feeling about Larissa.  I don't know how many people I'll meet like her in my lifetime. Larissa is one of those people you meet that restores your faith in humanity. The bus ride to her town was gorgeous as it kept taking us deeper and deeper into the alps. 

"We're the four best friends that anyone could have!"

We were the last bus stop. When we got out we headed for her apartment. She said she needed to freshen up and that we could just hang out at her friends while she got ready. Hmm...what? She dropped us off at her friends who didn't speak a word of english. As we walked in, large backpacks on, and took off our shoes we tried to communicate with them. We understand have a seat on a couch. Alexzander (Sasha) looked perplexed. Marsha was in her blue nightie. We all looked around at each other? What was going on? Three young american girls had just been dropped off in the middle of nowhere at a strangers friends house who didn't speak there language. We all looked around after an awkward silence and started dying laughing. I think Marsha was crying she was laughing so hard. We all knew what each other was thinking. Crazy Larissa. 


Sasha got us a beer - another universal word. We sat down at their dinner table and they served us a feast. Talk about being kind to strangers. They served us pizza bread, BISON (which i tried...but gibo had to stick the rest in her bag because they offered us so much and we didnt want to be rude), oranges, pretzals etc etc. Larissa came back, showered and dolled up. She was so excited to see her friends and they caught up while the three of us sat back and just watched them be so happy all-together. 

The most welcoming family on such short notice!

Sasha broke out some vodka which he made us all take a shot of because that is what you are supposed to do in Russia and it would have been rude to break with tradition! We learned via Larissa that this was the first time they (including herself) had ever met Americans, and had never in her life dreamed she'd be having dinner with 3. Its hard to understand because we didn't grow up in the Cold War like the 3 of them. Marsha+Sasha had been kicked out of Germany and forced to move to Uzbekistan.  After finally settling in there, the Germans forced them to move to Austria because there were not enough Austrian-Germans. Crazy. 


Larissa explained that she had a daughter around our age who was traveling throughout India who she was worried about. And..."although I am a Christian I still believe in Karma"

With the smuggled Bison!

After dinner and a few more toasts we all gave each other big hugs. Larissa, along with Marsha and Sasha walked us through the town to a hotel right across the street from the Spa. The going rate a night was 150EUR which we obvi couldn't afford. Larissa talked the guy down to 50 total for the 3 of us. Thrilled, we all hugged goodbye again and thanked our new friends. 


We saw Larissa the next day at the Spa but only for a few minutes. She was in her element. 

Larissa frolicking in thermal pool

The rest of the day we spent exploring the town and took the cable car (which was the first in europe) to the top of the alps and hiked around. 

Cable car. Cool photo

Blue Steel

After that we took a bus back into Salzburg. I won't say much about Salzburg except that I believed I was fraulien maria (if only for a few hours). 

How do you solve a problem like erin ? Being a tour guide for sound of music salzburg hotspots

Larissa was right about everything --- down to the price of the Spa to the guarantee that this would be one of the most beautiful places in the world we would ever see. 

View from thermal pool

Vienna

Tired. We arrived to Vienna exhausted. 

Vienna!

After two overnight trains and a crazy night in a slovenian train station, we were very exhausted when we got to Vienna. We b-lined it to our hostel which was very nice and they let us check in early. We crawled into proper beds and took 6 hour naps, or in other words, a full night sleep. 

We woke up around 2 feeling very refreshed and decided to hit the town and go out for a walk. Vienna was aesthetically very beautiful, but also very expensive. We just walked around the town for hours, taking everything in. We stopped for lunch at this "great" little place. The service was a nightmare. There was a garlic ciabatta that came with pesto, tomato, motz. I asked first to put chicken on it and they said that was unheard of. So i tried to order that sandwich and a separate piece of grilled chicken explaining i would pay for both items separately and the waitress looked appalled and sort of ran away from our table. After that fiasco...we decided to go back to our hostel, shower, and go out for a night on the town.

Sandwich Example

We went to Franks American Bar for dinner which attracted us immediately for obvious reasons. I got a cheese burger (obvi) medium rare (obvi- and amazing since red meat has not touched my lips in 4 months) and amazing chips. Oops...french fries. 

After that we went to this club which was pretty amazing. The decorations inside were unbelievable so we spent a while wondering around looking at everything. Its annoying because so many people smoke in clubs and on top of the smoke machines my contacts were drying out like crazy. I had to get out of there. Drinks were super-expensive and there was a 10Euro cover so we tried to make as many friends as possible. They gave us a "credit-card" thing when we came in to use for our cover/drinks...and we were meant to pay on our way out.  On our way out we were kind of ushered through the exit quickly and didn't have to pay...so we were very very confused. A lot of cops were rushing in and we asked what was going on and why we didn't have to pay for anything. Apparently...according to some people...there was a bomb threat so they were evacuating the building but I don't believe that that was true. 

Club eagle-eye View

The next day we got up to explore the city again. Apparently everything in the entire city is closed on Sundays - but there was a marathon going on. We decided to walk the last 7 miles of the marathon haha which is weird.