Christian September 24th, 2008
Like most of the trips in Italy so far, the trip to Rome was not long, but delayed. Our train ended up being 35 minutes late, which we spent sitting on the floor of the train station with our bags since there are no benches. After the last hostel being so far away, we didn’t have high hopes for the one in Rome. We were plesantly surprised. From the train station, it was only a few short metro stops to our stop. From the metro stop, our hostel was only a few blocks away. The owners of the hostel, an Italian-American couple, were more than hospitable. We threw our packs on our beds in the 6 bed dorm room and plotted out what we wanted to see on our first day in Rome. We were given a nice map of the city and figured that we would spend the day seeing the free sites of the city. Continue Reading »
Christian September 19th, 2008
The train ride from Nice to La Speiza was very scenic. Much of the ride was spent looking out over beaches, which luckily were on our side of the train. Once in the town of La Spezia, we had some time to kill before our train to Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre. Having this time and there not being a line at the ticket window, we decided to try and book our tickets to Florence, Rome, Naples, and Venice. We really thought that we caught a break when we saw that the lady in the ticket window had an the all important british flag on her nametag. At many trainstations the attendents will have small flags on thier nametags, symbolizing what languages they are fluent in. This lady must have borrowed someone else’s nametag. We asked about reserving the train to Florence first. She said “NO PAY”. Okay, that is fine, it is a regional train we don’t need reservations, perfect. So then we asked about Florence to Rome, again “NO PAY”. We knew we needed reservations for this train and clearly the lady was not understanding our question. We kept trying to explain it to her, but everytime we would start talking, she would simply say loudly “NO PAY”. We gave up when she Continue Reading »
Christian September 14th, 2008
Arriving in Nice, even after 9 hours on a train and having to switch stations in Paris, was refreshing. We were greeted by warm weather and sunny skies, something we haven’t had too much of on the trip. The walk to our hostel was only about five minutes, and upon arriving we were greeted with a private room with it’s own sink, fridge, and microwave. It had two twin beds instead of one matrimonial, but that was no big deal. Another great thing that the place had was a good wi-fi connection in all rooms. We sent out a few emails and noticed something strange. Continue Reading »
Christian September 11th, 2008
We took a late morning train from Paris to the city of Rennes, located in Normandy. The city was quite small, which was a plesant surprise after Paris. We made our way to our studio apartment on the brand new subway system. It took only a matter of minutes to get to our stop. Once we checked in, the first thing we did was use the internet connection that was available in the room. It was so nice to have internet for free. After spending some quality time on the computer, we headed out to the town to explore a bit and find out about bus tickets to Mont Saint Michel. After waiting 20 minutes in line for the counter, we found out that we just pay when we get on the bus. Not too bad. We decided to be brave and walk back to the place we were staying without a map. Luckily there were maps posted throughout the city that we used to guide us back. The city has a young college town vibe to it. There are tons of younger kids walking about. On the way back, we managed to find a grocery store with all kinds of goodies. We ended up having Mexican Night at our apartment and eating some soft shell tacos. The next morning we had to be up early for Mont Saint Michel to catch the bus. When that alarm clock went off at 7:30 neither of us wanted to get up. We made it to the bus stop and got on the bus. Continue Reading »
Christian September 8th, 2008
We arrived in Paris pretty tired and were happy to have a nice hotel room to relax in. Our hotel was very well located, had a view of the Eiffel Tower and 2 channels in English. We showered and went to the grocery store for a snack. We admired the view of the Tower from our room for a bit. Once the sun started going down, we decided to walk the 500 meters and get up close and personal with the tower. It is enormous. You thing you are closer to it than you think as you are walking up, until you get to the base of it and look up in admiration. The park that is in front of the tower is the place to be for locals. Everyone has picnics set up, complete with bottles of wine. Once it gets dark out the tower sparkles as stragetically placed strobe lights flash for about 10 minutes. This happen every hour on the hour until 1 am. Everytime the sparkle show happens, the people in the park cheer. It is a great atmosphere. We even were going to attempt to go to the top, until we saw that the lines were super long and it was already getting late. Instead, we crossed the river to get a great viewpoint from the Plaza du Trocadero. Continue Reading »
Christian September 5th, 2008
It was a short train ride to Brussels from Amsterdam. Once we made it out of the train station, we found our way to our hostel. When we walked into the hostel, we were suprised by how modern it looked. It looks as if the owner has an in at Ikea. We were staying in a four bed dorm room, but none of the dorm mates were in. We only had one full day in Brussels, so we decided to make the most of it. We grabbed our map from the hostel and ventured off into the city. Continue Reading »
Christian September 3rd, 2008
After arriving late from London, we made it to the hostel around 10PM. Luckily the check in was easy and fast. We went up to our room and meet our fellow dorm mates. Luckily, it was another couple about our age, who were from New Zealand. After unloading our bags, we made our way downstairs to the bar to grab a drink and eat our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that we had packed for dinner. Not the first night in Amsterdam we were hoping for. Continue Reading »
Christian September 1st, 2008
We arrived at London Heathrow on the morning of the 21st of August. With the little amount of sleep on the overnight flight, we were not particularly thrilled with the battery of questions that we had recieved from the customs officer. At one point I swear he was going to ask me what my dogs’ names were and my astrological sign. Once out of the interpretation room, it was pretty smooth sailing. Leg two of the great round the world journey has officially begun. The subway connects right from the airport to all parts of London, including Harrow the town on the outskirts of London that we were staying in. Our room small but had everything we would want, and at $95 dollars a night, it was a steal for London. We started our trip out with a well deserved nap. Awaking refreshed, we headed out to see a few things. The weather was surprisingly nice. We got off the tube by the London Eye. Continue Reading »
Christian August 23rd, 2008
Well it has been a while since we have posted anything. Our time at home was very nice. We spent some time working, and a bit of other time enjoying some “normal things”. Two weeks before leaving for the trip, I crashed my mountain bike on a downhill course and had the world’s largest hematoma in my thigh. As I flew over the handlebars still attached to my bike’s pedals, I landed thigh first onto a pointy rock. It wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be. However, once we got home, it swelled to the size of a melon (no exageration). I went to the ER where they gave me an ace bandage instead of draining it. Continue Reading »
Christian July 6th, 2008
Well after a 13 hour ferry/van/bus trip from Belize we finally made it to Playa del Carmen Mexico. Our hotel that we reserved was pretty nice. It had a pool and air conditioning, what more could you ask for? We spent 5 nights relaxing on the beach working on our tans. It was almost like being home. In Playa del Carmen there is everything. From Starbucks to McDonalds to Diesel to Walmart, everything was right at our fingertips.
We even went Scuba Diving in the Playa del Carmen. It was one of the best dives we had on the entire trip. The first dive was a wreck dive to an old three deck fishing boat. It was sank at around 100 feet. We swam around each level of the boat, and did a penetration into the wreck on the second level. We saw a sea turtle, a lobster, tons of fish, and some of the largest barracudas we have ever saw. The second dive was a drift dive. It was amazing. We saw tons of marine life including multiple sea turtles, huge barracudas, an octopus, lobsters, rays, among with many others. It was great.
After a week in the Playa del Carmen, we made our way to an all inclusive resort, the Grand Pallidium. It was a super nice resort, which we even got a free upgrade to a junior suite. It was luxury for us, and felt unnecessary. However, we did enjoy the 24 hour food and drink and the pool for four nights. It was almost anticlimatic after all we had seen in central and south america.
We had made the decision a few weeks back to fly home for a bit. We decided to do this for a few reasons, one being airfare and the other being worn out. We found it was cheaper to fly home first, then fly from JFK airport to Europe. Also from traveling so quickly we were getting pretty worn out by always having to find the next bus every couple of days and on the go for five months. So we are taking a short break and will be on the road again in mid to late August. We are going to enjoy a couple of weeks of summer without the worry of a full time job, get reorganized and restocked and prepared for the next leg of our journey. I hope that you all have enjoyed reading about our trip so far, there are many stories to come in the future.
