CalmingContradiction

When I was younger, you could say that I had a mild obsession with London. When I got mad at my parents or my brother I would shout at them that they didn't have to worry, I was moving to London when I got older and I would be out of their hair. As it turns out, though London is a beautiful city, it is not entirely my style. I first met my friend Della when she came over on an exchange program to work for Magic Sky, a girlscout camp in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. Since that summer Della has come out to Colorado to visit nearly every six months, but I had never managed to go out to visit her in London, though I always wanted too. This summer, she came out again on ... read more

With our various detours and complete lack of planning we ran out of time to see many of the different places we had thought we might get to on our roadtrip, including many parts of France, but we decided upon leaving Luxembourg that we might as well at least swing by Paris to see the Eiffel Tower as I'd never been this close before and it would be a shame not to see it. For those of you that know my family, you know that my Mom was lucky enough to spend a year in France working as both a ski patroler in Chamonix and as a nanny in Corchevel. With a family history like this in France I was really hoping to get the chance to see the places that my Mom had been on ... read more

After leaving Trebenice we were both on a high that can only really be found in a person who has experienced being stranded in a random little town in a country that doesn't speak your language, but still manages to get back on the road... i.e. Della and me. We decided that we really should at least try to see some of Germany on our way home as we drove through both the northern part and the southern part, so we decided to stop in Frankfurt A.M. for the night and see a little of it the following morning before driving to Heidelberg to go to a museum Della had studied in school containing a very important piece of history. Ahhhh!! I forgot to mention the SatNav finally worked again so all really was beautiful!! Just ... read more

Prague is said to be the most beautiful city on earth, and though I would personally have to disagree and say that Bruges was better, I would definitely agree that Prague has its moments. Parts of Prague were absolutely fascinating, but for me there were simply too many people, a fact that is pushing me towards the understanding that my Dad has been right all these years, the woods are perfect because they are quieter and certainly less chaotic. When we first arrived in Prague we had two goals, a real meal and Czech Beer... lots of Czech beer. After having lived off sweetcorn and paprika chips (or various other nasty flavored European delicacies) we were in desperate need of some sort of sustenance of substance. The first night in Prague we had decided to camp ... read more

I had heard from a friend of my Moms of a place in Poland that was an underground cave carved from salt and embellished in salt. When our plans changed in Warsaw from travelling as far south as Italy, we choose to explore Poland a little bit more, including this underground mine just south of Krakow in the town of Wieliczka. The mine itself, though interesting, was really not all that impressive to a girl that has seen some of the amazing caves in Colorado and Texas. The tour was rubbish, and really not worth the money we paid to get in, but Della and I realized something about ourselves, we are not typical tourists, we would rather explore something by ourselves, not by following like sheep in the herd. The mine was interesting for its ... read more