Well...Sorry to leave you all hanging... We made it out of Athens! We went to the Embassy and right when we were there, our credit cards arrived - amazing! So, we hopped on the metro, transferred to the ferry, and traveled out to beautiful Ermoupolis on Syros Island. We spent the next few days exploring the island's beaches and feasting on delicious Greek seafood. Traveling back to Athens, we caught a train to Thessaloniki, Greece (where we would transfer to a night train to Istanbul). If Tirana to Athens was a nightmare bus ride, this was a train trip from Hades. [View Full Entry]

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So, Tirana was a great city but on our way to Greece we ran into a bit of an issue: The only way to get to Athens from Albania is to take a bus or fly. Given our finances we took a bus. This decision proved to be a poor one. The bus trip took 14 hours, overnight, from Tirana to Athens. The trip was operated by a private coach company, so besides the frequent stopping, it was pretty comfortable. The only small issue with the trip was that upon arrival in Athens, Daron's main backpack was not present. We looked [View Full Entry]

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Venice was the "Vacation of our Vacation." Here we met up with our friends, Pete and Fallon, who were honeymooning in Italy. In Venice, we enjoyed the pre-Lent festival of Carnevale. We spent the time strolling the streets, shopping for masks, admiring the amazing costumes, and eating fantastic Venetian seafood. The festival ended with a huge reggee concert in St. Mark's Sq. (Kirstin felt like she was back at the Bob Marley festival in Ethiopia!) Saying goodbye to Fallon and Pete and Venice, we took the train back to Ljubljana, where we continued on to Zagreb, Croatia. After having a blast [View Full Entry]

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After Budapest, we were facing the issue of where we wanted to travel to next on the trip. We had about 7 days until we were scheduled to be in Venice to meet up with our friends Pete and Fallon. We looked at where trains in Budapest would take us and we decided to go to Belgrade, Serbia. Our experience with the Serbs started right when we entered the train. We shared a compartment with a younger women named Stela. What an interesting and fun person to share a 7 hour train ride! We talked nonstop the whole way. A Serbian [View Full Entry]

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Hello from Budapest! We finally got up a few pictures, so check out our gallery. It's not a lot (it takes forever to upload...), but hopefully you'll get a taste for what we're seeing and doing. Since we last wrote in Krakow, we visited Auschwitz I and II, a small town in Hungary called Eger, and Bratislava, Slovakia. We've been in and out of Budapest - since many trains start and end here - so we've gotten a good overview of the city. Since we fly out of here in March, we're saving our major sightseeing for right at the end [View Full Entry]

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Yep, today's Daron's birthday. 25 years old. Crazy, huh? He's a very old man (handsome, according to Daron, who's now looking over my shoulder). He's terribly excited, 'cause now he can rent a car. Who could ask for more in life...? haha! Anyway, back to our travel details: It's been a long time since we updated you all; we've been to a lot of places and seen a lot of cool stuff. When we left off, we had just arrived in Prague. Prague was great (I've been there 3 times, now), but it was a bit tainted for Daron's first visit [View Full Entry]

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After very little sleep but watching tons of free in flight movies, we arrived in Berlin with the only disappointment being that our peanut butter was taken away by the strict Deutsch authorities (since when is peanut butter a "gel?"). However, we were very pleased and impressed with the remainder of our time in Berlin. While there, Kirstin and I visited the Rechtstag, Potzdamer Platz, Unter der Linden, the remaining 1 mile of the Berlin Wall, and traveled to 2 newly gentrified neighborhoods in East Berlin, that had lots of cobblestone streets and neat restaurants. My favorite highlight was seeing a [View Full Entry]

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Daron and I are in Seattle, getting everything ready for our big adventure. We’re finishing up work, saying “goodbye” to good friends, and packing up all our possessions. Early next week we’ll be hitting the road, hoping to make it to Sioux Falls in 2 days. Then, after spending the holidays with family and friends in SD, MN, and MI, we’ll be leaving for Germany on 2 January. Wishing everyone a merry holiday season. We’ll write again from Berlin! -K [View Full Entry]

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