Early in the morning we left our hostel, backpacks on, as we made our way out of Old Town to the #2 bus stop once again. We had to wait for a bit before the bus came and we ended up having a conversation with an Estonian man who claimed to be an ex sharp shooter and was quite clearly drunk. He wished us farewell with a God Bless America as we boarded the bus. I actually managed to sleep a bit on the way to Kuressaare, waking up shortly before we boarded the ferry. The ride wasn't very long, but [View Full Entry]

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We arrived to sun. After the weather we had in London we were slightly relieved. Since we needed to take the bus into town from the airport, the first thing we did was stop at an ATM. The first one we tried wouldn’t give us any money. Luckily, I spotted another one which bestowed our money upon us without hesitation (thank you Hansapank!). Then, after breaking our large bills (I bought some postcards, and Alex accidentally bought a $2 pack of gum—she was a little confused on the exchange rate), we caught the #2 bus to the city center, and eventually [View Full Entry]

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I started out this trip in London. After collecting luggage and calling home to let the parents know I made it, Alex and I set off in search of our hostel. Along the way we managed to meet an Australian girl who needed a place to stay and decided to tag along with us to see if our hostel had any room for her. When we stepped out of the tube station, it was pouring. Alex and I covered our backpacks, pulled up our hoods, and stepped out into the downpour. Our new Australian friend had a very large rolling [View Full Entry]

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The only way that I was able to get such a cheap train fare to Prague was if I took overnight trains. Therefore, I caught a 9:30 train to Frankfurt, and a bit after 11:00 got onto my train to Prague. I found my cabin and opened the door. It was already full except for my empty seat. There were four guys around my age and an older gentleman. Shortly before the train left the station, the older gentleman realized that he was in the wrong compartment and left. I asked the guys if they spoke English (they did) and where [View Full Entry]

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I left after class and caught the train to meet Katie. We had planned on meeting up before she left to go back to the States. When I arrived, I found my hostel, checked in, dropped my bag off in my room, and with the help of the map the hostel gave me, I made my way to the Old Town. The Old Town is a pedestrian only zone, lined with shops and beautiful buildings. I spent a couple of hours walking around taking pictures, before finding something for dinner, visiting an email cafe, and then making my way back to [View Full Entry]

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After a week in Ireland with my parents and my aunt, I flew (along with my parents) to Switzerland. Switzerland was as beautiful as ever, and I had a great time exploring a new bit of it, as well as visiting with relatives and paragliding (which I have wanted to do since the last time I was there. By the way, it was totally worth it; absolutely amazing!). From there, we drove to Heidelberg where I will be calling my home for the next 7 weeks. The city is quite cute, especially the old part of town, and the view from [View Full Entry]

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When you think of Ireland, you picture rolling green hills, stone walls, etc. Basically what you picture is Inis Mor. I arrived on the island (the largest of the three islands that make up the Aran Islands, and also the most popular) on Thursday with three of my friends at about 11:30am. The sun was shining, it was warm (hot even) and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was basically perfect. After unloading our stuff at our hostel we decided it would be best to rent bikes (seeing as the island is only 9 miles by 2 miles) as [View Full Entry]

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4/20/07 Lisbon-->Porto After arriving in Porto via bus and obtaining a map from a nearby hotel, we then proceeded to stand around for a while trying to figure out which way we needed to go to get to or hostel. Eventually we managed to orientate ourselves and make our way to our hostel. After checking in and dropping off our bags we went out to see Porto. We only had the remainder of the day and therefore began by walking to one of the bridges that we had crossed while on the bus. The view from the bridge was beautiful. I [View Full Entry]

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4/18/07 Lisbon Yesterday we took the bus from Lagos. The countryside was so pretty. We started out our day of wandering by heading to the Praca do Comercio. There were trolley cars all over the place (I would describe it as the San Francisco of Europe---granted I have never been to San Francisco but it is what I imagine San Francisco to be like); it really is a cute city. After taking some pictures, we hopped on one of the trolleys and made our way to Belem which is another part of the city. We walked around in one of the [View Full Entry]

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4/15/07 Faro-->Lagos We caught the bus, and after about two hours and thirty minutes of beautiful scenery we were in Lagos where we were picked up (It was so nice not to have to walk all over the place with our bags (we would have been walking for a while too, because it was fairly hard to find)), by one of the owners of the place we were staying at, and driven to the guesthouse (which was basically just an apartment in which we had one of the rooms). We got ready (which included putting on as much sunscreen as possible) [View Full Entry]

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