http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Liz-and-Andrea/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Liz and Andrea en-us Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:15:11 +0000 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:15:11 +0000 After the horror that was the ferry ride we were delighted to finally arrive in Ireland. Our first city was Cork. Cork is the European Capital of Culture for 2005 and the city reflected it. It was a very beautiful city but it lacked the edge that the other cities in Ireland had. On our first day we went to Blarney to visit the castle. We climbed the tower to the top of the castle and prepared http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Dublin/blog-8173.html Since Wojtiech's family convinced us to stay longer than we planned we ended up getting to Berlin late at night. We were so excited to see Ausgang stairs because we knew we would be able to understand the language a little bit better than in Poland On our first day in Berlin we took a walking tour around the city. We saw museum island the east Berlin artists quarter the oldest synagogue in http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/District-of-Berlin/Berlin/blog-7449.html We are so sorry we haven't posted in such a long time there's so much to tell We decided to split it all up into two entries. The first is our visit to Poland. For those of you who don't know the whole history of last summer here's the abridged version Liz's parents picked up some Polish kids one night in the grocery store when they accidentally found out they were working in Colorado on th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/blog-7411.html Hello friends and familyWe have just set up our blog and are trying to see if it works. Please send back a comment if you get to this so we know we did everything right Just 1 12 weeks left in London then it's off to Porto PortugalPeace and LoveAndrea and Liz http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-4399.html Thanks or ta for all of the comments I think we've finally got it figured out now Tomorrow will be our last day working in London. Our Aussies are throwing us a goodbye party on Saturday night and we're going to Buckingham Palace on Sunday morning for one last sight seeing opportunity. The next blog will hopefully be coming to you from a sunny beach in southern Portugal Peace and LoveAnd http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/London-City/blog-4642.html Hello from Albufeira We actually cant believe we made it here. On Tuesday approximately 9 hours before we were due to leave for the airport Liz was tightening the straps on Andreas backpack and a seam decided to explode. Needless to say we started to panic. We spent our last afternoon running around London looking for a new backpack. Thankfully we found one at the store 15 minutes before it http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/blog-4998.html If a tourist asks you for directions and youre not sure about giving them the right ones dont give them any at all On Friday we were told at the Hotel that we could get a train to Seville Spain our next destination from Tunes Portugal a town one train station away from where we were. After 4 hours of buses and waiting for the train we arrived in Tunes 5 minute train ride away to f http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Andalusia/Seville/blog-5143.html We made friends in Valencia It was the first place that we couldnt find a cheap hotel so we had to go for a hostel. We checked into Indigo youth hostel and while chatting with the girl at the front desk we came to find out that she and her husband had opened it just 6 days before They have traveled all over and decided they wanted to open a place for backpackers that was clean and friendly a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/blog-5308.html Our hostel in Barcelona left something to be desired. The girl at the front desk told us there was absolutely NO alcohol allowed and later we saw her drinking wine out of the bottle on the job. We ended up in a room with four boys who from what we could tell slept 24 hours a day so our windowless room smelled like dirty boys feet. Also the hostel advertised that it was located 100 meters from http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/blog-5422.html When we left Barcelona we had to see what city Ksenya could get a cheap train ticket to so we didn't make any reservations. We arrived in Toulouse with no where to sleep. We walked all through the town to the tourist office and got a book of hotels. Then we stood outside with all our luggage on dat night Saturday and Liz called just about every hotel in Toulouse. We ended up at a cute hote http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d--Azur/blog-5553.html For those of you who were betting on when our first fight would be the winner is 031505. The good news is that we're over it now and despite it all we had a wonderful time in Avignon. The first night we were there we met two French boys Hassane and Kasim who took us out for coffee. One spoke French and German the other French and Spanish. Both spoke Arabic and neither spoke English which m http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d--Azur/blog-5787.html We actually left Paris quite a while ago but we only had one day in Rome so we didn't have time to post So we had to put Paris and Rome in the same journal. Paris is a big city with lots to do so most of the time we split up so that we could all do what we wanted in the short amount of time we had there. First thing on Saturday right after we left our bags at the hostel Ksenya and Andrea went http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Ile-de-France/Paris/blog-6005.html We know it's a little past Easter but we were in Florence on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday so none of the internet cafe's were open By far the coolest part about Florence was the hostel we stayed in. It was a converted monastary on a hill about 3 km southeast of the city. We had to take a forty minute bus ride and then walk about 20 minutes or 40 when we were carrying our backpacks up th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-6148.html Gently down the Grand Canal... To start off dont ever be fooled on hostels.com into thinking that a place called BB is a cheap bed and breakfast its not We got over the initial shock from arriving at a hostel when we thought wed have a cute little room overlooking the water. Everything was fine until we tried to go to sleep and discovered that they must have misread the directions when p http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-6279.html We missed our train in Milan and arrived in Frieburg late but Tommy's dad Klemmens was there to meet us anyway and what a nice change it was for us We got to leave the train station in a car instead of trying to navigate public transportation and we arrived at a house instead of some dodgy hostel It was a very good day for us. While in Freiburg we celebrated both Tommy and Andrea's birthdays http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/blog-6664.html Prague had the most beautiful architecture we've seen. The whole city was gothic and mysterious looking. We spent hours in the old section of the town and the Jewish quarter just looking at random buildings. We can't figure out the name of our favorite building but check out the picture and anyone who has been to Prague feel free to tell us We also visited the Prague Castle and took a walking http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/blog-6987.html