danoakes

Finally able to upload pictures...... read more

I arrived in Spain on the 5th, and I will be staying here until the end of my Eurotrip on the 11th. I have to say that of all places I've been, these parts of Spain have far less people who speak English than the rest of the cities I visited in Europe. Fortunately I took 5 years of Spanish in middle school/high school which was more than enough to get by, but I could imagine that finding your way around could be difficult without knowing the language. On the 5th I arrived in Seville via a plane from Berlin, but I didn't really get a chance to walk around the city because I was staying in Cordoba that night. I finally made it to the hostel in Cordoba at about 11:30, but I went straight ... read more

After going to the Czech Republic, I went back through Germany on my way back west through Europe. One of the main highlights of this stint in Germany was going to the US women's world cup match against Columbia in Heidelberg. Tickets were sold out when we were looking to buy them, so we had to go through this shady German third party website to get the tickets. To physically pick up the tickets, I had to pay online with my credit card and then call this guy when I got to the stadium who met me outside of the ticket office. Our seat numbers were written on the ticket with a pen, and as skeptical as we were about these tickets actually working, they ended up getting us into the stadium. It turned out that ... read more

Between the 27th and 1st, I was blitzing through parts of Eastern Europe. I stayed one night in Budapest, one night in Vienna, and two nights in Prague. I got to Budapest via train from Zagreb at about 5 in the evening on the 27th. The city had an interesting setup...it hadn't been united until the late 1800's; the Danube River divides the city into the former "Buda" side west of the river and the "Pest" side east of the river. After settling into the hostel, I went to the Buda Castle which overlooked the city. It had some cool statues and fountains and it also a great view of the city, where I could see the Parliament building and the famous Chain Bridge that first linked the city. I had an early night that night, ... read more

I was in Croatia between June 18th and 27th, and it was a blast. I started out in Dubrovnik on the morning of the 18th after arriving from an overnight ferry from Bari, Italy. After arriving, I only had about 4 hours to hang out in the city because the island-hopping cruise boat that I would be on for the next week was set to leave at 1:00. During my short stay in the city, I went to the old-town. There is basically this part of the city righ along the water that is completely encompassed by walls and forts. Everything is really old...the oldest fort was built in the 14th century. These walls are set up so that people can completely circumnavigate the city by walking on top of the walls. It was about a ... read more

I arrived in Greece on Saturday the 11th via a flight from Madrid to Athens. I parted ways with my friends Marc, CB, Jordan, and Jeff after traveling with them for over 3 weeks, but I met up with another friend from U of M who I'll be traveling with until I leave Croatia. We arrived to our hostel in the evening, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to do site seeing around the city. We just walked to the Acropolis and had dinner. They light the Acropolis up at night, and it was really pretty. I had swordfish for dinner, and it was great. The next day we headed to the Acropolis again to really get a better look at it. We hiked up to the Parthenon and had a great view ... read more

I arrived in Barcelona, Spain on Sunday via a flight from Rome. I stayed in Barcelona for 4 nights, and tonight will be the second night that I stay in Madrid before I fly to Greece. It's kind of nice being in a country where I can sort of understand the native language (I'm surprised at how much Spanish I remember from high school, and how quickly it comes back after I started using it again). Catalan is the main language in Barcelona, but Spanish and English are both still widely spoken. In Madrid, on the other hand, they really only speak Spanish...of the places I've been to, I'd say that less people speak English here than any other place. Our flight got into Barcelona around 7, so we didn't really have much time to do ... read more

I arrived in Rome on Tuesday evening because I needed to pick up tickets to see the pope the following morning. After picking up the tickets and going on quite an adventure through Rome (about a mile on a bus, a mile by foot, a mile by train, then another half mile by bus) to find my hostel, which was a few miles outside of Rome, I finally got settled. The place I was staying at was nothing like anything I'd been staying at. It was a campground, and I was literally sleeping in a tent. I spent some time clearing my tent of slugs and spiders and finally went to bed. Wednesday morning I woke up and headed to Vatican City. The papal audience started at 10:30 and lasted until about noon. St. Peter's square ... read more

From Rimini, I went to Florence. I arrived there at about noon, and unfortunately I only had about 24 hours to spend in the city before I had to go to Rome. It is definitely a really cool city with a lot of things to see. They say that Florence was the center of art in the Renaissance era, and it has the sites to prove it. I first went to the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral. It is the 4th largest cathedral in Europe, and it has a giant dome that stands about 500 feet high. The painting on the inside of the dome was spectacular. I took a tour that took me right up to the base of the dome on the inside of the church, then I climbed to the top of the ... read more