It's been a very long day. The night train started off well until a fourth person joined us in the middle of the night, and continually woke me up by turning on lights and then with hideous snoring. The real kicker is that all the rest of the rooms in our cart were empty -- but all the doors locked. Adam stood around with me in the early A.M. and then we went back in to go to sleep -- he gave me his i-pod to listen too 3 It took awhile, but I fell back to sleep for a couple of hours. Our train arrived late to Munich, so we missed our train to Verona, but we caught one 2 hours later. We had a little compartment, and I slept for the first few hours, ... read more

So today was a lot of fun. I really really like Brugge. After breakfust we walked to the Chocolate Museum and took the tour. We got a small piece of chocolate at the beginning and it smelled so good in there :) At the end of the tour there was a chocolate-making demonstration and afterwards we got a truffle from the demonstration. VERY yummy. We walked to the lace shops and bought our mom's lace hankerchiefs. WE also bought a waffle with chocolate sauce from a vendor. It was good -- more like a cake than a waffle. We took a canal ride - which I thought was a lot of fun! :) And we bought ourselves two truffles from a chocolate shop - a grand marnier and a caramel. mmmm!! It's so expensive though, but ... read more

The rest of the day went alright. Not long after writing before we lost our seats on the train because we didn't have "reserved" seating. So we stood teh rest of the time and listened to our i-pods. We got off in Paris and took the subway to another station so that we could go to Brussels. This time we had to reserve a seat. We split a tuna sandwhich made on a baguette - it was very tasty. The trip to Brussels was quick and then we walked until we found a hotel. It has TV, free breakfust and a SHOWER! We dropped our bags off and walked around. We had dinner at the Brussells Grill and it was good to finally sit and enjoy a meal. Afterwards we found a place to use the ... read more

We got up early this morning - before our alarm at 7am, to walk to the bus stop. It had been raining all night and was still raining when we woke up. But i slept pretty good - except everytime i woke up i was sweaty because it was so warm in our little room. This morning i also discovered a blister on my right foot. The bus came at 8am and we left for the Cliffs of Moher. It was really beautiful, but very windy and cold. We walked up a path and looked around for a bit. Unfortunately we were stuck sitting in a small cafe (in the small visitor's center) until 1pm when our bus to Limerick would arrive. We played a lot of cards and drank hot tea. Once we got to ... read more

Today was another full day. We were up early so we had breakfust and then came back to our room and went to sleep. Got moving around 10am and were headed towards Powerscourt. We walked to the bus stop we needed and on the way there passed through St. Stephen's Green. It was a really nice park. Lots of green grass and colorful flowers. The bus ride to Powerscourt was fun - we sat on the top. It was nice to leave the city and see some of the landscape. When we got there we had to walk up this incredibly steep hill. I think my legs will hurt tomorrow. At the top we found the entrance and had to walk a long bit until we hit the gardens. It was tiring, but really scenic and ... read more