(January 12th) I’m sitting now on the airplane after saying goodbye to Ireland and the life of travel we’ve lived for the past four months. Of course I’ve missed my family and friends (and Ducky of course), but there is something about the freedom that we’ve had that I will miss everyday for a long time. This has been the greatest four months of my life. I’ve learned more about myself than I ever thought possible. Brian and I are coming home even stronger in our relationship than we ever were before (which is saying a lot because we thought we [View Full Entry]

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(January 9th - 11th) After taking the ferry from Holyhead over to Dublin, we spent our last few nights hanging with Rob and Carl and saying goodbye to the home we’d enjoyed so very much. We went to the Jameson distillery and tasted some of the finest whiskey I’ve ever had cross my lips, and we went to the carvery where Rob took us the very first night we landed in Dublin for one last Irish meal. We made sure to get any last minute presents and pack and repack the suitcases, and we made tacos for Rob and Carl for [View Full Entry]

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(December 27th - January 9th) Its been one month and two days since Brian and I returned home, and today the bracelet my mom made for me before we left to keep me safe on our travels broke. I considered it a sign. You see, for weeks now I’ve been trying to write London and haven’t been able to. I figured I was just too busy with work (Only a month home and I already have four jobs) and moving into our new place in Novato, to actually sit down and sort out my thoughts from one of the cities we [View Full Entry]

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(December 24th - 26th) Ah Rome! The “History” of our three-city tour of Italy. Rome holds some of my most cherished, most secret, and most embarrassing memories with my dearest friend Cheryl. Rome is also the site of the pubcrawl on which I met Rob whom we stayed with in Dublin, Ireland and Rik whom we stayed with in Leiden, Holland. So before I get into my “Roman Holiday” with Brian, let me begin with my favorite story from the last time I was in Rome: “The Tale of the Neverending Night” Cheryl and I arrived in Rome after parting ways [View Full Entry]

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(December 21st - 23rd) Ah Firenze! There’s something very comforting about being in a city you know your family just passed through. Back in October my Mom and sister were in Florence right before they came to visit Brian and myself in Galway. They stayed in the same hotel (Hotel Bretagna, right across the hall), visited the same sights, ate the same food, and drank the same wine. There was one point last night when I was on the phone with my sister and I realized she had been standing exactly where I was only 2 months before. I know it [View Full Entry]

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(December 19th - 20th) As soon as we were woken up by the ticket taker, Brian looked out the window and asked, “Where’s the water? I thought you said this city was all on water?” I calmly reassured him that we weren’t exactly at the water yet, but it was coming. Sure enough a few minutes later we were cruising across the one stretch of road leading into Venice that looks like an incredibly long bridge over nothing but water. Stepping out of the train station at Santa Lucia, I couldn’t help but smile because Brian was in complete and utter [View Full Entry]

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(December 17th - 18th) The signs were all there. We just kept ignoring them. Apparently we didn’t want to see them and we just kept turning away. We were not supposed to go to Croatia. Sign #1: You can’t get there on Eurail. It seems like we’ve been doing good so far on this trip in terms of traveling around, but really its been pretty simple when all we do is whip out our Eurail book, see what time the train leaves and whether or not we need a reservation, and off we go. Any times we’ve had to use other [View Full Entry]

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(December 12th - 16th) I feel that I have been very blessed my entire life with the friends I’ve had and still have to this day. Some of you I’ve known since birth, some of you I picked up along the way, and some of you found me (as Brian reminds me all the time :). Not everyone can say that they have loyal, caring, trustworthy, intelligent friends who would go to great lengths to take care of each other. I bring this up now because I was able to visit one of my dear friends in Budapest who I haven’t [View Full Entry]

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(December 10th - 11th) Ah Vienna. The funny thing is, I knew at one point on the trip there would be a city or two that would blur by. And although we spent two days in Vienna, it was just that, a blur. Brian and I were both exhausted beyond exhausted when we got in, and we ended up sleeping in until noon the first day. We haven’t done that in a looooong time. But although our time passed quickly, there were a few hi-lights from Vienna that I of course remember. The first night we went out and found a [View Full Entry]

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(December 8th - 9th) Germany round two! Originally we weren’t planning on coming to Munich (I know I know, it seems to be a running theme now as we get towards the end of the trip, but hey, its nice to have the flexibility to go where we please). But Brian noticed something in the travel book that I had overlooked. What’s funny is that after Brian told me we were going to Munich, I remembered a photo from the very first night I met Roy. He had just returned from his European vacation, and of all the pictures he showed [View Full Entry]

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