All Good Things Must Come to an End

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First off, we'd like to apologize for taking our sweet time writing up this last blog *tear*. As some of you may know, on July 22nd Rob and I returned home to Canada and since then, we've been having trouble getting the time to do this. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, we'll start from where we left off. . .

Due to our flight being delayed almost three hours, we didn't arrive in Berlin until 2:30am. Since we had been to Berlin a couple times before we knew where to go to get to our hostel. Unfortunately, it was late at night and not all of the subways were running. We ended up having to improvise to make our way to the hostel. Three hours and several subways later, we finally made it to our hostel as the sun was starting to come up.

We spent our two days in Berlin wandering around the city, checking out a pretty cool flea market, drinking beer (obviously), and people watching. It was hands down our favorite city on our trip and it was so nice to be able to spend some more time there before heading back home.

Our last night in Berlin we ended up hanging out with some people from our hostel. We met a couple really nice girls from Edmonton, named Sarah and Sara. Seriously. We then had the privilege of meeting the most arrogant, abrasive and ignorant person we have ever come into contact with. His name was Jay, he was a republican from California, and he proudly voted for Bush both terms. At first, we respected his opinion and were interested in hearing some of his views. Our respect quickly faded and frustration set in. In his view anyone living outside the US was not a valuable human being. The political debate eventually became quite heated and increasingly frustrating as he wouldn't listen to what anyone had to say, or even let people speak. After making a statement about Obama being a Muslim Rob had had enough and decided to go to bed. Rob will now explain the following series of events. . .

I, Rob, eventually got tired of listening to Jay and decided that I had had enough. I stood up and told him that I was going to bed and didn't want to listen to anymore of his nonsense. I told Sarah I'd wait for her in our room until she was finished chatting. After going up to our room, which was 4 stories up, I got ready for bed, turned on some music, and laid down. Right away, I could hear some yelling coming from outside. I stuck my head out the window to see if I could hear it more clearly. That's when I heard Sarah yelling at Jay. Immediately, I grabbed my shoes and headed back downstairs. At this point, they were all standing and yelling at each other. Jay's friend had even come into the room to tell him to settle down. I grabbed Sarah and we left the room with Jay telling us that we were disrespecting him. After calming Sarah down, we crawled into bed at 3:30AM for a solid 2 hours of sleep. The next morning, our train left at 6:30. . .

After a couple hours of sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed so we could catch our train to Amsterdam. Fortunately, both Rob and I managed to get some sleep on the train. Once we arrived in Amsterdam we locked up our bags at the Central Station and headed out to wander the streets. Our first stop was the frites stand we fell in love with back in April. After shoveling down some fries and mayo we made our way to our last tourist site, the Anne Frank House.

The Anne Frank House is the actual former hiding place of Anne Frank and her family. Without going into too much of a history lesson, the Frank family were Jews living during World War II. After the war started and Jews were getting deported to concentration camps, the family went into hiding in a friends attic. During the two years they were hiding Anne Frank kept a diary writing about the day to day struggles of her family. Eventually, the family was discovered by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. By the time the war was finally over, only Anne's father survived. He recovered Anne's diary and it was eventually published.

The Anne Frank House had a real personal touch and almost moved both Rob and I to tears as we walked from room to room. We found this museum to be even more emotional than Auschwitz because it follows the story of a young girl and her family, and by the end of the tour you feel as though you actually know them.

The remaining time in Amsterdam, or Europe for that matter, was spent trying some delicious fresh stroopwaffles, visiting with Patrick and Krya (the newlyweds from our first European blog), wandering the bustling streets and spending WAY too much time trying to repack all of our bags.

As much as we hoped it wouldn't happen, the day eventually came when we would have to say goodbye to our European adventure and board a flight home. That morning we woke early so we could say our goodbyes to Patrick and Kyra as they went to work, picked up some groceries for breakfast, and dragged our two over-stuffed backpacks, two suitcases, one sitar, and several smaller bags to catch a tram to Central Station. Since we knew how much of a struggle it would be getting all of our bags to the airport in one piece, we made sure to leave with plenty of time. . .

As soon as we arrived at the train station we figured out our platform and made our way there. Rob decided to check the time, reached into his pocket to pull out his watch, and what does he pull out instead? The house keys to Patrick and Kyra's . . . which he was supposed to leave in their mailbox when we left! Immediately, we both start to panic. Since we can't just take off with their house keys Rob has to run all the way back to their place to return them. He sprints off, while I nervously wait at the station with the bags. As long as Rob makes it back to the station within 20 minutes we will still be able to catch the next train and make it to the airport on schedule.

Fifteen minutes go by and Rob is still not back. I'm a wreck and slightly freaking out at this point.

Another five minutes go by, along with our train, with neither of us on it. Sh**.

A couple minutes later Rob runs up, completely out of breath and sweating profusely. As he's gasping for air I explain to him that the next train going to the airport doesn't leave for another 30 minutes.

Half hour later, which is now the approximate time we should have our bags checked in at the airport, we finally board the train. Fortunately for us, we find out that the airport is only a short distance away. The moment the train stops at the airport we make a mad dash to find the check in counter. After a few more minutes of hauling our bags around the massive airport we finally find the KLM desk. As soon as we get our bags checked in we head straight to our gate for a much needed moment to sit down and relax.

We just couldn't leave Europe without having one last frantic rush, now could we? It's kind of poetic, isn't it?

The next several (long) hours were relatively uneventfully. The flights went well and the fact that Rob wasn't suffering from any sort of food poisoning was an added bonus.

We landed in Saskatoon at around 11pm and were greeted by our smiling families as we walked out of the gate. After all the hugs and brief hellos, the time came that Rob and I were dreading most about being back in the "real world". We now, after almost four and a half months of being together day and night, would have to say our own goodbyes. It had been over 30 some hours since either of us had slept which only made us more emotional, and to say the least more than a few tears were shed. . .


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After 128 days, 9 flights, 37 trains and 13 beautiful countries, we're back to where it all began: sitting on my couch where we spent countless hours planning.

We have now been home for over three weeks, and after trying (and we emphasize on trying) to get back into the swing of things, we're both ready to pack up our bags again and hit the road. Maybe Africa? Asia? Or even back to India?

We would like to thank everyone who enjoyed our blogs, especially those who commented on them and emailed us regularly. It really meant the world to us hearing from you and when we were so far away it helped to make us feel like we were a little closer to home. We love you all and thank you again!




(And, because we know you were all dying to hear how Rob's pinky toe is doing. . . it's still swollen.)

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Photos

Completely Exhausted
Taking the metro to our hostel in Berlin

Gothic Bagpipe Players
Only in Berlin

People Watching
Just passing the time. . .

East Seven Hostel
The BEST hostel, ever!

The Great Debate
Jay, Sarah, Sara, and Rob

Lunch Time
Rob making a sandwich on the train

Frites!
The best in the world . . . or at least Europe.

Mmm. . . Heineken
One of many on our last days there.

Tons of Bike Racks
No wonder the Dutch are so thin . . .

Land ho!
Patrick and I moving the boat before a big thunderstorm.

And more bags. . .
It's kind of embarrassing.

Comments

[ASHLEY]

AWWWW.... I love you guys! and miss your blogs. Sarah you seriously need to consider comming here for the winter! Rob too! but if that doesn't plan out we are deff. going south in march! sorry i haven't got face book back up. i'm honestly never on the computer. but if anything exciting happens don't worry you'll be the first to know! love you! miss you!

[Dad]

Welcome Home
All good thing must come to an end. f For Mom and I, it has just begun with your safe return.