Eating our Way Through Europe, brought to you by Project Runway: Prague

(Back from a wonderful weekend in Roma and wishing I could blog about that...but I'm determined to stay in chronological order, so here's the story of Prague! Get ready for a long one.)

As the train pulled away from Koln Hbf train station on Saturday night, I don't think we could have been happier. Or more excited to get to Prague. We had three beds in a sleeper car on an 11-hour overnight train and after a little snafoo (I don't know if that's spelled right, but you get the idea)--a kind of strange older man who didn't speak English was in our train compartment with us, but the conductor had her eye out for us and moved him to a compartment with other guys, instead of three young girls traveling alone--we were off to Prague!
Sleeping on the train was not bad at all--not the most luxurious bed I've ever slept in, but it was equivalent to a cot and I was so tired that I probably could have fallen asleep on the floor without any problem. That is one skill I have definitely acquired this semester--the ability to fall asleep anywhere, at any time (and its definitely useful on the many planes, trains, and buses that I've taken all across Europe). But before we dozed off to sleep, we managed to have a bit too much fun in our minuscule train compartment. The three layer bunks are just built for goofing around, and gymnastics in our case. We acted like a bunch of third graders on the playground, I'm slightly ashamed to admit (Ok, not really. It was too fun). I'm a fan of swinging from the guardrails designed to keep you from falling out of the bunk. Kaitlin prefers sleeping in the luggage rack, a throwback to past family vacations, I'm told.
Post-gymnastics, we were able to get a solid amount of sleep before the train conductor woke us up about 40 minutes or so before our arrival in Praha, as Prague is called in Czech. One of the more hilarious moments of the trip occurred before we even got off the train that morning. Even Kaitlin admits that it was pretty funny, although the poor kid is the butt of the joke. The bathrooms on the train were a little wacky...the doors reminded me of something from Zenon, Girl of the 20th Century. You had to press a button and then it whizzed open with a loud swooshing noise, and then you had to press another button for it to lock. Well, Kaitlin missed the memo about pushing the second button. As I watched helplessly while I waited in line for the bathroom myself, this British guy walked right up to the bathroom door and pulled it open. With Kaitlin inside. Naturally, she freaked out a bit and ran to try and shut the crazy Zenon door, while the British guy's friends shouted, "Don't worry! We're not looking! We're not looking!" from out in the hallway. I'm not going to lie, it was so ridiculous I had to fight the urge to laugh. Even Kait laughed. And everyone was definitely more awake after all the shouting. And with that, we hopped off the train to begin our explorations of Prague, Czech Republic.

I had heard from so many people that Prague was a beautiful city, but it was even more gorgeous than I expected. I took literally hundreds of pictures, but I don't think my camera did it justice. All the buildings are beautiful pastel colors and the architecture is so unique and old-fashioned. It's not your typical capital, with high-rise buildings as far as the eye can see. It definitely felt like stepping back in time. Our hostel, the Palace Hostel, was in a really cool older building right on the road by the river. This is the entryway:
The hostel was awesome (shameless bragging: a great find by me, via hostelworld.com). We had a private room for the three of us, even though we had only paid for a six bed female dorm, and the beds were comfy and the showers clean. The owner of the hostel was so helpful: he gave us a map and pointed out all the best landmarks, as well as a grocery store, some restaurants, and an ATM. Armed with all that info, we set out for day one of exploring the city.
Our first stop was my favorite thing in the entire city (the bread dumplings come in a close second, though). The Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, an important WWII landmark, was right up the street from our hostel. During WWII, Czech rebels were trying to organize a resistance to the Nazis occupying Prague, so they developed a plan to assassinate the head of the SS in Prague. They sent in seven paratroopers for the mission and the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius became the paratroopers' hideout after they succeeded in their mission. The Nazis were conducting a massive search of the city, but didn't discover them in the church until one of their own gave them up. A standoff ensued, with the Nazis bombing out the church and all the paratroopers dying in the crypt. We went to the exhibit in the basement of the church and even went into the crypt itself. It was so eerie to be in a place where such violent death had occurred. And of course the history nerd in me loved to learn more about WWII, which has always really interested me, and to hear the stories of these brave men. Definitely my favorite thing in all of Prague.
After the church we wandered around the city, just taking in the gorgeous architecture. We attempted to take the tram (Europeans love trams as part of public transportation for some reason) up to the Petrin Tower, Prague's mini version of the Eiffel Tower, but we somehow missed the stop and ending up climbing a giant snow-covered hill (don't worry, there was a path) up to the tower. Between the tower and the hill, we took in some AMAZING views of Prague!! I love all the red roofs. I bought a beautiful painted print of the city to put in my room (This will be evident after future blog posts, but I now have quite the collection of prints and am planning am abroad wall for my room in the fall). Next we wandered across the Charles Bridge, site of Kanye West's video for the song, "Diamonds from Sierra Leone." Watch the video, not because Kanye is any good, but to see the amazing bridge built by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in the 1300s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92FCRmggNqQ
It was getting a little chilly in Praha by that point, and we were ready to sample some traditional Czech food at dinner. We went to a restaurant near our hostel, that had an English menu, just to be safe. But the bar/restaurant was obviously a Prague hotspot (at least for the over-30 male set who wanted to watch football/soccer), because it was full. We went back to the hostel to kill some time, thinking we would head back in a bit to see if a table had freed up. When we got back, there was only one table free, so I headed in that direction, only to see a little yellow "Reserved" sign on the table. We were just about to leave dejectedly when the waitress came running over. "Wait, wait, I saved it for you!"
And that's when I knew I loved Praha.
We had a great meal of traditional Czech food and the waitress was so kind and patient explaining all the foods to us...I tried spicy chicken and Pilsner beer. The chicken was great...the beer, not so much. After dinner, we braved the freezing temperatures to go see Wenceslas Square, where the famous statue of King Wenceslas himself, riding on a horse. And that's when Kaitlin and I discovered that our Canon PowerShot cameras are incapable of executing a powershot at night, because all of our pictures are awful (False advertising, Maria Sharapova...). I was so bummed, because the city looked beautiful as a light snow was falling and it was just a moment I didn't want to forget, snowflakes falling on my head in Prague. But Megan's fabulous camera, however, captured the scene perfectly, so I've stolen a photo from her to illustrate the beauty that is Praha by night.
We were pretty freezing by then, so we headed back to our hostel to get some rest (and a much needed shower...after a night on the train we probably weren't looking too pretty) before day 2 in Praha. We woke up and stored our luggage at the train station, since we were leaving on an overnight train that night. By the end of the week, we were pretty much pros at using those luggage storage lockers and maneuvering the beast into them.
Day two consisted of more wandering around this beautiful city. We saw the Old Town Square and watched the Astronomical Clock chime the hour, with its cute little figures dancing around once the chiming was over. And seeing as this was the food tour of Europe, we had some good meals: pork and beef goulash (I'm a fan of pork, but both were delicious), and all sorts of dumplings (fruit, bread, and potato). We also spent several hours exploring Prague Castle, which was basically its own little town, complete with cathedral, shops, houses, and palace. It wasn't like a traditional castle; it had pretty much the same architectural style as the rest of the city...simple buildings in beautiful colors. Very different from the stone castles in the UK.
We also spent far too much time in the afternoon searching for the John Lennon Wall. Why its in Prague, I'm not quite sure, but its this giant wall of graffiti that used to pertain to John Lennon, but now is pretty much whatever people feel like writing. It was cool to see "All you need is love" and other Beatles lyrics on the wall, though.
We met up with some other ND London kids for dinner, which was lots of fun. We went to this traditional restaurant where they were playing an accordion and where double shots of some sort of cinnamon-y alcohol are a pre-dinner tradition. The waiter just wouldn't take no for an answer, so we all ended up taking this shot that we decided tasted like Christmas. Then the waiter tried to force another one on us, but one was more than enough for me, and I was ready for some dumplings by that point anyway!
After dinner it was a quick stop for McDonald's McSundaes so we could use up our remaining Czech Crowns before hopping on the train to Vienna!

Here's the link to the Prague photos, if you want to see just a selection of the fabulous scenery: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=404844&id=538960556&l=83efc35794

Eating our Way Through Europe, brought to you by Project Runway: Cologne

If you are ever in Europe, don't go to Cologne.

I promise I'm not being dramatic. Even the guy at the Tourism Office couldn't come up with something for us to do. After making us pay 20 cents for a city map.

How did I end up in a city that I seem to hate so much, you ask? Well, according to RailEurope, the train booking company, Cologne is the connecting city between Brussels and Prague. So we found ourselves stumbling out of bed in darkness at 6 am on Saturday morning to catch a 7:30 train from Brussels to Cologne. We should have known right from the start that the trip was doomed. For some reason, we were overzealous in our booking and chose to take the 7:30 am train instead of the 11:30 am one. Needless to say, we regretted that choice when the alarm went off at 6 am (I bet our hostel roommates did too) and proceeded to gripe about it all the way to the station.

When we arrived in Cologne, we encountered the beautiful Kolner Dom cathedral right outside the train station and thought for a moment that the trip was going to redeem itself. The cathedral was exquisite, especially the stained glass and mosaics. We stayed for the noon prayer service, which was all in German. Just as the priest finished saying the final prayer, the sun started streaming through the stained glass windows, which was pretty cool. Made it seem like a very poignant moment. It was definitely a moving experience to be in the cathedral with people from so many different places praying together. I made sure to say a prayer for safe travels for the rest of the week.

After the cathedral, we wandered around for awhile and had "Berliner" jelly donuts, which apparently are the root of the many jokes about JFK's "I am a Berliner" speech in Berlin during the Cold War. Poor guy didn't mean to say that he was a jelly doughnut.

The doughnuts were probably the last high point of the day. Even just walking around Cologne I got a bad vibe. All the people seemed very angry, and like they were in a rush to get somewhere. And it didn't matter where you were walking, because these people were set on their path and would just crash right into you if you were in their way. (Side note: When I almost got knocked over by my fellow pedestrians, I was taking a picture of Dunkin' Donuts, which were everywhere in Cologne, for some reason. Although not on every block like in good old Boston) Our new code for when someone is being rude or mean is, "She's wearing her cologne."

At a loss for what to do, we went to the Tourism Office across the street from the cathedral, bought a map, and asked the guy at the desk what he recommended that we see in the city. His illuminating answer?

"Turn around."

When we nicely explained that we had already been to the cathedral, the best advice he could come up with was to walk towards the river through the old part of town. So that's what we did, cracking jokes the whole way about how awful the city was. Which probably wasn't nice and was the stereotypical American touristy thing to do, but it was laughter that got us through what could have been a rough day. Some gems from the trip:

"Well we might as well go...we made 20 cents for the map." (shortly before losing said map)

"Oh look, the city ruins. The last time Cologne was fun." (while walking past this excavation site near the river)

*note: we kept an extensive quote list from the entire trip...more to come in a future post!

We wasted awhile trying to find a store called Nutcracker House and goofed around with a statue of a man sitting on a bench after walking to see the Rhine River. (Kaitlin has the goofy statue photos, so look for those in a future post!) Needless to say, we were a little desperate for something to pass the time. I will concede that there were some old-fashioned buildings on the walk to the river, like the Old Town Hall, that were pretty.

Cologne is famous for being the place where Eau de Cologne originated, if you couldn't tell from the name, so we wanted to find the famous store where cologne was first sold. Since we lost the map, it was a bit more a struggle than we anticipated, but we got there eventually. Throughout the week we kind of learned that the second we gave up all hope, we were most likely to find the building or landmark that we were looking for!

I wasn't the biggest fan of the Eau de Cologne scent, I kinda smelled like lemony kitchen cleaner to me. But the store had this cute clock that had little revolving figurines and played music every hour on the hour, so it was cool to see that. And the store itself was beautiful, with a large fountain full of cologne right at the entryway and a tapestry on the wall commemorating its opening. Definitely not your typical perfume store!

By that point, we had pretty much found all that Cologne had to offer, so we found a Starbucks and used their free wifi for a few hours until it was time to leave for our first overnight train adventure. I should say that we found the Starbucks after wandering around the same five sets of streets for over half an hour before we finally stumbled upon it. Too bad we lost the 20-cent map.

Here's a teaser for next time: our first overnight train, a fake Eiffel Tower, and bread dumplings!

Eating our Way Through Europe, brought to you by Project Runway: Brussels

(Apologies for the delay in posting...but better late than never, right?)

Thursday, March 4. The beginning of a European adventure for Kaitlin, Megan, and me. It was almost surreal that spring break had come already (and even more surreal writing this almost 3 weeks later!). We left for ten days in Europe, with Brussels, Belgium, as our first stop.

We caught the Eurostar train from St. Pancras International Station, to Brussels Midi Station, and it couldn't have been a smoother trip. Security was much quicker than at any airport (although they didn't seem to look too closely at our passports as we passed through...) and the train seats were super comfortable. Navigating the streets in Brussels, with their French names, was a bit of a challenge, but we found our hostel eventually. The cobblestoned sidewalks and our giant rolling suitcase (affectionately nicknamed "The Beast") were enough to make sure anyone within earshot knew that we were tourists. And we had an interesting encounter on the way to the hostel, with a guy I liked to refer to as "the rapist Grinch." (Disclaimer: Don't worry, Mom, we weren't really in danger and kept our wits about us.) As we were walking down the street near our hostel, this slightly creepy-looking man started slowing down and turning around to look at us as we were walking (again, I blame the cobblestones.) He crossed the street to be on the same side as us, continuing to look back, with a bigger, creepier grin each time. It reminded me of how the Grinch's smile gets slowly bigger and more evil as he plans to steal Christmas from the Whos in the cartoon version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas...hence the nickname. But we were cleverly able to avoid this Grinch by scooting down the nearest side street to walk along the next parallel road, and were at our hostel, Sleep Well, soon enough.

After checking in, we headed back out to explore the city a bit. We had seen a Belgian Waffle stand on the walk to the hostel, and seeing as waffles were tops on our to do list, set out to find it. Sadly enough, when we came upon the stand, it was already closed for the night. But all was not lost, because there was a frites place right across the street. Belgium is famous for its frites, or fries. We went in and ordered some frites to split, and then hilarity ensued. I'm not sure I can do this occurrence justice with my description, but I'll try my best. After we ordered, the fry guy behind the counter put the fries in the little fryer-thingy, then paused. He flicked the switch of an old-fashioned radio next to the counter and the strains of Bizet's Carmen filled the small shop. As the familiar strains of ba-dam-ba-ba-dum played in the background, he started shaking the fries in the fryer in time with the music. It was hilarious. We were dying laughing, wondering if Carmen inspired him to make better fries. Either way, the frites were delicious! Musical fry guy recommended that we try andalouse sauce, which tasted kind of like the sauce on the bloomin' onion at the Outback. Definitely the best fries I've ever had!

After the frites, we walked around a bit to get oriented and saw the cathedral, St. Michael's, all lit up at night. Then it was back to the hostel to get ready for a full day of sightseeing on Friday!

The weather in Brussels was a little bit crazy. When we left the hostel on Friday, it was snowing, but by midmorning it was beautiful and sunny and had to be about 50 degrees outside. Clouds rolled in through the afternoon, and we finished the night walking through a chilly rain. But we didn't let the weather bother us! Our first stop on Friday morning was the European Union. We wandered around among the impressive buildings, after mastering the metro and taking it out to the EU. We also found Brussels' Arch de Triomphe while it was warm and sunny and enjoyed the pretty park that it was in before heading back into the center of town. Lunchtime was more frites and a waffle with chocolate sauce, with some interesting entertainment. There was a guy singing and playing guitar on the streetcorner as we ate our lunch and he really was a great singer. But he was playing lots of American songs, with his French action. Nothing like hearing Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" in a French accent, at a super slow tempo. "Rolling, rolling, rolling on the RI-ver" has never sounded so goofy. Not going to lie, I had some trouble controlling my laughter and felt really bad...but it was just too funny to listen to him.

After lunch, we paused on a streetcorner to examine our map and make a game plan. All of a sudden I heard, "hey, HEY," and thought, "Wow, that guy sounds just like Dan Masterton." Well, that's because it was! SO crazy to just randomly run into friends on the street in Brussels. We spent the afternoon with the Dans, wandering around the famous square, Grand Place, and touring a Belgian Brewery (sadly, not that interesting, but you can't win 'em all). I also wasn't the biggest fan of the Belgian Pilsner, but I was proud of myself for at least trying it. After seeing the famous statue of the peeing boy, or Mannequin Piss, we parted ways with the Dans (but it wasn't the last we would see of them...random encounters seemed to be our specialty over break!).
We sampled some delicious Belgian chocolate and visited the Cathedral in the afternoon and then stopped at this awesome tourist place for students. Not only was there free internet, but there were maps of every city that we were going to and a pub guide to Brussels. It was great! And the pub guide would come in handy, but more on that later.
Our next adventure was a tram ride to see the Atomium, this crazy-looking structure that looks like an atom (if you hadn't deduced that already...) and is all gorgeous and lit up at night. This is where one of our first lessons occurred: When taking public transportation, don't hop on the first thing that moves. We took the Metro for a few stops, then jumped on Tram 51, which we thought would take us to the Atomium. But after going only one stop, the tram went out of service for some reason.
Except we didn't realize that everyone else had gotten off the tram...probably because we were too busy perfecting the three-way fist pound, since we were so proud that we had run and made it onto the tram. Until we heard a rapping on the window. "Girls, you have to get off the tram."
Oops.
After waiting a bit in the rain in the outskirts of Brussels, we finally made it to the Atomium, which was blue and sparkly, so what's not to like?

And Friday night was one of my favorite nights of the whole trip. Our Brussels pub guide told us that there was an 18th century pub near our hostel that served Brussels' famous cherry beer, Kriek, so we set out to find it (after Belgian waffles for dessert, of course!). We walked in circles in the rain for what seemed like forever and I was about ready to give up, when suddenly Kaitlin darted down a side alley. And here is lesson number two: go off the beaten track, because you might like what you find. Naturally, I was skeptical of this weird Belgian alley, being the over-cautious person that I am. But I wasn't about to let Kaitlin walk down there alone, so Megan and I followed. At the end of the alley was a huge wooden door, with strains of jazz music barely audible. And then we opened the door to one of my favorite pubs in all of Europe. It was called Nostre Dame (almost ND, but not quite!) and has been around since the 1700s. It was all old-fashioned wood and brick, with lots of locals hanging out, drinking, and smoking (I think I'm going to campaign for anti-smoking laws indoors in Europe, because our clothes smelled AWFUL when we got back to the hostel; the people here just smoke everywhere, its so different). We ordered three Krieks and snagged a table in the corner, to enjoy the jazz and the atmosphere--such a blast!

According to the humorous, sarcastic city maps at our hostel, a phrase they like to use in Brussels is "carpet the stomach," which means eating up before going out for a night at the pubs. I'd say our efforts at carpeting the stomach were pretty successful. :)

And here's the link to some more photos from Brussels: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=404799&id=538960556&l=c733d24e90

Eating our Way Through Europe, brought to you by Project Runway: Introduction

Hello, loyal blog readers (if any of you are left). It's time for the long overdue spring break blog posts! But since there are ten days worth of adventures to write about, I'm going to do this in installments. So welcome to the introduction of "Eating our Way Through Europe, brought to you by Project Runway."
Why this title you ask?
1. Because eating was probably our main priority on this trip. So much good food to be had, so little time!
2. Because the only German we knew was Auf Wiedersehen, courtesy of Heidi Klum and Project Runway,
3. And because our mantra was "Make it work" no matter what happened, courtesy of Tim Gunn and Project Runway.

Here's a brief overview of all our stops along my ten-day adventure with Megan and Kaitlin:
Thursday, March 4, and Friday, March 5: Brussels, Belgium
Saturday, March 6: Cologne, Germany
Sunday, March 7, and Monday, March 8: Prague, Czech Republic
Tuesday, March 9, and Wednesday, March 10: Vienna, Austria
Thursday, March 11: Krakow, Poland and Auschwitz
Friday, March 12, and Saturday, March 13: Berlin, Germany

As one of the guys at our hostel in Berlin put it, it was the blitzkrieg tour of Europe. Lots to see in ten days, but I felt like we spent the perfect amount of time in each place. We were able to see the main sites and still have some time to wander off the beaten track and learn a little more about the people and the culture (and their food, naturally). We may not have spent an extended amount of time in each place, but you only get to do spring break in Europe when you are 21 once, so we wanted to see as much as possible!

And now for the unfair part...this blog post only contains the teasers, the highlights of the week. I need to give you some incentive to come back and read the rest, after all.

Life Lessons from Spring Break 2010
1. You always have room for another Belgian waffle.
2. Sometimes its worth it to go down the slightly dark, sketchy alley for the awesome local pub at the end.
3. It's fun to go off the map.
4. Do NOT jump on the first form of public transportation you see. Odds are it will be a tram that only goes one stop and leaves you in the rain in the middle of nowhere.
5. Take the tram to the end of the line. You might like what you find.
6. Rolling suitcases and cobblestones are not a match made in heaven.
7. Train couchettes are a great place for gymnastics. And dance parties.
8. German chocolate cake is not, in fact, German. It's named after a guy whose last name was German, not the country.
9. No sportswear allowed at the Opera.
10. You can get McDonald's McSundaes and Milkshakes in just about any country.
11. Regardless of what country you're in, they charge for public restrooms. So if you find a free one, go. No matter what.
12. If they tell you that you have to take a shot because its a tradition, they're not kidding. And they won't leave you alone until you do.
13. If you want to avoid gypsies, just say "Lo siento." Apparently they don't do Spanish.
14. It's possible to buy dinner for $3 in Poland.
15. Austrian grandparents are the best people to get directions from.
16. Go with the flow, make it work, and an adventure awaits.

More details to come asap...but for now, its off to Galway for the weekend!!

Being British

When I think of things that are just quintessentially British, one of the first things that comes to mind is tea. Partly because I am from Boston (I think you might have heard of a certain infamous tea party) and partly from my US History classes and all those tests on the Revolutionary War (which coincidentally enough is the War of American Independence here, ha). Miss Alice, our librarian at the London Centre, has afternoon tea every Tuesday during our lunch break, so I had already had a taste (literally) of this British tradition. But I had heard that afternoon tea is a must-do while in London. So on Friday afternoon, Kelly, Megan, Kaitlin, and I decided to embrace a British tradition and go to afternoon tea. We went to this adorable little tea parlor right up the street from our flats, called Bea's of Bloomsbury. I had been walking by each day on my way to school and looking at the beautiful cakes in the window, so I definitely had high expectations, and they were more than met! It was a lovely afternoon (well, that does sound British, doesn't it?). We had several pots of Earl Grey tea, along with pastries, scones, and cupcakes. The scones and strawberry jam were definitely my favorite. The cupcakes have been rated "Best in London" or something like that, and they were delicious too. We just sat and drank tea and chatted for a couple hours, which was so nice and relaxing. We were surprised the staff didn't rush us out to fill the table, and were so happy when they told us to stay as long as we liked. I had never really been a big tea drinker before coming to London, but I am really getting to love it, especially the fruit flavored ones. And it is the prefect thing to warm you up after a long walk to school in the rain; there's a reason these Brits drink so much tea! And as my friend Torie put it, tea is caffeine that calms you, what more could you ask for?
After tea time, we continued our girls' day of being British by going to a roller disco that night. It was so much fun! We dressed in funky outfits and skated around to 70s and 80s music all night long. There were definitely some roller skating pros there, along with people who weren't so good and definitely didn't hesitate to grab on to random strangers as they fell to the ground. Shockingly enough, I didn't fall. My figure skating skills definitely didn't translate to the roller rink, but I was able to keep my balance, so I was happy. There were also some crazy outfits: a guy wearing angel wings, lots of sparkles, and several tutus. I think we fit in pretty well, considering while we were walking there a group of girls asked us if we were going to "the rave." Definite sign of an outfit success!
AJ also came to visit from Oxford last weekend, so it was really great to see him for the first time since August, since he is there for the whole year. I wasn't the best host due to the mountains of pre-spring break homework I had, but we hung out for awhile and we also took him to one of our favorite pubs near the flats, the Sir John Oldcastle. I shockingly strayed from my usual order of Strongbow and got some delicious Swedish apple cider while introducing AJ to the typical London pub scene that we all love so much.
Speaking of pre-spring break homework, I finally finished it all and am leaving for my spring break adventure in approximately half an hour, via King's Cross Station (maybe my train will accidentally take me to Hogwarts instead?). First stop is Brussels, then on to Cologne, Prague, Vienna, Auschwitz, and Berlin. I can't believe that spring break is already here. I've been dreaming about this trip since I was about ten years old, when my cousin Melissa sent me postcards from her study abroad travels and adventures. It looked like so much fun that I knew I wanted to go myself someday. Its just crazy that its actually here. So European Adventure, here I come! Look for an epically long blog update when I return!