We're back!

Back in the states after over 24 hours of travel... pictures to follow shortly.

BEER CHALLENGE

Well, we successfully completed the Munich BEER CHALLENGE last night... it involved getting a beer from a convenient store and drinking it on our walk to the HB for a liter of beer. We actually got a radler, which is lemonade and beer. SO delicious. After HB, we walked to a local beer garden and got a curry wurst. No beer for us at this one, we wanted to make it through the night. Another beer garden was the next stop.... and it was the largest in Munich. It can hold up to 5000 people! We witnessed one of the tour guides throw back a liter in 6 seconds. I kid you not, we've got it on video. Jenna and I had 1.5 liters a piece at that place before we made it to the final stop. There we got our free beer and shot of jäeger. YUM. All in all, it was a good night. Our tour guide was already smashed before we even started the pub crawl. Needless to say, he was pretty hilarious.

Now we are sad to be leaving Germany... but in 48 hours we´ll be back in the green state!!!! Off to Zurich!

angela and jenna

Mom: No money. Red earrings are cheaper in the states.
Kim: SONIC!!!! I could definitely go for a number 1 and an ocean water. Hope you're not too exhausted from work... an I'm still considering a possible trip back up to Portland for brew fest. ugh. Not like I need to consume any more beer... but who can resist PNW microbrews??? Best in the world.

we love it

Germany is awesome. Well, at least Munich is. It's such a college like atmosphere when we go out and about. Last night we visited the most famous beer garden in the world.... the haufbrahaus. AMAZING. As for sight-seeing, we walked around an open air market yesterday and just soaked in germany. we're off to buy souvenirs today.. and then going on a BEER CHALLENGE tonight!!! We're definitely ending our trip with a bang. I only have 2 minutes left on my internet...

The people we have met are really what make the trip. The hostel experience is awesome... and we met some people from Canada and Australia last night that were on a crazy european tour... lots of fun. even better pictures =)

Brrrrrr... Munchen is COLD

Well I decided creating talking points for the blog was a success... so I am doing it again!
1. Munich is COLD: We didn't pack super well for winter weather. Everyone here is wearing long pants, pea coats and SCARVES. REALLY!? In JULY!? It's warmer than that in Oregon.

2. Our night train was an experience (Mom, Jenna took a picture of me sleeping all balled up with my eye cover, earplug and ipod... but no pictures of the train itself): There weren't any beds on this 9 hour train ride from Zagreb. THis is AFTER we spent 5.5 hours in a train with no neck support to Zagreb from Split. Anyway, the car we were in had 6 seats, 5 people, and they woke us up at least 6 times to either check our passport or our Eurail pass. As we passed through Salzburg it was POURING down rain and we got a little nervous. No rain in Munich yet. The customs lady also checked our passports (mine and Jenna's) and then radioed our info to someone. She didn't even bother inspecting the Swedes' passports.

3. Our rail passes will work on public transport here! Germany's rail system is top notch... we're loving the S-BAHN line.

4. Jenna is super excited to be here. I think it's because it's similar to our Florence hostel and very high tech. Ha.

5. They sell beer in vending machines.

6. It's cold!! Wait, I already mentioned that??? Bye-bye tan =(

7. My dad is getting us at the airport and Jenna's parents are going to meet us in Corvallis (pending confirmation. Jenna's mom: read your email now). That's just so everyone is on the same page... not necessarily everyone needs to know. ha

8. The logo of our hostel looks like the logo from Monster's Inc. but it's red, not green.

9. Reminder: A Europe trip is wasted on small children. They're loud, require a ton of energy, and make the people around you hate life.

10. Starbuck's for breakfast this morning!! First coffee I've had in 3 weeks!!!

Auf Wiedersehen,
angela and jenna

off to munich

No time to blog. But we're safe, back from the island of Brac, tan, and a little burnt. We're off to Munich tonight!

Still Soakin' Up the Sun

Hello everyone! I love that I know who is reading this... Jenna and I were surprised by how many of you there were.

I wrote down a few talking points for this blog about Croatia:

1. There are cats everywhere. I was used to seeing dogs all over Italy - but stray cats seems to be the trend here. We were in an outdoor restaurant last night when we hear two cats screaming and this lady jumps up and screams because they were fighting right under her seat. The cats proceeded to repeat their chase the entire dinner.

2. I miss bottomless beverages. I cannot wait to go to Red Robin or McMenamin's in Oregon and enjoy those free refills.

3. Along those same lines... we miss free clean water. We've been living off of the 1.5L bottles of water natural.

4. The funniest thing happened at the beach today. We were laying there reading our books and relaxing when all of the sudden this girl jumps up and starts yelling. It turned out there was a lizard crawling all over her. So then this little boy gets super excited about it and starts chasing the lizard up and down the walk all through people's things. Finally, he cornered it under some poor girl's purse, went in for the kill, and grabbed it's tail. THinking that we finally caught the little bugger, he pulled it up off the ground to show everyone, only to be holding it's wiggling tail... NO BODY. I have never laughed so hard in my life. He immediatelz dropped the twitching tail and went on another search for the lizard. THe poor girl finally got the little boy to pick up the tail and he threw it in the sea. Then the lizard went scurrzing off with its stump of a tail and the boy followed again. I think it finally took refuge in a crack in the concrete.

5. There are pastry shops EVERYWHERE here. And tons and tons of outdoor drink cafes... I don't think people eat. We struggled to find soemwhere serving dinner last night. Annie: europeans have a right to make fun of us fat americans... they're all model skinny here. ALL OF THEM. The guys too. And no, Venice did not smell like pee. We also noted that all of the european women are gorgeous... and though the guys are slim, they are not attractive.

6. I also broke my camera in venice so that I can't review pictures or put them on a computer without a card reader. Luckily, I can still take pictures though.

I think that is all for now. We're off on a ferry to the island of Brac tomrorow morning. Feel free to google image beaches in Bol... and be jealous.

cheers!
angela and jenna

Jenna's Kind of Europe

So we made it to croatia after 16 hours on a train and 6 hours waiting in Zagreb. We were supposed to be able to change trains in Zagreb at 650 am after getting there at 5 am, but that train was full so we had to wait for the next one at 11 am. NOT FUN. Oh well, we're here now and it's sunny with a breeze and we're loving it. Tomorrow is going to be a complete day on the beach (and yes, we bought sun screen) enjoying the weather.

Another minor fiasco: the people on the overnight train in slovenia marked on jenna's eurail pass 2 extra days for no reason so we're having to get creative with travel days. We tried to complain but no one knew why the slovenia people did it. We're trying not to think about it though and just go with the flow here. No use crying over spilt milk. HA.

Mom: you owe me money for some glass candies I bought you in Venice ;)

And to anyone reading this: write a comment so I know who my audience is.

nomads...

Luckily after checking out today the hostel owner's let us leave our backpacks here... otherwise this day would have been MISERABLE. We went to San Marco's Square today/piazza and walked around for a bit. We tried really hard to find some other young people to take a gondola ride with us, but were unsuccessful. Oh well... now I'll have a reason to come back! It would have been about 40 euros each if we had gone just us two... and that would have been if we could have found a bargain. As an alternative, we took the large water bus from san marco up to ferrovia along the gran canal. It was so pretty!!!

After that, we walked all the way BACK down to the last bridge on the gran canal and tried to take a replica picture of a painting that hangs in my living room at home. Unfortunately, they had scaffolding all over st. maria's basilica and the picture did't look as perfect as it could have. So after wandering the city for about 6 hours (not ever getting lost because we didn't have a destination in the first place) we were famished. We had a dinner of an appetizer and 2 courses before we had to forfeit dessert. We also got quite a bit of sun on our shoulders - but nothing completely lobsteresque.

Now we are back at the hostel collecting our things and getting ready to go drink some wine at the train station while we wait for departure time. I have no idea what Croatia is going to be like, but we're definitely looking forward to tanning on the beaches.

ciao
angela... with spelling corrections and input by Jenna.

Venezia

Well I'm finally in Venice... and could probably be enjoying it more if it hadn't been pouring down rain when we got here. We also had to spend an unfair amount of time in lines to reserve our spot on the night train to croatia tomorrow...

The hostel we're in is very much what I was expecting from hostel life. It's run by a woman and her son, and we get free family dinner tonight and free breakfast tomorrow. Free meaning that it's just included in our lodging so we better get our money's worth. I think we're going to try and do the gondola ride in the morning. I was sad to leave Florence, but hopefully once Jenna and I get out and about here in Venice it'll get better. We have the entire day tomorrow since our train doesn't leave until 930 p.m.... but that means we get into Zagreb at like 430 in the morning. ugh.

Mom - we'll try and find the view toward santa lucia. i had that painting in mine and jenna's room my junior year.

This is Jenna writing tonight because Angela ran out of internet time and she told me to give it a go. Today was more of us enjoying the hostel than Florence because we stayed out waayyy to late and slept in a bit longer than usual. I'm not too sad about it thought because we had a lot of fun hanging out with our roommates, meeting new people, and living the whole hostel life last night in the bar/club located in the basement.

When we ventured out we were determined to catch some good sunset views, so we walked through the town to get the the Arno river and took some breathtaking pictures of the sunset over the water. This was our first night that we've wandered around a city at night and it was beautiful. They have all of the buildings and statues lighted just right to accentuate them nicely. When we realized we hadn't had our gelatto for the day, (we heard that when you're in Italy you should have it at least once a day) we went back to the Piazza di Signorio to stroll around, eat gelatto, and enjoy the sights and sounds of this beautiful city.

Now that we're at our last night in Florence, its time to start packing up. Its amazing how much stuff can come out of our tiny backpacks. We also have bought quite a few souveneirs here, so our load has increased. They have a laundry facility here, so we'll get some laundry done without having to hand wash it in the sink! Tomorrow we're going to wander back to the market and see if we can do some more shopping before we head off to Venice! We're going to try and leave here sooner than later because we'll only be in Venice for one night and we want to enjoy the time we can get there. I don't really know a whole lot about Venice, but Angela is extremely excited and that's kind of transfering off onto me too. I am sad that we have to leave Florence so soon, but also excited to move on and see more of Europe. Only two more days left in Italy, and then we're off the the exotic beaches of Croatia! We are ecstatic to go to a place where we can just relax, soak up some rays, and enjoy the scenery!

*To Shelly/Lexi: What is your e-mail address so I can write you??

Meeting People

Jenna and I love our roommates here... they're from Newcastle, England and are loads of fun. THey have very strong jordi accents and we've both introduced new words into their vocabulary. Ha, they were talking about theme parks and Katie called 6 flags "5 flags". We had cartons of wine last night... bad news. It was 1.25 euros for a liter... ugh.

I'm not really in the mood to be on here and my time is almost out. I have bug bites EVERYWHERE - at least 20. Off to Venice tomorrow!!!!

More pictures/FIRENZE

SO we're finally in Florence... and it's AMAZING. But before we got here, we made a pit stop in Pisa to see the leaning tower. It took a lot longer to get there from Rome than I had thought it would [4 hours] so we were speed walking straight from the train station to see the tower... and it was HOT. It was right around 3 in the afternoon and we had our backpacks on... ugh. But I think the exhaustion was worth it, and we took the usual tourist pictures where we tried to make it look like we were holding the tower up. These probably didn't turn out as well as they could have, but oh well. THen, practically dying from heat exhaustion, we went in frantic search of cheap water, and found our usual 1.5 liter bottles for about 1.5 euros. We've probably had about 1 a day for each of us since we've been in Europe - at least.

Our hostel here in Florence is great... lots and lots of young people... which means a pool [with lights that change color], 2 bars [one on the roof and one one in the basement], and very friendly roommates. Our beds and sheets are clean and our shower is extremely nice. We're supposed to have a/c, but our room's is broken. Because of this, we left the windows open at night and were eaten alive by mosquitos.

Last night Jenna and I went out to dinner and she had the pasta with baby clams, and I had rizzoto with seafood. THe seafood ended up being mussels, a huge jumbo shrimp, baby clams, and little octopus with tentacles. It was all AMAZING. We shared a liter of the house red wine, and had tiramisu and this apple thing for dessert. *Kim, this is probably when we could have had a waiter take us out on the town... except when I say waiter, I mean guy in the kitchen staring at us the whole time through this little sliver of a window. We had shots of some sort of hard alcohol placed in front of us, and they didn't charge us for half of the wine. He kept motioning us to come back into the kitchen, but we definitely avoided that one. HA. It was a lot of fun though.
Today we had a busy day. We got up early to avoid the line and went and saw the sculpture of Michaelangelo's David. It was breathtaking. I'm pretty sure I just stared at him from every angle I could find. It was amazing how detailed and perfect he was. His hands, arms and head are technically out of proportion, but only because he was created believing that he would be placed up high and seen from a different perspective, in which he would seem in proportion. However, this is the reason he is so amazing...

After David, it was off to the Duomo to see the church and the bronze doors [jenna had been looking for these everywhere. it turns out bronze doors are common in Italy... but we finally found the right ones!] Then a walk down to see the Piazza de Signorio. The Piazza was great, and is where the copy of David is on display, the Perseus beheading Medusa statue and the Neptune fountain, among others. Jenna and I got great pictures with a man posing as a statue. ha. We then wandered the streets of Florence and stumbled upon more souvenier stands than I could handle... **Mom, I bought a purse. Now I won't have to keep taking yours... it's a beautiful purse. I am in love with it... don't even ask how much it cost me. We also looked at what we might be buying for friends/family.

SOmewhere in the madness we ate lunch and decided to buy the rest of our meals in Florence at markets. CHEAP.

Now we're just resting and lounging at the hostel. We're planning on seeing more sights tomorrow, walking the bridges at sunset, and just ennjoying the atmosphere here.

EVERYTHING IS SO CLOSE TO EVERYTHING!!! Firenze is the perfect city for backpackers... no cars needed. I feel like I'm missing something, but so much has been going on that it's hard to get it all down.

Pictures

Pictures as follows:

- Just off the train in Rome - so happy to be well rested and at our destination

- At the Colosseo

- Our hostel's pool in Rome

- Trevi Fountain

- Tossing a coin in the fountain

Messages for People

Mom: We didn't get into the catacombs because our tour guide took us out so we could get into the church, and then we couldn't figure out how to get back in to the tombs.

Kim: Who was the job interview with? How did it go? What does the house look like, and can I live there in August?

Veronica: I didn't think Rome was that dirty, but maybe it's just because I haven't seen Florence yet... I see all these Vespa tshirts that remind me of the coca bella shirt you got me....

David: WHen are you leaving again? Better yet, when do you arrive in Dublin?


Bad news: I went to upload pctures and I have no idea how to access them from this browser... lame. It doesn't help that none of it is in English. We got up at 6 this morning and are gonna grab some food from the market and try and get to the train station by 845 to figure out if we can go to pisa and then to florence

ciao, angela

"Ask me anything, I'm neither Catholic or Prude."

Well thanks to EVERYONE for the advice to pay for a guided tour of the Vatican Museum. Jenna and I definitely felt that it was worth our euros. Ha, I actually finally stopped to ask the price from one of the many people offering tours because he was the best looking guy I'd seen the whole trip... haha... and it turned out he was originally from South Carolina, go figure. We didnàt have our student i.d. cards, but I guess our charm and good looks let us by on that one. Anyway, I asked if our tour guide would speak English as well as him (tip from Veronica and Kim) and he assured me that our guy was from England and had been doing the tours for years. SOOO, Michael, our tour guide, wove us through the crowds and gave us a spectacular show. He was very funny, and made it clear that he was not Catholic, and would not be offended by any questions or comments that we made. He has been doing these tours for 5 years... and his description of all the artwork in the Sistine Chapel was worth the euros on its own. I was upset we couldn't take pictures of the inside of the chapel - something about Japanese copyright because they did the restoration in the 80's ??? Hopefully our tour guide wasn't pulling our leg on that one because he seemed to do that a lot. When he was talking about the Vatican having its own radio station, he made a jab that the number one song has been Madonna's "Like a Virgin" with George Michael's "Faith" coming in a close 2nd.

So after spending about 3.5 hours doing that, we were hot and our feet hurt. We made it back to our hostel "camp" site and somehow missed the shuttle and were waiting for the next one for almost an hour. That seriously cut down on our pool and nap time. So after relaxing by the pool and having a dinner of pizza with just the sauce and some water, we went back to town in an attempt to find the Pantheon... and we were successful! It still baffles me that all of these monuments are just plopped in the middle of city buildings and busy streets. After marveling the "all seeing eye of heaven" in the Pantheon, we walked down the streets of Rome in search of some special gelato place that Jenna wanted to go to, and then sat on the steps by the Trevi Fountain to enjoy the atmosphere. Even though that area is so ridiculously packed with people, the fountain makes it very festive and a lot of fun.

Well we might try and make a pit stop in Pisa tomorrow before we make it to Florence. That way I can check out the leaning tower and really witness the geotechnical marvel that it is. I just keep thinking of Professor Dickenson's lecture on all of the settling issues with the soil and how everyone proposed to keep it from toppling over. Ha. I hope all the people who are reading this that had soils I and II with me are appreciating this... nerd alert.

There are others waiting for the internet, so I might try and add pictures tomorrow morning. I know I keep saying that... but this time I'm really going to make an effort.

angela

We're in Roma...

Well I would have posted something last night, but the computers were packed... and since the internet access at this hostel is free, it's in very high demand. Tiber Hostel and Camping (where we're staying until tomorrow) is awesome. They have a pool and last night had live music in the ristorante. The live music was still a really great concept even though I was trying to sleep. Mom: ear plugs and eye cover were a brilliant idea.

We spent some of the afternoon in Zurich sleeping in a park by the lake... huge gusts of wind cooled us down quite a bit, but the jet lag was killing me so I dealt with it. We ended up having to grab some food at starbucks cause it was actually the cheapest thing we could find that we could understand what we were ordering. The train ride from Zurich was the best night's sleep that I've had in a while. We share a 6-bed car with 2 other Italian girls our age. They did not speak English. Another score for the earplugs on that night trip.

We spent a good hour in Roma Termini (train station) trying to figure out how to get euros and buy a rail pass/figure out where we were going. The metro system here is actually perfect for us. We got out of it at the Colosseo stop... and the Colosseum was RIGHT THERE. So weird... just plopped down in the middle of civilization... the line was long, but not too bad since we were in the shade. The only downside was that we had our backpacks with us. Jenna and I got plenty of pictures...

Next stop was trying to figure out how to get to our hostel since it was like 20 minutes from the city. It would have been really easy if the sign from the underground metro to the above ground metro was a little more specific... but we made it! Ha. One metro line, a streetcar, and a bus later. Thank God the metro pass worked for all of those transportation methods. At the hostel we sat by the pool and I took the first shower I'd had in 3 days. IT WAS HEAVEN.

We then went back to the city and got off the metro at the Fontana de Trevi stop... only to find that it wasn't that easy. We were a little overconfident in our ability to navigate the city, because we forgot our map. Oops. So at this point we hadn't eaten all day, so we stopped at a Pizza place and ordered our first meal in Rome. A eggplant, zucchini, tomato and roasted peppers pizza with mineral water. 11 euros and very filling. They have all seats near the open window facing the street, so we just people watched. After asking the lady at the pizza place how to get to Trevi fountain, she had no idea what I was talking about. SO I said fontana de trevi and she immediately understood. Then in English told me to go down the street and turn left at the light - it worked! And there were signs too. But that was my favorite place yet, by far. It's gorgeous, and PACKED. You turn a corner and all the sudden it's there in the middle of all these buildings.

After taking several pictures of ourselves, we then ventured off to find the Spanish steps... unfortunately they were doing restoration work on the obelisk, because it seriously marred the whole scene. Oh well. We walked up and down the steps, obviously took some more pictures, and went off in search of gelato. YUM! At this point we were exhausted and hot, and made it back to the hostel for bed. Only downside of this hostel so far is the number of bugs that come in the dorm at night. Fortunately, my sleeping bag liner cinches up and we got up at 650 this morning, took a shower, and are about to head off to the Vatican. I forgot to bring in my camera cord, but I'll get pictures up eventually.

Ciao! Angela

Zurich

I'm not used to the keyboard on this weird internet cafe thing... so forgive any grammatical errors. Aside from Jenna leaving our Eurorail passes in her mom's car and her dad driving up from eugene in about an hour and a half to get them to us before our flight left, the trip has gone smoothly. If that's the most traumatizing experience we have, that will be awesome. We are spending the day fighting jet lag and walking all over Zurich. It's verz pretty, and the lake here is so clear. It's windy, but we were able to sit lakeside and rest/read/fight back napping. It's also EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE. I'd post a couple pictures, but I think I'm going to wait until I'm in Rome. I am excited that Jenna and I will get to sleep on the train - we have beds. I think I'm done for now... the smokers in here are ruining my health.
angela

Packing Up!

My mom was amazed... as was Veronica... that I packed so lightly for my trip! The blue and green cubes hold all my clothes. I was able to fit about 8 shirts and 2 dresses + chargers + toiletries + blow dryer and shoes in my backpack with plenty of room to spare. After all, I need space to bring stuff back!!! Jenna and her mom should be here in an hour or so to pick me up and take me to Portland. We'll be staying at Jenna's friend's house and she'll drive us to the airport bright and early. I'm thinking we should probably get there by 6 am. WOO! I had Mexican food last night and American Dream for lunch to try and hold me over for the next couple weeks. I'M SO EXCITED!!!

Creating the blog

I'm just trying out the blog before I fly out in a couple days. I've been trying to get prepared for the trip by getting travel guides and making copies of all my important documents. In reality, I've probably gotten no where. Jenna and I did get our hostels reserved and our eurorail tickets purchased... so that's good. Here is our itinerary:

July 7: Fly out of PDX
July 8: Zurich, Switzerland before we take a night train to..
July 9-11: Rome, Italy
July 11-14: Florence, Italy
July 14-15: Venice, Italy and then night training it to...
July 16-19: Split, Croatia
July 19-21: Brac, Croatia (ISLAND!!!)... night train to....
July 22-24: Munich, Germany
July 24-25: Zurich, Switzerland... and then flying out the 25th!