Hi all!
I was hoping to send this in SF but we are stuck in Frankfurt for the night. We just spent the last 45 mins trying to find someone to talk to with no luck. We are now waiting in a group of god knows how many people to talk to someone. We might just be in the airport for the night at this rate. We're really hoping that they put us up for the night and can get us to an from the airport because we are out of euros! Blehk what a nightmare! Well, below is my last update! Hope you guys are having a better Thursday! :) I just talked to a guy and he's been here for over an hour.. Bahh!!
By the time I send this we will have landed home in SF! So crazy to think about! We're sitting in the airport in Lisbon right now, have a connection in Frankfurt and then will be on our way to SF! We are ready but then also sad! I've been pretty sick for the last few days so I think I need some sleep! Tory said that he wasn't feeling so hot this morning either, so I guess it will be good for us to get some real rest!
We had an amazing time in Lisbon! It was by far our best hostel and we met some amazing people too! We got to our hostel on Sunday and walked around the area for a bit. Saw all the immediate sights, a castle and the beach and just saw some beautiful buildings. The hostel provided dinner for 10€ which was an amazing deal! You got soup, main course, dessert and four drinks! It was awesome we did it every night except last night because we ran out of money! It was really good too! It was made by the hostel workers who were all local so it was real Portuguese food as well! We met some people and went out to bars with them that night. Some were from Australia, brazil and Italy! We had a blast!
Monday we did the walking tour with the hostel. We went pretty much everywhere Tory and I had walked the night before, so we didn't see too much more. Afterwards we went to Sintra by train with four of the guys we met the night before. We had so much fun on the train ride, playing riddles and mind games. Once in Sintra we took a bus to the top where there was a castle and palace! We only had enough money to do the castle, but it was amazing! Such a great view of the city. Lots of walking though! I was pretty tired at the end, especially since I was sick too! Not a good combination. We had dinner again at the hostel and played an awesome drinking game called slaps. You slap your top hand in the direction you want the rhythm to go, it sounds easy but goes pretty fast! I messed up a lot. Hahah! Tory was able to make it out to the club with the others, but I was beat so I just went to sleep.
Tuesday we went to McDonald, haha. I can't remember the last time I had been to one! But we just needed something simple. Then I felt really bad, very weak and my nose was just running so I took the day off and just slept. It was much needed! Tory walked to the flea market with David our roommate. He said everything there looked like it was stolen! Once he came back and rested some too we had dinner and went on the pub crawl. One of our friends Jim had a flight out the next morning and told us all day that there was no way he would come. We told Jakob out other friend from denmark that we wouldn't go unless he got Jim too. We walked over to Jim and he was like 'alright!' hahaha so we all went. We went to two bars and a club. The club was ridiculous. You would get like a hotel key and that's what you would use to get drinks, no cash. So at the end you had to swipe your card and pay whatever it was. If you lost your card it was 100€ we didn't get any drinks but when we were leaving it said that we did. I argued and they got fed up with me so I got to leave but Tory got lost in the shuffle and they wanted him to pay 6€ even though we didn't get anything. They wouldn't let him pay with card but thankfully I had cash still. While he was in line the bouncers started throwing punches at people, in the face, in the back of the head. It was insane. I was outside and saw this guy dragged out in a chokehold. It was pretty scary at one point. Finally Tory made it out though. Whew! We went back to the hostel an complained that they shouldn't bring people there anymore. After that we walked around the city with Jim and David. We played an object toss game with our shoes and just threw them against the wall, whoever was closest would win. It was hilarious. We played for at least two hours. We started throwing our shoes and then later threw our shirts, David even threw his pants. It was pretty funny. We saw the sunrise and got home at around 7-730!
Wednesday we woke up super late, grabbed some food at the grocery and got on the tran to go to Belem with David. We just walked around and saw whatever we could. It was reallllllly hot and shade was hard to come by so I ran through the sprinklers a couple of times. We saw a church and an old castle or lookout thing. We grabbed more groceries on the way home to make food. We got pasta and sauce and some snacks for only 5€! So that was awesome. Then we packed :(
And now we're in the airport! So crazy. I really can't believe it's already over! We had such an amazing time! The day I was sick and Tory went around without me I felt sad, so it's going to be weird not being with him 24/7! I guess that's good though to feel that way! Hehe! We're really looking forward to seeing the doggie and being able to hang out on a couch for a day or so before going back to reality! I need to catch up on the bachelorette! :) my friend elyse texted me a couple days ago about doing a PA gig, so that's good! It's only a day, but it will be great to get a little money in the bank!
Well I hope you are all relieved that we made it! We sure are that we had very little hiccups! Looking forward to talking to you guys soon!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
Monday, June 4, 2012
ready for Lisbon!
Hey everyone!
Man! We are ready to leave Barcelona! I never thought I would say or think that, but we haven't had the best time here. For starters our hostel was awful and by awful I mean people are screaming right outside your door, music is thumping until 3am, ear plugs don't do anything! Blehk! It was just awful, the staff wasn't friendly. The only good thing was that they had breakfast and dinner, we would make sandwiches with breakfast stuff. The dinner wasn't that great, but was a nice option. One night was tuna salad, woof! Tory had my helping! :) our hostel was in a good location, but it was just way too touristy. Right off La Rambla, a really busy street, just shops and over priced restaurants, tons of people. I think if we come back, we will have to do airbnb and try to get out of the tourist areas. Once we were out of the tourist areas, it was fine and good, but you would have to walk like forty five mins to do that. Alright, enough complaining!
Tuesday we got to Barcelona, walked along La Rambla. Went to a restaurant on the street, worst idea ever! It was around 46€ for just two paellas and two sangrias! That's a suuuuuper expensive meal for us! I got chicken paella and tory had a mix of seafood and meat. It was okay, not as good as it should've been. Needless to say, we didn't eat on this street again! Afterwards, we tried walking around to find somewhere else to go, but it was pretty expensive so we just went back to the hostel. Talked with a chick that had been there for a few days, it was her last night and she was pretty happy about it. She said that she hadn't gotten any sleep, etc. she said that Madrid had been loads better. We went to sleep around 12 or so. I slept awful, people were talking/screaming right outside our door for a few hours, music, blehk! It was awful. It was so bad that the next morning Tory was looking into how expensive it would be to switch hostels, switch cities, etc. we decided to stay just because it would've been more expensive to do something else.
Wednesday we walked around the city a long time. It was good to get out of the tourist parts. We walked to the gaudi cathedral and park. Tory said that they had been working on that cathedral for a crazy long time, and it's not supposed to be done until 2030 or later! It wasn't all that pretty either! After the park we walked around a bit more trying to find a place that was open for lunch is hard! Everyone was taking siestas, which is pretty funny! I wish Americans were allowed to do that! Turns out the work ethic in our country sucks! We work longer days and weeks and get less vacation. Grrr. We finally found a place and split a pizza and a bottle of wine! The wine was only 8€! Much better! We had dinner at the hostel, it was pasta, it was okay but free! Afterwards we walked the alleys behind our hostel, they were really cool! I'm glad we had those to walk around. Lots of cool shops, restaurants and bars. We found a cool bar called Bahia, got two glasses of wine for under 4€, so that was amazing and we were able to sit outside so even better! We were leaving and I put our glasses on the bar so she wouldn't have to come by and get them and she filled them up again! Too funny! They also had pinchos or individual tapas for only 1€ each, so we got crab, anchovy, chorizo, and salami. I tried all of them! Didn't like the crab one bit but the anchovy was okay. Didn't have more than one bite though, hehe. I asked the bartender for day trip ideas and she told me to go to the beach the Tory had already planned, haha, but I didn't know and thought I was really cool at asking her. Oh well!
Thursday we went to Sitges beach! It took us a while to get on the train though! We accidentally bought a metro pass trying to get a train ticket too, hehe. Oh well, it was an adventure as Tory said. It was about a 40 minute train ride and was really pretty! Beautiful small town, pretty touristy but it was okay! We got to the beach and laid out and then got in the water. It was freezing! I had to run into the water because going slow made it worse! No matter how long you stayed in, you never really got used to the coldness! We didn't stay in too long! We left the beach and walked along the boardwalk looking for a snack! We got awful calimari but then awesome nutella gelato! Mmm! We got back and had dinner at the hostel- tuna salad, blehk! I got a falafel bowl, it was tasty! We had gotten really bad sunburn at the beach, a tube of sunscreen was 9€ and by tube I mean travel size! I was wearing a dress and when we were walking down the street people were laughing at me!! I had to put on jeans :( We met up with our friends from the bay area Erin and Christina, I invited our roommate Carolina to come with us too! We hung out at Bahia for a bit and then went to a club. It was awful, haha. Soooo loud and everyone was so drunk and bumping into you. We stayed for maybe an hour? Blehk! Leaving there we had all lost hearing. It was bad. We stayed out until 3am!
Friday we were dead from our sunscreen so we took the metro to Camp Nou which is barcelona's stadium. It was crazy, sorta like Disney world! You had to pay like 23€ to do the tour, we deff didn't! Later we walked around a huge market, got Tory's favorite, Wok to Walk, the noodles in a box place! It wasn't as good as the one we had in Amsterdam. After that we got churros and chocolate! Mmmm!! Soooo yummy! The chocolate was Really thick sorta like syrup! Afterwards we went to a bar to watch the Barcelona game, they won! We went to sleep pretty early and by early I mean 12-1am. We had a new roommate Rodrigo, who sucked! He brought back a chick in the middle of the night and was super noisy. Grrr.
Saturday we went to Montserrat! It was a beautiful monastery at the top of this mountain! It was beautiful! We walked around there for a bit and then went on a hike! It was a hard one! My legs hurt today! Once we got back to the city we went and walked around the alleys. We stumbled upon a church and some street shows. The street shows were crazy. There were people climbing on too of each other! It was crazy! I have pics, I'm not good at explaining. :) we walked around the alleys more and went to local bars, it was good!
We're getting ready to board, so I better go! We are ready for Lisbon! We are looking forward to going home soon. We sure miss our little doggie! Hope you all are doing great and having an awesome weekend!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
Man! We are ready to leave Barcelona! I never thought I would say or think that, but we haven't had the best time here. For starters our hostel was awful and by awful I mean people are screaming right outside your door, music is thumping until 3am, ear plugs don't do anything! Blehk! It was just awful, the staff wasn't friendly. The only good thing was that they had breakfast and dinner, we would make sandwiches with breakfast stuff. The dinner wasn't that great, but was a nice option. One night was tuna salad, woof! Tory had my helping! :) our hostel was in a good location, but it was just way too touristy. Right off La Rambla, a really busy street, just shops and over priced restaurants, tons of people. I think if we come back, we will have to do airbnb and try to get out of the tourist areas. Once we were out of the tourist areas, it was fine and good, but you would have to walk like forty five mins to do that. Alright, enough complaining!
Tuesday we got to Barcelona, walked along La Rambla. Went to a restaurant on the street, worst idea ever! It was around 46€ for just two paellas and two sangrias! That's a suuuuuper expensive meal for us! I got chicken paella and tory had a mix of seafood and meat. It was okay, not as good as it should've been. Needless to say, we didn't eat on this street again! Afterwards, we tried walking around to find somewhere else to go, but it was pretty expensive so we just went back to the hostel. Talked with a chick that had been there for a few days, it was her last night and she was pretty happy about it. She said that she hadn't gotten any sleep, etc. she said that Madrid had been loads better. We went to sleep around 12 or so. I slept awful, people were talking/screaming right outside our door for a few hours, music, blehk! It was awful. It was so bad that the next morning Tory was looking into how expensive it would be to switch hostels, switch cities, etc. we decided to stay just because it would've been more expensive to do something else.
Wednesday we walked around the city a long time. It was good to get out of the tourist parts. We walked to the gaudi cathedral and park. Tory said that they had been working on that cathedral for a crazy long time, and it's not supposed to be done until 2030 or later! It wasn't all that pretty either! After the park we walked around a bit more trying to find a place that was open for lunch is hard! Everyone was taking siestas, which is pretty funny! I wish Americans were allowed to do that! Turns out the work ethic in our country sucks! We work longer days and weeks and get less vacation. Grrr. We finally found a place and split a pizza and a bottle of wine! The wine was only 8€! Much better! We had dinner at the hostel, it was pasta, it was okay but free! Afterwards we walked the alleys behind our hostel, they were really cool! I'm glad we had those to walk around. Lots of cool shops, restaurants and bars. We found a cool bar called Bahia, got two glasses of wine for under 4€, so that was amazing and we were able to sit outside so even better! We were leaving and I put our glasses on the bar so she wouldn't have to come by and get them and she filled them up again! Too funny! They also had pinchos or individual tapas for only 1€ each, so we got crab, anchovy, chorizo, and salami. I tried all of them! Didn't like the crab one bit but the anchovy was okay. Didn't have more than one bite though, hehe. I asked the bartender for day trip ideas and she told me to go to the beach the Tory had already planned, haha, but I didn't know and thought I was really cool at asking her. Oh well!
Thursday we went to Sitges beach! It took us a while to get on the train though! We accidentally bought a metro pass trying to get a train ticket too, hehe. Oh well, it was an adventure as Tory said. It was about a 40 minute train ride and was really pretty! Beautiful small town, pretty touristy but it was okay! We got to the beach and laid out and then got in the water. It was freezing! I had to run into the water because going slow made it worse! No matter how long you stayed in, you never really got used to the coldness! We didn't stay in too long! We left the beach and walked along the boardwalk looking for a snack! We got awful calimari but then awesome nutella gelato! Mmm! We got back and had dinner at the hostel- tuna salad, blehk! I got a falafel bowl, it was tasty! We had gotten really bad sunburn at the beach, a tube of sunscreen was 9€ and by tube I mean travel size! I was wearing a dress and when we were walking down the street people were laughing at me!! I had to put on jeans :( We met up with our friends from the bay area Erin and Christina, I invited our roommate Carolina to come with us too! We hung out at Bahia for a bit and then went to a club. It was awful, haha. Soooo loud and everyone was so drunk and bumping into you. We stayed for maybe an hour? Blehk! Leaving there we had all lost hearing. It was bad. We stayed out until 3am!
Friday we were dead from our sunscreen so we took the metro to Camp Nou which is barcelona's stadium. It was crazy, sorta like Disney world! You had to pay like 23€ to do the tour, we deff didn't! Later we walked around a huge market, got Tory's favorite, Wok to Walk, the noodles in a box place! It wasn't as good as the one we had in Amsterdam. After that we got churros and chocolate! Mmmm!! Soooo yummy! The chocolate was Really thick sorta like syrup! Afterwards we went to a bar to watch the Barcelona game, they won! We went to sleep pretty early and by early I mean 12-1am. We had a new roommate Rodrigo, who sucked! He brought back a chick in the middle of the night and was super noisy. Grrr.
Saturday we went to Montserrat! It was a beautiful monastery at the top of this mountain! It was beautiful! We walked around there for a bit and then went on a hike! It was a hard one! My legs hurt today! Once we got back to the city we went and walked around the alleys. We stumbled upon a church and some street shows. The street shows were crazy. There were people climbing on too of each other! It was crazy! I have pics, I'm not good at explaining. :) we walked around the alleys more and went to local bars, it was good!
We're getting ready to board, so I better go! We are ready for Lisbon! We are looking forward to going home soon. We sure miss our little doggie! Hope you all are doing great and having an awesome weekend!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
almost to Barcelona!
Hi all!
By the time I send this we will be in Barcelona! Ahhh!! Only 9 more days left of our European adventure!! So crazy! It took us about two hours to get to the airport today when it should've taken 30 minutes. Something happened with the direct train we were supposed to take so we ended up taking about six different trains before we finally made it to the airport! It was ridiculous! Thank goodness we met a chock that spoke English and she helped us along the way. Whew! Good thing we left earlier than we were going to and that we had a later flight otherwise we would've been in trouble!!
We had a great time in Berlin! I think it might be my favorite city so far! The city was big but quiet and everyone was pretty friendly! We had a great hostel that had a bar in it with good food and somewhat cheap beer, so that was nice. I just had an awful time getting to sleep last night, super loud people and the bed was growing in discomfort, it felt like a pull out couch, so I might have gotten three hours of sleep. Blehk. I was grumpy this morning and the train issues sure didn't help! It's also pretty hot here and not too many things are air conditioned, so I'm not used to that! But all in all Berlin was awesome!
We got here on Friday and were able to get on a bus and off almost right in front of our hostel, so that was a nice change! We got a burger and beer for 5€ at our hostel bar! It was pretty tasty! After that we walked along the river, to museum island, stumbled upon this really cool graffiti and art gallery. It was two buildings and about five stories in each one of just art! It was pretty amazing. We were pretty tired from the train ride so we decided to go see a movie! We went to one movie theatre, but they didn't have it in English so we had to rush to another one via metro! We made it! They make you buy certain seats in the theaters here, so that was interesting! Also, before the movie starts they have commercials, like ours, except there was an ice cream commercial and then people came out and sold ice cream!! It was ridiculous! Then the previews started! It was pretty silly.
Saturday we went on a four hour walking tour! It was a great time and we learned so much about Berlin and Germany, it was more than I've learned in my schooling that's for sure! We got Tory's favorite new thing for dinner, a noodlebox! They make all different varieties! We want to open one in Berkeley! Anywho, after that we wanted to watch the big Chelsea vs Munich soccer game and there was a Munich restaurant down the road that we had seen the night before. It was crazy packed! People had reservations for tables so people like me and Tory had to wait in a line to get in that was barely moving! Anywho, we finally got in and when the people we were supposed to be sharing the table with showed up they had brought 10 people instead of their 8, so Tory and I were kicked off the table! We tried asking other people if we could sit with them but they wouldn't let us. Finally we were able to sit down with these other people our age and they were nicer. All of the people in there were Munich fans, so I think they thought we were Chelsea fans. We drank liters of beer which were HUGE!! Munich lost the game, which was super sad because that meant that Chelsea had taken fourth place from Tottenham as well. :( we were very upset about the loss. To make ourselves feel better Tory had a currywurst on the way home and I had fries with mayo. I can't stop eating the combination, I can feel all of the weight I'm gaining! Ahhhhh!!!
Sunday we walked around the huge park in between east and west Berlin. It was beautiful!! Afterwards we went to the Jewish memorial museum. It was pretty sad, but good to see. We then had a picnic in the park. Took a train to the east side gallery of art on the Berlin wall, that was pretty awesome! Later we went out to eat and I had amazing pasta with Chilli sauce and Tory had a sausage.
Monday we went to the soviet soldier memorial, it was huge! Then we walked thru the east side neighborhood for a while. Had another picnic and when I say picnic, this is food we took from the hostel. :) for dinner we had falafel plates! They were amazing!! Yum! We liked them a whole bunch!
Well I guess that's about it! We
Made it to Barcelona and are gonna go grab some food!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
By the time I send this we will be in Barcelona! Ahhh!! Only 9 more days left of our European adventure!! So crazy! It took us about two hours to get to the airport today when it should've taken 30 minutes. Something happened with the direct train we were supposed to take so we ended up taking about six different trains before we finally made it to the airport! It was ridiculous! Thank goodness we met a chock that spoke English and she helped us along the way. Whew! Good thing we left earlier than we were going to and that we had a later flight otherwise we would've been in trouble!!
We had a great time in Berlin! I think it might be my favorite city so far! The city was big but quiet and everyone was pretty friendly! We had a great hostel that had a bar in it with good food and somewhat cheap beer, so that was nice. I just had an awful time getting to sleep last night, super loud people and the bed was growing in discomfort, it felt like a pull out couch, so I might have gotten three hours of sleep. Blehk. I was grumpy this morning and the train issues sure didn't help! It's also pretty hot here and not too many things are air conditioned, so I'm not used to that! But all in all Berlin was awesome!
We got here on Friday and were able to get on a bus and off almost right in front of our hostel, so that was a nice change! We got a burger and beer for 5€ at our hostel bar! It was pretty tasty! After that we walked along the river, to museum island, stumbled upon this really cool graffiti and art gallery. It was two buildings and about five stories in each one of just art! It was pretty amazing. We were pretty tired from the train ride so we decided to go see a movie! We went to one movie theatre, but they didn't have it in English so we had to rush to another one via metro! We made it! They make you buy certain seats in the theaters here, so that was interesting! Also, before the movie starts they have commercials, like ours, except there was an ice cream commercial and then people came out and sold ice cream!! It was ridiculous! Then the previews started! It was pretty silly.
Saturday we went on a four hour walking tour! It was a great time and we learned so much about Berlin and Germany, it was more than I've learned in my schooling that's for sure! We got Tory's favorite new thing for dinner, a noodlebox! They make all different varieties! We want to open one in Berkeley! Anywho, after that we wanted to watch the big Chelsea vs Munich soccer game and there was a Munich restaurant down the road that we had seen the night before. It was crazy packed! People had reservations for tables so people like me and Tory had to wait in a line to get in that was barely moving! Anywho, we finally got in and when the people we were supposed to be sharing the table with showed up they had brought 10 people instead of their 8, so Tory and I were kicked off the table! We tried asking other people if we could sit with them but they wouldn't let us. Finally we were able to sit down with these other people our age and they were nicer. All of the people in there were Munich fans, so I think they thought we were Chelsea fans. We drank liters of beer which were HUGE!! Munich lost the game, which was super sad because that meant that Chelsea had taken fourth place from Tottenham as well. :( we were very upset about the loss. To make ourselves feel better Tory had a currywurst on the way home and I had fries with mayo. I can't stop eating the combination, I can feel all of the weight I'm gaining! Ahhhhh!!!
Sunday we walked around the huge park in between east and west Berlin. It was beautiful!! Afterwards we went to the Jewish memorial museum. It was pretty sad, but good to see. We then had a picnic in the park. Took a train to the east side gallery of art on the Berlin wall, that was pretty awesome! Later we went out to eat and I had amazing pasta with Chilli sauce and Tory had a sausage.
Monday we went to the soviet soldier memorial, it was huge! Then we walked thru the east side neighborhood for a while. Had another picnic and when I say picnic, this is food we took from the hostel. :) for dinner we had falafel plates! They were amazing!! Yum! We liked them a whole bunch!
Well I guess that's about it! We
Made it to Barcelona and are gonna go grab some food!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
greetings from the train to Berlin!
Hello everyone!!
Right now we're on a train to Berlin! Whoo hoo! I really liked Prague, but I'm ready for a new city!
We arrived on Monday, checked into our hostel by the happiest guy ever. It took us like 15 minutes to check in. We kept giving us brochures and telling us about tours to take and how the common room was now our common room. It was really funny. We got to our room and it was beautiful! High ceilings and very spread out. It was really nice, probably my favorite hostel so far! There were no cages though, so everyone's stuff was out in the open. I was a little worried at first, but it turned out fine! We walked around for a bit, found a restaurant. I got beef with gravy and dumplings, Tory had pork with potato dumplings. It was really good! I'm getting better with food! I think Tory is relieved, haha! After that we went to this really old beer hall, like 1499 old! They walk around with trays of beers and shots and you just say how many and they talley it down on a piece of paper on your table. It was awesome! Some nice Americans sat down next to us, so we chatted with them the whole time we were there. They were really nice and chatty! There was an old man that walked around and played the accordion. Once we left we proceeded to get lost for what felt like two hours, but I am unsure of how long it actually was! It was frustrating!
Tuesday we walked up to the castle and ran into Andy, Tory's soccer teammate back in Berkeley! It was funny! After our walk up the castle, we came back down the hill and had lunch near old town square. We had beer cheese, then I had a fried cheese! Mmm! Tory had a sausage. It was might tasty! Walked thru old town, lesser town, saw the Lennon wall. Walked some more, grabbed dinner, I had four cheese gnocchi, which was like Mac and cheese with gnocchi, haha! Tory had spaghetti with bolognese sauce. Then we just walked around some more! Exciting stuff!!
Wednesday we took a day trip out of the city, to Plzen, the city where the original pilsner is from! We took a train and got there pretty early. Took a tour and after we ate at the restaurant there. I had marinated Brie with a pretzel and Tory had pork shoulder, it was pretty good! Tasted like a tougher roast. Took the train back and picked up some bread, cheese and salami for dinner. It was super cold and rainy so we called it a night early.
Thursday we walked a long ways up this mountain to get to this tower that looked like the Eiffle tower. It was a ways! At the top we had a picnic with our bread and cheese leftovers. Walked back down and checked back into our hostel, we added on a day and couldn't stay in our original room. We ventured back out and attempted to go to this other beer hall but when we got there it was closed! We then kept walking, found another restaurant and got goulash and beer. Mmmm goulash! I really like goulash!! We then tried to go to this other beer hall and it was super crowded, Tory had looked it up and it said that it was a lot of locals, etc and it was! We got mean looks the second we walked in there! When we tried to order a beer or get someones attention they would just ignore us, so we left! We continued walking and came upon old town square where they had set up a huge screen! The hockey semi finals were going on that night! We hung out there for a bit and then grabbed dinner at this sausage stand that Anthony bourdain has been to on his show! It was really yummy! After that we went back to the square and watched the czech hockey team play! It was packed! They would go crazy when they scored, it was pretty awesome and really neat to see first hand!
We had 65 crowns left this morning, we couldn't even get a burger at burger king for that! So we had to use euros! It cost 4 euros for a whopper! What a rip off! So we bought some Chapstick and then Tory went and found banana chips for 20 crowns! Haha!
Well I guess that's about it for now! The older couple in our train compartment doesn't speak English, so this is going to be an interesting ride! I'll update again at our next transit. I can't believe our trip is already half way over! :( noooo!!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
Right now we're on a train to Berlin! Whoo hoo! I really liked Prague, but I'm ready for a new city!
We arrived on Monday, checked into our hostel by the happiest guy ever. It took us like 15 minutes to check in. We kept giving us brochures and telling us about tours to take and how the common room was now our common room. It was really funny. We got to our room and it was beautiful! High ceilings and very spread out. It was really nice, probably my favorite hostel so far! There were no cages though, so everyone's stuff was out in the open. I was a little worried at first, but it turned out fine! We walked around for a bit, found a restaurant. I got beef with gravy and dumplings, Tory had pork with potato dumplings. It was really good! I'm getting better with food! I think Tory is relieved, haha! After that we went to this really old beer hall, like 1499 old! They walk around with trays of beers and shots and you just say how many and they talley it down on a piece of paper on your table. It was awesome! Some nice Americans sat down next to us, so we chatted with them the whole time we were there. They were really nice and chatty! There was an old man that walked around and played the accordion. Once we left we proceeded to get lost for what felt like two hours, but I am unsure of how long it actually was! It was frustrating!
Tuesday we walked up to the castle and ran into Andy, Tory's soccer teammate back in Berkeley! It was funny! After our walk up the castle, we came back down the hill and had lunch near old town square. We had beer cheese, then I had a fried cheese! Mmm! Tory had a sausage. It was might tasty! Walked thru old town, lesser town, saw the Lennon wall. Walked some more, grabbed dinner, I had four cheese gnocchi, which was like Mac and cheese with gnocchi, haha! Tory had spaghetti with bolognese sauce. Then we just walked around some more! Exciting stuff!!
Wednesday we took a day trip out of the city, to Plzen, the city where the original pilsner is from! We took a train and got there pretty early. Took a tour and after we ate at the restaurant there. I had marinated Brie with a pretzel and Tory had pork shoulder, it was pretty good! Tasted like a tougher roast. Took the train back and picked up some bread, cheese and salami for dinner. It was super cold and rainy so we called it a night early.
Thursday we walked a long ways up this mountain to get to this tower that looked like the Eiffle tower. It was a ways! At the top we had a picnic with our bread and cheese leftovers. Walked back down and checked back into our hostel, we added on a day and couldn't stay in our original room. We ventured back out and attempted to go to this other beer hall but when we got there it was closed! We then kept walking, found another restaurant and got goulash and beer. Mmmm goulash! I really like goulash!! We then tried to go to this other beer hall and it was super crowded, Tory had looked it up and it said that it was a lot of locals, etc and it was! We got mean looks the second we walked in there! When we tried to order a beer or get someones attention they would just ignore us, so we left! We continued walking and came upon old town square where they had set up a huge screen! The hockey semi finals were going on that night! We hung out there for a bit and then grabbed dinner at this sausage stand that Anthony bourdain has been to on his show! It was really yummy! After that we went back to the square and watched the czech hockey team play! It was packed! They would go crazy when they scored, it was pretty awesome and really neat to see first hand!
We had 65 crowns left this morning, we couldn't even get a burger at burger king for that! So we had to use euros! It cost 4 euros for a whopper! What a rip off! So we bought some Chapstick and then Tory went and found banana chips for 20 crowns! Haha!
Well I guess that's about it for now! The older couple in our train compartment doesn't speak English, so this is going to be an interesting ride! I'll update again at our next transit. I can't believe our trip is already half way over! :( noooo!!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
almost to Prague!
Hi all!
Right now we are sitting in the airport waiting to board our flight to Prague! When I am finally sending this email it will be from Prague! Whoo hoo!! We had a short but sweet time and visit in London! I think we're ready for cheaper food! London was a bit expensive.
On Friday we arrived via boat, got on another train and finally arrived at our hostel! It was in a really nice area of London, so that was nice! It was an old renovated house turned into a hostel, so that was cool! Once we checked in we went walking! We walked to Buckingham palace (way touristy), the eye, Thames river, and Westminster abbey! It was a bit of walking but everything was pretty close, so that was nice! Tory had fish and I tried his, it wasn't too bad! Later we got Indian food, but it wasn't as good as the place in Berkeley! Afterwards we walked to Piccadilly circle, but called it a night because Tory's throat wasn't feeling so hot. Once we got back to the room, we found out that Tory's lock had jammed and wouldn't open back up, locking all of his stuff in the cage! Ahhh! So we asked the receptionist what to do and he tried to get it open, but couldn't, so we waited around for about an hour and then I decided that I was going to start putting in random numbers since we had time. I got it open! Whoo hoo for being stubborn! It was still jammed though, so we can't use it anymore. Bummer! I'm going to take it back to rei when we get back!
Saturday we walked around again, thru Hyde park, saw the princess di memorial, went to Camden, went to the stadium to scope out the area. It sorta felt like the mission in SF! Later we got pies! I got bacon and cheese! Mmm! Then we went on the jack the ripper night tour! It was spooky and a really awesome tour! I learned a lot!
Yesterday was Tory's happiest day of his life! We went to the Tottenham game!! It was awesome!! So much fun and the crowd was hilarious! We had a great time! We got there pretty early because we were really excited!! Went to the Tottenham bar, only spurs fans were let in! It was awesome! So we hung out there for about an hour or so and then picked up our tickets! We had great seats! It's an old stadium so there was only 2 stalls for the whole floor for ladies. I spent a good amount of time in line!! Tottenham won 2-0!!! It was so much fun and feels like a dream!! Afterwards we got kebabs down the road, they were the SPICIEST thing I've ever had in my whole life!!! Just when I thought I could handle spicy, whew!!! It was really good though! My lips were red for like 2 hours afterwards!! After that we came back to the hotel and watched tv and washed some of our clothes in the sink- redneck style! Hahah!
Well I guess that's about it for now! Hope everyone is doing great!
Love and miss you all!!
Jenn
Right now we are sitting in the airport waiting to board our flight to Prague! When I am finally sending this email it will be from Prague! Whoo hoo!! We had a short but sweet time and visit in London! I think we're ready for cheaper food! London was a bit expensive.
On Friday we arrived via boat, got on another train and finally arrived at our hostel! It was in a really nice area of London, so that was nice! It was an old renovated house turned into a hostel, so that was cool! Once we checked in we went walking! We walked to Buckingham palace (way touristy), the eye, Thames river, and Westminster abbey! It was a bit of walking but everything was pretty close, so that was nice! Tory had fish and I tried his, it wasn't too bad! Later we got Indian food, but it wasn't as good as the place in Berkeley! Afterwards we walked to Piccadilly circle, but called it a night because Tory's throat wasn't feeling so hot. Once we got back to the room, we found out that Tory's lock had jammed and wouldn't open back up, locking all of his stuff in the cage! Ahhh! So we asked the receptionist what to do and he tried to get it open, but couldn't, so we waited around for about an hour and then I decided that I was going to start putting in random numbers since we had time. I got it open! Whoo hoo for being stubborn! It was still jammed though, so we can't use it anymore. Bummer! I'm going to take it back to rei when we get back!
Saturday we walked around again, thru Hyde park, saw the princess di memorial, went to Camden, went to the stadium to scope out the area. It sorta felt like the mission in SF! Later we got pies! I got bacon and cheese! Mmm! Then we went on the jack the ripper night tour! It was spooky and a really awesome tour! I learned a lot!
Yesterday was Tory's happiest day of his life! We went to the Tottenham game!! It was awesome!! So much fun and the crowd was hilarious! We had a great time! We got there pretty early because we were really excited!! Went to the Tottenham bar, only spurs fans were let in! It was awesome! So we hung out there for about an hour or so and then picked up our tickets! We had great seats! It's an old stadium so there was only 2 stalls for the whole floor for ladies. I spent a good amount of time in line!! Tottenham won 2-0!!! It was so much fun and feels like a dream!! Afterwards we got kebabs down the road, they were the SPICIEST thing I've ever had in my whole life!!! Just when I thought I could handle spicy, whew!!! It was really good though! My lips were red for like 2 hours afterwards!! After that we came back to the hotel and watched tv and washed some of our clothes in the sink- redneck style! Hahah!
Well I guess that's about it for now! Hope everyone is doing great!
Love and miss you all!!
Jenn
greetings from holland!
Hi all!
We're having a great time! We're in the ferry station right now waiting to board our overnight ship that looks like a cruise ship! We're really excited to have our own space again, even if it's just for the night!
We had a great time in Amsterdam! It was so weird and cool to spend my birthday there!! I had a great one though! My favorite beer in France and Amsterdam has been La Chauffe, so we had that! Then something that I never thought I would eat, we had French fries with mayo and it was damn good!! We've had fries about everyday since, if not more than once in a day and they've always had mayo! Mmm so good! Its way different than American mayo though, there is seasoning or something else in it that gives it a somewhat ranch flavor! Mmmmm!! I will miss it! Amsterdam was a lot smaller and our hostel was in a good location being close to everything, so I think I gained back all the weight I had shed in those five days in Paris with just three in Amsterdam! Blast! Haha, we definitely ate a lot more fried foods and just food in general. One of my most favorite things I've ever eaten was from this gross fast food place called Febo! It was like fried Mac and cheese with no noodles, so just fried cheese in pocket form. Dear lord, so good!! I want to open one. I had one of them everyday in Amsterdam whether or not if I was hungry! :) it was only €1,50! It was so funny and sorta like a fast food vending machine! You would put your money in the section that you would want and then you would push a button and you reach in and grab it! Yumm! Every time after I would get it, there would be no more left! I always made it just in time!
The days in Amsterdam were definitely just spent eating, drinking and walking around the city. The weather wasn't all that great, so we weren't able to rent bikes. We went to this 30 minute concert on Tuesday, Tory had read all about it and it was the #1 thing to do in Amsterdam. It was crazy how many people were there. It was really cool though! We went to the Anne Frank house, so that was interesting. It's crazy how big the houses are though. I feel like they are like old Louisville houses, but five or six stories high! The house was good, but sorta expensive and crazy packed. I'm glad we did it though. After that, we went to the Heineken experience museum. That was a lot more fun than I anticipated! It was about two hours and you get two free beers and a free ferry ride out of it at the end! Tory found an extra bracket on the ground too, so we each got three beers! We found out that the key to drinking Heineken is to drink it in big gulps, haha, that's what they told us! It was fun, we were glad we did it!
Our hostel was great! We had an 8 person room! The first night it was just us and another couple from Australia, Liz and Ben. They were really nice. They said that the night before there was like 6 other people in the rooms- all boys, drinking and partying all night, so they were glad it was just us! The next night, three guys joined us. They were really nice. We met up with them in the bar one night and had drinks and hung out with them for a while! Last night we had a full room! Three more people joined, Liz and Ben had left. They got in at like 4am last night and were pretty noisy, but it was nothing too bad. This morning we woke up when those three boys did. They had gone to the bar crawl thru the hostel the night before and had lost one of their friends. Turns out the one friend had woken up on someones roof with no money or passport. Not good. He said that they were at their second bar and drinking at a normal pace when he just blacked out and couldn't remember anything. It sounded like he had been roofied! He did not look great at all this morning and looked like he had been punched in the face. Ekk. He was going to have to book a flight home and leave their trip early. They were only a week in on a 6 week trip, super lame :(. He said that all of his money for the trip was in his wallet too. So crazy. Hopefully the police will be able to help him! We were thinking about going on the pub crawl, but Liz and Ben had advised us against it! I'm glad they did! Sheesh!!
We checked out and walked thru Amsterdam to get on a train to hook of holland. It was interesting! We were trying to buy a ticket at the kiosk and it wouldn't take our card and then we went to the counter and the lady didn't even tell us where we needed to go and the ticket didn't have any of that information either. Somehow we found our way, made a transfer and made it to our destination with plenty of time to kill before our ferry out! We grabbed a bite to eat in the small town, a great burger and fries! Tasted as good as in-n-out!! Mmm!! Went to a cafe, had a couple of coffees, used their wifi. A couple of older men came in and made a remark about Tory's tottenham jersey saying "I didn't know I was going to have to watch the game with a tottenham fan" it was funny! He was really nice though! He was a Liverpool fan. The old men turned on a tv in the bar and just watched soccer. It was awesome. When we left we went to a cheese store :) Mmm. Bought some salami and cheese for dinner tonight! Then we went to the market and bought a bottle of wine for dinner too! It was only €2! I'm looking forward to the boat ride tonight!! Should be fun!!
Well, I guess that's it for now! Hope y'all are doing great!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
We're having a great time! We're in the ferry station right now waiting to board our overnight ship that looks like a cruise ship! We're really excited to have our own space again, even if it's just for the night!
We had a great time in Amsterdam! It was so weird and cool to spend my birthday there!! I had a great one though! My favorite beer in France and Amsterdam has been La Chauffe, so we had that! Then something that I never thought I would eat, we had French fries with mayo and it was damn good!! We've had fries about everyday since, if not more than once in a day and they've always had mayo! Mmm so good! Its way different than American mayo though, there is seasoning or something else in it that gives it a somewhat ranch flavor! Mmmmm!! I will miss it! Amsterdam was a lot smaller and our hostel was in a good location being close to everything, so I think I gained back all the weight I had shed in those five days in Paris with just three in Amsterdam! Blast! Haha, we definitely ate a lot more fried foods and just food in general. One of my most favorite things I've ever eaten was from this gross fast food place called Febo! It was like fried Mac and cheese with no noodles, so just fried cheese in pocket form. Dear lord, so good!! I want to open one. I had one of them everyday in Amsterdam whether or not if I was hungry! :) it was only €1,50! It was so funny and sorta like a fast food vending machine! You would put your money in the section that you would want and then you would push a button and you reach in and grab it! Yumm! Every time after I would get it, there would be no more left! I always made it just in time!
The days in Amsterdam were definitely just spent eating, drinking and walking around the city. The weather wasn't all that great, so we weren't able to rent bikes. We went to this 30 minute concert on Tuesday, Tory had read all about it and it was the #1 thing to do in Amsterdam. It was crazy how many people were there. It was really cool though! We went to the Anne Frank house, so that was interesting. It's crazy how big the houses are though. I feel like they are like old Louisville houses, but five or six stories high! The house was good, but sorta expensive and crazy packed. I'm glad we did it though. After that, we went to the Heineken experience museum. That was a lot more fun than I anticipated! It was about two hours and you get two free beers and a free ferry ride out of it at the end! Tory found an extra bracket on the ground too, so we each got three beers! We found out that the key to drinking Heineken is to drink it in big gulps, haha, that's what they told us! It was fun, we were glad we did it!
Our hostel was great! We had an 8 person room! The first night it was just us and another couple from Australia, Liz and Ben. They were really nice. They said that the night before there was like 6 other people in the rooms- all boys, drinking and partying all night, so they were glad it was just us! The next night, three guys joined us. They were really nice. We met up with them in the bar one night and had drinks and hung out with them for a while! Last night we had a full room! Three more people joined, Liz and Ben had left. They got in at like 4am last night and were pretty noisy, but it was nothing too bad. This morning we woke up when those three boys did. They had gone to the bar crawl thru the hostel the night before and had lost one of their friends. Turns out the one friend had woken up on someones roof with no money or passport. Not good. He said that they were at their second bar and drinking at a normal pace when he just blacked out and couldn't remember anything. It sounded like he had been roofied! He did not look great at all this morning and looked like he had been punched in the face. Ekk. He was going to have to book a flight home and leave their trip early. They were only a week in on a 6 week trip, super lame :(. He said that all of his money for the trip was in his wallet too. So crazy. Hopefully the police will be able to help him! We were thinking about going on the pub crawl, but Liz and Ben had advised us against it! I'm glad they did! Sheesh!!
We checked out and walked thru Amsterdam to get on a train to hook of holland. It was interesting! We were trying to buy a ticket at the kiosk and it wouldn't take our card and then we went to the counter and the lady didn't even tell us where we needed to go and the ticket didn't have any of that information either. Somehow we found our way, made a transfer and made it to our destination with plenty of time to kill before our ferry out! We grabbed a bite to eat in the small town, a great burger and fries! Tasted as good as in-n-out!! Mmm!! Went to a cafe, had a couple of coffees, used their wifi. A couple of older men came in and made a remark about Tory's tottenham jersey saying "I didn't know I was going to have to watch the game with a tottenham fan" it was funny! He was really nice though! He was a Liverpool fan. The old men turned on a tv in the bar and just watched soccer. It was awesome. When we left we went to a cheese store :) Mmm. Bought some salami and cheese for dinner tonight! Then we went to the market and bought a bottle of wine for dinner too! It was only €2! I'm looking forward to the boat ride tonight!! Should be fun!!
Well, I guess that's it for now! Hope y'all are doing great!
Love and miss you all!
Jenn
i'm aliveee!
the next few posts are some e-mails i sent while i was in europe! enjoy!
helloooooo!
Right now we are leaving Paris on a train to Amsterdam! We had an amazing stay in Paris! I had no idea how fast I would fall in love with the Paris culture! Every morning we would go to a cafe and be the only Americans in the place, maybe even for the day! The apartment we stayed at was about an hours walk away from all of the tourist destinations, so that was nice! We would get a caffe and a croissant at all of the cafe's and that is all we would have for breakfast. I was shocked at how full I was after having just that! Tory would order in French each day and I would just say thank you and see you later! I got pretty good at it and will sorta miss speaking French! Needless to say, I think we will be coming back soon!
We knocked a lot of the touristy stuff out on our first day, went to Notre Dame, walked by the Louvre, walked up the Eiffel Tower, over to the Arc de Triumph! It was about a 12 hour day of walking around. We went to the Orsay museum yesterday, but were not able to make it to the Louvre, but that's fine! We heard it was super crowded and pretty much just the Mona Lisa, so that's fine! We met a wonderful American couple one day at a cafe and talked to them for about 3-4 hours! They were super nice and bought us a round of beers! We met up with Tory's friend Zach on Saturday! We had a blast with him, had a sit down meal. Tory had steak tartar, which is raw meat mixed with onions and raw egg. I tried some, it wasn't as bad as I expected although today is the first day that my stomach has felt okay. I ordered a hamburger well done and it looked like Tory's steak tartar on a bun!
Last night was the big election for the President! We had bought a baguette, cheese, and salami and were eating it at the apartment when we heard screams coming from the streets! It was crazy!! I think the more liberal president won! It was like when Obama won!
All in all we had an amazing time in Paris! We're looking forward to Amsterdam! Hopefully the weather will hold out for us! I'll try to send emails when we are en route to our next destination! I'm already having a great birthday! It will be hard to top it!
Love and miss you all!!
Jenn
helloooooo!
Right now we are leaving Paris on a train to Amsterdam! We had an amazing stay in Paris! I had no idea how fast I would fall in love with the Paris culture! Every morning we would go to a cafe and be the only Americans in the place, maybe even for the day! The apartment we stayed at was about an hours walk away from all of the tourist destinations, so that was nice! We would get a caffe and a croissant at all of the cafe's and that is all we would have for breakfast. I was shocked at how full I was after having just that! Tory would order in French each day and I would just say thank you and see you later! I got pretty good at it and will sorta miss speaking French! Needless to say, I think we will be coming back soon!
We knocked a lot of the touristy stuff out on our first day, went to Notre Dame, walked by the Louvre, walked up the Eiffel Tower, over to the Arc de Triumph! It was about a 12 hour day of walking around. We went to the Orsay museum yesterday, but were not able to make it to the Louvre, but that's fine! We heard it was super crowded and pretty much just the Mona Lisa, so that's fine! We met a wonderful American couple one day at a cafe and talked to them for about 3-4 hours! They were super nice and bought us a round of beers! We met up with Tory's friend Zach on Saturday! We had a blast with him, had a sit down meal. Tory had steak tartar, which is raw meat mixed with onions and raw egg. I tried some, it wasn't as bad as I expected although today is the first day that my stomach has felt okay. I ordered a hamburger well done and it looked like Tory's steak tartar on a bun!
Last night was the big election for the President! We had bought a baguette, cheese, and salami and were eating it at the apartment when we heard screams coming from the streets! It was crazy!! I think the more liberal president won! It was like when Obama won!
All in all we had an amazing time in Paris! We're looking forward to Amsterdam! Hopefully the weather will hold out for us! I'll try to send emails when we are en route to our next destination! I'm already having a great birthday! It will be hard to top it!
Love and miss you all!!
Jenn
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
i'm getting bad at this!
hi all!
sorry that it's taken so long for me to update! umm, let see... what has been going on?!
a couple of weeks ago there were a couple of shoots for work so i was out of the office for about a whole week! it was so awesome! they went really well and it's always nice to be on set! i was pretty wiped out from the shoot that week, but i helped tory out on his shoot that saturday! mannn. i was tired on sunday! last weekend i helped joel out on a shoot, that was a lot of fun! i love being on shoots!
my car is due for a DMV renewal and in the state of california you have to get your car smog tested every year. such a pain! this year they put that i had to get my car smog tested at a "special" station, there were only 3 in Berkeley that i could go to. i went last weekend to get this done. not only did my car fail the smog test (boo!) it cost a wopping $90 (my last one was $30)! wooooof. he said that i needed to go get it fixed and then come back. everything is always closed on the weekends so i was starting to stress about taking off work, etc. tory offered (cue superman theme) to bring my car to the shop and got it fixed for me! wahoooooo! so... about $300 later, blehk. hopefully when i take my car back to the smog test station this weekend it will pass and i won't have to do anymore work on my car! it already sounds way better than before, so i really really really really reallllllllllly hope that it passes. sheesh. what a pain in the butt. where does this money GO?!?
i gave my boss 2 months notice last week that i would be leaving my job in order to go to europe, want to begin freelancing, etc. it went... interesting... i don't know. haha. she said something about not knowing if they would be able to keep me on until then, so i panicked and told her that maybe i could do this part time when i got back. who knows? i don't think they will want me to do this part time. i think they will want someone full time, but who knows. all i know is i'm ready to start freelancing PA or just freelancing in general. i know for a fact that i've out grown out this job. i'm ready for a change and i'm tired of being in admin asst. roles, doing data entry all day. i just don't feel fulfilled/happy and i'm willing to try the freelance thing to see if it works out. hopefully, it will! i'll keep y'all updated. my boss was happy about the europe trip though, so that was good! we'll see what happens!
this past weekend was great! tory and i had our 4 year anniversary!!! can you believe it!?! me neither! so, on friday night we went out to dinner at Anchalee. this really good thai place within walking distance! after that we just hung out at the house and watched tv. it was really nice!! saturday was a friends housewarming party, so we went to that! that was a lot of fun! then on sunday, we had an oscar party and that was a whole lot of fun too!! it was a great weekend. yesterday morning, i wasn't feeling so hot though. i threw up a couple times in the morning and i was like bahhhhhhhh, so i had to call into work. i don't know if it was something i ate or what! it was also nice to have an extra day! i think this weekend, we're just going to try to save some moola for europe. so that will be nice to have a nice and relaxing weekend after having such a busy one last weekend! i'm looking forward to it!
well, i guess that's about it for now! i'll try to update sooner than this next time!! sorry about that!! hope everything with y'all is great!!!!
love and miss you all,
jenn
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