Amy's Travels

Peruvian police, oh my!

2010-07-09T10:04:00.002-04:00

I'm aloooone in Lima. People in my room were loud this morning so I got up waaaaay early even though I don't have anything to do, haha. I think I might go to the mall Nicki suggested and see the pacific ocean for the first time! Then I'll go to the aeroporto. The guy at the front desk keeps calling me Amy winehouse, lol. I am updating this on my iPod. Enjoy my typos. I like peruvian food. I like cusco better than Lima. I wanna go to the jungle. We deeeefinitely didn't have enough time. :( I wanna go back to to the sacred valley. I love the skirts the traditional women wear here and I want one. Idk what it says about me when I kept admiring the old ladies' outfits. And I'm being serious! I looooove their skirts. I would like to ride in a crammed bus with random Peruvian men again. In the light. So I can see the Andes. The stars were goooorgeous, though. Nicki compared them to powdered sugar. I wanted to get off the bus and just lay in a field somewhere.

K. This is too annoying to update on an iPod. I think I wanna learn spanish. My pronunciation is a lot better in Spanish than deutsch... I wanna go back to deutschland, though. I miss Oma and opa and nomborn. I'm afraid to talk German to any Germans 'cause my pronunciation is so bad. Heh.

Buenos Dias!

MOSQUITOS. BOTFLIES.

2010-07-08T00:08:00.001-04:00

Some mosquito bit meeee. And apparently Peruvian mosquitos are vicious and their bites are like bleeding pinpricks. So now I´m all worried I got a botfly ´cause Nicki informs me botflies don´t bite; they spread their larvae on mosquitos who then transmit them to people.

OH OK. NICE.

Nicki wants a pet botfly.

Hi. Here are some llamas and stuff.

2010-07-07T15:39:00.010-04:00

LLAMA BUTT.

DO YOU LIKE MY SOCKS WITH MY BIRKENSTOCKS? HEE HEE. so we barely slept last night (like...1.5 hours; thanks, train ride) but still decided to try huayna picchu. and it was scary and stuff. except we found out we did the wussy one? i don't know. allll i know is it involved climbing a little wall with a rope...then coming back down. so i slid. on my butt. down the side. and almost died a few times and stuff.

nicki apparently is a pro-hiker. I AM NOT. scaling huayna picchu was enough for meeee.

i want a pet llama, bitte.

ayyyyy, mama! quo pasooooo? there was a group of traveling hippies on the bus yesterdaaay. they sang a song. me and nicki wanted to adopt one and give him a bath. he had pretty eyes but terrrrrible hair and looked like he hadn't bathed in a week but AHAHAHA, they were cool. i want to beeeee them!

there was also a man who was singing random songs about dawn sitting right up on me in the back of the bus. he asked me my name; i said "amy"; he apparently said "amy" meant i belonged to him in spanish; nicki translated, so my only appropriate response was SOY LIBREEEEE which nicki had taught me moments before. but dude kept grabbing my arm. i mean, he was nice. but. um. hi, personal space? you have lots of room over theeeere. dude, this bus was amazing, though. me and nicki were in the back row and the seats weren't latched down so every time we hit a bump (which was constant) we'd wobble and bump and almost fly out.

hahahahaha, awwwwwwesome.

p.s. nicki tells me "amy" translated to HIM as "a" and "mi." and "a" is possessive. so. apparently my parents gave me a name that means i am owned by peruvian men.

Hi. I have slept.

2010-07-06T11:08:00.003-04:00

I am drinking milky instant coffee, which reminds me of a book I won't name, but I always thought it sounded nasty but it's kinda good. Also, drinkiing coca tea 'cause my head's a bit woooozy. I think I'm giving myself imaginary altitude sickness, haha. I woke up this morning and was like, "I CAN'T BREATHE." I could breathe, but sometimes I catch my breath a little. Should be interesting hiking...

Also, my Birkenstocks are AMAZING. Nicki and I were walking around Cusco with our completely sleep deprived bodies and every part of my body BUT my feet was compaining, and Nicki said her shoes were bothering her feet. Her sneakers. THAT'S RIGHT, MY LOVELY BIRKENSTOCKS. I love you.

Man, I think I'm gonna take pics of this hostel 'cause it's amazing. The German/French guy next to me is talking about baby alpacas. Can I take baby alpaca home with me?

I just realized I mentioned dogs in the blog yesterday, but not why. There are sooo many stray dogs here. Everywhere. Poor perros.

Oh man. Apparently you kill the baby alpaca to make baby alpaca haired sweaters? NOT BUYING ONE. No sirree.

Anyway, as soon as we got here there was a huge billboard for a Big Mac welcoming us. Oh. OK.

K, we're leaving soon. I just have to finish drinking my milky coffee and coca tea.

P.S. Twitter sucks. I keep trying to get it to load and it won't. Where am I supposed to put my instant updates?! Shame, shame.

P.P.S. Nicki was telling me about these guys who were in Bolivia and how apparently they have Bolivian women fighting in Bolivia? They fight in their hoop skirts? For entertainment? Um.

P.P.P.S. PERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRO.

BEST FOOD EVER

2010-07-05T22:00:00.002-04:00

I don't even know. Me and Nicki have been eating allll day since we haven't had any sleep and we just ate at this rinky dinky little place and it was sooooo good. Yummmm.

I do not like dead pigs. Or stray dogs.

2010-07-05T18:34:00.003-04:00

I do not like to see pig heads as I am picking out llama themed sweaters for my nephews. But it's OK. I guess.

I haven't slept since...Saturday from 12-3:45 a.m. Sunday morning. I've dozed with my head squeezed onto the tray table on the plane 'cause the lady in front of me moved her seat back and I caaaan't sleep with my head lolling back; I don't see how people do that. Actually, the flight attendant smashed my head with the food tray and laughed. I was really confused about what was funny. Maybe my face. Oh well. I was too tired to care, and that was about 6 p.m. Sunday on my 4th flight.

Now, I've been on flight number 5, I'm in thin air at 11,000 feet, and I've managed to doze for about 3 different 15-minute intervals on various pillows scattered throughout the hostel. Nicki slept a whole HOUR. So jealous!

But I plan to sleep tonight. I'm pretty excited. Oh sleep! We're actually going to Pisac tomorrow because that's when the market is and ahhh! I loooove markets! I also love coca tea. Coca tea is tea made with leaves that make cocaine. Butttt it's no cocaine. I don't get it. All I know is they make you drink it to help with altitude sickness and it tastes like mild green tea.

OK, I am posting random pics now.

Can I talk about how nice the hostel is? It's super nice. Fluffy beds!

Newark rocks.

2010-07-04T12:30:00.005-04:00

I am in Newark, New Jersey. FOR SRS. THIS IS SO COOL.

Actually. Newark and I had a falling out last December when it kept putting me on standby and I spent allll day in the airport. And I don't like its bathrooms.

But here is a pic of my Coke since I am bored.

And why does Dad have his netbook IE resolution at 105%? Getting old, Daddio?

And I loooove my Birkenstocks.

Off to Peruuu

2010-07-04T06:34:00.002-04:00

So I am sitting at the airport, waiting to begin a looong day of plane rides. Well. Not really "waiting to begin," since I've been up since 3:45, so I guess it began 2 hours and 50 minutes ago. But waiting to start flying. I figured this was a good time to start my Peru blog. This trip won't be as long as my Euro Trip 2008, but it should be pretty spectacular...once I get out of the country, anyway...

I should be in Lima by 11:15 tonight. I'll meet Nicki at the airport and hope her Spanish saves me...though I do know enough to be polite! Buenos dias! Gracias! Como estas? Dondes esta! Amazing, for sure.

Then tomorrow morning we catch a 5:50 a.m. flight to Cusco, then we'll take a bus to the Sacred Valley and check out Pisac and Ollytaytambo (I probably spelled that wrong...I am too lazy to Google), then spend the night in Agua Calientes, then off to Machu Picchu! Here's hoping my body can handle the Andes and I don't get altitude sick. Speaking of, I should check out altitude sickness prevention. Should be interesting.

Anyway. That is all for now. I would like to thank my father for letting me borrow his netbook so I don't have to type all this on my iPod. Rock on, Dad! And Mom for making me coffee this a.m. since I am running on 3 hours of sleep. Wooooo!

Also, I am curious about my logic when I booked a window seat to Miami, then an aisle seat to Lima. Ummm...wha? I guess 'cause I figured it'd be dark on the way to Lima? Which is not really true...since I leave Miami at 6:45. Amyfail.

Au revoir!

Peru!

2010-04-30T10:22:00.001-04:00

Am going to Peru with my friend Nicki in July. STAY TUNED.

GREECE?

2009-01-06T10:05:00.000-05:00

so my parents are going to germany this may, and are planning to take a sidetrip the second week they are there. i am working on tagging along, since it's so hard to find travel partners, and this might mean i can bum some food off them!

also, i still have 20 euros to spend, so i am obviously set!

Back to basics.

2008-07-30T09:46:00.002-04:00

So we're back in Germany. And since I'm moving to Indiana nearly as soon as I get back, I figured I'd get a jumpstart on uploading my pictures. So I've sorta been wasting the day away, chillin' in front of the computer and waiting for a chunk of my many, many pictures to load on Facebook. Urgh. It took me about an hour just to go through the pictures and choose ones to upload. I don't even want to think about how long it'll take to caption them....

More substantial update later, when my brain (maybe) works.

Oh oh oh.

2008-07-30T04:58:00.000-04:00

Mama...just killed a man. Put a gun onto his head, pulled the trigger now he's deeeead.

2008-07-28T16:01:00.002-04:00

Hello, I am in Bohemia. How are you?

When Brittany and I finally discovered why all the crystal shops here in Prague are called "Bohemian Crystals," we decided that, of course, the song we'd sing while frolicking through the cobblestoned streets that costantly trip me up would be "Bohemia Rhapsody." That is, of course, until we heard "Heaven" in one of those Bohemian Crystal shops and just couldn't stop singing, "Ohhh thinkin' about our younger years..."

Don't tell my mom, but I bought Absinth. Yes! They sell it here. I won't drink it,but I had to buy it. And when I say I won't drink it, I think I mean it -- it smells, um, acidic? Anyway, when we were in the shop (looking for a Coke, of course), the crazy shop owner recommended some absinth types to me. He told me the one I eventually bought was good, but he also told me about the special "VIP" absinth...which said, on the bottle, "For experts only."

Um, wow. They were selling this stuff in addition to vodka with cannabis seeds in the bottom. And absinth with a beetle carcass in the bottom. WHAT IS THIS, AMSTERDAM REVISITED?

Except Amsterdam is not this cool, sex T-shirts and dice notwithstanding. Amsterdam did not have the amazing, beat-up-and-conquer-all-the-other-churches-in-Europe Tyn Church. Oh wow! It's glorious! Glorious! and then the astronomical clock is friggin sweet and oh, the buildings here, they are all so wonderful that I've only taken like 20 pictures because I'm almost used to how amazing everything looks now, if that makes sense, which it doesn't, to anyone but me.

Let's backtrack, as I do, and say that we visited Slovakia yesterday morning. We left Budapest at 5:30 a.m., got to Bratislava at 8:30, walked around the town square following Rick Steves' self-guided tour, had an early, early lunch of mozerella and tomato with pesto panini while chatting it up with a nice, hung-over British man (Bratislava is becoming the new Prague as far as British stag parties go, he says), then off we went to a crowded, crowded train headed for Prague. So crowded, in fact, that we had no seats for 3 of the 4 hours of our ride.Mmm, clean train floor (sure).

Four hours in Bratislava seemed just about right.

We have two days here in Prague. We walked around a lot today, and looked at crystal, which I keep calling silver, like Brittany keeps pronouncing "ee" as "eh." Don't ask; just agree that I win this round.

I have eaten so, so, so much here in the Czech Republic. Oh goodness! For dinner last night I had this marvelous pork roast and sauerkraut with roasted potatoes concoction then a bagel sandwich for lunch today and then, for dinner today, Indian food! Yes. All Rick Steves recommended. All delicious.

Um, I think that is all I have to say right now. I don't feel like typing anymore.

Köszönöm.

2008-07-26T14:40:00.004-04:00

I speak Hungarian. Kur-sur-nurm. Thank you.

I must say, the people here in Hungary have been so nice and welcoming, for the most part. There were tourist information people walking the train and handing out maps and asking if anyone had any questions; every time I've attempted a Hungarian thank you (Köszönöm), people have smiled and nodded, all encouraging (as opposed to when I said "Hvla" in Slovenia); an old man came up to us asking for directions to the market and I looked through Rick Steves, trying to help him, and he asks where I'm from, and I say "America" and the old man with him starts singing "America the Beautiful" and the other man goes, "Tila Tequila!" and my eyes sorta bug out and I say, "Um, yes?" and he says, "My nephew was on her show, he came in four" and he holds up for fingers and I -- I am just in awe that I say I'm from America and the first thought someone has is "Tila Tequila!" and I also sorta want his autograph and to hug him, because, um, how cool is that, eh (I am faking being Canadian, on and off, a bit, since I have a Canadian moose and, eh, why not, eh?); and on the bus today, on the way to Statue Park, an old man pressed the stop request button, turned around, looked right at me, said "Statue Park" and pointed -- I was so baffled, I thought maybe he was talking to someone behind me, so I just stared, but then he repeated it, smiling, and another person looked at me and nodded, and then a lady in front of me goes, "Yes, here" and we totally didn't miss our stop and would have had no idea we were supposed to get off otherwise -- so, so nice.

Budapest is not all amazing, though, folks. I have some very, very unfortunate news to post. I have encountered my first thievery -- someone stole my pineapple juice. I am oh so sad, sad.

Also, I want to say, before I forget again, that I love Rick Steves. We didn't have a Rick Steves book with us for the first 2-3 weeks of the trip, since we only brought out Eastern Europe version with us. But now we've had him at our fingertips for Ljubljana, Plitvice, and Budapest, and oh! Oh, the comfort I feel, knowing he is there to guide me. He tells us where to eat and what to do and he has great maps and helpful information on where internet cafes are and how to use Hungarian baths (which we didn't do, but whatever), and yes, yes, Rick Steves -- he is amazing.

OK, so now I am posting the pictures I have posted on Facebook, since my mother has requested photos. I will include some amazing stories here, exclusively here, so um, enjoy.

Spanish water was very cheap. This was amazing.

For some odd reason, I decided to try to scale walls on Krk. This was pre-Croatia hat, as I am still wearing my amazing, and now sorta retired, Brussels hat.

It was windy on Krk, Tuesday morning. Kinda chilly, since it was morning. But I still wore my capris and tank top, expecting Plitvice to be warm and sunny. I was very, very wrong. The farther we inched up the mountains, the windier and colder and colder it got and oh, oh, I was so cold in this picture! So cold and old-lady-like.

Plitvice Park. Gorgeous! Fun pictures, from above. I had wised up by then and put on my coat and my new, amazing Croatia hat. Jealous much?

This is Rijeka, as we waited on our train back to Ljubljana. I found this amazing hat thingie in a department store. I am a huge Croatian football fan, obviously. Check out that maniacal expression.

This is our sobe on Krk. This is Brittany's amazing Croatia hat, too. For some reason the only pictures I have where she's smiling are ones where she has on a hat.

This is the cold, cold scenery we passed on the way to Plitvice. Oh, so cold! Windy! Apparently Croatia gets very, very windy. Our driver said that they often have to close roads because it gets dangerously windy. This was a surprise to me, because, um, it was already dangerously windy, this day, wasn't it? I mean, check out those waves, holy cow, eh. Also, I will paste this from my Facebook caption (sorry, guys, not all original content here, eh):

According to our bus driver (more van driver), God made Croatia last and just sorta rubbed the crumbs off his hands and splat, there's Croatia, all rocky and scattered -- and surreal and beautiful and windy, windy, windy!

OK, hello.

We're goin' to Slovakia.

2008-07-25T16:33:00.001-04:00

Yeah! And I'm spending all my money in Hungary. Sorry, Mom, but apparently I have an obsession with wood carvings.

Passport stamps, passport stamps.

2008-07-24T15:27:00.002-04:00

I am monopolizing the computer at my Budapest hostel, waiting for my photos to load from my camera memory card to my new jumpdrive (I had to buy another one in Croatia; 4 GB was not enough). It...is...slow. But there are two computers and no one is using the other, so I guess I'll wait it out until someone needs both. And since I am waiting, and slightly bored, I'll update this thingie.

Brittany and I discovered we had an extra day because we did this bus tour to Plitvice Park in Croatia. This meant instead of spending a whole day traveling to Plitvice and then spending the night there, we took a bus from Krk, spent 3 hours at the park, and came back that night. So since we had an extra rail day and an extra travel day, we went back to Ljubljana. We just love it?

This didn't make our connecting train to Budapest any better, though; it was still at 2 am, and we still couldn't reserve a couchette (they fill up so dang fast, man), so we were still crammed into a crowded train for 8 hours and got a blinking-in-and-out-of-iPod-songs-and-passport-checks night's sleep.

Croatia is not part of the open borders agreement, which means that, YES, YES, THEY STAMP YOUR PASSPORT. Yes! Yes! So now we have...4 Croatia passport stamps, 2 Slovenia ones, and a Hungarian one! Not including my new Morocco, Spain, and Italy ones. I am so happy. These British girls sitting next to us were so jealous when we got passport stamps from Slovenia and they didn't, since they're part of the EU. Yeah!

I'm going to backtrack now, as I tend to do, and say that we definitely got to see a ton of Croatia. Not only did we end up off the "beaten path" by staying at an oh-so-small town on Krk, an island no one in the US has even heard of, but by doing that bus tour, we pretty much drove across the whole country. There are no signs of war in Krk or Rijeka, but once you swirl over the mountains (at lightning fast speed with crazy curves and gusts of wind; yes, Mom, you would have loooved it), you see bombed out buildings and bullet holes and yes, those fields all guide books tell you not to frolic through lest you hit a landmine.

Despite that, Croatia is gorgeous. Such surreal scenery. Plitvice is like something off a green screen or something; it's impossible to believe that this park is ALL natural. I'll post pictures later.

Brittany and I really wanted to hit up Bosnia since Plitvice is only 5 kilometers or so from the border, but it just wasn't feasible. I think we're going to take a sidetrip to Bratislava when we head to Prague, though, if we can afford it. Yes!

OK, my typing is loud and people are trying to watch a movie so ssssshhhh bye.

"It's gotta suck to end up in Punat when you meant to be in Baška..."

2008-07-21T11:09:00.003-04:00

Sadly, we are not the only two Americans on Krk. Drat! We just met two, but one has family here, so maybe that doesn't count. At any rate, apparently Baška is a lot nicer than where we are now, but whatev.

We did some, um, redecorating of the itinerary. Turns out we can get a tour bus to Plitvice from here and back in the same day for $75, including the park tickets, and that seems like a much better plan since otherwise we'd have to take like 50 buses and go from the town we were staying in near Plitvice to Plitvice and then somehow from there to Zagreb to Budapest. Too much! So instead we're staying here another night and going to Plitvice tomorrow. I'm excited.

This also means we have an extra day but we don't know what to do with it. I really want to go to Bosnia since it's right next to Plitvice, but we haven't come up with a plan for that yet. It takes about 10 hours to get to Mostar and that's too much. So we thought hey, let's hike there from Plitvice and get passport stamps from the border guards, right? Except then we remembered: Landmines! Dangit.

And, of course, today was our beach day, but it's cloudy and mega-wind. But if my Birkenstock tan is any indication, I've already gotten a lot of sun.

Yesterday was nice and sunny, though, and we did swim in the Adriatic. Yes, I swam in the Adriatic. Get jealous. It's crystal clear and beautiful. However, we ended up in the German swimming section first and it was all cementy and man-made, with steps, and I took a step down the steps and suddenly I was on my butt with a stubbed pinky toe. The steps were covered in algae and slippery and my poor toe is now a bright red and sore blob of fat. Poor toe.

I also have this mysterious and massive bruise on my shin. It felt sore to touch the past few days, but it's one of those sneaky bruises that don't color for days. And now that it's coloring, it's quite...large. And sore. OHH, poor Amy.

The soles of my feetsies are also discolored. They're kinda Birkenstock-toned now. Yummy!

I never listed my Moroccan swag, or talked about Cinque Terre, or talked about Ljubljana. So here comes the abridged version:

Moroccan Swag

1. Leather ballet flats
2. Leather Moroccan shoes
3. Shot glass
4. Gift for Mom
5. Another gift for Mom
6. Bracelet
7. Necklace
8. Random fabric

All haggled with love. Or exhaustion.

Cinque Terre

That hike. I don't think anything I've read really describes it as a hard hike, so I feel pretty wussy saying so, but that was a hard hike! We'd meant to start in Monterosso, which meant we had to take the train from Vernazza to Monterosso and go from there, but the train was uber late, so instead we started in Vernazza to Corniglia to Manarola to Riomaggiore, then we'd take the train from there back to Monterosso and hike from there to Vernazza. I knew one of the hikes was supposed to be the hardest, but I couldn't remember which. I thought it was either Manarola to Riomaggiore or Monterosso to Vernazza.

Well. There are two hard ones. From Vernazza to Corniglia was 4km of lots of stairs, but fairly wide and had nice fences and no crazy steep drop-offs. Birkenstocks = a-OK. From Monterosso to Vernazza, however, are 5 inch trails with very steep drops and tons and tons of "stairs," if that's what you want to call them. Well, OK, M-V did have lots of real stairs (I took lots of pics), but V-C had lots of fake, rock slabs-for-stairs. At any rate, it was sheer luck we started and ended with the hardest two. We just win.

The hike, though, challenging as I found it, was SPECTACULAR. I LOVED M-V. It twisted and turned into random, tiny woody areas with streams and only one person could fit through at a time so we'd have to squeeze against the walls so people could pass us ("Grazie") and not fall off a sheer cliff to the rocky, beautiful Mediterranean. Oh, Cinque Terre.

Ljubljana

Started out eh. Then turned bleh. Then turned YEAH. The turned LOOOVE. It was rainy and chilly and we'd just finished a 20 hour train ride on a cramped, humid overnight train in tiny, tiny seats with my head bent at strange angles as I dipped in and out of 20-minute sleep sessions and we couldn't find our hostel and my bag weighed, like, 50 pounds? But eventually, our hostel people picked us up and the sky cleared and ohhh, Ljubljana! Such a nice atmosphere! Such good food. Yum, yum and so happy, such nice people. Plus, we went to the Škocjan caves the next day, with its huge bridge crossing a rushing river and it was all Harry Potter esque and "I am not worried, Harry, I am with you" emotional. Then we feasted on the greatest meal ever at the Škocjan restaurant: tomato salad (JUST TOMATOES OMG) and fries (little potato wedges) and a cold Coke. Oh golly! So swell.

And now we are in Croatia and kinda bored since it's too chilly to swim.

Dober dan, hvla, raćon, molim.

2008-07-20T17:23:00.002-04:00

That, my friends, sums up my knowledge of Slovene and Croatian -- which is, of course, more than I knew before yesterday. I get strange looks every time I try to say thank you Croatian-style -- hvla. I have horrible pronunciation.

We came to the island of Krk in northern Croatia with no place to stay and ended up in the wrong city here. Ooops. We had headed for Baška, but ended up...somewhere not Baška. But we're staying in the upstairs of this old lady's house and today we ate Croatian Mexican food for dinner, so all is well.

Morocco on speed

2008-07-19T17:12:00.003-04:00

This is for you, Lisa.

2008-07-19T17:01:00.000-04:00

Partly cloudy with a 30% chance of life

2008-07-16T15:27:00.002-04:00

Oh, Cinque Terre. I love you. Let me count the ways:

Your pesto. It is so grand and greasy. I love all forms of your pesto, from your soggy pizza pesto to your fat little noodles called treffie and pesto.

Your 9 kilometer hike, with 5 inch wide trails and stairs that never end, but oh, oh, the mosquitos and view! Oh.

Your gelato. Oh so creamy and ohhh.

Your language. MONNNNTERRRROOOOSSA. OH. I love to write your language out to men at th train station since, to speak it, I shout intelligibly. Oh! But I can write. I can write it, and you, you, Cinque Terre, and your people, will understand.

Your bright, colorful houses.

Your clotheslines.

Your rooms with steep, steep stairs and nice comfy beds and fans! Oh!

You people,restaurant owners and shopkeepers alike, who do not haggle tourists! And if I need direction, I can ask, no charge!

OHHH Cinque Terre, I love you. I do, I do, I do.

You Shall Know Our Velocity!

2008-07-16T10:22:00.003-04:00

I'm alive. Just barely. I had to check my baggage to fly to Morocco -- it weighed too much. Who knew my clothes and random junk weighed 35 pounds? And who knew I could carry that much while getting lost in Amsterdam and Brussels and Barcelona and Paris and Marrakech, as we are wont to do?

Our RyanAir flight was held up an hour because the crew had miscounted tickets or something and insisted on counting seats about 50 times. Then we had to go through Moroccan customs, which also took forever. So we got in Place Djema El Fna right at its most happenin' hour -- 9:30. Oh, the mopeds and people and foods and scary men asking if we were lost. We could not find our hostel, but we refused to ask for help because anyone who asks if you're lost will charge you. I will paste my immediate reaction to our first night in Morocco, as told to Seth:

"Our flight to Marrakech got held up for like an hour 'cause RyanAir had too many people on board and then when we got here the passport checking line was sooo long so by the time we got out, it was after 9:30 and totally dark and we got so lost and so accosted by men and boys asking if we needed help finding a place, except you're never supposed to say yes because they charge you and omg, there were people everywhere and we stood out like sore thumbs 'cause I had 35 pounds on my back and a little suitcase on my front and we kept walking and walking and couldn't find our hostel and kept going deeper and deeper into the square and saw an Internet cafe and were like 'LET'S GOOGLE IT' but then Brittany used her amazing French and asked the Internet cafe owner for directions and omg he was soooo sweet and enlisted this nice guy to show us where our hostel was and it was, like, in this dark abandoned alley that we had tried to go down earlier, but a man told us the street had been closed, so we'd turned around, but we'd been right! So the nice guy asks some little boys if they know where the place is and he leads us down this dark and winding alleyway that looks like a Star Wars scene, for real, when the Tuscan raiders are about to attack and omg we don't have Obi Wan, just this strange guy who speaks OK English and French and I'm thinking, he's going to kidnap us, my mom was right, but then our hostel is right there and barely labeled and we were safe. And it's a good thing, too, 'cause you can't use GoogleMaps here. Or YouTube. Or LJ. Or blogger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Morocco"

Some of these facts later proved to be wrong, because I could use YouTube the next day, and my Gmail finally worked again, too.

Our hostel was pretty sweet, though. I don't know if I remembered to take pictures because I was so dang terrified, but if I do find some, I will post.

The next day, we trekked back across the square and it was empty and not scary, except for a random moped here and there. We went to Jardin Majorelle, which, let me say, is just a photoshoot waiting to happen. I went a bit crazy with the picture taking, which, again, I will put online eventually. We met this nice British couple in the gardens and I told them about my fear of souks and bargaining and asked if they knew anywhere else I could shop with a set price, but they talked me into souking (aka haggling).

Haggling. Oh my goodness. Moroccan haggling is NOT made for two American girls. These guys were not taking us seriously. I took every price they said and chopped it in half and wouldn't budge but most were just not biting. Brittany had a pretty scary encounter with one souk owner who was, um, all over her?

I shall sum Morocco up in a list form until I can gather my thoughts enough for a story:

- Morocco is hot. Surprising, yes?
- It's also green. From the air, it looks a lot like the Midwest -- patchwork, with green and red.
- Moroccan food is scary. Therefore, we only ate one meal while we were there -- breakfast, and I took lots of pictures of it. It was delicious and lasted us until about 2 p.m. when we became famished but could not eat. These two British girls in our room were curled up with some sort of stomach illness and everyone, including the nice British couple, told us not to eat anything. So we didn't. We ate Nutella and drank bottled water. It was delicious and soon the stomach pangs were tolerable. We ate a bag of chips at the airport the next day -- German chips, sealed. They were amazing.
- A lot of Moroccan men are scary. Especially those with bad teeth. Who rub on you. Ad make you cringe. Ew. Go away.
- Do not, do not, do NOT accept directional help from anyone in Morocco. They will charge you.
- If you take pictures with monkeys, be sure to shower a lot. Also, if you take pictures with snake charmers, expect to be charged a lot.
- The stray cats are very, very skinny.
- The mopeds are very, very scary.
- Your feet will get very, very dirty. Be ready to chop them off if you wear sandles.

Right now we're in Cinque Terre, land of pesto and clear water and HEAVEN. Seriously. Heaven.

Today, We Leave for Morocco

2008-07-13T04:04:00.001-04:00

And in order to make sure my bag is small enough, I threw away my toiletry kit and am wearing 4 shirts (soon to be 6, if you count my cardigan and jacket) and my sleepshorts underneath my longpants. I now only have on very hefty bag and one very padded belly.

Bring it, RyanAir! I can totally put on more clothes and load my pockets with keychains.

Hola! Gracias! Point.

2008-07-11T15:57:00.006-04:00

We got to Barcelona after a long, long train day yesterday. Left our Paris hostel at 7 a.m., hopped on a train at 8:10, got off at Toulouse, then Narbonne, then Cerbere, then Port Bou, when we then discovered we were in Spain and also discovered that, um, neither one of us knows Spanish. So we tried out our Holas and numbers and "Buenos Dias, Louisa." Except I keep saying "Ja" whenever someone asks me a question. Oops.

Southern France is glorious. Oh! Our train went right over the ocean. I swear it looked like we were sinking in and ohhh, the views! It was this tiny regional train with open windows and no air and I just kept bobbing in and out of windows taking pictures. This nice French couple seemed very amused by me, as far as I could understand, as I don't know French beyond "Hello, my name is Amy. How are you? I am fine, thank you." By the way, I could not have gotten by in France on that. Shocking, I know. But my "Merci" is horrendous as is and I froze up every time someone said anything to me and always, always, ALWAYS wanted to respond in German. Good thing Brittany knew enough to get us by.

Barcelona is amazing. We walked a lot today (shocking, I know) and saw all the Goudi architecture, which was nice, but my favorite part of the trip so far has definitely been Park GÜELL (sorry for the caps, I copy and paste and am lazy). Despite climbing up a neverending and most certainly 45 degree incline of a hill, we saw the most amazing view of Barcelona ever and walked around and around and oh, I love outside!

Our hostel is nice, but hot. There are two computers with free Internet access and I am currently monopolizing one. Ooh la la, I am evil. We got in at about 10:30 last night and had to be let in by these two backpackers who were also staying at the hostel who definitely did not work for the hostel but had been left at the desk with our keys anyway because the desk closes at 10. Hmm, OK. They told us all about their trip, since they'd been at it since June 5 or so and had already been to Morocco and Russia and been denied water and instead supplied vodka and had slept on park benches and crashed on bartenders' couches. It made me what to be a boy. Girls just can't pull that off -- at least, not girls like me who need everything planned and listed out in a barely legible fashion.

It was 11 by the time we were done chatting it up and, I forgot to mention, Brittany and I had sorta not eaten a meal all day because of our crazy train schedule. We left before breakfast was even served at the hostel, munched on some chocolate French pastry we'd bought the night before around 10, then I survived off Nutella, stale baugette, Belgian chocolates (OMG SO GOOD), and Coke. Mmm, to my health. So we trekked out in our barely-adventurous way two blocks from our hostel and plopped ourselves down in some restaurant that was a) open at 11 and b) looked safe because it had an at sign in its name. What? We knew what chicken was in Spanish, so we ordered something with "pollo" in it and...it was fantastic. Thin, thin chicken and a fried egg (sunny side up, which normally freaks me out but I ate it anyway) and fries and some strange salad and OH, all these things combined for this really wonderful, salty, cacophony of flavors. Yes, I did just use the word "cacophony" and I know you enjoyed it. We went to bed happy and bloated and sleep until 9. 9! What is that ungodly late hour?

We started out today with this deliciously warm bagette and the day stayed about like that -- nice. We stopped by a grocery store on our morning trek and bought these 1.5 liter bottles of water for, get this -- 28 cents. WHAT. WHAT. Gosh, I love Spain. No strange pickpocket attempts, air conditioned metro, holas and graciases, Goudi buildings, two computers no one seems to want to use in the lounge...

I'll jump off the Spain fangirl bus for a second, though, to state that we did, however, go to a lame-o restaurant. The menu outside definitely seemed cheaper than inside and the paella was only OK and my Coke cost 4,50 euros. We also ate at McDonald's for lunch. I am so ashamed. It was just right there and we were oh so hungry and... I am a lame, lame American.

Basically, Barcelona is greater than Amsterdam by about 1,000,000,000,000 percent. Brittany wants me to add more zeroes to that digit, but, frankly, I'm not even sure what that digit even is anymore...a trazillion? If it's not in Bill Gates' bank account, it's too high, especially since Anne Frank's Huis wasn't so bad.

It's Friday. I'm not really sure how. And I'm going to have to condense my luggage quite a bit to board the plane to Morocco on Sunday. Brittany and I plan to wear most, if not all, of our clothes (as in, I will wears my sleep shorts under my shorts under my pants under my two skirts with however many tanktops I can fit on under my jacket. I'll also probably toss my toiletry kit, if necessary. I will not, however, toss my shot glasses and cool Barcelona Goudi mug. I'll toss Seth's keychains before that. Oh snap!

2008-07-10T18:52:00.002-04:00

Forgot to mention that people tried scam us yesterday. We caught them because of Rick Steves. We basically win.

To expand upon last night's entry, in the back of all Rick Steves books he has this thing called a "grafiti wall" where people post helpful hints. He has a list of common scams, too.

Wednesday, we were walking around Paris and this lady picks something up in front of us and gives us a confused look. We realize at the exact same moment it's a ring and we also realize simultaneously that this is the "ring scam." Neither one of us remembers the exact details a ring scam entails, but we know it somehow ends up with us either paying for the ring or getting pickpocketed while we're distracted. So we sped on by. A few minutes later, a man tries the same thing. Then, when we were at Sacre Coeur, there men were standing on the steps with beads that they'd slip around tourists' arms and then charge them for when they came back down the steps. One man was coming up to me and Brittany goes, "AMY, WATCH OUT" and I was so startled and the man was to confused that we slipped away easily.

Amelie must've been in some shape

2008-07-09T15:03:00.005-04:00

Paris is sunny, which is nice; but also bad, because we were expecting rain and are now sunburnt. Also, since our trip here in Paris was chopped in half due to seat reservation difficulties, we decided to squeeze all our sightseeing into one day and are now very, very, very sore.

Paris is really pretty, though.

Quick run-through:

Amsterdam was cold and rainy. We got lost on the way to the hostel, and I apparently brought too much because with my toiletry kit on top of everything I had already packed, my bag weighs way, way too much to be trekking around a city for an hour with it on my back. My shoulders were very sore; this isn't saying much as I have pretty weak shoulders, but my bag does weigh quite a bit.#

We waited in line outside Anne Frank's Huis for about 45 minutes; we saw a bike wreck. Some American girls opened a taxi door without looking and a bike collided with the door and smashed out one of the windows. A culture clash ensued -- the American girls, of course, insisted the biker should have stopped, while all the Dutch insisted the girl should have looked. We don't know how it was resolved, but we did see the girls in Anne Frank's Huis later, so obviously something got worked out.

The museum was very somber, as would be expected. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I'd been more awake. I liked the set up, but I wish they had actually furnished it; I feel like I could have pictured it better.

The only other thing we managed to do in Amsterdam (besides get lost, rained on, and watch Brittany fall on her butt because Victoria's Secret flipflops have no traction and neither do wet Dutch sidewalks) was the hash museum, which was an earnest effort but pretty badly organized and very reading-heavy.

Basically, Amsterdam was quite a disappointment. We left a little early. And, of course, it got sunny as soon as we reached the train station.

Brussels, on the other hand, as I stated in my last post, was awesome. So pretty and sunny and cool and oooh, I just loved the feel. We went to a nice little Dutch restaurant and got these meatballs and potatoes and Belgian beer (lambic!) which is as girly as all beers could be, but delicious. Then we wandered around and saw Mannekin Pis and watched restaurant owners heckle tourists and got a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream and them some fries and Belgian chocolate and oooh, Brussels.

Paris:

I loff Bruxelles

2008-07-08T18:01:00.002-04:00

It's beautiful and mostly sunny and has curry ketchup and Belgium waffles.

Amsterdam started raining...on me...on me...

2008-07-08T11:56:00.002-04:00

Amsterdam sucks. It rains. A lot. Brittany broke her butt. Twice. I am still wet. Paris also sucks, because all trains to Barcelona are booked. So we will only be there half a day, and in Barcelona for three. Barcelona should be sunny. I will beach it out. The French keyboard sucks. Why is the a on the top row and where is the apostrophe?

i am amsterdam

2008-07-07T12:25:00.002-04:00

In Amsterdam. Brittany spilled yogurt in her bag. I broke my back and we saw a bicycle accident. Yeah!

Where the Mosel and the Rhein meet; oder ich heiße Elisabet.

2008-07-06T11:06:00.007-04:00

I had a great plan. If stayed up really, really late Wednesday night, surely I'd sleep on the plane and beat jetlag, right? Right. Or not. Maybe I forgot how tiny airplane seats are and how OCD I am about how I sleep. I didn't sleep a wink, despite my best efforts. I know this because I was listening to my iPod for all my sleep attempts and I didn't miss any songs. I was very, very awake.

But I threw aside all advice and downed some gross coffee with the lovely plane breakfast and BAM, I was awake when I met my aunt Sylvia at the airport. I was everywhere. Singing, dancing, clapping to "If you're happy and you know it." Brittany, my travel buddy, was staring at me like I was possessed -- and I was, by the caffeine demon.

Unfortunately, my high only last as long as the car ride from Frankfurt to Nomborn, where my grandparents live, and by the time I got there, I was in a stupor. Do you have any idea how hard it is to translate German with a mind that hadn't gotten more than 8 hours of sleep over...60 hours? The whole 9-hour-drive-to-Indianapolis-to-Chicago-to-Indianapolis-to-weaving-through-the-hicktowns-of-southern-Kentucky-to-NC-to-Charlotte-Frankfurt-Nomborn-in-a-tiny-cramped-and-hot-plane-with-a-stiff-back-and-dead-mind thing started wearing on me as I stared at my Oma and blearily tried to figure out if "kaput war Deutsch" and what the heck "Abschluss" meant and whether or not "Rucksack war an Americanish word?"

I could, however, understand the numerous "She doesn't understand you's," though. OK, I actually understood a lot, considering how little sleep I'd gotten. My main problem with German is my inability to pronounce things. I hear it, I repeat it, and all I get is blank stares. My lips and tongue and vocal chords cannot, for the life of me, speak German. I can spell it, sure. But speak it? Um, no.

But alles gut! Brittany and I went for a walk around Nomborn like good little jet-setters then read funny stories then we were off to Limburg with Aunt Sylvia where we ate spaghetti eis. My stomach does not really like eating when it's tired, though. I think it was very confused as to why it had been up for 30 hours and why I kept shoving food into it, but, whatever. No sleep. We could not sleep. If we stayed up all day, we could beat jetlag!

And we did. We passed out at about 7:30, after staying up for 30-plus hours, but whatever, we're 20-somethings, we can take it. When Aunt Sylvia woke us up at 11:00 the next morning (um, in my defense, I did wake up at 6 and 9 a.m.) to a lovely lunch, I was feeling very...not jetlagged. Oma's cooked for us three times now. It's awesome. Brittany doesn't know what to do with all the food, though. If you don't clean your plate, Oma assumes you hate her food. It's tradition for her to ask if you like the food about 50 times a meal, so the first German phrase Brittany has down pat is "Schmeckt gut!"

Then, after dinnerunch, it was time for our first tourist expedition! Aunt Sylvia picked up a friend in Montabaur and we were off to Burg Eltz, which is Rick Steves' favorite castle in all of Europe. It also happens to only be 45 minutes away from my grandparents' house. It was a lovely drive, along the Mosel. The castle is kinda plopped in the middle of nowhere, though, stuck amongst lots of rocky hills, with a little stream wrapping around it. Since the castle has been in the same family for 800 years, it's still in great condition. The tour guide spoke great English, too -- but with a German-Australian accent, since she learned her English in Australia.

I thought we were done after that, but Aunt Sylvia's friend had suggested we go to Koblenz, where the Mosel and Rhein meet. So we did. And we had ice cream and tap water. I always forget how glorious tap water really is. Lecker!

We ended the day with currywurst and pommes, sauce over alles. Mmm. Brittany is addicted.

Morgen wir gehen nach Amsterdam! Whee.

It’s 15 days away. Do you know where your hostels are?

2008-06-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

My trip is based on the teachings of the lord of cheap travel, Rick Steves. I’ve pored over Europe Through the Back Door ’06 and ’08, Italy ’07, his Spanish/German/French phrase book, his Web site, his graffiti boards. He makes cheap travel sound so romantic, so wonderful, so simple and elegant and non-pretentious. I fell under his spell, despite years of avoiding all travel books sans photos. Steves doesn’t need photos. His language is so colorful that photos would be overkill.

I am such a Rick Steves disciple that I not only own his convertible, expandable backpack, but also his silk money belt, clean kit, large travel towel, compass/thermometer key chain, packing cubes, day back, lamb skin wallet, and pocket tote – and I wrote all those down by memory. I’m not adhering to his packing list, though, since I’m a 22-year-old chick who would like to look a little colorful in her Europe photos (and there will be a ton). I have, however, written out my packing list about 50 times. Whenever I get bored at work, I’ll pull out a notebook and start a list, subdivided by “Clothing,” “Meds,” “Misc.,” and “Toiletries.” Yes, I am a list maker.

What does all this mean, exactly? It means I’m traveling cheap and safe. It also means that while I am going to a few big cities (Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, Prague, Budapest), I’m going to what Rick Steves calls “back doors,” too – like Cinque Terre, and Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Plitvice Park, Croatia. And I will always, always, always be wearing a money belt beneath my clothes.

I will also be traveling light. This is probably Rick Steves’ biggest mantra – “Pack light, pack light, pack light.” I’ll only have one carry-on bag. If you know me, you’ll know this is quite a feat. It’s a test of wills, of sorts. I tend to wear the same clothes over and over again anyway, so it should work out OK. We’ll see in my later blogs.