TravelStream™ news feed for member anna_and_andrea on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/anna_and_andrea en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:01:39 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1224776880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1224776880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1224776880/tpod.html Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:01:39 -0400 Exciting stories of our European adventure!

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Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland

We were a little bummed to not have an awesome train ride to Dublin... ah NOT!!! :) We lived the high life, and took a splendid bus ride from Barcelona to Reus (which is where we actually got an HOUR of sleep!), hopped on the plane... and landed in sunny... wait this is Dublin... not sunny Dublin! We found our hostel, and found NO ONE in there! It was so dead compared to our last place! But there is a free washer and dryer... real beds... and only "four" people in our 8-person dorm... the other four are down the hall! Sweet!!!

So we went out exploring, found a nice cheap place to get our hair did... and showed it off at the movie theater... where we saw The Dutches. Andrea cried (what else is new) and Anna almost fell asleep, but in all fairness... we only got 8 hours in 48 hours... or only had slept 3 hours since getting up the day before! We were tired... our feet were tired, and a movie was just what the doctor ordered!!! And we both agreed it was brilliant! :)

This morning we got our first decent breakfast in three weeks! Sausage, bacon (Canadian style), Heinz beans, an egg, and lost of toast, with a warm pot o tea! Yummy!!! We have been walking around (you know like, totally the mall), staying as dry as we can with the rainy weather. We also took advantage of the weather by having a mid-day drink and snack while we watched the rain come down. We stopped at Trinity College, and acted like we went there... and were a little happy we didn't have to go home and do any homework! :)

We have an awesome dinner planned for tonight... since there aren't many people in our hostel... and there is a great kitchen to take advantage of! Chicken stir fry here we come!!!

Love you all... and see some of your soon!
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Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands

Barcelona is really hard to leave... Our whole trip has been sooo amazing, but we had so much fun in Barcelona!

For starters... we met a few people in Gimmelwald, Switzerland (Lily from New Hampshire and brothers Matthew and Ryan from Canada). We found out that we were going to be in a couple places together and we made sure to book the same hostel in Barcelona. Our first night, we had a great roommate, so we thought, who knew of this great salsa dancing place so we decided to go... but after having way too much fun with free sangria and Irish guys, we walked forever... and ever... and the club was closed. Our roommate, Craig, not so cool.... but after we ditched him and met up with our Gimmelwald amigos, we met some new Aussie ones as well!! Another Matt and Sam. THEN! We met this really cool girl from Dublin who gave us some pointers on how to do Dublin local style!!

So all of us got along really well... Craig is totally out of the picture... woohoo! So the eight of us spent the entire day together. Sightseeing on La Rambla, La Sangria Familia Casa, Gaudi architecture, delicious tapas (Andrea loved the Andalusian calamari), and then a couple hours at the beach. We know, it is a hard life... :) Then after our day of fun, we all stayed in the hostel and made the most delicious dinner! We even got the boys to cook for us. And do our dishes!!!! We did do all the dicing... and garlic bread. We played cards and drinking games... with a little Absinthe thrown in there. PS no green fairy, and that stuff is very, very, very licorishy!! After the hostel fun, we went to a local Absinthe bar to have a proper drink, and we called it a night around 2am. The latest we had ever stayed out. until...

The next day. It was hard to get up early, but we are champs and got an early start and went to the Park Guell, also designed by Gaudi. It had music in it, tons of tourist, and it had such a great view of the city!! And, cactus!! Who knew? After, we walked all around town, got a little lost, and found the beach, again. It was such a great day out and we wanted to practice the local tradition of the siesta!! Then it was grilled cheese and soup time before our longest night ever! In a good way. We wanted to go dancing really bad so we hung out at our hostel (cheap drinks), then picked up some other people at a different hostel, went to the shot bar El Gato Negro "The Black Cat" and had a Harry Potter Shot. Yum! A few of us ditched the bar and went out to find the club Roxy. So it turns out, the club had an entrance fee of 18€ which is WAY too expensive. But, there was a guy there asking for a lite, and our Dubliner had one so Anna asked her for it. After the guy lit up Anna said, "that will be 1€" and he said, "Uh... I can get you into to Roxy for free." SCORE!!! All six of us got in for free, and danced the entire night away. Our new acquaintance, Andre, was telling us to come back the next night because the DJ was even better, but sadly we were leaving :( So we called it a night at 4am, because we needed to catch the shuttle at 6am. Our walk home was great!! We got Kebabs, these other delicious veggie things, some guy tried to pick pocket Matthew, and a bum tried to steal his kebab!! It was crazy! So we got to the hostel and not sleep for one hour, so we showered and got on our way...

Tired, but very sad to leave Spain...
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Montpellier, Languedoc-Roussillon, France

Montpellier... and unexpected adventure!! We were unable to get a connecting train straight to Barcelona, so instead of spending another day in Nice or Barcelona, we had to settle for Montpellier.

The lady at the train station hooked us up with a "cheap" two star hotel, and she really talked up the town as a college town, with young people, and a great night life. All we really wanted to do was make sure we had a place close to the train station because we had an early train.

After we got off the train, and found a map, we started walking. An hour later we found our hotel, next to the airport. No where near the college. Or anything else for that matter. The only perk of the stay there was the HUGE grocery store... with a hot food section!!!! We went crazy at the store, and an hour later we feasted on roasted chicken and chips-n-salsa!! YUM!! Even though the side trip was a pain in the butt... we did have our own room, our own beds, and a shower and toilet all to ourselves!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1224310860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1224310860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1224310860/tpod.html Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:37:01 -0400 Exciting stories of our European adventure!

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Nice, Provence, France

Hello everyone!!!

We are in Nice, France right now... actually getting ready to leave!!

Let us first tell you about Rome. We had gone to the Vatican City on Tuesday, saw the Saint Peter's, the Sistine Chapel, and saw the fingers almost touching... Brilliant! Then we saw the Colosseum, inside and out, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and had some delicious gelato!!!! Yum.

Then on Wednesday morning... all the buzz in our hostel was... "I'm going to see the Pope!" What! We wanted to see him too!!!! So we headed back to the Vatican City... got front row "seats," and watched the cute little Pope drive by in the Pope mobile! We were so close to him!!! Crazy! Then we saw what we could of the rest of Rome... and even had time for more gelato.

We took a train from Rome, to Genovia, to Nice! (Some of you may know about Nice because Brad Pitt had his little babies here) Yesterday we laid on the pebble beach while our clothes were DONE FOR US!!! That's right... we are totally wearing clean clothes now!!! Woohoo!!!! We soaked up some sun, had some crepes, maybe a little gelato... and partied at the hostel for the rest of the night. Only down side... someone stole our cheese!!! And only half our cheese at that! Crazy! But we made some delicious pasta with Alfredo sauce, broccoli, and threw in a little pesto for good measure. Sooooooooooo Goooooooooooood!!! The people here were so fun, and all very different.

Some change of plans... we couldn't get a train to Barcelona when we wanted... and we couldn't get a train to Paris to get back to Ireland in the time we needed... so we are going to Montpelier for a night (in a hotel, none the less), then to Barcelona, then a PLANE ride to Dublin!!!

16 hour ferry ride from Cherbourg to Rosslare... 143.00 Euro
3 hour flight from Barcelona to Dublin... 115.00 Euro
Spending an extra day in Barcelona AND Dublin... Priceless

We love you and miss you all! We'll post pictures when we can (stupid password protect on this computer!)
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Rome, Lazio, Italy

We know... a second update in just one day... that is what 30 free minutes of Internet can do!

It was nice to take a morning train to Roma, since the overnight train was not so fun for Anna... Andrea slept great, and Anna watched her sleep. Not in a creepy way.

We got here and found our hostel, no problem. Then we walked around for a few hours and have already seen the Coliseum, St. Maria Cathedral, Piazza de something... and we found the best pastry shop! It was only 1 € for so many of the delicious treats! We went there twice today.

Now we wanted to upload some photos, since this is the first time we have been able to since London, so here we go...

Here are a few photos just to give you an idea of what we have been doing...

Anna flipping off a beefeater... AKA the wrong peace sign.
Our new French friends... Sebastian and Fabien
Us and our real friends!! Tye, Anna, Trevor and Maeve
Us picnicking at the Eiffel Tower at midnight...
The Alps, right next to our hostel
Anna with a mustache...
Andrea with one HUGE beer!!
Us at the top of a church tower with the best panoramic view of Munich.
Surfers in the river... this was Andrea's favorite!
Anna and our new Canadian friends Jill and Kristin... getting lost...
Andrea with a beer she actually drank ;)
Andrea with her turtle backpack...
Anna in the awesome overnight train bed... way too much for one person!
Us in Venice, very early in the morning...
Anna eating Gelato...
Andrea eating Gelato...
And us in front of the Coliseum!!

This is in no particular order, but enjoy and we will update again soon!!
Love you all and miss you!!
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Venice, Veneto, Italy

So we did not stay at an awesome hostel in Venice... and we did not even stay in Venice... surprise!!! We stayed in a little one star hotel on the other side of that body of water. But we had our own room... with our own bed... so yeah.

We spent the whole day in beautiful Venice. We got there before the town was even up, and walked along the twisty streets, if you can call them streets... there was not a car in sight, only canals and boats, and gondolas! Everywhere was so pretty. And we were actually warm! The sun came out, and we even pulled out our sunglasses!

We both got awesome new purses, and talked our way from up to 80 Euros down to only 15!!! Ok... Anna talked our way down. We had some delicious sandwiches and pizza, and then had not one, but TWO scoops of the best gelato ever!!!! We ended up meeting a couple from outside of London, who gave us "sweets" because their paternal instincts kicked it... since their son and his girlfriend had just done what we are doing! We stayed until it got dark, and took more pictures, and then left for our room just for us... que romatica!!!

Our desk clerk "Uncle George" was a little quirky... and told us everything to do in Rome... and where they were... and an hour later... we found our way to bed.

We will post pictures later of all the places we could not. Love you all and miss you!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1223584980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1223584980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1223584980/tpod.html Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:56:35 -0400 Exciting stories of our European adventure!

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Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Hello party people!! We left Gimmelwald this morning... and our stay there was really great. We slept in and walked around town all day it was great. but today we had our first run-in with the law. We did not know that we needed to have a train ticket for one of the local trains... and had to pay 5€, plus we got the stink eye from the lady who collected the money. But it turned out to be fine because we got to spend our last franks in Bern, where they sell the most delicious pastries!! (Matthew, you will have to learn how to make these and teach me!!)
So the ride went smooth and we caught every train we needed to. But we wanted to make sure that we had a hostel to stay in. Unfortunately the Internet was down at our last place, and we could not look anything up. Luckily I ease dropped on these two girls with backpacks going to Munich. So when they got off the train we asked them where they are staying and we followed them!
The Wombat Hostel is so great! It is the cheapest one we have stayed in so far, and it looks really clean. And, the bar is hopping and the lounge is really big with hammocks! We already ate some delicious huge fries, and all of our fridge food since it can not be stored here... salami, pesto, and mozzarella cheese sandwhich. It was tasty. Not to mention our new friends, we will be on the walking tour with, taught us a new card game- shit head. Very fun :)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1223416320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1223416320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anna_and_andrea/1/1223416320/tpod.html Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:06:27 -0400 Exciting stories of our European adventure!

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Gimmelwald, Swiss Alps, Switzerland

Hello everyone! We hope all is going well with you all!!

Paris was a blast. We took a couple different walking tours and we saw most all of the city. We were not able to spend a lot of time in each place, but we did go inside the Notre Dame Cathedral... for FREE! We were very excited about that. After we walked all around to the Louvre, Parliament, a museum that used to be the main train station, we took a second walk around Monmartre, where the film Amelie takes place. Plus, our guide was very corky and enthusiastic. And he bad mouthed Parisians some of the time, and kept us laughing.

After a long day of walking we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower and eat some bread, cheese, prosciutto and chocolate. Our feet did not like us so much, but our eyes were amazed at the grandeur of the big, blue, heap of metal :)

We decided to ditch Interlaken, and go to Gimmelwald. Although Interlaken was quaint and cozy, the alps looked a little more exciting. It is beautiful, and we have the best view of the Swiss Alps right outside our window. We already took a "half hour" (code for 1 hour) walk to the closed grocery store. But no worries, because a couple of nice hostel mates offered us their pesto pasta that they were getting rid of. YUM! Now we are just taking it easy and tomorrow we plan on taking a couple nature walks. A nice change of pace.
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Paris, Île-de-France, France

We just made it to Paris!!!

The last few days have been a ton of fun... not to mention we have done a ton of walking!!

We saw the changing of the guards, went on a pub crawl, and walked across all of London to finally see Maeve, Trevor, Ty, and Brandon!!! Then we made Maeve, Ty, and Trevor walk all around to Harrods, Hyde Park, and Notting Hill, and had some delicious desserts. Then after a great dinner at the hostel, all six of us went to see Big Ben and the Parliament all lit up at night! Amazing! Maeve made the trip to our place the next day to have a big breakfast (even after we took advantage of our free breakfast at the hostel!). We spent a little time in the British Museum, and then took Maeve to the Sherlock Holmes pub where, once again, Anna and I had some fish and chips! We ended our trip in London with a guy from Georgia and two Polish guys, who got some drinks, and the five of us had a long night in the lounge of our hostel! We were very fashionable in our PJ's... at 9:00pm on a Saturday night... in London... in our hostel... but the guys had a "proposition" to get some drinks, and hang out. This was probably our wildest night so far! :) (PS... Andrea totally got to rock the three Polish phrases that she know... thanks Mom!)

The train ride to Paris was kind of scary... since as soon as we walked into the station, the announcer said..."due to the incident in the Chunnel..." which really only meant... we had new seating assignments... thank god! So far, Paris is just as cold as London, but we figure it's warmer than Interlaken, so we are living it up!

We found a few tours that we are going to do tomorrow, because we decided only to stay one full day here, London took some much more of our time than we had planned! But we will be back to Paris to catch a ferry to Ireland... so we will be back!

We are off to try to see an awesome French Film while we are here... there is a cinema down the road from us.

Take care! Love you all! We love reading your comments every time we log on! :)

Miss you!!

(PS... more pictures to come... once we find a place that will trust us enough to uncover the USB port... )
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London, United Kingdom

So we finally had a really really busy day... the original bus tour took us all around London. Plus we had nifty little headphones that told us all about the history as we flew by it. Now the weather here has been great for fall... not so great for sightseeing. The sun had to fight to come out all day long... but when it did it was wonderful! We started out trying to find where the buses actually pick passengers up. Not as easy as it sounds. So finally, we took off after a bus to see where it stops... and vua la! We were on our way. Buckingham Palace, The Eye, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, London bridge... and as Andrea says... "Whatever, whatever" (hahaha). The ferry ride was awesome... because we missed most all of the rain. And to finish off the day, we had fish-n-chips at the Sherlock Holmes Pub!! Very tasty, and Andrea ate her whole fish, including the fish bone that she choked on (she hadn't had fish in 15 years).

We have met some really great people in the hostel, Sebastian, a French guy who tagged along with us to the Tate Modern. He was in our dorm and just asked to come along, and he is so funny! He thinks it's hilarious that there are French restaurants that don't sell French food, or have people in it that speak French. Not to mention a couple of other French people in our hostel, the girl at the front desk is funny and a little mischievous... she keeps trying to hook me (anna) and this other little frenchman up... it is not in his favor right now. But they both were very impressed with Andrea's one phrase that she knows in French, and they feel that it will help us get around. Her French phrase is "I am really sorry!" :)

Finally, we are doing a Pub crawl tomorrow night, then we are getting ready to blow this Popsicle stand, and head for Paris. We keep hearing not good things about it, so we may cut it short and go to Nice for a couple days!! We love the beach :)
Until then, hasta pastas! We love and miss you all...
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