Roman Gods, Gladiators, and.... Lesbians????

Hello all... Here is my usual warning of the fact I'm using my itouch and the autocorrect does fancy things to my words (and I can't edit things after I post them on my itouch), so again please bare with me. I left off with Florence, we found awesome gifts there and it was a gorgeous place, but we were moving on to bigger and older things :) Rome. We left Florence wednesday morning around 10am on out LAST REGIONAL TRAIN!! Yay. It took about four hours to reach Rome (the high speed trains take about one hour). We arrived and got on the metro. The Rome station is like the craziest thing I have ever seen.. It's like a ghetto version of LAX or las Vegas airport, with all the hotels and shops and gyms and food places... But there were a ton of homeless people, one who kicked me in the foot on purpose! (I really wished I could have told him off in Italian.. I was so mad). After feeling like a sardine being smooched into a can we made it on our metro car and was headed to our hotel. We arrived to a apartment building (like ny with the call buttons) and no one was in at out hotel. We had to wait for a half am hour until the man who owns it randomly arrived (annoying) but we got in it's was ok, and the man was very nice and helpful. So we were just happy to be on a clean place. He was showing us the map of Rome and where we should go (barely understanding with his accent) he says to us... You should go here at night, it's where all the gay bars are. At the time I thought cool, because usually all the cool night clubs are gay bars are... Not think much of it. It wasn't until later when a couple was coming to look at the place (he seems to be trying to sell it) that they were giving us thumbs up (haha me and Kate thought it was weird but we went with it), they then asked us if we were from Germany ( yet another odd thing we thought)... To make the story short... I guess woman don't travel together in Italy (especially Rome) because everyone thought me and kate were a couple. When we FINALLY clicked because some creepy homeless man just kinda came out and said it, me and Kate were like ohhhhh and many things TOTALLY made sense. Haha ok that was our funny Rome story.

Down to the nitty-gritty, bottom line.. Rome is amazing. Not the prettiest/cleanest of cities.. But you could spend a week there and still not have done everything/seen everything. As I said, we arrived Wednesday afternoon and got settled in, we then went exploring. Starting at this plaza with two churches that are mirror images if eachother (sorry I don't have the book with the specific names, I'll add them later after the trip). Which was pretty coil. From there we walked down the streets (GREAT SHOPPING). Kate and I got amazing Louis Vuitton purses (cough cough) the Italian leather makes them feel amazing (Italian leather is AWESOME) and we got some other gifts as we walked down to the Spanish steps. We hung out there a little, tool pictures, walked up the steps and took more pictures, then headed down the street to go to the Trevi Fountain. When we got there.. I was in awe.. It is soo much bigger and soo more WOW than u can imagine or think about from pictures and the square is so much to tinnier than I thought too, there is no square it is pretty much the fountain and that's it. We got there around sunset so we took pictures, made our wishes for everyone (threw in our coins) and sat down and Kate ate the gelato she bought. It was a pretty great afternoon, after that we walked back to the metro and went back to the hotel. The next day we had tickets to the cOllseum with a tour guide. We got to go all the way to the top level and below to the basement, along with hearing all the stories/information about the colosseum, it was amazing and a "can't believe I'm here" moment. So I totally recommend getting the tour from the colosseum if you go bc like I said you get to go to places normal ticket holders or outside tour groups don't get to get (they just get floor 1 and 2). After the colosseum we went to the forum, which was hot!! But pretty cool. Some parts were boring and others really interesting (this place is hugeee we were ther for like 4 hours). After those two big spits we were tuckered out so we headed back and went to bed. Friday we had tickets for the Vatican Museum, and they are not kidding when they tell you to buy tickets ahead of time, there were like at least 500 people on line to buy tickets the line was insane... We just got right in (pretty awesome). We spent 5 hours in the museum (we got the audio guides) spending time seeing everything in every room in this place (and listening to everything) it was crazy how much stuff they had and the different types of things they had. And of course we saw the Sistine chapel, where there us a constant reminder that there is no talking and no photos with hearing " NO PHOTO, SHHHHHH" from the guards at the top of their lungs every 2 minutes, hahaha. Kate was getting annoyed with him, while I was sneaking stealthy camera shots (no flash of course) hahaha. We were super tired after the museum (I actually took a little cat nap at one point in our adventures). And went over to look at the church and Vatican square. There was another huge line for the church, so we decided to leave that for another trip to Rome, since we had a 640 am flight the next day (so everyone buy tickets to both the museum and the church ahead of time!) hehe. We had been checking the past couple days with different ways to get the the airport at 430am to be at our flight, buses would take too long, metros aren't open yet, taxi I guess... Until we stumbled on upon hiring a car! It would cost is 50 euros to take a taxi (plus weird bag fees or whatever random thing they were going to make up), or take a hired car (Mercedes) for 60 euros flat fee. We chose the Mercedes.. Of course!! It was so awesome (we felt cool) being picked up especially that early and dark by a nice man to take us to the airport, no hassles. He was a PIMP driver!! Going like 140 km/hr is the middle of the highway, let's just saw he was very efficient (and fun). We got to the airport WAY in time (and no stress so it was totally worth it) and checked in. After going through "security" (after what they make you do in america it was like kids playing security.. Haha). But we got on our plane after a little run in with the "can your carry on fit in here" box/sign thing. Took about 10 tries and looking like a retard, but finally got them in and out of that stupid thing smoothly and was able to board our plane. Our plane was a more generic version of southwest... U even had to pay for any drinks you wanted. Me and Kate didn't mind too much, we passed out I think before we even took off. Hahaha. So we arrive in Athens, Greece at about 10 am (one hour time change).

We couldn't believe it... Three countries down, only one more to go! Wow time has flown by.

We are now about to head to our first island (Crete) on a night ferry. Heading out soon to head to the port city (Piraeus) that serves Athens. I have caught you up until this past Saturday morning, up until Athens. When I get Internet next I will updated you on our four days in Athens.

Yay! Can't wait to be island hoping.. Tomorrow we will be doing the Samarian Gorge hike (hike to a small town on the south side of the island only accessible by this hike or by boat) have a late lunch and hang there, before taking a boat back to a road to the take a bus back up to our starting point :) CAN'T WAIT!

Bye for now!

Florence :)

I'm still on my itouch so again, you are forewarned. We arrived in Florence about 9am this morning and walked for about 15 minutes to get to our hostel. It's pretty nice, free Internet, a kitchen, nice bathrooms, but only draw back no a/c or breeze so it us HOT in here. Today we got set up at our hostel, went to the store right away and came back to make lunch/breakfast. I made chicken and noodles (noodles from France still). Kate had chicken cordon blu! No kidding! After relaxing a little, we went in search of italian "moderno" crystal that Teri wanted. With the help of the front desk lady with where we were most likely to find it we were off. Looking and sightseeing as we shopped. I found three great presents on the streets ;). And after a couple hours of our journey we stopped at a sports bar to watch an old USC football game and have scaring. After we kept looking and taking pictures, we decide since we have looked at all the map that we wil go down and then we will head back to the hostel. The last store we went into weasel it!!! YAY! She says she is the only place in Florence to sell it, so we were super lucky. We finished our plans and came back to the hostel. Making more food, using the internet, cleaning and relaxing. So far so good it's about 12pm now so I'm going to bed. Tomorrow we are headed to Rome, our last Italian city on the trip, very crazy how time passed so fast!

Night!!!!!!

Boat rides, leaning towers, and hikes.. Probably the best 2 days yet!! ( Venice, Pisa and Cinque Terre)

On my itouch again, so please still don't mind spelling errors, weird or wring words. So I have updated you to Friday morning when we arrived in Venice. After arriving at the hostel we had about an hour before our Dodge's Palace tickets would be vaild, so we rode the bus boat over to the main island. We walked on "God's Stairway" over to Piazza Square and walked around. We were the first ones in the palace for the day. It was very pretty and had gorgeous paintings. Kate and I fell asleep though on two different occasions in the palace. Hahaha we were pretty tired. After the palace we walked around a little more finding a good looking pizza place with tables and chairs facing the Grand Canal. Very surreal, especially since we were a little delirious too, hehe. Had a good time yacht, boat, people and dog watching. ( There are a TON of dogs in public places in Europe.. We saw a dog on a leash taking a poop in the metro in Paris). We were falling asleep sitting up by now (around 2pm) so we headed back to the hostel to shower and nap. We woke up out of comas at 6pm (thank you Krista for that alarm clock) and got ready to walk around and take a couple more boat rides. The city was just as beautiful at night (maybe even more so). With our time all off (being SUPER awake at 10pm) we decided to go on one last boat ride. Wow that was our mistake Venice.. We ride in the boat for about an hour and we are visiting a neighboring island and they "terminale" and waved us to get off. Uhhhh ok... We have had boats kick us off a couple of times to take a break and come back to pick up (and start a new rotation) a couple of times, so we got off. After the boat left I look at the times tables, the boat ends at 11:37pm...wonder what time it is.. 11:37. Oh shit! So thank goodness we figured out that the other boat line closed a half an hour later so we waited for it.. But they could only bring us to the opposite side of the main island then we wanted. So after docking on the main island, we made a mad dash for the other side (it's like 1230am at this point). It was a windy, zigzag way. It we finally made it in about a half an hour and got on the boat there for our hostel. We jumped into bed (literally just with our clothing we were wearing we were so tired) and set the alarm for an early morning train ride to Pisa.

We headed out in the early morning to Pisa with a stop in Bologna (dang you regional trains) and made it there at about 3pm. We started off on our trek to the Leaning Tower with all our bags on us. It was a pretty hot day and the walk was about 20 minutes so when we got to the tower (finally!!) we were sweating up a storm and tired. We sat and took it all in. The tower was so cool to see in real life, amazing how it leans like that, and funny to turn around and see all the people doing the famous lean pose. But soon Kate and I were right there next to them doing our posing for the camera and got some pretty good shots. After taking in the sights we started trekking back to the train station. We were in Pisa for about an hour (not too shabby) and jumped on our next train to La Sprezia, and then to a smaller train to Cinque Terre (specifically Riomaggiore). It was raining a little but the town was so small (one street up the middle) it wasn't hard to find our hostel. We stays in a private room actually across the street from the main office, it was pretty nice and cozy. We next got our rain gear on and went exploring. It was about 5pm at this point but already dark from the storm, but it was still the most gorgeous place I have ever seen in my life! I can't wait to show everyone the pictures! We walked around in the rain until we were soaked (about an hour), and scoped out the food and Kate got the most delicious smelling pizza so far. (and cheap... She ordered two, one for tomorrow (we had a fridge in the room). After eating we went to bed, read to wake up for our big hike the next day.

So, if you haven't heard of it, Cinque Terre is a National Park in Italy, you pay to walk along the trails they have. It consists of 4 hikes between 5 cities (hence cinque terre). Starting with the most southern (Riomaggiore) it then goes Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and finally Monterosso al Mare. The trails get harder as you move north. Now that you are caught up, I'll start with our journey/ we started around 945am from the southern most town. The hike between Riomaggiore and Manarola is called "Via dell' Amore" (rode of love) and legend says if you walk this trail together and place a lock somewhere along the way.. Your love will hold as strong as that lock. So there are hundreds of padlocks along the trail. Very awesome and very romantic. A older couple we talked to from Laguna Beach that have been there multiple times says it's fun to put up a lock, take pictures of it a d write down where you left it.. Then come back in 10 years or so to try to find it again. :) It was super cute. We made it to the next town easily, and Manara is just as beautiful as Riomaggiore. (I took a ton of pictures!) the next hike was closed sadly because of mudslides from all the water the night before (finding this out after wandering around for a half an hour trying to find the trail.. Whoops). So, we had to take a 2 minute train to the next town, Corniglia, then had to hike up 360 something stairs to get to the town. It definitely knocked the wind outta me. Corniglia was another gorgeous town all situated between the ocean and the cliffs. We next started the 2 hour trek to Vernazza, this one was a doozie! I had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath and MAN were me and Kate SWEATING (damn Fischbeck genes). But it had amazing views if the ocean, the rocks, the wineries, and all the towns. We arrived to Vernazza SUPER tired and sat in the shade bear the water and rested while eating a snack and GULPING down water. About 20 minutes if taking in the gorgeous scenes there we were on our final and what the guides say our hardest hike (I was a little scared at what was coming sfter that lady crazy hike). This one took again about 2 hours and it was pretty bad, not ad many stairs but lots of skinny trails with the cliff right there. But we FINALLY made it to Monterosso al Mare! The beach looked amazing, Kate and I just wanted to run straight into the water we were so tired! This town is the more touristy/ritzy town of them all, so there were a lot of nice hotels with private beaches. During my research I found a picture of a beach in the area with s huge statue of a man holding up a building on the edge of the cliff next to the beach. So we were in search of two things (well three if you count Kat's gelato) in the town... A public beach so we don't have to pay and that man statue! We walked along the town's boardwalk (this town is a lot bigger than the others) for about 20 minutes and about to give up when I spotted that statue man through some umbrellas!! YAY! So we think that we will just pay when we get we get over near the statue to finally jump into the water. We are about turn the corner and see a sign for a "libre" beach! Yay the man statue beach was the only public beach and it is all tucked away in the last section of the town! Now that was destiny! We hung out there for about an hour before getting a one way ticket back to Riomaggiore around 5pm. We took some pictures of our town some more (this time on the daylight) and sat on some big rocks for a little bit before heading back to the hostel to take the most amazing showers yet! We did our laundry ( first time .. Did sink laundry back in Paris) and headed off to bed early since ( because of a train, bus, and public building strike starting at 9am the next morning) we had to head out super early to make it to Florence by 9.

Ok taking one more break, but I am caught up to last night. So I will keep my promise and be back in later today to be completely updated!! CIAO!

Nice in Nice, Not what we expected in St. Tropez, and the worst night train ride ever!

I warn you again to bare with me, since I am typing on my itouch. After Marseille, Tuesday morning we headed to Nice in the early morning, the tickets on the train were free with our eurorail pass so we decided to go to Nice, check into our hostel to get rid of our bags, then jump back on the train (towards Marseille) to get off at St. Raphael train station, to take a bus to St. Tropez. Our hostel seemed nice, very secure and had a kitchen (always a huge plus!). We jumped back on the train and then found the bus, only 3 euro, so it wasnt too bad. The bus took FOREVER though, almost 2 hours! The bus driver even took a smoke break at one of the stops, no one seemed outraged (as we were hehe) so we assume this is a normal occurrence, one passenger even got out to smoke with him. We finally arrived in St. Tropez and immediately saw the wealth in the area (tried to buy a towel.. 35 euro .. HECK NO!). we walked around and saw all the fancy shops, saw the Coach and Channel mansions and walked along the boardwalk to look at all the yachts. We searched for the beach and found out there is none! We found a tiny little one near the road and laid out there. We were pretty disappointed since we past 5 to 10 amazing looking beaches in the bus on the way to St. Tropez, I guess in the media they just group them altogether or the beach isn't public viewing. So we came back to the train and the train back to Nice a little rested from our nap on the beach but ready to really soak in the sun the next day in Nice.

We slept in a little since we had nothing planned for the day besides beach time (YAY!). The beach was very nice, but there was no sand but gigantic rocks that weren't too bad to lay on.. But they definitely left indentation marks in your skin. We hung out there fir about 5 hours.. Jumping and swimming in the water (the water was a little cold), then headed back to cook dinner and shower. The next day we checked out by 10am but left our luggage with them, while we went to the beach for a few hours. We cane back and cooked some more food, washed up a little and left for the train station around 330pm.
Our first of MANY trains took us to a little town in Italy, about 1.5 hours from Nice. Our first realization that we were indeed not in France anymore was that the exit sign didn't say "sortie" anymore, hehe. We jumped on our next train and headed to Milano. We arrived around 1130pm and waited about an hour for the train to Bologna.. Mind you if you look at a map, we are ZIGZAGGING our way through northern Italy! We can only take the regional trains for free and not the high speed trains with our pass. (it sucked) Got onto the train for Bologna and discovered there was assigned seating.. And spoke to the 3 other Italians for about 20 minutes to decide what to do.. It was like a movie.. We stood up, they said stay.. We sit down, they tell us maybe we should go. Well the decision was made once the train was moving and we were in it, hehe. We were a little scared we would get yelled at since we still werent 100% sure.. But when the ticket man cane by he didnt bat an eyelash when we gave him our pass. Seeesh. The trains, at least theses cheap night trains were hilarious. At each stop people come out for a smoke break and/or stick their heads out the windows (no a/c when the train is stopped) and proceed to stare. It seems the Italians do not think it's rude to stare because I felt like I was naked or something with how many people were looking at me and Kate as we tried to get on trains. Also the trains seem to be a free for all, sit in seats, sit in the hall when seats pull down off the wall, stand with your head out window, lay in the hall, or purely just wander! Haha it was pretty amazing. We arrived in Bologna around 245am (very tired!) and had about a half an hour until our train to Venice arrived. (oh P.S. The only burger king I have seen so far besides in London was at the Milano train station! Yummy!) we took off our the last of many trains and were the ones sitting in the halls with our luggage this time. We arrived to Venice ( after switch to a tiny train to take us to the city) around 545am and boy were we tired! We walked out if the train station and there was the water already!! It was pretty awesome, we then learned that I instead of a metro or a bus system they have boats that take you around! We bought a 24 hour unlimited pass and walked onto what we thought was our boat. Wondering when the driver was going to stop smoking and take off, something HIT OUR BOAT, OMG!!! (mind you we were a little delirious at the time).. We see our "driver" jump on to the boat that just collided with us to figure that WAS our boat!! We were just in the "boat station" hahaha. The boat was awesome we sat in the back (open to the air and got a little tour of Venice! We rode the boat for about 30 minutes to get to our hostel and checked in. :) we were offically ready to taken Venice by storm!


We are in Florence right now(free Internet yeah!). So I am taking a break d
From typing to go search for Italian crystal Aunt Teri wanted and walk around Florence. Promise to update you up to our current local later today/tonight! CIAO!

Week 1 even more continued!

So please still bare with me, back to typing on my itouch. Back to Monday, we woke up around 8 to be ready to head out on the train around 10am. Everything was going on schedule, until we got on the train station. The French rail system is not very organized and they really need a googlemap type of company to help the country out be ause we walked around and asked 3 separate billet (ticket) personel how to get to the winery we were going to.. With the address and the printed map WITH the train station on it and no one knew where it was. OYE ! Until we found a guy who could figure it out.. Thank goodness. Took the train then a bus then walked about a half a mile to the winery/adult playland/ wine theme park. It was easy to find so we were happy, they let us put our bags in the front, so that worked out. We should have known this easy going would lead to the horrible coming later but instead we enjoyed the park. Watched a couple shows .. Hilarious I might add... One was a picture-a-am type show, another a 3D show and the translation earphones didn't work fir it so a 3D show in French... And another ( the best one) a sort of creepy chucky cheese show where the robots move and they have a voice to it. This one was about winery man's relationship with his grape branch.. Do to ow if it was the translation that made it pretty crude humor or just if the French wine historians were drunk when they made it but damn was it funny!! Best quote by far, Iulopes (the grape vine) says, "I'm freaking my trunk off here!"haha it was awesome. They had lots of old tools and taught a lot about the wines that grow in the region and what they are know for. Then we got to the good part!! Wine tasting!! Yummy! We were in the area of bourgday (sorry to misspell) so most was red wines, but we had a couple of good white and rose wines. Then we went outside in the garden to see the winery and to play mini golf ( Kate eat me) and chess on a huggge chess board (Kate won as well... Grrrr) hehe. So we had fun and catcher the bus back to the train station ... Only to find out that no trains go south from where we are (even tho the map clearly shows it) so we had to wait an hour to take another bus 30 min away to another train station to take a train that leAves 2 hrs later than whEn we arrived there... Oye!! We just took a bus for 20 minutes to get here. So we were off on thatjourney. We get the the next train station and check in.. Oh now the tickets for free eurorail are sold out so we have to wait until tomorrow or pay 53 euro! Double oye! So we pay the stupid thing after arguing that we came from the other train station an hr ago and that lady said it would be free. Soweto then sat.. A lil emotional breakdown later... Laughing at our predicament helped. But we finally got on the train around 10pm and NEVER had our ticket checked onboard... Triple oye and a Grrrr)and arrived in Marseille around 1140pm. Which the metro closes at 12 so we'd be good.. Oh nope thanks for kicking us while we are down again France.. They closed the metro early. Thabkfuly there was a early 40s couple who spoke English from costa rica in the same predicament so we stuck together to try to figure out where to go since we both needed to end up at the same metro station. Took about 30 min to fugure it out but we finally made it into our hostel around 1am. It was an amazing hostel too soooooooo awesome!

So we were pretty defeated. But woke up the next day to try to enjoy Marseille. First thing off the bat.. It was sunny! Yeah! We loved finally having the warm sun on our skin! We decided to go on a lil boat cruise that we saw in an article my dad sent me (only 10 euros for an hour tour !! What a deal) it was so nice, we saw churches and the old fort and fort walls, the coast line, then some islands with the jail/prison from the count of Monte cristo! Pretty awesome.. After the boat ride we walked around s little but soon gave up to head to the beach!! Yay it was a cool little beach.. Like a cove between buildings. Soooooooo many people where there! On a Tuesday! And like I said the sun never goes down here so it funny to see people showing up at 630pm packed fir a long stay at thE beach. It was our first time in the Mediterranean !! Yay! A little colder than expected (way warmer than Cali but cooler than st Maarten). Then as we were walking home we found the CHEAPEST grocery store yet .. 22 cents for a huge thing of water. Perfect timing since our hostel had a kitchen and I was a le to make chicken!! Yummmmmy chicken, my belly was missing meat. We went to bed very happy and ready to take on our next journey to Nice and St. Tropez ( this time tickets gotten a day before to be sure.. Didn't need a another replay of the other day).

Ok now I've caught you up to Tuesday. My wrist is tried and I am sleepy so I will stop here for now :). Write the rest soon.. Night!

1st week continued!

Ok I am on a French computer so bare with me. The letters are all messed up on the keyboard. So I left off at the Tower of London. We went back to the hostel after the tower of london. Then the next day was our HECTIC day. We had tickets to Buckingham palace in the morning and Eurostar tickets (train that goes under the english channel) to Paris in the afternoon. Since our hostel was farther a bit out of the way, we started off our day at 630am and got ready and headed to St. Pancras train station to put our bags on lay-away. That took longer than expected with the lines and the rush hour traffic.. at one point me and Kate BARELY fit in the tube car, Kate thought the door wasnt going to close. hahaha. So we had abour 10 minutes to get to buckingham palace so we RANNNNNNNNNNNNNN, got off the tube and buckingham palace is NO WHERE near the tube stations... so we RANNNNNN again. Got in tho... got to see the palace.. it was amazing! and we saw all the things from the royal wedding.. the cake, the dress, the bouqet and the jewlery. It was also raining today so some of the exhibits were closed, so that kinda sucked. But we made it back to the train station in time and got on the train. The train ride was insane! some crazy kids were sharing our table and kept hitting the table, touching our stuff, and to top it off putting a toy gun IN kate's face... not just aiming at her... actually in her face. It was pretty ridiculous.

We got to our hotel fine after the ride and went on our journey to find rollerskated to rent. After a couple calls and taking the Metro across town we ended up where they supposedly had some. But to our disapointment they did not. The man there said that there was no more stores in pais that "hire" rollerblades. That sucked, but instead we walked around starting at the Arc de Triomphe down to the Louve and across the water to the Eiffel Tower at night... which all were great places to see.. so it was still a good night. The tickets to the top/3rd floor of the Eiffel Tower were sold out online, so I was scared we werent going to be able to get upm but while we were there that night there was barley a line, so we got in line and asked to buy tickets for the next day. We got them, it was so easy, so it worked out! The next day was a busy but awesome day. Eiffel Tower in the morning/early afternoon, then a train ride to the Palace of Veraseille for a late afternoon tour of the Palace, hang out in the McDonalds in town for 3 hours while we waited until night fall. (which by the way is SUPER late here in France) At 8pm we were allowed to go into the gardens to look around before the night show began at 9pm. OMG it was spectacular! so huge, so wonderful, so breathtaking. All the lights, statues, water fountains, fog machines, music... it was amazing! And to top it off at 11:05pm the FIREWORKS started!! YAY! So pretty! Great experience! P.S. FRANCE HAS NO TOILETS!! hahahah We got a ride back on the last train to paris and went to bed happy. Our last day in paris was started at the Pantheon, to Notre Dome, to the Louve (Mona Lisa), and back up to the Arc de Triomphe. We bought a museum pass which let us get into all of these places (including the Palace the day before) for free. The Arc de Triomphe had soooooooo many stairs it was crazy! But had a great view of the Eiffel Tower. We went home that night ready for our next adventure... headed to a Winery near Lyon in central France and continuing the journey down to Marseille in the French Riviera.

Ok, done for now... will finsih the rest of teh week when I get back from the beach tonight. We are in Nice right now and cant wait to relax on the beach. Bye for now

First week of our journey!

Sorry for not updating earlier.. We have had a couPle of crazy days, and I can barely keep up. So starting off.. Flights to London went well. No problems there, found the underground (subway) easily and got to our hostel about 1.5 hours after arriving (the airport is pretty far out of the center). Our hostel was nice, even though we shared it with a couple who snores so loud it could wake a bear in hibernation. We went and walked around Knightsbridge (Harrods) and buckingham palace down the mall until dark. We then headedback to sleep. The next day we had tickets for the Lonion Eye and a boat cruise. Both were amazing, it was raining a little, but once we were about to start our walk down the river the sun was out so it was perfect. We headed down river towards London Bridge. Saw globe theater, and walked across millennium bridge (the one taken out in the Harry potter movie) and across the London bridge to the Tower of London (a castle/prison). It was really cool and it had the royal jewels in it.. So we got to see lots of shiny, sparking jewels.

I am on my itouch and it is running out if battery. So I will finish this tomorrow! Goodbye and goodnight (2am here) from Marseille!

Day before leaving! (DRAFT DAY!)

I am officially packed and ready to head off to Europe. I am just doing some last minute researching and book reading. I also have my Fantasy Football draft today (YAY!). Grandma Mary and Grandpa Stan are here still from the pool party my parents had for me and Kate yesterday (which was an awesome party!), and we are just hanging out watching television as I work on my computer.

So, the plan of the trip is why you all are reading this... so I'll get to it! We leave tomorrow around 3pm from LAX, stopping off in Dallas, TX for a layover before our long flight to London Heathrow. We arrive in London at around 12:30pm.  TIME CHANGE: LAX=0; SXM= +3; London= +8; France and Italy= +9; and Greece= +10 hrs. We will be checking into our hostel when we get there and then be running amok around London! :) We will be seeing Buckingham Palace (and Kate's Wedding dress!!), the London Eye, maybe the Crown Jewels.

We next head to Paris for roller blading (at night), light and water shows at the Palace of Versailles, of course the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. Then to the Wine Country of France for some wine tasting as we head on the train down to the French Riviera. We stay in Marseille, St. Tropez and Nice. Then we take an overnight train to Venice for our 1st stop in Italy. Go on a hike in Cinque Terre from town to town on the cliffs for 2 days. Stop in Pisa, and in Florence. Have a couple days to see the Vatican in Rome.

We then fly to Athens, have 4 days there to see all the ruins. Take an overnight boat to Crete where we will explore the Samaria Gorge and the beaches there. Then a boat to Santorini for a relaxing time on black beaches (volcanic rocks). Then our last stop is Mykonos for some fun in the sun and a great end to a crazy vacation.

Katelyne is flying back on the 21st of September from Athens, while I head back on September 23rd from London.

That is all I think to stay now... but keep coming back to see my updates of our trip :)