I heart Bavaria

bavaria is amazing. Not only are the germans really really nice but the culture is just so fantastic...laid back, a little bit alcoholic but ther architecuter of munich was so lovely, the weather was perfect and the city nice, so clean, the trams and trains amazing. Germany and Austria have such excellent train systems, always on time and so clean! I really had no expectations of Germany and this worked out for my benefit becasue I really like it so much, i feel like i must go back to germany some day...every place so quaint. I want to go back and see Dresden, Berlin, Frankfurt and back to Munich, the first place I really felt like I didn't have enough time to spend there. We decided to go on a bike tour that day, even though it was a national german holiday and nothing was open...we went on a free bike tour that relied on tips, we had a funny but obnoxious tour guide from ireland. the bike tour was fantastic. we saw so many wonderful things and leanred so much, the weiredest thing is the nazi history that previals throughout germany, you can see that they have really tried to make up for some of their horrendous past...but munich was where hitler started his first political rebellions and where a lot of stuff happened, and a lot of it at the hofbrau house. more later....in florence now

bitten by the bed bug

well guys, the hostels have caught up with me, and i have officially been attacked by bed bugs. i think it may have happened in salzburg, which is weird becasue it was a really nice little pension we stayed in...i think i may have to email them. i woke up this morning from the train and had the welts all over me, except i noticed a few before we boarded the train so i think it happened before then. so gross i know, and matt doesn't even have them...so that is sick. the weather in florence is lovely although the town really isn't...overtouristed...i am at the point where if i see one more church i will vomit, also getting really sick of repaacking unpacking just feeling gross and dirry, it has taken six weeks but i am at that point. not really homesick although i do miss you all but just sick of being wihtout things and wearing literally the same shirt each day...oh well guess i have to go buy some italian clothes...hhaa will try to blog later if you have facebook the pics are up there!

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest was a blast. When we first entered the gournds, we were surpised that it looked much like a carnival, rides and games galore, except the whole place smelled fantastic, like cinamon and nuts and baked goods. There are tons of little stores selling German hearts with writing on them, it's so neat! Everyone there dresses in the traditional German way, with the trousers and dresses and all, and even teh kids are drinking! There are so many beer tents, excet they are actually huge wooden houses constructed just for Oktoberfest, inside there is a giant oompah band playing in the center of the tent, there are tons of reserved tables and such and there are seats outside. We were loking all around and we finally found a tent we could get into - The Paulaner tent...we sat next to some guys and were busy chatting away with them, they were German and very very nice. Ifound that the Germans have dfinately been the nicest people we have met thus far...anyway they were really nice and fun to chat with, we started with a liter of beer each, itwas very expensive, almost 8 euro for a beer which is over 10 dollars...anyway we got there around 3 and stayed until the tents closed around 11 but i only had 2 liters, still al ot. We learned how to "prost" that is cheers in German, also sang the German drinking songs, had the MOST DELICOUIS CHICKEN BREAST EVER i guess it is traditional german cuisine, sooooo good! So salty and fatty...mmm...and the experience was just surreal. The German kids dont act out of control and it is not as bad as you would think, I felt perfectly safe and everyone was there to have a good time and celebrate life, not to drink to their deaths. Although there was one lady that got carried away on a stretcher but Ithink she was having chest pains, who knows. The day was beautiful, the weather perfect and we had made some new friends....except this one German guy who kept talking crap in the states, then the conversation completely flipped once he realized we weren't morongs, he admitetd tha the lovedt h staets, had been there 15 tiems and could like to move there one day...so strange.next thingwe knew it was getting late and the tents were closeing so we started to leave, on the way things got mixed up and kate ended up getting separeted from us, this was bad news so we were freaking out and couldn't find her, we waited by the subway and she came and all was well, we went back to fabiola's to crash. We were in the subway and kate and i were talking, a german kid heard me talking and starting flirting with us, then he asked me "Where from? UK?" i said "no, the US" and with that he said |"bah" and ran away, i was so annoyed...then we got into a deep conversation about life outside the dorms before passing out late in the evening in munich, it was all in all a great day, despite the ignorant american-haters!

Blame Canada

Ladies and gentelmen, let me introduce you to the newest bad word, the A-word...AMERICAN! AMERICA! There I said it. It is time for me to go on a blogging tangent...not describing people or places or things but feelings, feelings deep inside that get hurt...by CANADIANS. MY NEW LEAST FAVORITE PEOPLE ON EARTH. NEVER EVER EVER AM I GOING TO THAT F'ING COUNTRY. Not only do they put Canadian flags on their backpacks so that everyone knows they are definately NOT to be confused with their American brothers (identical accent, hence the confusion) they consistantly deny us. When a fellow traveler meets you, generally the first topic is "Where are you from?" Sometimes people guess, only on the accetn, and group together Canada and the USA. But they will say, "Are you CAnadian? .....American?" with a voice that gradually gets softer. After Isay American they sigh relief, saying that so many times when they have asked a Canadian if they were American, the Canadian was highly offended. When someone has made that mistkae with me Ihave never had a sharp reaction, but the Canadians will be like "Hell no I'm no American, no way!" Becasue we must have leprasy or something. Last night I heard a guy with a water bottle that had a Candadian flag on it misusing the "A word" and there have been other incidents....at the concentration camp Matt and Ivisited, he overheard a few teenage girls in front of him chatting away "Yeah, and then this guy in the subway like totally flipped me off becasue Ithink he like thought Iwas like American and I'm like no way i'm canadian!" gag me with a stars and stripes spoon. So I have become close minded like them and have decided to deny my nothern brothers and never support their economy...hahahaha

And while Iam discussing anti-American sentiments, it hasn't been bad in a while, but man it gets so old. I told Matt Ihaven't figured out how to deal with it yet, we agreed that people who want to start something aren't even worth our time, but man it is irritating. What is so confusing to me about this is that eveyrhwere we go, American clothes, American music, pop culture, politics, everything, so it is so widely publicised and embraced, like everyone has adapted and adopted our culture yet they act like they hate us or that we suck. This is just really confusing to me. i think it is several things, one is if they are only halfway literate they cant tell the different between me and my government...they automatically associate me with what they see on TV. I also think it is the media and that they think we are like what they see on TV, becasue they watch all of our shows and that is all they know, and Ialso think they may be jealous becasue we have a lot more opportutnies than they do. I think our work ethic and mindset is just different...it seems to me that weare taught that the sky is the limit and it is easy to start or own your own business....but here it is not so easy, some countries haven't even been out from communism's rule for 20 years yet...Ithought that coming to Europe might make me detest the US for things like everyone being so wasteful and driving big cars and whatever, and maybe i have learned that people here utalize smaller space and live much simpler than we do, yes they do, but Idon't think that it makes them better. I feel very fortunate to have grown up in the states and am very proud of my country. Do i agree with all of the politics right now? Of course not. But name me one government in this world that is not corrupt and I will move there today. Point is that we are not so bad....really. I love the states and have not found one place that Icould honeslty say "I'mchanging my citizenship and moving here!" Europe has so many wonderful things about it, like the art, the history, the archteicture, the pizza, the beer, the wine, and all of the crazy foods and different cultures, but let me tell you that that have CRAPPY coffee and salads and wierd hamburgers and i will tell you my biggest beefs with europe:you have to PAY TO PEE AND PAY FOR WATER EVERYWHERE. Water at a restauarant is more expensive that wine or beer. It is just insane, nobody lends you a free helpilng hand anywhere and you dont realize how much you have it tell you don't have it over here...yesterday we went gorcery shopping. Not only was it 1 euro just to use the shopping cart, you have to bag your own groceries (this is everywhere) and you have to buy the bag. Wow. Where is Dillons when Ineed it? So that is always interesting, but so this means that when people say Europe is so much cooler or so much better or whatever it is not, it is just different. That is what we are learning. You cannot compare Wichita with Lawrence even, because they are different. You cannot compare apples to oranges, same thing, anyway Ilove learning new things and traveling is so insane and amazing and all those things, but really when it comes down to it, they've got nothing on us. And if you have facebook, pics are up now and a few videos. Ipicked up a USB cord from a really nice Austrailian guy whose camera was stolen so Ican do it whenever Iwant now...Iwill when Ihave the time. Right now we are in Vienna (and nothe biggest fans...) and going to listen to the Vienna Boys Choir tomorrow at Mass!

Beginning of Munich

I forgot to add that in Rijeka, we sat and visited with some of Jasna's friends. We told her we wanetd to hang out with them but the majority of them made other plans becasue we were in town...and they were afraid and embarrased to speak English. It is really weird to me that everyone here speaks English and that people are usually kind of embarassed if they dont speak it, I did not realize how mcuh of an international language it really is and that everyone is taught it in school. It makes me feel stupid. Anyway JAsna is freinds with this girl from work and her husband and they have two kids, the husband spoke fluent english so we could converse, the wife didn't know what we were saying. It was nice though, we sat and had turkish coffee and soem dessert and hung out with her friends, everyone over there smokes like a FIEND and drinks coffee like it is their job...i think jasna smokes 5 cigs while we were there for an hour and when we eat in rijeka sofia serves us white coffee then black coffee, it is just a lot of coffee. I told Jasna about my impression of Europeans and I made her do it for a picture, soemoen sitting at a cafe with a cigarrette saying "You stupid American tourists!" but it is with an accent anyway it is funny, like the "You people make my ass twitch" from French Kiss. You really have to keep a sense of humor while traveling, unless you have backpacked I think most of you reading this may have a slight misconception of what it is like, I would like to clarify that it is not glamorous, fun or romantic, it is a crazy adventure and exciting and the most insane and cool and challenging thing I have ever done, but believe me sometimes it sucks and sometimes all I want is to quit moving around and have a shower, but it is totally worth it. And people are assholes to you to, but sometimes really really nice. Anyway THE BEST THING ABOUT RIJEKA: family, seeing all the family THE WORST THING ABOUT RIJEKA: It is really industrial looking, with lots of oil rigs Anyway I shall write about our first day in Munich and sign off because we have to go eat soem Czech goulash, dumplings! and climb a castle. Anyway when we first got to Munich I was incredibly tired and crabby we had only had about 5 hours of sleep. We wre lost in the S-Bahn and U-Bahn train station, but at least it is incredibly clean. The weirdest thing about the subways around europe is that they dont even check to see that you have paid. Not like in NYC or Chicago where you have to slide something into a slot, no they just trust that you have paid! So weird. So we finally found our stuipd way to the Studeenstaadt station, way up in Northern munich. We were going here for our first couchsurfing experience. Oh no! Couchsurfing! It was great. Well not at first, becasue we couldn't fine the girl and we only had one picture to go by, we had made arrangments online but had no phone numbers exchangd, so we waited for half an hour and it was FREEZING it is much colder over here tha in the states, we can see our breath. So we are dying and finally we are about to get back on the train to go to my friend Kate's in Nurenberg when a little voice says "Matt?" we see it is Fabiola!! She takes us right to her room, we stayed in her student dorm, all she has is a bathroom, a stove and one room with her bed, we slept on air mattress on her floor. It is the student dorms for the university, she is incredibly smart and stuying law in German, even though she is from Brasil! She is fluent in Portugese, German and English. It was insane. She was very generous to us and just let us have the key to come and go whenever we pleased since she was stuying and writing some paper on penal law in German all week. We ate some breakfast at her little student breakfast area for really cheap, ran some errands and took a nap on her floor while she wrote her paper. My friend Kate came into town and we went downtown to meet her, we saw teh Glokenspiel (google it, very cool) it is enormous and really neat...Kate came into town and we all had some lunch together before making plans to head to Oktoberfest...ok I will prob blog more tom night because we have free internet in oru hostel in Vienna! Ciao for now!

Last bit of Croatia

Hello my friends! Writing from český krumlov, a city we have fallen in love with. I should first say that we have decided to slow down our trip a bit, it seems within this last week we were tripping over our own feet and moving far too fast. So, upon arrival in this lovely city, we decided to stay not one night, but three, and push Venice back behind our volunteer program. this will give us more time in cities so we aren§t as rushed, and more time in Rome, becaue we think we will need it. First of all, I should talk about our appearances...we have not lost any weight that I know of, but Matt has not shaved since Milan, this would be almost a month ago, and he has somewhat of a beard if you want to call it that haha...he is looking very scruffy and his hair is getting longer. I, on the other hand, have not had a hair cut in 6 months and my natrual color is cmoing back in so it is very light...but in about 2 hours I am going to get it all done at some little Czech salon, we wil see how this one goes...so slowing down is good! The last part of Rijeka was Jasna taking us to a mall so Matt could get new jeans, she also took us to a lovely castle that overlooks Rijeka. It had been stormy and cold but it managed to warm up quite a bit. That might we had pizza and went to a club. In the club, tehy play all the American tunes as they do in bars back in Lawrence. Everyhere in teh shops tehy play these tunes as well. The next day Jasna took us to Opatija, a small town next to Rijkea with colorful houses and a weird concrete beach, we had some gelato and then later some coffee or wine...itwas nice...geting colder though. And she used to party in this town but says it is now taken over by the retirees. She also took us to her favorite spot for coffee, a lovely cafe=bar that overlooked the sea in Rijeka and the only soccer field by the ocean in Europe. This weekend we really bonded with Jasna and she said she felt like she had known us forever and we felt the same, it is really nice having family over here becasue it is like a home base to have and they treast us so warmly...they packed us lunchse again for our trip to Germany...we slept on a night train and it was very noisy and not good sleep but oh well..ok Germany later we have to finish our laundry and book a hostel in Vienna! Bye for now!

In Praha with no Time to Blog

Hey everyone...we are in Prague and were going to take some time to blog but it seems the internet cafe we are in is closing ¨down in 3 minutes so sorry...but we are alive. I guess the only thing I can tell you in this short time is that we are heading to a small town in the Czech Republik tomorrow called český Krumlov and after that to Vienna, Austria. český krumlov is where the movie hostel was filmed BTW. After Vienna on to Salzburg. Germany was fantastic...ok more later, really will try, but as you can tell we are just having too good of a time to sit down and blog every day so sorry i cant find the exclamation point +ěšččřřžýááííéů§ bye

Rijeka once more, plus Opatija

Upon arrival in Rijeka, we literally just got off the boat and we felt someone poke Matt with an umbrella, it was Zvonimir! He somehow always knows when we are arriving, it was really creepy. The wather was crappy and we had bad sleep so even though we ate on the boat of course Sofie had food waiting for us...she just loves to cook! It is cray, jedi jedi! No that is not something from star wars it sounds like YEDI YEDI This is common for her to say "Jedi, Mate Jedi Yosh!" She is saying, "Eat, Matt, Eat More!" It is hilarous. We took a nap after telling them of our tralves, then ventured down town with Zvonimir. When we came back Jasna was home, we ate dinner, we had stuffed cabbage, it had soy in it and was interesting...and then we watched the storms, they were ferocius, coming in off the sea, but beautiful to watch. We could not go out so we stayed in and Matt and I taught the family how to play spoons, talk about something awesome...Zvonimir was afraid to play becasue he could not understand Matt at first because of the way he explained the rules...but then Zvonimir LOVED SPOONS. If you guys remmeber it is a very simple game but fun to play. Jasna loved it too, then we played the Croatian game Jamb whichis much like Yahtzee. It was a really fun night. They have no microwave, garbage disposal, small trash can, no TV upstairs and it is kind of nice. All the food is homemade and organic, I probably wrote this before but it still blows me away. Sophie makes some things that I just love and somethings that are jujst so different and hard to eat, oh the worst was the salt fish that Jasna loves. They are little silver fish with little tiny bones that you EAT abbey is freaking out i am sure, she eats them straight out of hte can, and matt and i said ok we have to try them, it was so awful! Oh my god they were so disgusting, but we did it! So sick. I have pictures, they laught becauese I take pictures of their food all the time. Besides the salt fish we also ate spaghetti, except the spaghetti consisted of tuna fish and tomatoe sauce...and she has made some wonderful desserts! OK more later tomorrow!

Last Days on Island Hvar

We finally made it to the beach Wednesday of last week on Island Hvar, we went to Island Parmezana, just about 34 minutes from Hvar, removing ourselves farther from civiliazation...anway it was much lovlier than the other island and the weather was great for a good three hours. Matt and I got lovelz Mediterranean tans this day, yes you should be jealous! We laid out and went into hte ocean even though it was very cold, once you get in it is great but still very chilly. If thie sun is out you just cannot do it! After this we went back and did kind of nothing...made some chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner. The next day we went to the city of Stari Grad, on the other side of the island, it was supposed to be much better and more youthful than Hvar Town. It was mujch like the other city though, in fact we ended up playing even more gin rummy and doing nothing in a little cafe. It was cold. We ran into a girl our age from California, she said we hit the island about 3 or 4 weeks too late, that all the life had drained out of hte island becasue it was not warm anymore. The thing is, even with all the life and people, we cannont afford to eat out at the fancy places and whatever, we saw the club that Paris Hitlon (gag me) went to , called CArpe Denim, it was soooo expensive and not even that cool. I just would not recommend this place for the backpacker types or the people who like easy going places...it seemed a good place for people with a lot of money and boring...Stari Grad was not exciting but at least something different to do. the next day we came back to Stari Grad to catch yet another overnight ferry to Rijeka to see the family again, and the boat was so much worse than last time, the wather in Croatia has been quite turbelent, the jugo, or south wind, has been driving a ton of storms all up and down the coast. It was stormy at sea and I wish I had some dramamine...I never travel by boat and I did about 20 times in 12 days so it was just a new thing, but this boat ride was awful! Rocking back and forth, doors slamming open and closed because of hte motion of the boat, I literally felt sick, tried ti sleep, it was terrible! It took 2 hours to get from STari Grad to Split, we spent about one hour in Split for a dinner break and get off the damn boat, and I saw there was a little restaurant called Babic, so we busted our butts to get there, it was nothing special, it was just a litle fast food joint but we still got some crappy pizza and got back on the boat for a rocky road back to Rijeka!! We played MORE cards and drank a bottle of wine...oh my I almost forgot about on Stari Grad, we did poke our noses into some odd churches and cobblestone streets which were quite quaint and charming, and Matt felt like he had to talk to the locals :) This resulted in us trying all of this terrible I mean TERRIBLE homemade alcohol, Matt tried shots of schnapps and other crap, ugh it was so bad, I said Matt now you have tried too much you must buy SOMETHING so he bought this bottle of wine, and as I sit here he is sharing a glass with the girl we are couchsurfing with and they cannont drink it anymore because it is terrible. It was a good experience and really funny and interesting becasue they let us into their house to try some wine and other bad liquors, but we couldnt understnad each other at all and the wine literally was like really old vinegar, we just acted kind of like we liked it, terrible!! But really funny. Island Hvar ended up being a dissapointment because it had been built up to be something awesome and really wasnt...but oh well maybe just going at a different time would be better, who knows? Ah well! BEST THING ABOUT ISLAND HVAR: The day at Palmezana, the mediterranean tan WORST THING: Dont even want to go there