Hai Dao and Jen So's great adventure throughout Europe!

Hai Dao and Jen So's great adventure throughout Europe!

I must admit I was a bit overly ambitious when making this trip but we did it! We went to 5 different cities in 11 days! Sure it was a bit stressful here and there but the weather was wonderful and it was great having a travel buddy. I did feel quite horrible about Hai having to help me with luggage. Honestly I was not the best travel buddy because I was so worried that I wouldn't get to show him everything. I was pretty much stressed out every time we got to a train station or airport. For that I'm sorry Hai! I know I was cranky here and there too. It had been a month of not having a real place to reside for longer than 3 days. Traveling is truly a tiring adventure. I know that sounds like a spoiled comment but it's true. Either way when we were actually exploring we had a good time in each beautiful city being silly.

I'm sure you all have seen ton of pictures of Rome and since Hai is still in vietnam with pictures of Rome, I'll start with Florence. We did manage to see just about everything in Rome besides the spanish steps. I tried making up for it but showing him a postcard of it when we ran into at a local store. We did get to go to some of my favorite places to eat, drink , and relax. =] Plus we ran into a few gladiators along the way. Rome was fantastic but our hostel was blah. We didn't even have hot water for like 2 days haha. Nonetheless we ended up staying out all day anyways and enjoyed  gelato and wine throughout the day.

Florence:

We totally loveeeed our hostel here. It was really close to the train station and we explored so much of the city that I hadn't even seen before. We also got to try duff beer together! yes.. they have duff beer from the Simpsons. We enjoyed our beer on top of Michelangelo's Piazza that overlooked the entire city. There was live music and a lot of people hanging out listening to a pair of musicians that were so fun to listen to. They were just jamming out and we just laughed at how many times they said, "alright last song guys!". 

During the day we were able to hit up a lot of spots, and we came in time for a gelato and wine festival. Unfortunately we couldn't find the wine festival, and we actually preferred to just go to one particular gelato place. When we arrived to the gelato place called Vivolis... it was closed. Who knew everything was closed on Mondays in Florence? This includes the academia with David in it. BoooOO. Oh well. We still found good places to eat and enjoy our time in this fun city.

The key question in Florence has always been... Dove' il Duomo? It's such a great landmark to help you find everything else. haha

This was the view on top of the Duomo. Over 500 steps to a fantastic view. 

<3

Still hanging out on the Duomo.

Hai Dao strolling through the peaceful streets of Firenze.

We soon found out how much Italians like steps. We made sure to thank Michelangelo everytime we had to march up a ton of steps whether he made them or not. =P It was a pretty big work out to  get places at times. The view was always worth it though =]

Venice:

I was so thrilled that it was sunny. Later on it rained but at least we got to see this romantic island under the sun. It was kind of a bummer that we couldn't take a gondola ride though because of the rain. Nonetheless, I didn't mind too much. We just ended up having nice dinners instead of spending like 80 euros for a ride. =] I'm okay with that! haha. 

These are the taxis in Venice.. there aren't any cars so they make up with boats!

Sometimes on such a vacation island people forget that real people live here! We were just creeping on this person drying laundry.

A grand day on the Grand Canal!

This is a horrible place to bring strollers. Those poor children always having to be rolled down steps! I hope it at least felt like a nice massage.

GONDOLE!!!

Moments before HD almost fell into the water. 

Our appetizer of seafood.. yes it was deliciousss! So fresh!

Our first plate !nom nom nom!

My swordfish! With a strawberry and pineapple drizzle down the side!

We were both attacked by mosquitos at night. Unfortunately I became Quasimodo with my enormous bite on my eye. I guess they wanted to get me ready for Notre Dame in Paris. We also missed our flight that day. thanks ryan air for your airports that are always so far away. 

.. either way we did arrive in... Barcelona!:

This was more so our relaxing portion of our trip. We hung out at the beach where many don't worry about being topless and explored the markets. It's a bummer prices were raised but it was still just as good! Check out these chocolates! They were bomb-dot-com! 

SOooo good! They totally melted though because it was so hot out. 

This was our taste of seafood Paella in the middle of Las Ramblas (the main street).

I love how many different colors there are in this picture.. Guess who Hai was running after.. haha can we say.. short shorts?

GRRRR the signature face!

Quite the sticky situation eh?

Barcelona was basically filled with a lot of metro rides, the beach, a bunch of Sangria, clubbing at a place called Razzmatazz, and tapas galore!

Paris:

Paris was great and the weather was fantastic. There were so many people here exploring the museums and such because it was the first sunday of the month with meant that entrance in the Lourve was freeee. The line was enormous but even though I didn't get it, at least Hai did later on after I left for my flight. One of the cool places we found was this restaurant that we just happened to see. Before arriving in Paris I kept compiling a bunch of dishes we would have to eat while there like French onion soup, crepes, duck, escargot, chocolate mousse and more. This place we found had a great mix of these things and the only things we didn't get to try were duck and escargot. Oh well.. next time right? 

Next we went to see the Notre Dame which was fantastic and beautiful. They were having service inside and the echo of everyone singing was amazing to witness. The rest of the night was spent getting late night food and going on a journey to the eiffel tower before the metro shut down. We thankfully made it back because that would have been a really long walk home back to our hostel. 

Yes this was the luggage that we had to bring everywhere with us. SOoo sorry Hai! 

Typing emails can be quite challenging in different countries.. keys are in different places!

This statue was just hilarious. That's some kind of peel someone threw on it. 

fist pump triumphant arches!

Inside the Notre Dame

Behind the altar in the Notre Dame

Our view from our hostel room! What an amazing city.

At this point I ran out of memory on my camera but Hai Dao probably has a ton or pictures in his camera to share with you all. I'll definitely post up a link to all of our pictures so you can view the full extended adventure around Europe!

Anywho.. It is wonderful to be back home. Travel was an amazing experience and I know I'll miss it a lot. Something I did find at home that I missed terribly was my bed. =] It's nice to be back home with a place I can return to each night. 

I won't ever forget the places I've been to, the things I've learned, the people I've met, the crazy moments on my trip, the disasters that ended up being figured out, and the way it felt to be welcomed in every city I visited. I can see why some people always want to give back to the world. It's a beautiful place that we all call home may it be on any continent, and I was just thankful and lucky to have met so many that allowed me to be their neighbor from America. 

traveling before Hai came over!

 So I finally am back at home! I arrived on the 7th after a pretty long flight. Thankfully they fed me a lot which kept me happy. Nothing like waking up and having someone ask if you want cognac or baileys. hahaha Thank you air berlin.

It sure has been a while since the last time I got to blog. I have been up to a lot but for some reason finding internet was harder than figuring out a way to wake up my row mate on the flight so I could use the restroom. I'll give you a short recap to avoid another extremely lengthy blog though haha.

Cinque Terre:

Absolutely a gorgeous place composed of 5 villages that have been linked together. I did a hike through each of them and made it through the hike in 3.5 hrs. Here's a picture of one of the villages:

One of the streets you pass up will be the via l'amore which is the street of love. Totally covered with padlocks. The story about the locks is that women that were single and looking for love would go on this street and leave a lock. Then when they find their love, they are supposed to return with that person to the street, unlock the padlock, and chuck it into the ocean. =] Cute huh?

This place was amazing and I learned that the reason why all the villages were the same color was because by law they could only use those colors on their houses. The water was crystal clear and as I walked across the hiking trail I swear the water looked like it had gold in it. Probably from the reflection of the sun and rocks. There were great little spots during the trail where you could walk down some steps and chill along the water. Like you're own not-so-private spot that you could climb down to every now and again. 

I did happen to meet some locals when I was asking for directions, and I ran into these two dudes named Luca and Diego. They were totally nice and after my hike I met up with them again by coincidence! Here's one of them:

They were so cool and I got to practice my Italian with them while they practiced their English with me. They were two older dudes around like 40 that lived like 25 year olds. They taught me a lot about Italy and had me over for dinner for two nights. I met their parents, their neighbors, and learned that all they had to do to get wine was go ask their neighbors for some haha. It's amazing how they could just go to their buddy's winery and come back with bottles of wine. They do live a highly relaxing life. The next day they showed me this little place called Portovenere which was equally if not more beautiful than the other cities that I saw in cinque terre. Just full of breathtaking views and a bunch of people soaking up the sun along this castle like church. I basically couldn't have asked for a better time. Meeting locals and seeing how they live. It was awesome being able to speak to them all and be one of them. =]

Next up! Bologna:

Bologna was yet another beautiful city that was much easier to navigate in than in Rome. It was also a lot more modern. Unfortunately the hotel I stayed at was quite far from the city center. Nonetheless I made the best of things and found my way by asking for help from bus drivers =]. The city itself was cool and the countryside was lovely.

This city wasn't one of my favorites but that could just be because I was traveling alone and finished exploring the city in like a day. haha. There were some things I didn't get to see like the Ducati and Lamborghini factory. What I did like was finding little secret spots. It was like going on a treasure hunt! One for example was finding the Rhine river that flows under the city. I found it!

Like many other cities, they had a lot of graffiti. It was a bummer seeing it on monuments but there were fun ones like these:

I wanted to visit a family of a friend that I went to school with. Unfortunately there was a gate that didn't let me get to their home. Bummer. Either way I had a good time and found a lot of cool parks to relax at while people watching =]. A good ole' italian past time!

Roma:

I actually ended up getting to Rome a day earlier and it was really nice being back home. I had two days to kill before picking up Hai at the airport. I ended up giving tours to a few people. I figured I should practice before Hai comes haha. I think my fastest time was 5 hours to give someone a tour of the entire city minus two squares. =] Pretty good huh? I did get to see a few things that I had never seen before like the Capuchin crypt church which was made of 4000 bodies of friars... creepy!!! I also saw the spanish steps at night which is booming at that time!

I soon found out that no matter how much I practiced, there is just way too much to fully experience in only 2 days. I just had to cross my fingers and do my best to show Hai Dizzle Dao all I could including all the wonderful favorite food places I had listed in my noggin =]. I think I'll make a separate blog for the experience Hai and I had.