Christmastime in Germany

Even though I'm busy preparing for my trip to Costa Rica, I want to take a minute to update you all on my most recent trip, which was to visit my sister, Danielle, in Germany in December. I spent two weeks there, and we went to Berlin, Hildesheim (where my sister goes to grad school), and Hamburg (where my sister's boyfriend, Maxim, lives). We saw and did a lot of different things, so I will try to be brief and just mention the highlights.

Observations and thoughts from my travels, part II

Welcome to Part II of my final blog post! If you read Part I you will remember that I was talking about my observations of differences between Europe and the United States, so let's jump right back in:

Observations and thoughts from my travels, part I

A month and a half after returning from Europe, here we are at my last posts about my trip. It's been great to spend some time relaxing, spending time with my parents and friends, and getting involved in some things I'd wanted to do for a while but couldn't.

Istanbul

Istanbul was the last stop on my trip, and it was one of the places I was most interested to visit. I didn't know much about Turkey before going there, but I figured it would be the most different from any of the other places I had been to, which is part of why I wanted to go there.

Bucharest

It's been a few weeks since I got back from Europe and I'm finally getting around to writing about the last two stops on my trip: Bucharest, Romania, and Istanbul, Turkey. After leaving Dublin I flew to Bucharest, which ended up being my least favorite place that I visited, for various reasons.

Galway and Dublin

Ok, I'm finally getting around to writing about my time in Ireland, even though it's been several weeks. After my stay in Belfast, Northern Ireland, my first stop in the Republic of Ireland was Galway. Galway is cute little city on the west coast of Ireland, and many people say that if you want an authentic experience of Irish culture, you're better off going there than to Dublin.

Belfast

My next stop was Belfast, in Northern Ireland. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from Northern Ireland because of the violence there in the past, but a girl from New Zealand that I met a few months ago suggested that I go there so I decided I should check it out.

Inverness

As I mentioned in my last post, my next stop after Edinburgh was the city of Inverness, in the Scottish Highlands. The crazy weather I experienced in Edinburgh continued as I got farther north, and then got worse. It snowed almost the entire bus ride to Inverness, and at certain points it was piling up enough on the road that I was starting to think we wouldn't make it to our destination. But other than one questionable moment when the bus had a hard time getting started again at one of the stops, it did just fine, and although we were delayed by about an hour, we finally made it.

Edinburgh

After a relaxing few weeks in England, it was time to hit the road again. Next stop: Scotland! I had never been to Scotland before so I was very excited. I decided to go to Edinburgh because I had heard good things about it, and it did not disappoint. It is a beautiful city and I really enjoyed my time there, and even though it's not very big, I managed to fill 4 days there pretty well.

Holidays in England

After my issues at the border, my time in the UK has been fairly hassle-free.

Greece and arrival in England

My journey to Greece was by far the longest travel time I'd had at any point in my trip so far. It took around 32 hours, and involved a train, an overnight ferry, a taxi and multiple buses

Italy

After Spain, my next stop was Venice, Italy! I was really excited about going to Italy because it was one of the countries I most wanted to go to on this trip.

WWOOFing in Spain

After traveling to so many cities in such a short amount of time and getting my phone stolen in the process, I was ready for a bit of relaxation

Barcelona and Sevilla

Finally time for a blog post about the last leg of Danielle and I's journey together, Spain.

Paris

I knew before going to Paris that it was a city that many people loved and there was a lot of hype about it, but for some reason my expectations weren't that high when I got there. I think compared to the other cities I had been to up to that point it seemed way bigger and I had the impression that it would feel huge and dirty and overwhelming. In some ways that was true but overall I liked it way more than I expected.

Copenhagen and Amsterdam

I'm finally getting around to posting more about my trip for the past month or so. I've been taking notes on my computer while I have free times on trains but somehow actually posting it has slipped through the cracks since I haven't spent much time online recently and when I have it's been for planning the next part of my journey. However, I was able to use a good computer to upload pictures to my blog the other day, so the next few posts will actually have pictures! So without further ado here is the first of the 3 posts I have written at this point. 

Here we go again...

So I'm getting around to writing another blog post very soon after the last one, but unfortunately it's not for a happy reason. Earlier today a pickpocket stole my iPhone while we were on the metro in Barcelona.

Norway, Pt. II

After I wrote my original blog post about Norway several fun things happened so I decided to add more about Norway.

Norway!

I'm getting around to writing another blog post much faster than I expected, but I figured I should write about Norway while I'm still here, which is only a few more days. I have been in Norway about a week and a half volunteering on an organic farm on the island of Tjome

Munich and Salzburg

After my last post, I spent another week in Germany hanging out with Danielle, and then for the weekend we went to Munich. My main motivation for going to Munich was to go to Oktoberfest, which was a great time, but we also did some other things too.