This is my travel journal pretty much as it was written in my little notebook during our time in Europe. It includes our adventures and mishaps and inside jokes. Yay.
Dublin through Vienna (the first time)
(Cal, off to our adventure!)
30 April 2009
We’re in Dublin! Ireland is so beautiful. It’s overcast and cold—the deep-in-your-bones kind of cold. Dublin is a beautiful place—if you just walk back from the main streets, you hit cobblestone roads and pubs on every corner. Last night we just walked around and enjoyed the scene. We’re at our first hostel and it’s so much fun. We instantly became friends with some of the girls in our dorm, and it’s a really enjoyable way to travel. You just find other people who are doing the same thing that you are, and you can do stuff together if you want to, or just recommend things to each other. It’s a fun way to meet people. I want to meet locals in a lot of places if we can, but it’s not necessarily easy, especially in a place like Dublin where the people that live here aren’t super different from the people that visit here. Well, we’ll be going to the coast, and then the old medieval part of town. Leaving tomorrow!
(talking about large people and how they must feel much more comfortable in a roller coaster—they aren’t going anywhere) Michelle in her New Zealand accent: “I wish I had your girth.”
We were sitting in the hall and the guys in the room across from us were having a conversation (one of them complained about the cold weather), and the other said, “You’re not going to get any numbers tonight with that piss-poor attitude.” Hahaha.
1 May 2009
Deb and I are on a ferry leaving from Dublin and arriving in Holyhead. Hopefully we can find a train to London once we get there… a lot of this trip is pretty much hoping things will work out… like catching the ferry, for example. We weren’t exactly sure we would make it. We caught a bus, and hoped we’d get here fast enough. Turns out we did.
So this little girl sitting next to us totally just said my name. Debbie heard it too. She was just burbling incoherently, then it was definitely LAUREL, pronounced correctly. Okay, other funny stuff: when you leave the hostel, you have to push a button to open the door out (and in). So we’re walking back to the hostel, and we pass this huge, really hot team of rugby players walking down the street coming out of our hostel, all dressed in funny costumes and things over their uniforms. Finally, we get in the door, and this one late player, wearing Irish clogs, with an armful of stuff, walks over to the door. He keeps trying to open it without pushing the button, and he can’t figure out why it wont open.... anyway it was pretty hilarious how he couldn’t get it. We finally showed him, and then he had the same problem with the other door… it was so funny because he was already late, plus he was in huge wooden clog shoes, so there was no way he could run to catch up… haha. Anyway, we’re a ways out now in the sea. Lovely and grey.
I don’t really have any trouble with jet lag; I am perfectly awake during the day. I guess sometimes I just have trouble sleeping at night. I wake up around four in the morning, perfectly awake, and just have to sit there until I fall asleep again. We’ve only been out a few days, though. It feels like much longer.
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We are in London. Ooh my gosh, what an adventure! This is so great, because if we were doing this with Dad and Mom or something, or just as anything other than backpacking, I might be thinking, “killll me now,” but this is just super fun, and we’re embracing the ruggedness of doing this. “Ruggedness.” Haha. Today we walked around for a good 3.5 hours (with our backpacks) just trying to find our hostel. That’s a long way. But we thoroughly enjoyed it. OH, and our train went through Wales today. That was unexpected! Uhh didn’t realize Holyhead was in Wales. Cool. Beautiful countryside there.
Anyway. We finally found our hostel (Salter Road!! We finally found Salter Road!!! …and for some reason I really want to spell that Psalter… probably cause it’s a real word. Uh…. Sweet.), and some of the girls in our room are from France (Bordeaux). I started talking to them, and it’s really great. I didn’t think that I’d get to use my French on this trip cause we’re not going to France. But this is even better cause it’s the perfect place to actually have a conversation. It’s better than trying to force a conversation out of a local. Haha. They’re all incredibly nice. This is very fun!
haha
So we’ve seen more of London than we ever thought we would (way more than last time), and I actually love London, so I’m glad we got to come here—and we spent most of the time walking the backstreets. It’s a beautiful day here; probably the nicest I’ll ever see the city. K Deb and I are starving! Oh wait—2 funny things. I barked quietly at a pigeon at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Also, these men were walking next to us on a street, and this younger guy was running down the sidewalk in the other direction (pretty fast!), and one of the men from the group jumped out at him, waving his hands wildly, and the kid had to LEAP out of the way! Then all the men started laughing and looked at us and said, “don’t look at us like that, ladies… we’re war heroes! We’re allowed to be mad!” Haha… good times. Or should I say… good Thames…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, everything is better in a Brit accent.
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2 May 2009
Leaving London. So there’s this HUGE group of French teenagers that was staying our hostel, and they were pretty crazy and loud (not related to the girls in our room). We got into the elevator with this Brit guy and he was like, “I think this hostel must specialize in large groups of rowdy French teenagers…” and went off on how obnoxious they were all night… dang it was so funny. Just the way he said it… haha brilliant.
[hot chocolate stain]
“What time does church start?”
“Eleven.”
“I’m thinking we should leave around… eight.”
(Brussels)
“I really hope they sprechen sie Englisch.”
Leaving as: Females
Returning as: Males
(The online ticket purchase gives you the option to choose whether you’ll be returning as the same sex you left as… I thought it was hilarious)
Little kid chirping: “shuhddup shuhddup shuhddup”
“No, YOU shut up.”
Pizza delivery on the train… “how do you do that exactly”
“OKAY…. Meet me on the platform at exactly 3:25…”
Talking about our childhood… one time Dad made me put a bar of soap in my mouth for fighting with him; Deb and I used to plan how we would punish him… (“I’m gonna stick a bar of soap in HIS mouth…”)
4 May 2009
So yesterday was amazing. Deb and I left around 9:30 from the hostel, so we pretty much had two hours to get to church. The address said Bruxelles-Louise, so we knew it had to be in that area. We took the tram to Louise, and when we got there,we were like, “okay… we’re in the right city now; lets look for the street.” We would ask some people «pardonnez-moi, nous cherchons avenue Henri-Jasper…» No one knew about it. We must have asked 20 people (after the 1st hour, at least). Somehow we both knew that the Lord would help us find it (we were only planning on going to sacrament meeting). We had our packs on of course, and we just started walking. “Lets turn left here.” “Definitely.” “Left or right?” *thinking* “Follow that man!” “Lets ask in that building.” (that building ended up being the police station, and they pointed us in the “right direction.” We saw a young couple dressed in church clothes and they were asking someone where the street was. We were like “hey! We’re looking for that too!” We wandered around for another good hour with them, and finally ended up at a hôtel, which had a map that actually included our street (pas comme tous les autres…) And so, nous avons arrivées a l’église, 10 minutes avant the sacrament meeting started. I have never felt so happy and blessed to be at church. You know, Deb and I had no idea where we were going, what to expect, or who to ask for help… we just went with it and knew that we would find it in time. We didn’t even think or prepare for any other possible scenario.
I really want to live in Bruxelles at some point in my life. I love it there, and I feel completely comfortable with my French there (I mean, it could use work too, though, as always). It is a beautiful place. Okay, train station… the lady at the info booth was so dang bratty. It was almost comical. She was talking to the lady in line in front of us and said, “well why did you miss your train??” And Debbie and I were already late… what the heck?! What kind of irrelevant question is that? It was pretty ridiculous. So, we couldn’t get a train to Berlin, so we decided to skip out and go to Vienna earlier than we were going to. I wanted to go so badly, but I’ll go another time. We went on the night train (1 heure en retard…), after a crazed search for White Lions (Chris wont ever know how much he defined this trip for us)—we ate 2 normal Lions, and searched every vending machine in Brussels and Frankfurt. Futile. Maybe eastern Europe will have them… I can only hope. ATTENTION! Un LION dans le Metro!!! ß ce n’est pas vrai. So we’re in Austria-Vienna, at Starbucks. Rilo Kiley played earlier (spellcheck accurately changed its language to French again, and now it’s saying that every English word is incorrectly spelled. Excellent.), and now it’s Feist. I so have missed music. So this is nice. I want to listen to The Reminder in full now. Headed to Prague tonight. Got our own private sleeper train [insert mwahaha face here], because it's all they had left. There will be dancing involved. See music video. Alright, we’re going to head to some remote part of Vienna to find some cute houses and other fun stuff. More aimless wandering to commence.
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“So… Some thoughts on life. Luxury = showering on a train. Danger = shaving on a train.” -Deb
(Cal, off to our adventure!)
haha
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