Paris

Well to be honest, I can't exactly say I'm sad to be leaving Paris.  Just wasn't the biggest fan.  The city was huge, food and stuff was too expensive, the people aren't the friendliest to tourists, and I just didn't really feel comfortable there.  Also I'm pretty anxious to get home.  I'm tired, tired of spending money, missing people back home, and ready to rest up before I start work next week.

Enough feeling sorry for myself.  I don't regret going to Paris by any means, just wasn't my favorite.  Plus I was sad to leave Italy's "warm" weather.  Also I think I've seen enough art and churches to last a life time.  Paris had some of the best sights we saw.  Food was decent, France just doesn't have as many claims to original foods as other countries do.  

We took a plane from Florence to Paris and this was the view of the Swiss alps.  Pretty sweet, eh?

Le sights:

Notre Dame.  Another church...I was dissappointed we didn't see any hunchbacks. 

Of course, the Louvre.  Goodness, you could get lost in this place or spend a week in it and not see all the works.  We started trying to see everything and then said screw it and just hit the highlights.

The highlight of the louvre, the Mona Lisa.  Much smaller painting than I expected.  Felt like I was in a Dan Brown novel, but alas, no naked curators in the vitruvian man pose to be seen.

The arch de triumph (sp?)

Me noming on a crepe outside the eiffle tower.  We did climb to the second level, but the sights were underwhelming because it was super hazy out and not many other tall buildings other than office buildings to be seen.

I can't remember what this was called but it was an underground boneyard.  Holds the remains of six million people!

Le Food:

So we were desperately trying to find some legit French food.  But like I said, neither of us could really think of anything besides escargot or crepes.  So we went searching and found a decent place with lots of dishes we couldn't pronounce. I had what I think was tripe (sheep stomache) and Thomas had basically lamb chops with peppers and onions.  Scared me a bit, but it was pretty good! Just a little chewier than normal meat.

Un crepe with Nutella

And of course escargots.  They were actually pretty good.  Just like a bit of chewy meat marinated in a pesto sauce.

We took it easier on the nightlife in Paris, mostly because we had no idea where to go and were pretty tired at this point in the trip.  We stuck to the bar connected to the hostel.  And we found an American themed party haha.  That party theme is just novelty to the Europeans which I find pretty funny.  Basically american flags and solo cups and jack Daniels.

Okay okay, after seeing all the stuff we did, Paris was okay.  Excited to come home though! Some tex mex and a big greasy burger are calling my name!

-RO

Florence

Oh, Florence was incredible.  For sure one of my favorite cities so far.  It's smaller, which is making me realize how much I liked the smaller cities on this trip like Brussels, and Prague.  You can walk everywhere, you don't have to worry about getting lost, and you get to see everything in the city.  Florence was clean, we had good weather, and the Tuscany architecture and atmosphere was incredible.  We only spent two days here, but I would love to come back and spend a week here in the summer (with my lovely fiancé) when we could swim and bike and enjoy the sunshine.

We also really lucked out with the hostel.  It turned out to be a bed and breakfast, and there weren't many other people staying there.  We had our own room with a view of the city, the served us breakfast, and it was just all around nice.

Some sights:

Typical Tuscany style architecture along the river.

The view of the city from piazzale michelangelo 

Ponte Vechio bridge

The main plazza duomo

David, and all his glory

Super pretty everywhere.  Not a ton of sights to see, but that's okay.

Some food:

We found some 3.50 euro paninis that were to die for.  Ground salami, melt in your mouth mozzarella, mushrooms, and some spicy peppers made a righteous sandwich.  We definitely went more than once.

I'm not sure how Italians aren't enormous.  I feel like I was carboloading the entire time I was in Italy.  So much bread and pizza and pasta.

I take back what I said about gelato just being ice cream.  We went to grom gelato and it was delicious.  More like mousse than ice cream.  Lighter, fluffier and more natural tasting.  I had chocolate, tieremesu, and crem de grom.

There we plenty of dance clubs in Paris, but as I've mentioned before, were not super into that.  We found another craft brewery one night, and the other we found a pub to where locals drink and watch soccer.

We flew to Paris today where we will have two full days before heading back to dublin and heading home!

-RO

Rome

Lots of pictures in this one.  Rome rivaled London as for the sights to see.

We really liked Rome.  We were super glad to get longer days, sunshine, and warmer weather.  Lots of history, and amazing sights to see.  And the people fit every stereotype I had ever heard of Italian people.  Everyone talks at a shouting level, hairy and greasy men, younger people look straight out of jersey shore, the list goes on.  Doing my part to fit in, naturally, I shaved a mustache. 

Also it was super crowded.  Luckily we bought our tickets in advance for the big attractions, but people were standing in line for hours.  I can't even imagine what Rome is like during peak times for tourism.

At times I felt like I was in Mexico.  Everyone wanted to sell me something.  When it rained, there were guys at every street corner selling umbrellas.  When the sun was out, they were selling sun glasses.  And EVERYONE was selling selfie sticks.  I couldn't walk fifty feet with out some guy getting in my way and saying "selfie?".  Pretty sure that was the only English word they know.

Some sights:

The Pantheon

St. Peter's/ The Vatican 

Roman Castle

The Colosseum 

Ancient Rome city center and ruins

And we also toured the Vatican museum and saw the Sistine chapel.  I didn't take pictures though because there were thousands of pieces of art and you aren't allowed to take pictures of the chapel.  The chapel was definitely the most impressive thing I saw.  Before I saw it, I thought the only painting in the chapel was the famous one of God touching fingertips with David.  Man was I wrong.  The chapel walls and ceiling are completely covered by paintings.  You could be in the chapel for hours and still see things you hadn't before.  Big time sensory overload.  It also blew my mind that michaelangelo painted the entire thing. For one, it must have taken a very long time.  Secondly, I'm fascinated that he was able to paint well on the ceiling which surely required him to paint at an awkward angle.

Food:

Okay I was disappointed with the pizza.  I'm a big fan of thin crust pizza where it's baked at super high temperatures for a short time, which is what they had. But the pizza just left something to be desired.  They were skimpy with the ingredients and hardly used any marinara sauce.  Also it was weird eating pizza with a fork and knife since they don't cut it into slices.

Beer was fine.  Nothing special, but I was happy to have a 660ml (24oz) peroni for 3 euro.

Wine was decent, and most importantly cheap.  Felt a little strange splitting a bottle of wine with another man though.

And Gelato.  Pretty much tasted like ice cream to me.  It was good, but nothing on blue bell or Ben and jerry.

Well, we've got on week left in our trip.  Were on a train to Florence right now and we'll be there for two days.  After that, Paris for three days, and then back to Dublin for our flight home.  

A moment to vent:  Since Brussels, weve been traveling by train.  We bought a pass that allows us to use the trains for a total of ten travel days.  So far, the pass has worked beautifully.  But it seems like Italy doesn't really care for our pass.  All the trains here require you to reserve seats and to pay extra.  Not a fan of that when I thought the pass we bought was a ticket to move freely about europe.  Anyway, whatever, we ended up having to buy a plane ticket to fly from Florence to Paris because it was somehow cheaper than reserving a spot on the train.  Whatever, that was really the first time we had to shell out a significant amount of money, which is good considering the trip is almost over.

Still having a great time, but definitely missing friends and family back home, and excited to start work!

-RO

Innsbruck (Austria)

So at the onset of the trip, we were not planning on going to Austria.  We were planning on going to Switzerland to ski.  But, after talking to a number of sources, we found out that it would be very expensive to ski in Switzerland, while the skiing in Austria is much more affordable and just as nice.  So we settled on a small ski town in West Austria called Innsbruck.  We just knew that we wanted to ski the alps.  It was pretty much just like breckenridge.  Quaint town at the base of the mountains.

The skiing:  I have to say, I was disappointed.  Maybe I've been spoiled by colorado skiing, who knows.  Anyway, the resort we were at only had one lift and two runs open for skiing due to the lack of snow.  The two runs they did have open were pretty nice.  But it got old after I had skiied each of them a few times. Also, the lift was a giant gondola where you had to remove and carry your skiis, which was a pain to do after every run. To make matters worse, a storm rolled in after lunch which resulted in them closing the one lift.  It was good skiing while it lasted, and I can officially say I've skiied in the alps!

Nothing too crazy with the nightlife.  We pretty much took it easy after skiing.  I did have some pretty righteous apple strudel, though.

I forgot to mention that I messed up really badly and got super lucky.  On the bus ride home from the mountains, I forgot my ski boots on the bus.  I realized this as were checking out gear back into the rental store.  I'm just sitting there thinking I'm going to have to fork over three or four hundred dollars to pay for these boots.  After about thirty minutes, the bus driver comes walking in with my boots.  I wanted to hug the man, but I restrained and shook his hand.  I guess I ought to pass it on now with a series of good deeds.

We took a night train to Rome, which was quite an interesting experience.  The cabin we were in had six bunks without any space to sit.  There was an old german couple in the car as well.  So basically we laid in our bunks quietly for ten hours and tried to sleep.

Anyway, were in Rome now and I'm super happy to be in warmer weather with some sun.

-RO

Prague

Ah, Prague.  My favorite city so far.  Thomas and I decided that how much we like each city is largely determined by the weather and the hostel we stay in.  We got lucky on both in Prague.  We got our first real days of sunshine.  The hostel was nice, super central, served a good breakfast, and we shared an 8 person bunk room with only one other Aussie. He was crazy.  It was also nice because Prague was super cheap.  Beer is less expensive than water, which is awesome.  

Well start with the food and drinks.  In the states, when you go to a bar, you have choices for what kind of beer you want on draught.  Here, the bars are sponsored by beer companies and they usually only serve one or two kinds of beer.  In Prague, it's Pilsner Urquell.  Not bad, not great, just a solid lighter beer.  We also had Absinthe again because we were informed that we drank it incorrectly in Berlin.  Appearantly, the correct way to drink it involves a water dropper.  You are served a glass with a shot of absinthe, and a case of water drips over a sugar cube suspended over your glass by a spoon.  Then you sip the drink rather than shoot it.  Quite intricate.  But, I have to say I enjoyed this method better. Still no green fairy, but it was an enjoyable buzz.

The food was also very good.  I would almost compare it to american comfort food or like southern home style cooking.  The class meal has a piece of pork, dumplins, sour kraut, and bread all smothered in gravy.  I also had some potato pancakes.

The sights.  We did a free walking tour of the city which was super convenient.  We got a good history lesson of the city and saw most of the major attractions.  In summary, Prague used to be full of Jews up until the war.  But Hitler wanted Prague to be the arts capital of Europe because of the beautiful architecture, so he spared the city.  Then it was occupied by the Austrians, and now it's the Czech Republic. Enough of that.

Metronome symbolizing the clockwork of communism or something like that.

Astronomical clock that does a big production every hour.

Statue of Franz Kafka.  I didn't realize I knew who this was until our guide said he wrote the metamorphosis, which we read in school.  That book was so weird. It's about a guy who turns into a cockroach.  But I guess being weird is the essence of being Kafkaesk. 

  

The cathedral of the Prague Castle.  Super beautiful and impressive architecture in this city.

 

The Charles bridge, which is full of performers, artists, venders, gothic and religious statues, homeless people, tourists, etc.

I don't know what it's called but it's the Prague version of the eiffle tower.  299 steps, we counted. 

And a nice view of the city from the top of the tower.

  

The nightlife: we did another pub crawl which was fun.  The only problem is that as we get further east, the pub crawls are getting a little more clubby/ravey which isn't exactly what Thomas and I like.  But it was still fun.  We hung out with a group of Chilean guys and german girls.  I had no idea I would be speaking Spanish in Prague...

Also, we met up with our old friend, Chris who now studies architecture in Prague.  The program he's in is super hands on and they do a lot of projects which involve proposals and actually building structures in the city.  He's doing really well.  It was nice to see him after five years.

We also made some new friends...

We're are the train to Innsbruck, Austria now where we're going to attempt to ski.  Ttfn.

-RO

Berlin

Right now, Thomas and I are on the train from Berlin to Prague.  I love the train.  It's so easy and it's extremely relaxing.  First off, you dont have to clear security like in an airport.  Since we have a global eurail pass, we literally hop on the train and the conductor checks our ticket after twenty minutes or so.  So really we just get to the train station about twenty minutes before the train leaves.  Yes the ride is longer than a flight, but the scenery is gorgeous.  Even with the gloomy weather, the grass is super green, lots of sheep, and lots of small european towns to see.  I really like it.  A very stress free way to travel.  Plus I get a chance to read game of thrones and blog and play cards.

Anyway, Berlin was pretty good, despite the weather being the worst yet.  Although, from what I hear, it's not much better back in Texas.  It's been pretty consistently 40 degrees, the problem is that it has been rainy and very windy.  It's whatever though, we were expecting this kind of weather and dressed accordingly, so we still got to do everything we wanted to.

I know I talk about food a lot, but I love food, I love trying new foods, and in my opinion, Berlin had the best food so far.

First, the beer:

We found this awesome little microbrewery near our hostel.  They brewed a Pilsner, and dunkle, a weisen, and an ipa.  Oh they were all so good.  Also, the pub wasn't touristy at all, so it was a great find.  There's no open container laws in Berlin.  So you look out of place if you aren't walking the streets with a beer.

Next, the doner kebap:

Oh man, I don't know how I've never heard of the doner kebap before.  It was incredible.  Basically it's like a Greek gyro but better.  Shaved meat, garlic sauce and veggies all wrapped up in some flat bread make the perfect cure for the munchies.  We got ours at some famous kebap stand in the street called mustafas.

Schnitzel:

Equally as delectable, was the schnitzel.  Basically a deep fried think piece of pork.  I think it was so good because they cooked it up hot and fresh right in front of me.

And lastly, the class Bratwurst:

Oh my gosh, this was my favorite.  A brat, some kraut, and taters.  I ordered it just like that with a Texan accent.  So good.  

Now for some touristy stuff:

Berlin TV tower

Reichstag

Check point Charlie

Some of the Berlin Wall

The Jewish Museum

Where we also learned more about circumcision than you would ever want to know.

Lots of history in this city, and lots of good sights and memorials to remember it by.

Lastly, the nightlife.  As I've said before, the pub crawls are our favorite way to meet people and go to the fun pubs and bars.  Also, we've made a bad habit of doing the pub crawls before we get good at navigating the city, so consequently we've gotten lost a few times after the pub crawl ends.  No matter, they're fun and definitely worth it.  This time we met some English girls.

And tried absinthe.  I don't know, didn't really do anything for me other than make me tired.

Berlin was good, a little desolate and Russia-like this time of year, but a good time nonetheless.  We'll be in Prague for the next three days.  And also we called an audible and are heading to Austria after Prague to ski instead of Switzerland.  The trip is halfway over and I'm looking forward to what's left!

-RO