Italia...

I hope you are all enjoying the pictures.

Now, a very FUN and immature thing we have been doing our whole trip is this...it started in Nice... after getting a little screwed over by the Avis car gang we were over tired, frustrated, and in funny moods. We were the only ones in the airport and we were laying over the chairs, I think i was pretending to sleep and then it went from there. Everywhere we have been going we have been taking pictures of ourselves pretending to sleep in really funny places and positions... i know it sounds sooooo silly but when your exhausted and frustrated with cranky, stuck up people its a pretty hilarious way to annoy them and to crack ourselves up.

The rest of the pictures are on Brens camera hahaha and they are way funnier than this. Karoll must have thought we were crazy at first, but believe me, she joined right in.
So in all the CInque Terre was in the top favorite places of my trip so far. The people, besides the stuffy old rich ladies, were very welcoming and the villages were very charming and quiet. The food was awesome and the weather was sunny... it all felt like a dream really. The way the villages just perch on the rugged, rocky coast is so beautiful and feels fake.
From there we went to Florence for a night. Here we stayed at a hostel that felt like church camp -there were way too many rules and there was a curfew... however, ironically this was the place we decided to perhaps overdo it on the wine and have a very funny intoxicated dinner. Here is just a picture of the view from the river that runs through the city and of the bar we were at.

The next morning Bren and I went to church , where the music was beautiful, then we all walked to quickly look at the biggest gothic cathedral in europe. After this rainy morning we got on the train for Rome. I will write about that in my next post. xo

italia continued...

Here are a few more pictures from the Cinque Terre

ITALIA

"Happiness, hit her like a train on a track.
coming towards her, stuck still no turning back.
She hid around corners and she hid under beds.
she killed it with kisses..."

Finally our trip led us to Italy - a place I have waited for forever. We took a train from Nice to a border town in France, where I enjoyed my first salami sandwich of the trip. Here we took a train to the Cinque Terre, which are a collection of 5 small villages on the west coast. The are on a very rugged coastline and quite amazing to see. Our first taste of Italy was a little strange because on the train we came across a bunch of Italian women who treated us pretty bad. Haha, either we stank really bad or they just really didnt approve of what we were doing... When people see our backpacks and everything they usually are either really friendly and awesome or they look at us like we are trash. Anyway, when we finally got to Monterosso, the first village of the Cinque Terre, we luckily got a hotel and managed to find a place open for dinner... where we enjoyed our first pasta in Italy.

Here is a picture of what we woke up to after our long travels into Italy. A quiet little seaside town, early morning sun.

Our second day in the Cinque Terre we went to the middle town called Corniglia. This was the most genuine little Italian town we visited, I think. A man from Monterosso told us to look for Mario in Corniglia, because he would have rooms for us. We literally went to Corniglia, asked one guy if he knew where mario was.. and he was like "mario ma papa" haha, so mario was his dad and he directed us. Then mario wasnt there so we got directed to lorenzo, who also wasnt home... we worked our way down the tiny ally looking for these people and eventually, after being physically led to the house, we found two rooms in this ladies house to stay. I think she was Cristiana Lorenzo. Anyway, this town was ridiculously charming and our rooms looked right out onto the mediterranean. We couldnt figure out the hot water or the heat, haha, but we spent hardly any time in our rooms. We spent the day exploring one of the other towns then drinking beer and reading on a sort of balcony area in Corniglia. Perfection.

This is the dining room entering the rooms we stayed in. Literally, someone elses house haha.

The beds, bedding, and decor reminded me sooooo much of my Nanna... it was nice.

Karoll and i talking from our windows haha. Soooo stoked on the place we are staying... or at least its view.

We took the train to the other village, Vernazza, for the afternoon, then enjoyed the sun in Corniglia. We got to walk around lots, up and down many hills, and all to the smell of wood smoke. Someone was burning something nearby and it smelt wonderful.

Corniglia from down the road

Boats in Vernazza.

Im goin to post this now so i dont lose it, then ill continue on.

Barcelona , Montpellier, and Nice continued

Hello everyone. im finally writing again , from Switzerland now at my cousin Margarets. She lives here with her husband, who is Swiss, and their son Luca.. its been so amazing to meet Luca and catch up with Margaret. Im happy to be here for the next week and explore some small villages and mountains, and be garunteed a very comfy bed and clean shower. haha. Margaret and I Just ate soooo much bruschetta I can hardly move, so this is a good time for me to update these posts.

Barcelona was very good. Karoll and I stayed there for 2 nights and on the second night we had to share a bed because everything was booked up for valentines day haha it was funny. On our first night there we went to see a classical guitarist play in this chapel on the side of the huge cathedral. She played spanish guitar and it was just amazing. We went to bed early and tried for a full day of touring the next day... unfortunately we ended up loitering at a pawn shop, or cash converter, for about 3 hours then getting separated and searching for eachother for 2 hours then lost trying to find these boots i wanted for the next two hours. hahahaha so our day in Barcelona was pretty funny. We ended up reviving ourselves with some tapas, russian salad which is our favoriteeeee, and then went to the Segrada Familia, which was absolutely amazing. There are pictures in my last post of that. It feels like a long time ago now and I can hardly remember.
Our second night in Barcelona we went to a traditional flamenco dancing performance. It was very ama<ing and well worth our money. The singing was very angsty and interesting but it went along with the dancing.
Barcelona was amazing and id say that in the summer the parties are crazy. we went for a few drinks at this small sort of punk rock bar and admired all the other bars around. Lots of cool looking places but we were exhausted from being lost all day and called it a night early.

After Barcelona we went to Montpellier where we met Brenna at the airport and rented a car, which as i wrote earlier was a big rip off.. but sort of worth it haha. It felt like freedom.
In Montepellier we spent a long time looking for parking and then finally eating pizza and beer. Brenna was very overtired at this point and just funny . We stayed in a damp hostel, on the top floor, that reminded me of someones house... someone who had very bad, stinky taste in decor. Needless to say I didnt sleep this night because I was convinced someone was coming for us hahaha.. Again, t^hank you Code for the knife, i slept with it by the bed.

From Montpellier we drove to Cassis (courtesy of mr nelson, he told me to go here), which was one of my favorite places so far. We looked like grubby girls , obviously, especially compared to all te posh southern french people who have tattooed lip liner. haha our boat ride was a huge highlight and our valentines dinner hehe.

The last of france was our visit to Nice - i wrote my last post from there. It rained and we dealt with a few cranky french people haha but in all our hostel was unreal and we visited the modern art museum there. We spent a long time browsing through there and i thouroughly enjoyed it. Also, I will always remember NIce as the place that Brenna ate the hugest hot dog of our lives... even bigger than the weird american bbq ones. It was actually 2 hotdogs in a huge long baguette.. hahaha aside from the cuts in the corners of Brennas lips from the baguette, id say it was her best hotdog ever.

Im having a hard time remember everything, at least remembering it in an entertaining way, so im going to move on to the next part.

Barcelona, Montpellier (*France) and Cassis (France)

Now to Montpellier, where we rented a car and picked up Bren from the airport.

our awesome hostel in Cassis, the small village in France

In Cassis, yesterday, we decided to go out on a boat for an hour before we moved onto get our car back to NIce. here are pictures from that. The sea was rough and i felt so sick haha but it got better. We visited the Calaques, or something like that, which are these tiny rock inlets in the coast where people hang out in the summer. It gets very warm and there are tons of fish and swimmers. Apparently, in the last Calaque we visited, people rock climb all along the cliffs.
Will write in more detail when i have time, but here are some pictures. xo

After Cassis, we drove to Nice. WE had a fun ride.. besides the windy windy mountain roads, wholy man. Unfortunately, we got our car in an hour late and they charged us a full day extra ... they did this without telling Karoll, they told her after she signed off... and so I said "ok well then we will have the car back tomorrow at 4, see you guys later" and he said nooo sorry you would have had to call in advance. I got this crazy , unexpected urge to grab the keys and steal the car for another 24 hours..... but decided against it. We got ripped off and really angry. So we loitered at the airport for an hour or two disrupting the quiet, and then caught a bus into Nice. Here we are at the greatest hostel ever (free internet, free breakfast, bar, common area, clean showers, laundry) .. just about to head downtown Nice for the day then we will buy train tickets into Italy tomorrow. Here is one last pic of us on our roadtrip. Been an amazing trip, so wonderful to have Bren here now. We sure miss Joc, big time, but we just tell Karoll all our ridiculous stories about her hehehe. Also, sister Katie (not to be confused with Katie Prentice), Karoll reminds us of you.... so we kind of have you here as well. XOXO

will post again and write about Cassis and Barcelona more.

dont even ask me how Brenna scored the front seat, haha

...

Well I accidently just published the lastt post too early.... so here is Cabo de Gata continued. It is just a village of about 1000 people right on the Mediterranean. At this time of year we were clearly the only tourists there, other than people from Denmark in motor homes, and so everyone stared at us and laughed at us... we get laughed at lots.
We ended up eating breakfast and dinner both days at this little restaurant on the water where we could pick up a little Wi Fi on Karoll's phone. The breakfasts were so good - fresh fruit and bread - and it was just very relaxing.

 We decided to rent bikes on our first day there and bike down the coast. We gave 10 euros to this bossy little man in a grocery shop and then he hooked us up. He also hooked us up with hilarious, huge high vis vests that we were supposed to wear if we biked at night. Needless to say, we made it home by dusk hahahah. We got laughed at enough, the last thing we needed was to be the glowing foreigns biking down the beach.
We biked along the road down to a little town called Los Salinas (or something along these lines) and weaseled a beer out of a closed pub. We sat on the beach and hung out for a few hours then biked back. Probably 2 or 2.5 hours biking in all - very tiring, because I'm very out of shape.

This was really an amazing little village. The peopl were so so nice to us and although it was totally the off season, they were very accomodating. On our last night there we went to the little restaurant that we'd been frequenting, and looked at the menu, and decided to leave. It was way over our budget and so we tried to sneak out (it was empty, so this was hard). The guy working, Manu, spotted us and we were like deer in headlights . So i just blurted out "mercado"... we are goign to the super market to get dinner... which would have been another freaking can of tuna or something. He kind of laughed and then asked if it was too expensive. Karoll said yes and so he said he'd make us dinner, pasta, for 11 euros including wine. We agreed and he made us a bolognese pasta and poured us wine and it was wonderful. We ate so much and he was soo happy . I told him that I"m Italian and don't ever order pasta because it's usually disappointing, but that this was impressive and we were so happy.

He ended up being an artist and showed me his work online and then we exchanged emails. He was really happy to meet us and his art is reallllllly awesome - I'm very happy.

We left Cabo de Gata in the morning and then caught a night bus from Almeria to Barcelona (WORST IDEA EVER< EW ).
I will post pictures of that in my next post, but may not write it too because I don't have time.

XO

Malaga and Cabo de Gata

Here are a few photos from our last day in Malaga - we went for drinks our last night and then Rachel flew to the UK in the morning. Karoll and I spent the following day hanging out trying to rent a car then eventually getting a bus to Almeria. Here are pictures from Malaga, then I will write about Almeria and onwards.

Karoll making us sandwiches on the bench while waiting in the bus station haha

So this night Karoll and I caught a bus to Almeria and then eventually caught a bus to a small village called Cabo de Gata. We arrived there at 10 at night ( don't worry, I never would have done that on my own) - the bus driver was hesitant to leave us there but we found a hostel right away, thank goodness. The kind couple let us in and it turned out to be theeee nicest hostel we've stayed in yet. It was newly remodled and just clean, which was so nice. I slept the best I"d slept in probably a week. Our room was sunny and bright in the morning and the following two days were very relaxing and needed. I love small towns, of course.