Tuesday + {Day Twenty-Nine: Venice}

Miss your flight once and I swear to God, you'll be paranoid about missing your connections for the rest of your life. After a very restless night of sleep, I woke up at seven when my alarm went off to finish gathering our odds and ends up into our backpacks. I pried Gooligan out of bed around seven-thirty.

We left our house at eight, caught the bus to the train station, and then had a little breakfast while we waited for our train to be assigned a platform.

I fell asleep a lot on the train. It felt like every time I nodded off, someone--usually the ticket-checker--would come by and make a lot of noise and wake me up. But I caught a few zzzs by the time we made it to Venice.

Our first sight of the city was a watery one: the train goes over a bridge between the mainland and the island! After we arrived, Gooligan and I located the bag drop and checked in my backpack (all our clean clothes and toiletries, essentially). Our plan was to find a laundry where we could get our dirties washed while we explored some of the city.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at the shop, it was closed. At least we think we found the shop. It's tough to tell sometimes because if a business has a metal sheet over it, and it doesn't have any signage anywhere else), you can't tell what the business is or what its hours are.

Since the laundry was closed, we had to lug our dirty clothes around all day. Not exactly great, but at least we're saving seven or so euro by not checking it, I guess.

For lunch we stopped at this amazing pasta place called Alfredo's. They're a rather unique pasta restaurant in Italy, since it was a hole-in-the-wall place where they only have about eight dishes and they serve them in Chinese take-out boxes. Each portion is a pound. The food was really great. They use all fresh ingredients and the cook inquired how we liked the food and talked to the four of us who were sitting at the minimal indoor seats. The other two were from Colorado and California. The shop also played popular American music which is a nice slice of home when you're almost a month removed from American radio.

After lunch, we sat in San Marco square for awhile. Both Gooligan and I really want to see Doge's Palace, but we decided to wait and do it another day when we're not weighed down by all our bags.

We basically spent all afternoon wandering around the city and window shopping. We took a small break at a hipster cafe with wifi. Gooligan listened to Harry Potter on the couch while I caught up on some homework and my blogging.

After the cafe, we headed to our new place, stopping to pick up a couple of slices of pizza for dinner. The buses here do not have any announcements for what stop they are stopping at, and since it was dark by the time we made our way to our new place, we got utterly lost. Gooligan asked someone for directions, and he helped us the best he could, but he only spoke Italian, so we had to figure it out. Gooligan was brave enough to ask like five different people along the way, all of whom were very nice and helpful despite only speaking Italian. During part of our journey we had to walk through this poorly lit park. Slightly terrifying! But everyone we saw seemed to be nice--couples out for jogs or old men or ladies walking their dogs.

We eventually found our new place and our hosts are very nice. The bed is comfortable and I took a nice hot shower, which was great. At the last place we stayed at, this bug got inside at night and bit Gooligan and me each about twenty times, so we're kind of itchy, but at least we're clean and ready for bed!

Tomorrow is Gooligan's big day! If you haven't yet, you should send her some huge birthday wishes. It's exciting to be in such an amazing place for a celebration, but it is bittersweet to be removed from all your friends and family.

Monday + {Day Twenty-One: Rome}

After another focaccia run, we headed off to the train station to catch our train to Rome! Well, first we had to catch a train to La Spezia, the main train station near Cinque Terre. After we got there, we had about an hour and a half, so we went down the street for lunch.

The woman was very nice and I had meat ravioli—her favorite dish! Then we went back to the train station and caught our connection to Rome. About five minutes into our trip, this man sat down in the aisle of the train and stared at us in our compartment. We were very unnerved and after several bad looks/comments, Gooligan pulled the curtain shut. He immediately yanked it back open, after which Gooligan went out into the hall and yelled at him to leave us alone. We had to endure another half hour or so of him, but eventually he got off the train, and this nice couple from South Africa sat down next to us, and we had a really great conversation with them about our respective travels. It was so cool to hear about their life and one of the most relevant parts of our conversation, I think, was to hear how unstable their currency was. It put the issue of our currency dropping slightly during our trip in a larger perspective.

The takeaway of today, though, is definitely the fact that I am so grateful to know (and be traveling with) three very forceful, confident, strong women. So many men out there think they can get away with crude, oppressive behavior because they think that women won’t push back, but we will and we can.

After our experience on the train, we decided to get a taxi to our next Airbnb instead of the tram. It was a short trip and our host was waiting for us at the apartment. It's another apartment being leased, so we don't have a "host" living with us here either, but the apartment is lovely and within walking distance of a grocery store and a cheap bakery!

Gooligan cooked dinner for us (because she's amazing!) and we ate outside on our wonderful eight-stories-up balcony! A load of laundry later, and it's time to do a little FaceTiming of my parents and then bed!

Sunday + {Day Twenty: Monterosso + Vernazza}

We slept in this morning, then swung by the focaccia place for breakfast. I had a delightful cheese + tomato + mushroom slice plus freshly squeezed orange juice. Then Gooligan and I split off from the rest of the group because both of us wanted to hike to the next village over. We paid our 6 euro per person dues for access to the National Park (which includes the trails).

The hike between Monterosso and Vernazza is about ninety minutes but it is a tough hike. Lots of it is steep uphill with these deep stone steps. But the views alone are completely worth it. Cinque Terre has some of the most beautiful scenery ever.

A lot of people on our way laughed or pointed out Gooligan’s shoes—comfortable yet sturdy leather flats—which was more than a little insulting. Considering we ran into people who were wearing flip-flops, Gooligan’s shoe choice was fairly practical. Anyway, we made it all the way to Vernazza with no accidents.

By the time we arrived, we were ravenous. We stopped off to get an incredible fresh juice drink (lemon + orange + peach), then headed to the train station. We had agreed to meet Sarah and Shannon at the train station in the next town, a difficult feat when we don’t have any cellphones. (Well, Shannon has hers, but since none of the rest of us has a phone, it doesn’t help for in-group communication.)

Anyway, it turned out that their train was delayed by a considerable amount of time. A little silly considering that the towns are about three minutes apart on the train. But luckily they arrived about ten minutes before Gooligan and I had agreed to go our separate ways from them if we couldn’t connect.

After we met up we had a delicious lunch (more pasta) and then asked our waiter for a recommendation for the best gelato in town. We followed his advice and it was delicious. It was also Sarah’s first gelato ever! I got coconut and chocolate chip.

Then we went down to the harbor in Vernazza and bought tickets for the ferry back to Monterosso (3.50 euro each). The ferry was quick—about ten minutes—and it was so cool to see the village from another perspective, since we had already seen it from ground level and up in the mountains.

We walked around Monterosso, exploring all the cute artisan gift shops, and picked up a few souvenirs. One of the best artists we talked to was a woman from California who moved to Monterosso nine years ago for study abroad. She made these amazing necklaces. Gooligan got one for her birthday (which is in ten days!). It has tiny charms on it: a spoon, a fish, a set of Libra scales, a little picture of Cinque Terre, etc. and is absolutely gorgeous. Plus the woman was so amazing and helpful and encouraged us to look at everything. (We had a bad experience in another shop where the shopkeeper was grouchy and passive aggressively drove us out, which is a lesson for anyone in retail: never judge a customer by what they look like: both Gooligan and her sister ended up buying necklaces from the really amazing woman and both Shannon and I bought prints from her.)

Then we walked back our Airbnb, stopping for about an hour to frolic in the water. The water was wonderful—fairly warm—and the beach was nice, but a little rocky. One of the waves surprised us and soaked the bottoms of my jeans. Then Gooligan and I climbed up on this huge rock before we had to get back home to change for dinner.

We wanted to go to this specific restaurant for dinner, but it was either closed or had shut down, so we went to the one next door which was fantastic. We ran into a few Americans from the south that were really great and told us the food was amazing. I ordered homemade black-and-white pasta with mussels. Probably the best food I have eaten all trip, hands down.

After dinner we headed back home sleepily and, after doing some paperwork for grad school, we went to bed for another fairly bad night of sleep.

Saturday + {Day Nineteen: Monterosso}

We took an early taxi to the train station today in time to catch our train to Cinque Terre! Cinque Terre is a group of five beautiful Italian coastal villages interconnected via the train, hiking paths, and a ferry. We stayed in Monterosso, the village best known for its sandy beach. The Airbnb we stayed at is run by a woman who works at a focaccia place; for breakfast, we received free focaccia and coffee or fresh-squeezed orange juice or hot chocolate.

We arrived in Cinque Terre around midday; by the time we found the focaccia place, got our keys, and dropped our stuff off, we were starving. We decided to head out to find something to eat, but ran into two problems: (1) absolutely nothing is open that early (it was maybe 5:30 or 5:45) and (2) it began to rain. By the time we reached “old town” (about .6 miles away) we were thoroughly soaked. Our clothes were plastered to our bodies.

Since nothing was open, we decided to stop in at a wine bar that served appetizers, too. We split some delicious bread—Gooligan and I ordered smoked swordfish which was amazing—and then about an hour later we moseyed over to an actual restaurant in “new town” (near where we were staying).

It’s interesting in Italy because all the restaurants have a sitting charge of around two euro but they all also stuff you with free bread at the beginning of the meal, so it balances out in a way. Aside from breakfast at the train station eons ago and our appetizers, we hadn’t eaten all day, so we stuffed ourselves on pasta.

Then after dinner we headed home, where I immediately fell asleep, only to wake up about an hour or two later with the worst stomachache. After a miserable night, I fell asleep early in the morning.

Friday + {Day Eleven: Paris}

The good news: our taxi arrived on time! The bad news: apparently it was cash-only. We didn't have any cash, of course, because we were leaving the UK for the EU, so after he dropped us off at St. Pancras train station, Gooligan had to run inside and find an ATM to pay the man. Lesson learned for the future: ask ahead of time if taxi cab takes cards. This will be less of a problem from here on out, though, since we're going to be in the EU and dealing with euros for the rest of our trip.

The train to Paris was lovely. Taking the train is a nicer way to travel than flying: less panic over your bag because Eurostar doesn't have weight restrictions, less security, less hassle in general. Once we got on the train and it started moving, our ears popped from the pressure of going underground. In order to get to Paris from London, we went under the channel!

I slept through most of the train ride—which was actually an hour shorter than I thought it would be due to traveling into the next time zone—and when I woke up we were in Paris!

The Paris’s metro system is quite similar to England’s underground, which we had become quite proficient at, so finding the correct stop was relatively easy. Once we were there, we called our host. His brother came to meet us, walked us to our place, gave us our key, and told us to call him if we had any problems.

Since we were ravenous at this point, we Yelped a place to eat and headed off after a few minutes. The place we ate at—Bistro 31—was delicious. It was also filled with almost exclusively French people. The food was perfect. Gooligan and I split a delicious pasta dish.

After eating, we made our way to the Eiffel tower! Sometimes famous tourist attractions don’t live up to the expectation, but the Eiffel tower is amazing. I can’t believe that it only took a little over two years to build; it’s so huge and the idea of people climbing up so high in the air and building this giant metal structure is incredible.

Anyway, we bought tickets to go all the way to the top. For youth (under 26) it was only 13 euros a person. Not a bad deal at all, considering there are several different observation floors and you can walk all the way around the tower on each of them.

It took a lot of time to see the tower, though; we waited in line for several hours collectively, probably, but it was definitely worth it. The view of the skyline was so beautiful. The only shame, of course, is that by viewing it from the Eiffel tower, the Eiffel tower is missing from the view.

We wanted to go up at night originally, but we originally got in line at four and by the time it was getting dark (around 7:30) we were getting hungry and tired. So we stayed through the beginnings of dusk, saw a few lights around the city from the tower, and then came down. By the time we arrived at the bottom, the entire tower itself was lit up. Beautiful. We stopped to use the bathroom and when we came out, there was a rotating light display that made the tower look like it was sparkling.

Then, happy and content, we made our way home, stopping to pick up some wine. When we arrived home, we discovered that the nearest grocery store was around two miles away. Gooligan and I put our shoes back on and headed out again. Luckily being without a car is fine in Paris: we walked a few blocks to the Metro, hopped on one line, got off it about nine minutes later and walked a few blocks to the store! So convenient.

At home, we dined on salami, Brie, baguette, tomatoes, and wine, while swapping stories about how we met our respective partners. A great end to a great day!

Tuesday + {Day Eight: Dublin + London, With an Unexpected Stop in Wales}

I woke up so quickly this morning that I hit my head on the wall. Hard. I was stressed about missing our taxi. In fact, I had a completely realistic dream that we had done that very thing. But thankfully it was just a dream.

We spent around twelve hours in transit today. Our taxi that we booked online never showed and we didn't have time to wait around for it, so we started to walk to the fancy hotel across the street. Our plan was to ask them to call us a cab, but then we saw several in the street. We flagged one down and got a ride to the bus station, where we caught our shuttle to the ferry.

The ferry was amazing! It was huge. There was a movie theater, three restaurants, a gift shop, and a child's playground. Gooligan and I just sort of collapsed and slept most of the trip. 

After the three and a half hour ferry ride (which dropped us off in Wales, to our surprise!) we took two trains to get to London. Probably another three or four hours in total.

We stopped in London to meet up with Liz my best friend from fourth grade! It was so surreal to see each other again after almost twelve years. I feel so lucky to have been able to meet up, since we had such a narrow window in which to do it. But it was really great to see Liz again after so long. Luckily with the internet, it's a lot easier to keep in touch with people. Hopefully one day she can come to the States and we can host her and show her around Seattle.

After dinner, since we each had some time until our next trains, we went over to King's Cross and all took photos at the Harry Potter statue. It was fantastic. Gooligan was so excited.

Then Liz helped us figure out how to get to our Airbnb. When we arrived, our host, Rita, offered us tea and muffins even though we were stuffed and it was already nine at night.

We met two of Rita's other guests--Americans from Michigan--who had a similar experience as us with Ryanair.

Just after the water boiled, the lights went out! We sat around in the candle-lit dark, sipping our tea and talking to Rita and one of her other guests.

Then, luckily, the lights came back on, just in time for bed. After all of our (mis)adventures in Dublin, we already love London. Our trip is looking up!