EUROTRIP 2011

We flew back to London from Barcelona, took a train back into the city and caught a bus/ferry to Brussels and then took a train to Bruges. Traveled straight through the night and got a pretty decent night sleep. We got on the ferry at the cliffs of Dover which were definitely a sight. We weren't expecting them at all but I saw a sign for cliffs of Dover and looked up and they were straight above us. I forgot to write down the name of our hostel so we had some trouble when we first got to Bruges but luckily everything is within a 5 minute walk. The town was small and relaxing, definitely what we needed after Barcelona. We pretty much just slept in for the most part and would wander around the town in the afternoon. Not too much to see and definitely would have been nicer in the summer but very relaxing and cute. We climbed to the top of the tower in the main square to look over but it was under construction so a lot of the view was boarded off. We met some pretty cool people in the hostel though. One night we went out with an australian that was staying in our room. He was a fine arts major from melborne that was taking time off from school to travel. He paid his way by selling one of his sculptures for a $1000, no big deal haha. He was pretty interesting and when we got back we found out that the others in our room were 5 Brazilians studying in Portugal and on break so we ended up playing cards and having some beers with them. Most of them weren't strong in English so it was fairly hard to communicate but it was fun. The next night we shared our room with a guy from San Francisco that was a wild fire fighter so he pretty much has 4 months off a year and has been travelling for a couple months. We stopped in both Ghent and Brussels on our way to Amsterdam, first day of the Europass. Ghent is a college town right outside of Bruges, its cute, not too much to see. Theres a pretty cool castle and a main square with some really cool architecture. In Brussels we did the typical. We went to Grand Place, saw the Mannekin Pis, had the best tasting waffle in the world (for 1 euro) and then got a beer at delirium (world record for number of beers in a bar). We got completely ripped off for lunch at an indian restaurant but thats okay. Our hostel is nuts. We got bikes yesterday and just biked around the city, seeing the majority of it. We're here for 2 more days and then we'll head to either Koln or Heidelberg. Chris's friend from Ecuador is in Koln and his cousins are in Heidelberg.

Barcelona has been amazing. We had a bucket list of things to do while we were here and have for the most part hit them all. We arrived Sunday night and will be flying out tomorrow. Zach and his flatmates have been GREAT and we've had the best time with them. His flat is right by the Sagrada Familia which is unreal. You can see the top of it from outside his window. Our first day Zach took us over to Parque Guel which was designed by Gaudi. It was very cool and we hiked to the top of it and stopped at a little bar and had some Sangrias and then just came back and relaxed for a bit. After we went out to a made to order pasta restaurant for dinner to have some of the absolute best pasta I've ever had in my life. Then we went to a the Black Sheep Pub which was on our bucket list with all of his flat mates and had some beers before returning home. Yesterday we hiked to the top of Mount Tibidabo hoping to see an old church that you can view from the city but ended up finding only an amusement park at the top. The hike was fun though and it was perfect weather and the views were definitely worth it. Zach made soup for dinner and then we went out with his flatmates to sit in a local square where random guys sell you 1 euro beers, definitely an experience. Today we went to Park de la Ciudadella which was absolutely amazing. The pictures tell it all and then just wandered around the city a bit, eating some of the best pizza ever. Since tonight is our last night we're doing it up Barcelona style and staying out til morning, aka potentially the night of my death. WE'LL SEEEEEE.

Tomorrow we fly back to London and get on a bus to Brussels. We'll spend the day in Brussels and then head to Bruges for three nights.

Soo our days in London were fairly uneventful. We spent a total of one day actually touring the city but we hit all the important places. Besides that we spent alot of time overcoming the jet lag (well I did) and sort of just bumming around the city wandering through random neighborhoods. We saw Wicked which was great, definitely recommend others seeing it. Besides that we had some incredibly good food and found some fun little pubs. Chris's cousins came in for the weekend so we spent most of our awake time with them. Our hostel was fairly cozy, we were roomed with a french guy about our age that spoke minimal english so that was kind of a bust because we couldnt really get to know him. We accidentally booked our hostel for one day less than we needed so we ended up having to pack up and move hostels for a last night which was definitely a pain in the butt. Of course I overpacked like always so my backpack is heavy but definitely manageable.