Jul 2005

Hello there! I can't believe I've been gone for over 2 weeks now. My trip is going by so fast! Here's my little update for you guys So, from Rome we drove all the way down to a little town called Sorrento. On our way to Sorrento we stopped at the ancient city of Pompeii where lots of people were killed when Mount Vesuvius erupted a long time ago. It was really wierd to be walking around and thinking that an ancient civilization had existed there. I saw their forum, the bakery, and the church and the bath houses. In the bath house, there were 2 bodies on display that were frozen in time. It was very creepy to see the actual expression they had on their face and made me sad to think what their last thought must have been as they were being buried alive in ash. One of them looked like he had a smile on his face.

We reached Sorrento in the evening and wow, was it beautiful. It was definately a very touristy town but it was sooo much fun. We hung out by the pool for a bit at the hotel before the rest of the group headed out for dinner. I hadn't signed up for this dinner so I ended up going into town with Sean, Sheradon, and Jeanette. We had dinner at a place called The Garden (fabulous food!!!!) and then went around window shopping at all the different places. We stopped at a local Gelati place called Primavera, it was by far the best gelati I have EVER had. I ordered the Mango, Watermelon and Limoncello in a small cup. You guys at home in the states are definately missing out on this stuff. YUM! Got back to the hotel about 11:30pm and just sat outside my hotel room balcony and enjoyed my ipod and the view (sooo gorgeous!! The next day, some of us decided to head out to the Island of Capri for a little cruise. Our Cruise lasted about 2 or 3 hours and we stopped at a couple spots so people could expeience swimming in the beautiful water.We stopped at the Blue Grotto which was about an hour wait to get in to see (definately an experience to see how the boatmen take you into the cave. We then swam in the Green Grotto and took pictures of the White Cave. After the cruise around the island we had some free time to get some lunch and explore the island. Almost everyone spent this time at the beach so I just laid out in the sun and enjoyed the water. I was so tired from my relaxing day that I ended up napping by the pool for awhile before dinner. The next day we got up early to check out of our hotel and spent a few hours roaming around town before heading to Patras via Bari to catch our over night ferry into Athens.

The Ferry was really nice and it was great to have a cabin to sleep in on the boat. There was another "camping" contiki group that was parallelling the tour we are on and they ended up sleeping on the top deck of the ship where it was outdoors, very hot, and people lying around on the floor in sleeping bags. They were literally sleeping on top of a covered pool. It was absolutely insane! I am sooo glad I spent the little bit of extra money to do a hotel tour! At least our cabins had little showers in them...lemme tell ya those campers were stinky!

We arrived in Patras and drove all day into Athens. We had a little bit of time before we headed to our Greek dinner and enjoyed some greek dancing as well. We ended our night in Athens preety early since the next morning we had to wake up the butt crack of dawn(pardon my expression) with a departure time of 5:15am to catch another ferry into Mykonos. After being spoiled on the Ferry into Patras, the ferry into Mykonos was damn horrible. We were put in last class with crappy plastic chairs, smokers, and deisel fuel blowing on you... I tried to make the most of it by catching some sleep for a bit, but I could only sleep for like 1 hour of the 5 hour ferry ride. I was so glad to be off that boat and in Mykonos!!!

It is absolutley stunning! Our hotel is right by the water on Kalafati beach... far away from the main town but very beautiful. I was so excited to finally be in Mykonos that on my very first afternoon there I ended up swimming with my cell phone in my pocket. All I have to say is, you wouldve ran into that water too after all the travelling and the insanely long and uncomfortable ferry ride. I still can't believe I did that, but it's ok, I'll buy a new cell phone when I get back to the states. I am having so much fun here in Mykonos but I will update you on this later as it involves lots of partying, Stay Tuned!

Barcelona was relaxing, our first night we went club hopping along the beach...didnt really do that much during the day...slept in, went to the beach, shopped for flip flops and slept some more. I went to a Flamenco show, it was good but went on a bit too long because I was so tired.

I cant even start to tell everyone how beautiful it is here! I went to Monte Carlo and Monaco for dinner! The night before in Nice we went to a local pub called Waynes Bar.. it was absolutely insane and packed in there... we had a section of the bar reserved just for our tour and we ended up having party crashers because our party was so awesome... It really got insane when the live band came on and everyone ended up dancing on tables (including me) with glasses falling everywhere... It was sooooo much fun! Monaco was absolutely beautiful! I wish I could afford to live there.. the application to become a citizen is 1 million dollars and that doesn't even guarantee that the Prince of Monaco will choose you to become a citizen.. the Monte Carlo casino is a bit overrated.. I didn't even bother to go inside but the people from my group that went weren't that thrilled about spending 10 euro for entrance to lose money I had a nice walk and a few drinks with some of my tour mates spending my 10 euro on something a bit better hehehe

The next day we headed out to Florence and got there in the evening... Some of us decided to go out to a bar near by to do some Karioke.. it was fun for a little while but it got packed with the other contiki tour and I wasn't up to party that much. I ended up finding my roomate and we went to eat gelati and pizza around the corner! My mango gelati was soooo good! At around 11:30 the bus picked us up to head back to the hotel and we ended up dancing on the bus doing the macarena..it was silly but everyone had a blast!

The next day in Florence we took a guided tour around the sites... We were in Florence on a Monday so all the major museums and some of the sites were closed for maintenence. I still got to see alot though, the Duomo and the piazza, and ate more Gelati. My roomate ended up going to like 5 different gelati stores in a span of one hour.. I was in shock at how much she ate, considering she is so tiny! We had a nice lunch at a place called Paoli that was in both our guidebooks...it was a great place, our waiter was so nice, He was like ...for you bella, I would do anything! ... it was soo cute! We then went back to the hotel to freshen up for our dinner and group photo.. The entertainment at dinner was fabulous! Everyone had sooo much fun dancing incuding me... we did the macarena and chicken dance too... it was hilarious... I had fun slow dancing too (sorry guys, no boyfriend here, he's married :P) On the bus to the The Space Electronic club is where the party officially began..I dont know how many drinks the people in the back had, because they were partying it up back there.. there were people dancing and (the guys) shirts were flying off... It was a great time, probably one of the best nights so far! I didn't go to the club because I was a little sick but I am sure there will be many more fantastic nights like that

On our way to Rome I saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it wasn't as big as I expected it to be but still good. Last night, We took a little tour when we got in and got to see Piazza Navona, Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon and also had some dinner. This morning we went to Vatican City and since we were here on a wednesday we had hoped to see the Pope conduct mass but he went Skiing in the Swiss Alps (so we heard)... I can imagine why cuz its sooooo FREAKING HOOTTTTT over here! We were a little dissapointed but Rome has so much to see! The Vatican is nice, but by far my most favorite place was the Sistine Chapel with Michealangeos frescos.. OMG.. is all I can say because I was sooo speechless. I even saw where Pope John Paul II is buried down in the grottoes.. when I left the Vatican , I remember from the news coverage that the exit I walked out of was the same path that the Late Pope was carried out of towards the Cathedral... it was preety surreal to be standing there and realizing how many people were packed into that square. After the Vatican we went to see the Colloseum and Palentine.. I took pics from the outside it was preety magnificent by it self.. the line was too long to get inside so I didn't want to bother standing out in the hot sun, walked a little bit around the colloseum and now I am back at the hotel. There's not much else to do right now, I'm not that big of a shopper so just going to relax now for a bit before dinner. Caio!

Hello Everyone! Wow what an adventure this trip has been! Here is a mini journal of what I have done so far...

London: So I arrived in London the day after the terrorist attacks and it was a little hard to get to my hotel because my hotel was located near Russell Square where a bus blew up. All the roads leading to my hotel were closed so I had to take the tube to Hyde Park and then get on the bus to one of the main streets and walk down about 5 or 6 blocks. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and the city was preety normal despite what had happened. I checked into my hotel and headed to the contiki basement to relax. I ended up meeting some girls that were on a different tour and we went to eat sushi together at a restaurant nearby and went to a near by club to check out the nightlife. The next day I ended up running into one of the girls on my tour (Holly) and I asked her if she wanted to explore some of London with me. We started off towards the direction of Trafalagar Square, then we went to the London Eye, then across the bridge to Big Ben, the Parliment, Westminster Abbey, St. James Park, and Buckingham Palace, and back to Trafalagar Square and the Hotel all on foot! Later at the pre-tour meeting, I ran into Jessa and Sandy and we ended up on the LONGEST walk of our lives to St. Paul's Cathedral. I was so bummbed I couldn't go inside because it was closed but it was so beautiful anyway. I definately want to come back to London it was amazing!

London-Dover: Woke up super early the next day about 6am to catch the bus at 7am. MANNNN I was sooooo sore and sleepy!!! But I made it on the coach and headed off to Dover to catch a ferry into France. Met a few people on the Ferry that lived in the area I grew up in which was kind of cool and one of the girls actually played baseball with a girl I went to High School with! What a small world!

Paris: After getting off the Ferry into France, we spent the rest of the day driving into Paris. Played a kind of speed dating game on the bus to get to know the other people on the tour and to pass the time. We reached the hotel where the area was kind of ghetto (some thing I expect now for the rest of the tour) got checked in and headed off to a group dinner. The place was only supposed to be 15 mins walk away from the hotel, but our tour guide got lost and we ended up walking around the city for about an hour and a half. After dinner we were soooo glad to see our driver Brendan with the coach and we took an Illuminations tour around Paris to get a feel for what we wanted to see on our free day. I ended up going to Notre Dame, Les Champs Eleyes, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe... my roomie (Ronnie) and I ended up huffing up the 500 spirling stairs to get a nice view of Paris from the top of the Arc! It was insanely beautiful! I love it! So worth all of the pain it took to get up there. We headed back on the metro to get to our hotel but we ended up getting lost for another hour on our own. The ironic thing was that I ended up using hindi with 2 pakistani guys to get back to our hotel. They even walked us all the way back which was extremely nice considering they were walking the opposite direction when I stopped them. I got ready really quickly and went with Trevor and Shree to see the Moulin Rouge show! It was an awesome show and I definately will come back to Paris to see the rest of what I missed.
The next day we got up really early for a long bus day towards Barcelona via Bourdeux and had a stop to see Chambord Palace. At the rest stop, Ronnie and I had a great Salad and a Super Yummy Nutella Crepe! We Reached Bordeux in the evening had some dinner and went back to the hotel to relax for another Long day on the bus towards Barcelona!

Barcelona and Nice will be the next entries since now my time is running out! Getting ready to go to dinner in Monaco and see Monte Carlo Will keep you updated!

WOOHOOOO!! I made it to Europe despite all the craziness of the attacks. I´m doing really well I Only have like 10 mins left on the internet so I have to make this brief! Sorry, but i promise I will update this later with more details

So, I got into London the day after the attack... my hotel was right around the corner from where one of the buses blew up... kind of scary so it was a little interesting to get to the hotel. I took the tube as far as it would go and then took a bus to get to the general area and had to walk a ways to fine my hotel. London is such a cool city! I definately want to go back...

Paris was good... it definately is an interesting city I saw quite a good bit mainly becuase the streets are so confusing and I ended up getting lost climbed to the top of te Arc de Triompe for the view... very huffy by the time i got to the top but it was worth it! SO Gorgeous !!! I want to come back and see the rest and of course Moulin Rouge was fantastic!!!

Drove into Barcelona yesterday evening and partied a bit last night.. spent the day exploring the Gothic Quarter and Las Ramblas and the Picasso Museum was fantastic! ... sooo much shopping here but Im not doing any cuz my bag is waaayyy too heavy... Had some great tapas today at a place called Cuidad Comtal... awesome food and tonight going to a flamenco show YEA!

Ok my time is up but just letting you all know that i am fine and things are going great! Love you all!