Rome

Basically Rome was a terrible experience. It all started with the airport. We didn't get there until 12:30 am, and we weren't 100% sure where to go because the airport was an hour away from our hotel. We went to the information kiosk and the lady told us to get the bus to the city centre, then walk. Two girls, walking alone at 1am in a foreign country? No thanks. We ended up getting a cab to our hotel (no one knew where our hotel was though and the cab driver didn't talk any English). The roads are all cobblestone, and as sure as I'm here typing this blog post, I will never complain about bumpy roads in Newfoundland again. I seriously thought that my spleen had ruptured; it was wild.

Rome itself is the most poor looking place that I have ever been. I actually referred to it as Cuba 2.0, which is an insult to Cuba. The only places that weren't filled with graffiti were the churches, the Vatican and the Colosseum. There were homeless people absolutely everywhere, and people coming up to you asking for money. Which is fine, some people have hard lives, but they legit follow you around and make you feel like they're going to mug you; it's scary.

Our first day, we went on a bus tour and were able to see most of the city. A lot of it is very pretty yes, but I just could't get past all of the graffiti. We went around one full turn and decided to go get some lunch. We went to this little pizza place on the corner of the street. There was a guy and an older lady working there. The lady bumped into the guy and made him drop a pizza, I thought he was going to stab her, he was so mad (and it was his fault). The pizza we had (not the one from the floor) was delicious, but kind of expensive. While we are eating lunch, we hear a lot of noise outside. When we look outside, we see the biggest (peaceful) protest that we've even seen. It basically shut down the road and we were stuck in that little bit of Rome for like two hours.

When the bus started running again, we were able to see the Colosseum, which is absolutely surreal;
it is very pretty and to think that it was built so very long ago. We did go inside a little bit, but there were too many people and because of the protest, time was limited, so we didn't stay long enough to actually get to the middle (we should have).

When we left there, we went to the Vatican (it's also very pretty). Warning: if you go to the Vatican, prepare for literally dozens of people to coming to you asking for money. These people are dressed in rags and look so hopeless, it will actually make you feel terrible. Again, it gave us a weird feeling because they were persistent and followed us.

I should mention that by this point, I've twisted my ankle probably 6 times because of the rain and uneven cobblestones (and my clumsiness). We get back on the bus and she informs us that this is the last bus and she'll be dropping us off at the last stop (which is a 10 minute walk from our hotel if you know your way around Italy). The lady gives us directions to our hotel and we're on our way. On our way under a bridge that has absolutely no lighting and is where all the homeless people stay. I basically just wanted to cry the whole time. We made it to the other side of the bridge and went into a store where we asked for directions again. These little old ladies tried so hard to help us, but they didn't speak any English. After stopping in multiple hotels and hostels, and cursing a lot, we were finally in a region that we knew. That's when we decided to go for supper...

I decided to have spaghetti and a coke (found out later that the coke cost like $8 CAD :|). The meal was lovely, the service was lovely, until we had to pay. I asked to pay with visa and the dude basically told me off, saying how inconvenient it was for him that I wasn't paying in cash. He was the rudest person I've ever encountered. We went back to our hotel and basically died because we just wanted to go back to England.

The next day we basically just shopped around for a bit because we had to leave to go to the airport 2, so we didn't have a whooole lot of time to do anything else. We finally found a McDonalds and had a half sensible meal. I say half sensible because they messed up my BigMac (9 countries now!), but the fries were delicious. There was also a man walking around McDonalds with a cup, asking for money :|. After that, we went back to the airport where we found some more rude people, and we were off to England!!

When it comes to Rome, as my dear old friend Taylor says:

Amsterdam

November 22nd, 2014

This weekend we went to Amsterdaaaam. It was absolutely beautiful, fairly expensive but none the less beautiful. We got go see a nice bit of the city through the airport shuttle because we were the last stop. The driver was absolutely mad, I bet my handprint is still in the handle of the door. I did manage to take some really nice pictures along the way.

Once we got to the hotel and dropped off our bags, we were off on a canal cruise. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures because they were kind of blurry, but it was so cool to see Amsterdam by boat and there was also some interesting facts told along the way.  After the canal cruise, we decided to do some shopping along the street our hotel was on (it was in the perfect location). I bought some Christmas gifts and had a Big Mac (in 8 different countries now).

While we were shopping, we discovered that Madame Tussauds Amsterdam was right next to our hotel. Even though we had went to the one in London, we decided to go see if there were any different figures there, and there were. There was a wax figure of Anne Frank, which was amazing, though I think it ought to be at the Anne Frank house. There were a lot of the same figures that we had already seen, but there was also Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, E.T., Oprah, Madonna, Beyoncé, and Adele (looks like I'm going to have to go to NY to see Swift). The coolest figure had to be Mona Lisa, you were able to take a picture that looked like you were photobombing the famous masterpiece (as you can see).

When we left Madame Tussauds, it was dark. We soon discovered that the later in the day it gets, the more likely you are to get high off of secondhand smoke. There were people smoking, everywhere. People were pushing children around in their strollers while sipping their cannabis energy drink and smoking their joints, all while walking past a police officer. It really is a strange thing to see. We did a little more shopping, then went back to the hotel and pretty much passed out because we had been awake and on the go for almost 19 hours.

November 23rd, 2014

This morning we decided to go to the Anne Frank House, the one thing that both of us had really wanted to do. We didn't have tickets pre-bought and everyone was telling us we'd have to wait in a really long queue, but honestly we were only waiting forty minutes. It was the most humbling experience that I've ever had. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but honestly I don't think I would have anyway. All of the rooms are for the most part empty (with the exception of a few displays) because Anne's father Otto wanted it that way. He said "The empty house symbolizes the void left behind by the millions of people who were deported and never returned.".  There were excerpts of Anne's diary as well as short films throughout the house. The stairs they had to climb were absolutely mad, they were so steep it felt like you were climbing a ladder. Words cannot describe how I felt while I was walking through that house. I think the hardest part of the whole experience for me was the end, when they had a picture of Otto stood in the Attic after the war. I honestly hope that every single one of you one day get the opportunity to visit this place and experience the feelings I felt today.

After the Anne Frank House, we went to the Red Light District; talk about a 180 lol. The Red Light District is actually kind of pretty, until you really get into it. Then there's literally sex and clouds of smoke everywhere. There are women in windows, in their underwear, just like you see on TV. There are little signs on the windows that say "safe sex only", which is hilarious and responsible all at the same time. It felt so weird walking past the windows, not because I think I'm better than them, just because it's definitely not what I'm used to seeing. It was just as weird walking past stores that had nothing but sex toys and drug paraphernalia in their windows. If this wasn't wild enough as were were walking by, some guy asked us if we were ready for a sex show. I still don't know if he was inviting us to watch or participate because I never gave him the opportunity to elaborate before I kicked into high speed and got out of dodge.

That pretty much sums up Amsterdam. The weather was beautiful, the people were friendly, the WiFi sucked, and I didn't get an STI or high 😎.

Ireland

Ireland. Ireland. Ireland. What can I say about Ireland? Ireland reminded me a lot of home, however it was probably my least favourite place that we visited. I think it was just a case of bad weather, not feeling well and bad timing. I was walking around with a pulled muscle in my back and Meighan had a kidney stone, so we were in misery but still trying to enjoy Ireland as much as we could. I don't have a whole lot of pictures, as it rained (and I mean rained) the entire time we were there. We were literally soaked to the bone, and as we were only going for one night, we hadn't packed a whole lot.

Anyway, lets get into the good things about Ireland, well actually Dublin. Dublin is very pretty and the people are for the most part very friendly. I say for the most part because I was crossing the road on a green man (which turned red when I was 3/4 of the way across) and the bus driver blew his horn and literally put the petal to the metal. I literally saw my life flash before my eyes and I am not exaggerating when I say I felt the wind from the bus on my back, that's how close it was. We went on a tour bus and saw Dublin three times (because it was legit pouring and it was the only way to not get pneumonia). I took some pictures but they either have a horrible reflection from the window, or are really great pictures of water droplets.

We did go into a pub in Dublin, and I did have a pint of beer. We decided to have Guinness, seeing how we were in the country. It is so disgusting, I have never tasted anything so vile in my life. But after paying almost $8 Canadian for it, I drank it all.

When I got back to the hotel, I was able to see cute little Jesse for the first time. I honestly spent 45 minutes crying and Meighan probably thought that I was crazy. He is so perfect and cute and ugh, I cannot wait to get home so I can meet him and Rylee! I am so homesick for babies, I'm losing my mind.

I'm getting really off track. The next day, we went on the bus tour again because there was this really cool museum that used to be a jail, that we wanted to visit. When we got to the museum, we found out that it was closed because it had flooded the day before from all of the rain *insert side-eye emoticon here*. It was rainy and cold, and we felt like we had seen everything that there was to see, so we went to McDonalds (big mac in 7 countries now) and mooched their wifi for an hour before we had to go to the airport.

I am really late posting this because I've been busy with school, I've been severely homesick, and I've been FaceTiming babies for a couple of hours a day. I'm not going to post anything about this weekend because we're just staying in Harlow.

Scotland

I'm going to do this entry as a combined thing as opposed to the different dates.

Not gonna lie, I only wanted to go to Scotland because that's where we were seeing Ed Sheeran. After
spending some time there, it is the BEST place that I've been. The people are so polite, and cute and their accents are theee best. I would one hundred percent consider going back there and visiting longer, maybe even living there (who knows?). Also, almost everywhere in the UK has somewhere/something named St.John's and it makes me really homesick.

I'm going to start by talking about the reason I went. ED SHEERAN. I would like to say that that man
is absolutely amazing. He has the voice of an angel, like it's actually beautiful. If you ever get the chance to see him live, do it (I've seen him twice now); the things he can do with his guitar are absolutely amazing.

So we saw Ed in Glasgow, and ventured about Glasgow a bit but we also spent a day in Edinburgh. In Edinburgh we went on a bus tour so that we could see as much of it as possible in a day. We went up to the castle, saw a man playing the bagpipes and did some shopping. There's not a whole lot to say about it, but overall it was a lovely day.

On the way back to Glasgow, the train ride was an hour and a half long; and my phone died. So I was very, very bored. I dozed off a couple of times because when it's dark outside you can't see anything but your reflection when you look out the train window. When there was about 45 minutes left, these four girls dressed up for Halloween, started singing Taylor Swift's new songs and started talking about them (all in their wonderful Scottish accent). So I was entertained for the last bit of the journey, at least. When we got back to our hotel, we had some pizza and beers and then went to sleep because it was a pretty exhausting day, and we were going back to Harlow the next day.

France

October 25th, 2014

France! First of all, France isn't as dirty as everyone makes it seem. I mean, yeah it's not the cleanest place on this planet, but it's also not the dirtiest. As for the smell.. It's not constant but every so often there is a pungent smell of I don't even know what. Just imagine the smell of the dirtiest public bathroom you've ever been in and multiply it by ten. 

Notre Dame

Our day started with a 2 hour train ride to Paris. The train wasn't the best experience that I've ever had, however I would choose it over flying (when it's cheaper) every single time. Once we got to the train station, that's when the fun started. Note: don't be alarmed if you see soldiers carrying huge guns walking around, apparently it's normal.We bought our 5 day travel card and tried to make our way to the hotel. If you're intimidated by the tube in London, let me tell you something: compared to the metro in France, the tube is child's play. I have never in my life witnessed so many people in such a small box. I really wish I had taken a picture of it so that I could show you. Once we made it to the street, we found our hotel and took an hour to regroup. 

Once we had freshened up and stuff, we decided we would go to the Notre Dame (the metro was less scary on the way there), it is absolutely beautiful. We didn't

Locks on the Bridge

actually go inside because there were 15 million people in front of it, and there was some kind of ritual happening. After taking some pictures we decided to walk down the road a little bit and that's when we discovered the lock bridge. It was one of the coolest things we did in Paris, being able to look at all of the locks and wonder about all the stories behind them. While we were there, a couple who had just gotten married put a lock on the bridge, and another couple asked Meighan to take a picture while they were putting their lock on. It was the cutest.

After that, we did some shopping in the little souvenir stores along the roads and found a subway. And, that's how our first day ended; sat on our bed eating subs. 

October 26th, 2014

L'Arc de Triomphe

By our second day, we had figured out the metro system, so travelling was fairly easy. We started off our day at L'Arc de Triomphe, which was absolutely beautiful (and huge). We were able to stand under the Arc, which was absolutely breathtaking. We sat down for a few minutes, just to take it all in and to pay our respects, then we were on way again.

The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower. What can I say? It was a dream come true. I still cannot believe that little ol' me from little ol' Shearstown was stood underneath the Eiffel Tower. It was a very emotional moment because even though I always dreamt of it, I never imagined that it would actually happen. There were a lot of people around, so we didn't actually go up in the Eiffel Tower because we wanted to spend the day seeing the rest of Paris and not standing in a lineup. 

We went on a river cruise, which was a great way to see most of Paris. We could hop off at any port next to the major attractions,

Part of the River Cruise

so we decided to hop off at the Louvre. It was lunchtime, and we were hungry. One small problem; try finding a restaurant or a place to eat near the Louvre. There are restaurants literally everywhere, except there. There was one little café on the whole stretch, we ended up paying an arm and a leg for a meal. The Louvre, was kind of boring, not going to lie. It was cool to be there an all, but after we saw the Mona Lisa and looked around for a bit, we were more than ready to leave.

We went back to the Eiffel Tower (because why not?) and bought a crêpe. It was absolutely delicious and everything I had ever imagined. We were absolutely exhausted, so we stayed long enough to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night (omg), before heading back to our hotel.

October 27th, 2014

Selfie with the Castle

Disneyland Paris! So exciting; there are so many great things at Disney. We went to the park that's very similar to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando the first day. The first ride we went on was Space Mountain: Mission 2, it was so different from the ride in Orlando and it was absolutely amazing. There are so many different things about Disneyland Paris, such as the size of the park; both parks were separated by a five minute walk. There's also the fact that the castle in the park in Sleeping Beauty's castle, not Cinderella's. It was the most beautiful day, sunny and warm; I almost forgot that it was the end of October. We had a lot of fun, got our picture took with Mickey Mouse, even caught the end of the parade (which now features Frozen :D), but by the end of the day we were absolutely exhausted and more than happy to go

My polaroids <3

back to our hotel.

When we got back to our hotel, I FINALLY was able to download 1989. I listened to it all and absolutely died because it's perfect. Mom texted me to tell me she had bought the hard copy for me, and send me a picture of my polaroids, let's just say it was the perfect ending to a lovely day! 

October 28th

Walt Disney Studios

Day 2 of Disney. So because it was so hot the previous day and I had been so warm in my jeans, I decided to wear just a thin sweater and some leggings. BIG MISTAKE. It was absolutely freezing and misty all day. We went to Walt Disney Studios (the other park), where we got in the lineup for the Tower of Terror. After about 30 minutes, they told us the ride wasn't working and we could come back later; we we completely rotted. We were convinced that this was about to be the crappiest day ever. But thankfully it wasn't. Other than being cold, we had the most brilliant time. We were even able to get on the Tower of Terror later that day, and the coolest roller coaster ever, Crush's coaster (Finding Nemo). 

Once it started to get dark, we were getting hungry and wanted to go home. So we decided to look for something to eat. Guess what we found? McDonalds (yaaaasss). So now, I have had a Big Mac meal in five different countries. While, the Canadian Big Mac is the best, the Big Mac in France was a very close second. 

After we ate, we went back to our hotel and packed up for our early train back this morning.

Another weekend in London..

October 11th, 2014

So, I’m a bit late posting this because our Internet has been down. We spent our first full weekend in London and no; I didn’t see Taylor Swift (just knowing I was in the same city as her was enough).

We were supposed to go to the zoo, however the forecast said there was going to be heavy rain showers, so we opted for the Natural History Museum instead. Thankfully, it did not rain because we were stood outside in a queue for an hour and a half; apparently on a Saturday afternoon you can’t just walk into the museum. Once we got in, we were greeting with the skeleton of a huge dinosaur #rawr. Overall the Museum was a huge disappointment because I really thought I was going to see the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, however all I was able to see was a robotic one. Had I not been expecting that, the museum would have really been great because I really did enjoy the mammal exhibit and the human biology exhibits. When we left the museum, we took the tube (favourite transport) to our hotel.

Once we checked in and freshened up a bit, we were off to Piccadilly Circus to see the One Direction movie. The cinema was the absolute craziest; you could buy beer and wine to drink while you watch the movie and the seats were super comfy (almost like a sofa chair) and reclined! I bought some very delicious sour candy and kicked back to enjoy the show. I may have been a little too comfy though, because I ended up falling asleep (and waking up in a panic because I thought that I had missed my favourite song). When the movie was over, it was nighttime, so we got to experience a bit of London at night. It was so very pretty, all of the lights and people. We didn’t stay out long though because we had to get back to our hotel and do some lesson planning. We ended up going to sleep pretty early because we knew we’d need all our energy for the next day’s events.

October 12th, 2014 

We went to Oxford Circus (well actually Oxford Street)!! My bank account still hasn’t and will probably never forgive me. There are so many stores on that stretch of street, and I’m pretty sure we stopped in just about every one of them. I have 90% of my Christmas shopping done and now may have to buy another suitcase to get everything home. It was actually amazing, you were able to barter with the shopkeepers for just about everything. One guy wanted £40 for a sweater, but as we screwed up our faces and started walking away he shouts, “but for you £20!” (we all know I bought the sweater lol). So many great deals! We were absolutely exhausted by 2 o'clock and we decided to head back to Harlow.

Overall, it was a lovely weekend! We don’t have any travel planned for this weekend and we are the most excited. No alarm for the first time in weeks!

Copenhagen, Denmark

October 4th, 2014

DENMARK! What can I say about Denmark? Lets start off with us getting lost for three hours. Having no access to technology and a language barrier while you're lost is very scary, just sayin'. First of all, it technically wasn't our fault that we got lost, we asked the lady at the information kiosk in the airport the best way to get to our hotel and she sent us to the wrong hotel (on the other side of town). We happened to get off the train next to a mall, so we went inside and robbed some Wi-Fi so we could find out where we were. We figured out that we needed to take a bus to the other side of the town. After a long bus ride, and some help from a very nice bus driver, we finally (3 hours later) found our lovely hotel! 

We went to the town centre and joined in on a free 3 hour walking tour. The tour guide was the nicest Australian man, who made the tour that much more enjoyable. He knew so much about Copenhagen and it's history, it was very lovely. He took us to the Nyhavn, which was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. The harbour used to be used by pirates and has a lot of history. It's now used as a place to just chill out, and it is literally the most relaxing place I've ever been to. ALSO you can drink alcohol anywhere in Copenhagen, so you can sit on the side of the dock and have a beer. Basically, I wish I lived there. Tip: If you plan on visiting Copenhagen, you should know that there are bicycles everywhere. Do not get in their way, they will curse you up or run you over. We witnessed this first hand.  After the Nyhavn, we went to the Amalienborg Palace; the home of the royals. Apparently, they just walk the streets as a normal person would without security or anything. We saw a lot of things, I'm not going to talk about them all because I would be typing all night. The tour ended up taking 4 hours, after walking on cobblestone for 4 hours (7 if you count the 3 hours we were lost) we were exhausted. We headed back to our hotel, after a quick detour to McDonalds (YUM! I've had a BigMac in 4 different countries now and Canada has the best ;) ) and pretty much passed out. 

October 5th, 2014

Day 2 started off with a breakfast buffet filled with Danish cold cuts. It was delicious, but not really my choice of breakfast. We checked out of our hotel and went to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek - an art museum that was a 2 minute walk from our hotel! It had some of the most beautiful pieces of art that I have ever seen. There were so many marble sculptures, and the sun was shining in through the windows so they were sparkling. Every single item in that museum was beautiful. 

We left the museum after a couple of hours and went to the town centre. We basically just looked around there for a bit, bought a pastry (I had the most delicious cinnamon roll) and people watched for a bit. There are so many babies everywhere. There was one little boy who was trying to toddle across the square, but was going too fast for his little legs; it was the cutest. 

We walked around some more and discovered the cutest little park behind the museum. There were so many happy people there; couples having picnics, old folks just enjoying the scenery, and people playing with their dogs. It was like a scene in a movie, so perfect. 

After all of that, it was time to go back to Harlow. They say Danes are the happiest people on the planet and after spending a weekend there, I can see why!