ITALY!

Hello humans,

Maggie here again, and we're both still alive. Sorry about the lack of updates, the internet was unfortunately not working at John's house until today, and we got here on Sunday.

But other than that, Italy has been AMAZING. John (our dad's friend) has been our tour guide showing us around, driving us to lots of really cool cities.

The day we got here he picked us up at the airport in Pisa in the morning and we headed straight to check out the Leaning Tower, which was gnarly. Took some pintures and then went to lunch at a place near there. I had a hot chocolate which was the best hot chocolate I've ever had, another place here was close though. After lunch we drove to a cute hilltop town called Volterra. Great views of the countryside and cute buildings and cool old churches. As we were walking around Heather makes the comment that the town feels like something out of a movie, and then we pass a bookstore with "New Moon" posters and she realizes that they shot part of that movie in Volterra. Clarence, it's the city where the Voltari live, jealous?

Next day he took us to Cinque Terre which is on the coast and very pretty. It's five towns connected by trails so you can walk to the next one or take the train. We walked the distance between the first couple towns which was no problem and were going to take the train after that but we missed the next one by a couple minutes so we decided to power on instead of waiting. This stretch was much more difficult than the ones before and super long, especially because we weren't really dressed for hiking. John nicknamed it "The Death March," haha, but we survived.
After we finally made it to the next town we had a lovely dinner and then caught the train back.

Then on Tuesday we woke up late, had amazing pizza at the place right by John's house then went and checked out Lucca. It was a super cute town. He also taught H and I how to drive stick shift that day.

Wednesday we went to Florence and checked that out. It was raining but we still walked around a bit. Heather bought a purple bag, she was stoked. We went to the Academmia Museum, which is where the Statue of David is. It's totally gnarly. You're not supposed to take pictures of it, but John blocked me from the guard and I got two pictures. He said you're a coward if you don't get a picture of it because security is not too tight. Then we went to dinner with John and his cousin who lives in Florence and a few of her friends. They were all really cool and it was a fun night.

The next day, yesterday, we checked out San Gimignano, another hilltop town. Heather and I got gelato again even though it was pretty cold. Gelato is amazing. We've had it at least four times so far. Yummmmmmmmm. Then that night we drove back to Florence to go to dinner for his cousin's birthday. It was at a Chinese restaurant.

Then today was a relax around the house and watch as many movies as possible day. Which was nice as well. Tomorrow we're going to Siena in the day and probably Florence again in the afternoon. John said there's a lot we still haven't seen there because it was rainy the first day and just dinner the second.

Well that's all for now, later.

Maggie

Bratislava, Slovakia

Why hello there,

So we left Dublin super early Friday morning, yesterday, and arrived in Slovakia a few hours later. Bratislava is super cheap which is nice. Yesterday we didn´t do much because Heather HAD to watch the Olympics because it was women´s figure skating... So today we have been exploring the city, walking around a lot, looking at palaces and castles. Heather´s phone does not work in most of the city, we´ve only found two places where it gets service, and our hostel is not one of them, lame sausage. So if you try to reach us before we get to Italy, it might not work.

Heather wants to add that it´s a surprisingly nice city, although the outskirts of Bratislava are not too appealing. Communism was not nice to Slovakia.

Alright, signing off until Italy.

Peace.

Maggie... and Heather

Dublin!

Greetings Fellow Americans,

So Dublin was awesome. We stayed in a nice hotel in Temple Bar for cheaper than some of our hostels have been. Mike´s friend Dominic who we met at Mike´s house, works in the hotel industry (Bono´s hotel in Dublin.) So he was able to get us a discounted price at a different hotel. It was gnarly.

So the first day we went on another free walking tour and learned some of the history of the city, it was good except that it was snowing, and superrrrr cold. Heather claims it´s the coldest she´s ever been in her life. Our tour guide was Garvan, or Gar. He´s from County Donegal, but he barely has an Irish accent, it was kind of freaking us out, or maybe just Heather. Then we walked around Temple Bar, and H noticed that the same sweatshirt she bought 5 years ago for 20 euro is now 40 euro. Lame sauce.

Next day we checked out the Guinness Storehouse, Heather for the third time, me for the first (because I´m not an alcoholic)... It was pretty gnarly. H said some of it was a bit different than the last time. The best part was the section that chronicled Guinness advertising. We were able to pick through a bunch of commercials and thought the "Brilliant" ads were, well brilliant. At the end of the tour we were able to find seats in the gravity bar, which the "alchey" said was a first for her. We enjoyed our complimentary guinnesses up there.

That night we met up with distant cousin Martin, the police officer and Mike´s son. He took us to dinner at an Italian restaurant then to a pub for a few beers. He was quite entertaining, had some good cop stories.

The next day, our last in Dublin, we went to the Museum of National History on Martin´s recommendation. It was cool reading about Irish history from way back in the day, and IT WAS FREE! The craziest part was a few ancient bodies that were pulled from a bog. There were lots of things still intact, like fingernails and hair. They were around 2000 years old, crazy.

And that´s about it for Dublin.

Later,
Maggie

Cork

'Ello all,

Maggie here again. So two days ago H and I took the train to Cork, took about an hour and a half. It's a cute little city, apparently the 2nd biggest in Ireland. We walked around a bit, had lunch, and then met up with Kieran, Mike and Lily's son. Kieran's in the army so we stayed the night with him in the Army barracks which was quite interesting. Kieran remembers meeting Heather and me when we were little when the Woulfe's were visiting California about 15 years ago, I don't remember it. He's really nice and very funny. He took us out to dinner and a pub with a couple of his army friends. It was gnarly. Then he drove us back to Patrickswell yesterday. Today we just hung out around the house, but tomorrow I think we're going to Killarney for the day. Then on Monday it's off to Dublin for 4 days to finish off our tour of Ireland.

Ok, Later.

Ireland = awesome, what else did you expect?

Ahoy There Mateys!

So apparantly I have loads of relatives in Ireland who are super nice and willing to drive Maggie and me around the country.

For example, Josie (Lily's sister) took us to Adare for the day.

Adare is a small quiet Irish town straight out of a movie. They also have a Manor. Bit of history for you, the Lord Dunraven was put in charge and built a lovely Manor for himself to live in. And despite being English he was a good guy and built houses for his farmers/workers to live in. The people of the town liked him and everyone lived in harmony. I'm assuming there was harmony, if my boss built me a house I'd be pretty happy with him.

We walked all over the Manor property (which is open to the public). It was a beautiful day and the sun was out. At one point we came up to a sign that said, "Residents and Guests Beyond this Point Only," to which Josie said, "Well girls, are we residents or guests?" We continued toward the Adare Manor, looming in the distance. As we approached the Manor there was another sign reading the same as the one before. And again we ignored it and went inside the Manor. By the way the Manor is now a ridiciously nice hotel, originally built in the 19th century with a medieval flair. Anyway, the inside was magnificant. A giant chandelier is the focal point in the main lobby. As we were touring the extravagantly decorated high tea room, I turned to Josie and asked "Do you think this place is haunted?" and she responded "It'd be a pity if it wasn't," which I thought was quite a splendid answer. After that we went outside and walked by the river which is near the golf course. Once we left the grounds of the Manor, the three of us lunched at a pub down the road and it was quite lovely.

And yesterday, two more of Lily's siblings who we didn't know about, Noula and Michael, drove us to the Cliffs of Moher which were quite spectacular. The view was awesome, it was super windy, and the rain held off just until we got into the car to continue on our journey. From the cliffs we drove to Galway which was maybe an hour and a half or two hours from there. Galway was a cute little city with tons of stores, restaurants, and whatnot. We ate at another pub, of course, and I had an awesome seafood platter, Maggie the Irish stew. From there we walked around for a bit and then headed back to Michael's house. Oh and Padre, on the way back we stopped for a drink at Durty Nelly's, it was gnarly.

Got to go,
Heather

Limerick

Hello friends,

Maggie here, again... So Ireland has been wonderful so far but I'll start with Amsterdam. We were there for one whole day, two nights. The first night we just walked around and found a restaurant, didn't stay out too long because it was so cold. The next day we went on a walking tour and learned some of the city's history which was quite interesting. My favorite part was when the guide, Amy, told us about Louis Bonaparte. He was Napoleon's brother, and was appointed as king of the Netherlands in 1806 by Napoleon. She told us that he only did two major things in Holland as King (before Napoleon fired him.) He made all buildings have address numbers, instead of just having a plaque in front of the house to identiy who lives there. And the second thing he did was make all the Dutch people have surnames, because too many people had the same names. The Dutch people thought it was stupid becasue they were getting along just fine, so some of them came up with ridiculous names, like "Pile of Pants," "Born Naked," "Little S***," or "Hardly ever at home" (in Dutch of course) to show Louis they thought it was stupid. But Loius didn't speak Dutch so he didn't know what they meant anyway, and apparently some people in Holland still have these ridiculous last names, so it kind of backfired.

So after the walking tour we went to a restaurant with the guide and a few other people and had a traditional Dutch meal of sausage and mashed potatoes. It was pretty good. Heather had seconds on the sausage... Then we went to the Anne Frank House which was really interesting. You get to walk through the house and they have it set up how it was so you go behind a book case and climb up the super steep steps to get to the hidden rooms. There were also videos of Otto Frank, her dad, and Miep Gies, a woman who helped them hide. It was pretty crazy.

After that we went on another walking tour, this one of the Red Light District, which is where our hostel was. It was pretty interesting. So that was a full day, and then the next morning we left for Ireland.

Yesterday (our first whole day here) Heather and I did pretty much nothing, and it was nice. We hung around the house with Mike, did our laundry, and that was about it. Lily is in South Africa right now so it is just Mike at the house. Their daughter Lisa stopped by the house yesterday with her son Shane. He's 3 and super cute with his little Irish accent.

Today Mike drove us into Limerick where we walked around and went into some stores and whatnot. Then we took a taxi back to Patrickswell (where their house is) and found a pub that Mike recommended and watched the big Ireland/France rugby game. France won 30-10, but it was still cool watching it in a pub with people who were super into it.

Not sure what we're doing tomorrow, maybe just relax again, or go into town again.

That's all for now.

Peace.

We made it to Ireland!

Why 'ello there everyone,

After pretty much all day of travelling today we finally made it to Mike and Lily's in Limerick, Ireland. We took a train from Amsterdam to Eindhoven, Netherlands this morning, then a bus from the train station to the airport in Eindhoven, then the airplane, and then another 3 hours on a bus once we got to Dublin. It was quite a day. Mike picked us up at the bus stop around 11pm and then made us sausage and eggs for dinner. Yum. Heather was very pleased to have some breakfast sausages of course... Going to bed soon so this will be a short update, but we will have regular access to a computer for at least a week now so I'll update again soon, and tell about Amsterdam. We're excited to rest for a little while in Ireland, we'll be here for two weeks.

Ok, later dudes,
Maggie

Bruges

What up dudes?

We found another computer in a timely manner this time, do not fret Clarence, and there is definitely no need for a strongly worded letter... So Bruges is pretty awesome, and I am feeling much better, pretty much back to normal. So it's really cold here, snowed pretty much all day while we were out checking out the city, but I like it.

We met two girls on the train here, let's call them "Penelope" and "Gweneviere" (not sure how to spell that one). They're from England (obviously), and they're staying at our hostel. This hostel is pretty crappy, but it's only two days. And yes, we do seem to be meeting people in twos, gma. We've met a couple, but not too many people travelling by themselves.

The first night we were here was the superbowl which Heather convinced the dudes who run the bar at the hostel to stay open and show it. It didn't start til after midnight here. I only lasted til halftime, 2am, but H stayed the whole time with the 7 other people who were watching, and I'm pretty sure most of them did not know the rules or anything.

So today we walked around and saw the city, went to the Chocolate museum and had some waffles. Belgian waffles are pretty much the best thing I've ever eaten. We had a few in Brussels as well. Yum.

So I think that's all for now. Off to Amsterdam tomorrow.

Later.

Brussels

Hello fellow humans,

Maggie here. We've had a bit of trouble getting on a computer lately, and the last time we did we forgot to update the blog, so sorry about the delay. We have since left Barcelona, spent a day and a half in Marseilles, France and today is our last day in Brussels. Also, Belgium is a bit behind the times technologically, their cell phone networks are not so good, so Heather's phone does not get emails here, only phone calls work.

So Marseilles was a bit sketch, but there were also some really nice areas. It was quite dirty in most of the city. But we did walk up a bunch of hills and got to the top near a really nice church which had a pretty gnarly view of the city. We mostly stopped there to break up the train ride from Barcelona to Belgium though. Barcelona to Marseilles took 7 hours, after a bit of a mix up with going to the wrong train station and missing our original train... but we figured out a different route to get there and it was fine. Then another 4 and a half hours or so to get to Belgium from Marseilles.

Brussels has been really awesome. We are couch surfing here, which means we found someone who lives here and was willing to let us stay at her place for free, on couchsurfing.org. So we're staying at Anna's apartment, and she's really cool. She's drawn maps for us and told us good places to go, helped us find an English bookstore, because Heather really needed another book to read. We both finished our books pretty early on which was kind of annoying because there is a lot of down time, especially on trains. I bought "Dracula" in Barcelona so I'm good for a while. And now she has a new book to read as well. So today Anna went out with us and showed us some cool places in the city. She is 32, from Poland originally but has been living in Brussels for a few years. She works for the EU. This is the only place we're couchsurfing.

Brussels is an interesting city, there's a French and a Dutch area, and the two groups don't really like each other. Today Anna took us to some Dutch areas which were cool to see.

So tomorrow we're headed to Bruges for two days, and then on to Amsterdam for two more, then from there to Ireland for two weeks. And after that Italy for a week and a half and then we're headed home. So I guess we're about half way done. Gnarly.

That's all for now.

Peace.

Barthelona

Hello Loyal Subjects,

Tis your traveling Queen speaking.

Barcelona has been wonderful. The hostel is way better than Madrid. I srtuck up a convo with a fellow American on our first day. We'll call him "Jason." Jason literally got in a fight on the subway, and cautioned us not to mess with thugs. (By the way, Claire, Jason called them homeboys. So there!) So we locked up our valueables at the hostel. I only carried my phone, since it takes better pictures than my digital camera, go figure. And the hostel lock box is free!

We walked down La Rambla to the harbor on a beautiful sunny day. There was a huge farmers market on that street. I was able to get some pineapple and it was delicious. That night we went to an Irish Pub with Jason and Shane from Ireland to watch FC Barcelona. It was really fun except for all the smoke. I had a BLT and some Guinness. I had forgotten how good bacon is.

On the agenda for tomorrow...We are going to head out to the olympic village to check that out and go to bed early, early train tomorrow.

Zat is all for now!

Actividades en Madrid

Hola,

So many fun events in Madrid.

First we went to the Plaza de los Toros, the world's most important stage according to the Spanish. We went on a tour of their bull fighting arena. It was BA all the way. Our tour guide was talking super fast in spanish and then she would come over to Maggie and I and repeat what she just said in english, still talking super fast. It was also extremely cold that day and we were in the shade most of the time. We went into the staduim and took a look at everything from the cement seats. Unfortunately the circus was literally in town and there was a big top in the middle of the arena. We then went down to the bottom of the arena to the dirt, there was some room between the tent and the arena wall. We saw where a bull fighter hides from the bull if he/she must.

Some fun facts about Plaza de los Toros:
-24,000 people can fit in the staduim
-Bulls can actually jump the wall and land in the stands. Our tour guides said that is the reason she will not sit in the front rows
-The last bull fighter to die in the stadium was in the 1940s
-There has been one successful American bullfighter, John Fulton
-Many popular bands have played in the Staduim, U2, Rolling Stones, and Shakira just to name a few

That night we went out with some French guys we met at our hostel. I love talking to non-native English speakers. They were quite entertaining, Victor and Roman. We got some drinks and then went to a Tapas bar. It was a great night. And they insisted on paying! I told them when they are in So Cal I will repay the favor.

Maggie is still a bit sickly. She bought an anti-histimine to take care of the runny nose. Ewwww. I think she's gonna make it.

Next stop Barcelona!

Estamos en Madrid!

Hola,

Maggie here. We arrived in Madrid yesterday, took the metro from the airport into the city and found our hostel no problem for the first time. The hostel isn't that great but it's not terrible either. The window in our room doesn't close all the way and this morning I woke up with a sore throat and not feeling too great. It was really cold in the room, it snowed a little last night. We're trying to switch to a room with windows that close.

First thing we did this morning was stop by the train station and get tickets for Barcelona on Friday. There was a bit of confusion when reserving our tickets. We said Barcelona, but for some reason homeboy thought we wanted Paris. We didn't catch it at first but then realized that it shouldn't take 12 hours to get to Barcelona from Madrid. But we ended up with the right tickets so it's all good.

After the train station we went to the Museo del Prado and saw lots of gnarly art. It was nice.

Me gusta hablando espanol con las personas.

Paz.

More in Portugal

Today is our last day in Portugal. We went on a different sightseeing bus tour yesterday and saw the newer parts of the city. Some parts are really old, like the Barrio Alto which is where we are staying. There was a massive earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 which destroyed most of the city, only three neighborhoods survived, so the rest of the city had to be rebuilt. So yesterday on the bus we drove through a modern part of Lisbon which had a convention center, a sports stadium, and lots of big buildings.

Today we took a street car up a bunch of hills to check out Castelo de Sao Jorge, a gnarly castle overlooking the city, which was built in the 11th-12th centuries. There was also a museum near the castle which had artifacts from back in the day. It was a cool little area with beautiful views. There were lots of little cafes and houses all the way up to the front of the castle grounds. I thought it was crazy how people live pretty much right next to the castle.

After touring the castle we went to one of the cafes near it and I ordered a hamburger, which literally had ham on it. Kind of strange, but not bad. It had a regular beef patty too. I guess they like ham here in Portugal because there was a sign advertising "Melon and Portuguese ham" at the restaurant. Weird.

Switching to Heather...

So we are literally the only people in the hostel right now. It's very quiet at least. This place offers free internet usage! I wouldn't be surprised if this was the only hostel with free internet.

Ready to move on to Spain for the next week! Adios amigos!

Lisbon!

Hello all,

Today was our first full day in Lisbon, Portugal. We went on a sightseeing hop on hop off bus tour thingy. It took us around the city with a historical commentary. We saw some cool buildings and got out at the coast. We ate lunch at a little seafood cafe, for less than 9 euro, it was pretty good. We saw a bridge that connects Lisbon to another part of Portugal and it looks a lot like the Golden Gate Bridge, same colors, just not as tall. It's called the 25 de Abril Bridge if you want to look it up.

The city is really old and cool looking. Lots of tiny alleys. Our hostel is in alley and it was pretty hard to find yesterday. The breakfast is just cereal and toast, not too filling. Heather really wants "a nice breakfast sausage."

Also, there are a lot of pastry shops on the streets so we stopped in one on the way back today and I got a donut thingy and Heather got chocolate mousse, which was apparently heaven...

Fun fact of the day, our hostel is called Alface, which means lettuce in Portuguese. Pretty much everyone speaks enough English here for us to get by, which is nice.

That's all for now.

Peace out.

P.S. The commenting of our readers could use some improvement, haha, we're not sure if anyone is reading this.

Last Day in Paris...Portugal Next!

Greetings,

It's raining today, meh. But yesterday we feasted our eyes on the epitome of french luxery. That's right, Versailles! My choice of words cannot begin to describe the beauty of the palace.

After the palace we found Creperie Suzette (recommended by my mother from a friend). It was delicious. I needed to have some really good crepes before leaving Paris. On the way back to the Hostel we stopped at a wine shop and I bought a bottle of French Syrah for 5 euro. I was basically looking for a red French wine with a twist off, due to our lack of a corkscrew. I enjoyed the wine very much.

I'm having trouble finding a USB connector to upload pictures but there are a few pictures from my phone on Flickr.

Goodbye Paris, its been fun!

Eiffel Tower and the Louvre

What up dudes?

We saw the Eiffel Tower yesterday, but did not pay 10 bucks to stand in line for 3 hours and go to the top. We went to the top of two tall things already, good enough. It was pretty cool, but looks kind of brownish and not too pretty up close. We also walked around a lot and enjoyed the city.

Today we went to the Louvre and we're mot completely impressed but glad we did it. The Mona Lisa was crowded but we saw it enough. Tomorrow we're going to Versailles to check out that palace. The Louvre is massive (we got a bit lost) but the ancient Egyptian area was the highlight. The Louvre used to be the palace, and I think our tour guide said Louis XVI decided to move out to the countryside where he built the Versailles palace. Apparently it's quite extravagant. When the king moved out artists moved into the Louvre and set up studios and later it was turned into a museum.

Later.

Euro Disney and More!

Hey There Sports Fans,

It's Heather, duh. Yesterday was Euro Disney. It exceeded my expectations. Their Pirates was BA. And the costumes were waaaaaaaay better. They actually looked like Pirates, like could have been extras in the movie, not the cartoon. Space Mountain was ridiculous. A loop, a corkscrew loop all at top speed! Indy was a small out door rollercoaster, not so cool. Thunder was great very similar to Anaheim's. The best part was the castle. You could go up to the second floor and see the story of Sleeping Beauty told on stained glass and tapestries. It was definitely my favorite! We were there for about 7 hours, perservering through a bit of rain.

The day before, Friday, we climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame. Looking back maybe we should have done one on a different day since both offer sweeping views of the city after hundreds, thousands of steps. We slept good that night. Once at the top of Notre Dame, we were able to climb into the small space housing the infamous Bell Tower. There were two tiny opennings which you had to step into and then a very small and shakey staircase leading up to the bell. We learned that the bell is no longer used since it could shake the walls and cause possible devastating damage to the structure. Other smaller bells are used throughout the day.

We still need to go the the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Versailles and get some amazing crepes. We had some ok crepes at a restaurant down the street from our Hostel. The waiter insisted he did not speak English but the menu was in English and French. I call BS.

That's all for now. Lots to still do!

-H

Paris!

Hi everyone! This is Maggie, we've been here two days so far and it's pretty gnarly. It's cold, but not too cold, in the 30's but we're staying warm. We went on two walking tours yesterday. It was a beautiful day. We saw a lot of stuff like Notre Dame, the Lourve, and the Eiffel Tower from afar. Now that we know where things are we're going to go back and spend more time at each place. The second tour was at night of the district we're staying in, Le Montmatre (pronounced mo-mart). We saw Moulin Rouge, a cool church, and it's the art district so we also saw where Van Gogh used to live and his favorite restaurant.

The hostel is pretty cool. We're by a school though and the kids are really loud, running around and screaming during recess seems to be their favorite pasttime. The free breakfast is cocoa puffs or corn flakes and a croissant.

We'll add some pictures later.

Peace.