Sunday, March 28, 2010

Venice

As requested (by Casey) I will continue to chronicle my adventures travel-log style. So heeeeeeeere's Venice!

Day 1: Tyane (my roomie) and Andrew (a friend) decided to rent a car and drive the four and a half hours to Venice, Italy for a weekend. We left on Saturday night and drove non-stop all the way. When we finally arrived, we checked into our hotel and crashed.

Day 2: After discovering that our bathroom and shower were one whole unit and marveling at the flood that resulted from taking a shower, we headed out to the train station. It was a little bit chilly, but much warmer that Garmisch. We took the train onto the island and decided that instead of taking the water taxi, we wanted to explore by walking the city. So we started by finding Piazza San Marco, the most famous Piazza in Venice. The view was incredible! Venice is such an amazing place! We wandered around, going into random churches and shops as we pleased, and I even took in my very first Catholic Mass in a Benedictine Monastery. It was such a neat experience to see the people of Venice in their everyday lives. We saw so many cool things, and the city is truly a beautiful place! Every picture I took was a postcard! After a substantial amount of walking, we decided to call it a day. Venice is a very small city, and perfect to see in a day or two. We took the train back to the mainland and took a nap on the rock-hard mattresses before setting out to find dinner. We all wanted to experience some good Italian food, so we asked the front desk clerk to recommend somewhere. He pointed us toward a great little seafood joint, where we had amazing food and great conversation. After that, we decided the day couldn't get any better, so we went to bed.

Day 3: This day we decided that rather that having to rush home, we wanted to take the day slow and meander back. We had seen that the next town over had an Ikea, so we thought it would be a great idea to take advantage of having a car and stop in to see if they had any good deals. They DID! Tyane and I got some shelves, a rug, and lamps for our bedside tables, as well as some picture frames for the great oil paintings we bought in Venice. We loaded our loot in the car and set off through the beautiful vineyards of northern Italy and steadily made our way back to the German alps we call home!

Friday, March 26, 2010

London, Extended Version

Okay, so here is how it went down...

Day 1: Katie and I went to Memmingen (west of Munich) to catch our Ryan Air flight to London-Stanstead. We got into London at around 7:00, and took a bus into town. Because we weren't sure about where our hostel was, we wandered around the Liverpool station a little bit before we found the right place to go. We ended up being able to walk there in around ten minutes, so we braved the streets and got acquainted with London right away. We decided to be crazy and both dyed our hair in the hostel that night, although we both did colors we had done before, so nothing drastic (although Katie's was pretty red...). Then we crawled into bed and crashed after our long day of traveling.

Day 2: Both Katie and I really wanted to do some shopping an such while in London, so we decided to go to Camden Town, which is the market district in London. We found some really good deals, and ended up getting our hair cut as well. We both cut a lot of hair off! I cut off about five inches! It was a fun change for both of us. Because my hair was taking such a long time, Katie decided she wanted to go see a museum of Modern Art, so we chose a meeting time (7:00) and place (outside the entrance to the Museum). Unfortunately, there were several entrances to the museum, and we lost each other for about two hours. I have to admit, I thought she was taken by white slavers. But we are both very responsible people, and thought that going back to the Hostel was a safe bet, and we found each other there. After vowing to never separate again, we set off to meet up with a tour of some of London's best Pubs. Because I didn't want her to go alone, I decided to tag along, and just be the designated bus/cab finder at the end of the night. Plus, I got all my drinks free! Water is usually free, but even if I had had to pay, there were plenty of willing parties to do that for me ;) We ended up meeting some cool people, and having a good time, even though it is tough to find your way back to a hostel with four semi-drunk people in tow. I am now very confident that I could be the designated driver/bus/cab-finder anywhere.

Day 3: The best day ever! We began with a free tour of the most famous sights in London, including Buckingham Place, Big Ben, and Westminster. After this tour, we had a great lunch of Fish and Chips with Smashed Peas, and made our way to the afternoon tour of Old London. That was a great tour that took in the Lawyer's area (it's a city within a city within a city!) the church of the Knights Templar, Covent Garden, and more. We ate dinner at our favorite restaurant (Pret Manager) and discovered Love bars (best things since chocolate bars). After this tour we rushed back to change into our finery for the best part of London by far, which was seeing Wicked!!! It was amazing and so much fun!

Day 4: Caught the bus back to the airport and made our merry way back to Garmisch!

Friday, March 12, 2010

London

Well, it's taken me this long to post about London, who knows when I'll get around to Venice and Rome! I had a blast in England, soaking up the local culture with my friend Katie. We saw everything, and then some! We went to see Wicked on our final night in town, and just had a blast! If you want to see pictures, you'll have to go to facebook, because my internet is too slow to upload pictures on blogspot. Sorry!