Maren my princess

Sooo I just got into Dublin… a couple hours ago… It is nice to be in an english speaking courntry… HOWEVER I was just in Germany, Munster and Berlin… My friend from highschool was INCREDIBLE… such a sweetheart and an amazing hostess. She made the rest of my German experience a comfortable and FUN one.

Munster is a gorgeous city. REALLY one of my fav. places as far as the small town feel goes. We did a road-trip to Berlin with her friend Ruth… also a wonderful person. God it was great, both of them have such a fantastically dry sence of humour… SO MUCH FUN. There we got to see some Caspar David Friedrich… WOW OK so for those of you who don’t know…he is my all time FAVORITE artist…I almost had a heart attack… It was sooo awesome to see his art in PERSON. WOW… I lost my breath.  We also went to the Jewish Museum wich was really really cool too. It was good for me because I didn’t know much about them and their hardships before wwII… wow… the artists of the building and exhibits really knew how to get to you. They would actually make you FEEL the pain or sorrow or hardship etc… it was a good and hard experience.

We did some walking around….. but it was FREAKING COLD so it was a QUICK walk… oooh and we ate WAY TOOO MUCH CHOCOLATE mmmmmmm

On the way back we went to a thermal bath…or termal bad… or somethign… but it was like a spa… wow soooo cool, it was all salt water and had a bunch of diff. pools and hottubs… one pool had music underwater and another had a current that went in a circle and another had these super powerful hoses that massages your back and one of the hot tubs were full of iron and …something …it was yellow but good for your skin.

AND I went to the zoo with Maren’s boyfriend Christov  (also sooo nice…and I am probably butchering his name) but we got to see penguins and I got to feed them and I let them bite my map…I was going to pet it…but I saw what it did to my map and decided against it. We also saw a baby Lion cub… awwwww…. it was good times!!!

 Anywhoo, I am now in Dublin, plan to check out some sights here and on Friday I take a bus tour of Southern Ireland… then Edinburgh where I will be staying with Laura’s sister (aaahhh) and another bus tour and then England and then HOME!!!!!…well kinda home… first I stop off in toronto for a couple days.. haha

Miss all of you and love u

Shannon

Shannon Hasselhoff

The Germans love me like they love David Hasselhoff. I don’t know why but I have been hit-on and stared at more here than Greece, Italy, France and Holland combined. haha someone please tell me what it is… what do I have that David Hasselhoff shares??? and is THAT a compliment… comparing me with David… hmmm

 ANYWAYS…. the y and z’s here are in opposite places, so I am sorry if I have a few mixed in this blog. I am currently wasting time here in the internet ctr while I wait for my flight to munster.

Sooo Munich… is beautiful and full of history. I love it here! Yesterday I went to the  Schloss Neuschwanstein castle (“disney castle”) and it was incredible. What also blew me away was the countryside on the way out here… WOW it is gorgeous here. Honestly, the initial reason I came to Germany was to see Caspar David Friedrich’s art…  and I saw his inspiration. The landscape is …. wow…. sooooo green and has a mystical feel… colours of green that I can’t even explain…it almost glows.

The castle also was a sight to see… sooooooo coooooollll!!! YOU TOTALLY can see where Walt Disney got his inspiration. Even inside the castle there were hints of him…. Like the chandeliers, they looked EXACTLY like the crowns in Disney’s cartoon version of Robin Hood and there is a music hall that has a backdrop of a woodland setting… EXACTLY the kind of background for disney’s movies like Snow White, and Bambi etc… King Ludwig II had QUITE the imagination… actually, he was fond of opium… apparantly haha.

Anywhoo… needless to say, yesterday was quite the day for beauty. The day before I went on this awesome walking tour around Munich and learned a LOT about the city and its history. I am loving Germany and the sights here. It is clean and the people are REALLY nice… well, so far anyways. I am still meeting soooo many amazing people and learning a lot… I am really looking forwards to seeing Maren (highschool friend from Munster) and seeing Berlin and some of Caspar’s art.

 still missing you all and wish I could share this experience with all of you.

xoxo

baguettes, croissants and crepes OH MY

GOD I absolutely LOVED Paris. I ate a nutella and banana crepe every day mmmm. they sell them on the streets like hot dogs!!

There is sooo much to see and do there. The night I got there I met some other travellers who invited me to see the Eiffel Tower  and Moulin Rouge with them in the moonlight. It was sooo amazing. Moulin Rouge was less exciting than I had expected. I thought it would be much bigger and more lights. I thought that it was a district or town not just a small place like a restaurant with a big windmill in front. I am sure it is quite a show to see inside… but I am too poor for that! The eiffel tower was gorgeous and at exactly 11pm it has a seizure of twinkling lights. It was very  cool! the next day I went to Versailles. The palace was closed but everything else was open. I really just wanted to see the Palace from the outside anyways …and the garden. So on a beautiful parisian day (not sure if that makes a difference…haha) we rented bikes and biked the gardens. They go on forever with with a series of ponds, fountains, and arrangements of flowers and trees. If you go further beyond the main gardens, you move into the french countryside, where there are farms with horses, cows, sheeps adn colourful falling leaves. We even saw these cute little kids playing in the leaves. Once they notice our attention, they slowly made their way towards us and threw leaves at us… man that was cute! The next day (oct 16) I met another girl (our ‘group’ just kept getting bigger and bigger…. and such a fantastic group of people too!)

We went to the Eiffel Tower to see it during the day and walked to the ‘Arc De Triomphe’ . It was the perfect time to go too becauase there was a military marching band and soldiers, people had flowers for some memorial service under the Arch.  It was just about the most perfect thing to see there… considering what is represents. Then we went up the arch FOR FREE!!! apparantly ‘artists’ get up for free…

The next day Katie (my new travel buddy from new york) and I went to the Musee d’orsay where we saw AMAZING artwork. It was sooo crazy to be standing in front of so many masterpieces. To be able to see Monet, Manet, Degas and Van Gogh’s actual brush strokes!!! I cant even describe how I felt. … speaking of which, after the musee d’orsay we went to the Cathedral of Noter Dame… HONESTLY the MOST beautiful cathedral I have seen. I LOVE gothic architecture, adn this place was… breathtaking… As I walked inside, I noticed that there was a mass going on. So to the beautiful tunes of the choir and looking down the candle lit building, I walked down the isles, seeing some of the most beautiful stained glass work I had ever seen… I lost it!! I really think it was the music that did me in… Again, good timing eh? That night we all decided to go out for dinner and some parisian karaoke haha (of course we sang in english) GOD IT WAS A BLAST!!

On my last day in Paris, I spent four hours at the Louvre (again, same responce as the musee d’orsey) and sat on the hill in Montmartre in front of the, yet again, beautiful Sacre Coeur cathedral. Although not gothic, this Palace-looking white cathedral was quite gorgeous. I had a blast just soaking in the parisian culture.
So… I was supposed to stay in Paris for a few more days… and meet Katie in Munich where we will see the Schloss Neuschwanstein castle ( the castle that Walt Disney based all his castles on) but I had seen almost everything in Paris that i wanted to see ( I could spend weeks there and not see everything… really) so I jumped on the train with Katie to Amsterdam.

SSSOOOO here we are, I am in Amsterdam. I got here yesterday and went to a museum called Rijksmuseum. and it has about 200 Northern European pieces which isnot bery much, ,, but it made fro the BEST organized gallery I have ever been to. And every piece has a full description of what it is and includes little factsSO GREAT TO HAVE. I wish every gallery was like that. They also had these gigantic doll houses that look like actual houses..with litle dolls inside. The rooms were incredible inside. … anyways after that i went over to the Hinaken Brewery adn we did the tour and got a bunch of beer for free. GOd that was a blast… and we got to see what a beer bottle sees and the process it goes through as a beer bottle… haha was a virtual fun time. After that we went to a ‘coffee shop’ the same on e that is in ocean’s 11… and there was a cat that lived there that was TOTALLY high… it was pretty funny. And then the RED LIGHT DISTRICT BABY!!! HAHa but yet again, it was not what I expected. I imagined it to be much dirtier and have ugly fat ranchy women down a smokey street…with horney men all around…but it had many curious tourists walking down this beautiful clear street with a canal inbetween the two sides of the street. and the women were very ‘hott’ and made up. Like a playboy mag. Actually…it was kind of like Broadway in New York where you have shows on Broadway which are well funded and produce a lot of money… and the off Broadway shows are less funded and produce less money, they aren’t necessarily worse shows…just not as spectacular looking… haha the ladies on the side streets were fat and ugly…low budget… haha
Anyways…today I am taking a well -diserved restful day and tomorrow I will see the Anne Frank House and Katie and I will be off on an overnight train to Munich. YAYAYAYYA LOOOVEE EEETTT

well I am running out of time and will have to post this tomorrow… sorry for the spelling or typo’s … no time to edit…. baaahh

well I love and miss you all!!!

France … to start

OK… so here I am in France…. Ted and I parted ways, he went back to Athens to visit with his parents for two weeks and I am continuing on with my eurotrip…

 WOW it is hard travelling on your own. I never thought it would be this hard… but it is amazing how much easier it is to be with someone, even just for them to say ‘yeh, that sounds good!’ But I am learning and getting better every day.  But I do really miss home and my friends and family and I REALLY miss Ted too… it is weird to be with someone for a month STRAIGHT and then NOTHING… but I will live haha

Sooooo… Nice… Nice is .. haha nice … ok I am sooo done with this joke. But it really is ok. The thing is I should have started my trip the other way around because as far as beach towns go… Santorini is better than … well… anything haha. So I walked around Nice and saw what it had to offer… and it is really not a bad city, but it is just the same as anything I have seen so far in Greece and Italy… but Greece and Italy had much more charm.
I wanted to travel through Provence a bit more… esp go to Axe en Provence but the fates have kept me in Nice and I will go straight up to Paris on Sunday.

Yesterday I walked up this big hill in Nice and that was pretty cool. I met someone in my hostel, so he kept me company as we wandered. The Hill was quite beautiful… it used to be a castle… well there was one at the top.. but it was torn down. Now there is a gorgeous waterfall there and a lot of trees and the view is gorgeous from the top… THAT is where Nice looks great…Especially when you are looking down at the water and beach.

Today I went to Monaco. There is an aquarium there, apparently it is the best in the world… It was made by a former prince of Monaco… quite a while ago. He was quite the Sea man… It is sick to think about how many fish and sharks and whales he hunted… and how many he captured for this aquarium… but it is really nice when you don’t think of that… They had a sea turtle… WOW THAT WAS COOL… And I saw a fish that was huge and made the exact face I make when I am pretending to be a fish. *funny mostly just to Ted*. 

 Other than that… I walked by the Palace and the guard was doing his march… seemed funny that he was alone… not so protected if you ask me haha. But it was neat to see.  And again Monaco is a very nice city… right on the ocean so it makes for beautiful pictures. There are many rich people there and YES oh yes… many nice cars… mmmhmmm I TOTALLY fell upon a Ferarri dealership…. wow IT WAS SOOOOO NICE… I WANT ONE!!! I am not a big ‘car girl’ but I would LOVE one of those!!! wow

Anywhoo… Sunday I will be in Paris and then Germany. I will try to keep you updated as much as possible… it is much harder not having Ted’s computer at hand.

 Again love you all and miss you.

Italy… Finito!

Well, OK SOOO … ROME…  Well our first day in Rome was a bit hectic, you know: not having a place to stay, (we had a place to stay the three following nights, just not the first) wandering around lost-ish in the train station trying to find the Tourist Information centre only to find out we were in the wrong train station all together (the tourist info. Ctr was at the station downtown) soo we finally went to the right train station (a couple stops on the metro) aaaaanndd we were lost again. We asked two officials where the Tourist information office was and they told us ‘platform 24’ …we went to platform 24 each time and STILL couldn’t find it. THEN, as I am sitting on my bag with my head in my hands and arms on my legs and Ted, slouched, READY to give up or scream… an angel appeared with a name tag that says “tourist information”. So he asked “can I help you find anything…like a hostle perhaps?” WOO HOO!!!!  YES YES YES… so he called around, then said he was going to talk to his co-worker. When he came back, he informed us that all of their hostel contacts are full. BAAAAHHH so he told us to check with the Tourist Information desk and they might have more contacts there. Again, he sent us off to platform 24 and we STILL couldn’t find it… I was beginning to think that I had to run through the wall between platform 24 and 25 so I could find this magical ‘tourist land’.   Or perhaps this was all just a big Roman joke on tourists….Aaaanndd  I wasn’t too far from the foremost thought. You see, I decided to walk through these random, unlabeled sliding doors from platform 24 that lead me to another room that led to another door and ALAS, the tourist information desk. So the result, after aaaaaalll that: they were unable to help us… so we built up a bit more energy and walked outside and found an internet café. YAY hostleworld.com came to our rescue and we found a place to stay. So after a nice long nap we ventured off to the Pantheon.
            HOLY CRAP I WAS IN THE PANTHEON!!! IT WAS SSOOOO COOL! Apparently it is one of the best preserved ancient sites because it was turned into a basilica (from a pagan temple for ‘all gods’) when people complained that they were afraid of getting possessed by demons while walking by it. Sssoooo POOF it became a basilica and thus was ridded of all its ‘evil’ spirits… … …whatever…

Anyways… it was really cool, for those of you who don’t know what it is, it is the dome basilica with the hole in the top (the only light source), an architectural brilliance really. We also sat on the Spanish steps where the ‘pretty people’ used to go to get ‘noticed’ and become artist’s models.  And no, sadly I was not ‘found’ in beauty and glory…nowadays it is just a cool hang out and a place to meet for the ‘pub crawl’ (an actual event that we ALMOST did) and a good place for people to sell stupid dollar store style items.

            The next day we saw the Colosseum and went up the Palatine Hill and wandered the ancient forum. The colosseum was really  cool, although a lot of it has collapsed (earthquake) there is still a LOT of it remaining… the coolest part is the underground maze it’s the series of corridors leading to the stage of the colosseum that they used to guide the animals used in the fights. CRAZY to actually be there and imagine the death matches they had. NUTSO! And sad too. Palatine Hill was pretty neat too… and had a good view. It is pretty much where Rome was founded ( one of the seven hills) where the emperors built their palaces. Our guide gave us a tour of where some of the rooms were in one of the palaces like the bath house: the men from ancient times would go to these ‘bath houses’ (just like a spa) and they would sit after a long days work of around six hours (finished by NOON) in the baths and chat. Other things they did were in rooms like the banquet hall where they would lie in a mountain of pillows and a huge mound of food in front of them and  GORGE… then their tummies would get sore so they would use the feather by their pillow to tickle the back of their throats and VOMIT in the bucket beside them and REPEAT. Mmmmm the origin of bulimia. And as for the Ancient forum… it was pretty cool… my footsies were getting pretty tired though so we blew through it… we got a good look of it while on palatine hill. We saw Cesar’s grave and some giant church (not much remains… mainly just a wall) that Michelangelo used to sit in and gaze at the city as he contemplated his art. And also some other church with it’s original bronze doors… the doors have no stairs leading to it though haha there is a reason but I can’t remember why…oops… meh

            The following day we went to Vatican city. COOL!!! OH MY GOD!!! I WAS IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL!!!! It was sooo… indescribable … just to even THINK of how many years he spent upside-down, holding a candle while painting that masterpiece…WOW (it was four years btw) and then to follow it up with the last judgment …another SEVEN years… I’d go mental!

SSSOoooo I took some illegal picture lol. DON’T WORRY I didn’t use flash. The rest of the Vatican museum was pretty cool too… but let’s face it… I wasn’t thinking of much more than the Sistine chapel. After that we went to Saint Peter’s Basilica. HHHUUUUGGGGEEEEE and the artwork in there was also amazing and what blew my mind even more was THEY WERE ALL MOSIACS!! (see my photo’s…if I ever get to putting descriptions… I took a close-up of a foot to show the mosaic) and of course Mikey’s Pieta was incredibly detailed and beautiful. We also go to see the altar under which St. Peter is believed to be buried.

            Unfortunately, Popey was not around(he was at his vacation house)and apparently the next morning he did come home to make a speech from his window DAMN  missed him by a day. I’ll catch him next time. But there are these cool white columns in St. Peter’s Square that are in three rows… if you stand on this white circle in the square, all the columns line up and look like it’s one row of columns… ok so it doesn’t sound cool but it was a neat architectural touch.

            The next day we went to the Mamertine prison where St. Peter and St. Paul were held in captivity by the Romans. From there they were led to be executed (martyred). It was ssooo tiny and only one small hole of light (well now there are more holes and light.)

            As for Rome in general… COOL sights… but busy & dirty city.

THEN FLORENCE aaaaahhhhhh ssssoooo NICE!!! I LOVE IT. It reminded me a lot of Venice with all its narrow cobblestone streets and small-town feel. We went to the Academia Gallery where we saw Michelangelo’s David. HUGE!!! And sooo … wow… HUGE haha. Really though, it was incredible. Little tid-bit: David was made disproportionately. His legs are not proportionate to his torso… lower body is smaller. This was because Michelangelo knew people would be looking up at it and by making David gradually get bigger, it’d appear proportionate to the viewer below him. Neat eh?

            The next day we went to the Uffizi where I finally got to see Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’… WOW  oh that alone made my trip. It is one of my favorite paintings of all time and I got to see it up close. SO close I saw his brush strokes. Oh man I wish I could go back again  and see it after taking a day to absorb it. Baah

            Obviously there are many more wonderful things we did and saw in Florence like standing on the hill across the lake and seeing the whole town or the little mask-making store we walked into while they were making some masks and the guitar bar we went to for some drinks … and I loved to just walk around and wander… such a beautiful city…even their clay-shingled roofs were gorgeous. Our hostel ‘Albergo Paola’ was AWESOME… Clara, the ‘hostess with the mostess’ she was sssssoooooo awesome. Sweet yet ballsey, young and fun. She would make us breakfast and sometimes dinner… CLEAN and pretty…everything was Ikea haha and we met some really great people in our dorm room too! So needless to say, it made our trip even more unforgettable.

            Anywhoo, I am currently writing this as we are on our way to the cinque terra  and hope to find a place to send it (I’m on Ted’s lap top… I may end up getting him to send it when he gets back to Athens). I am really excited for the rest of the trip but will be sad to see Ted go and to be alone. But I am sure I’ll be a bit excited for the independence.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!… well most of you anyways haha

xoxo