A Very Lucky Girl

via instagram It feels like yesterday that I was screaming obscenities at the TV as Arie broke Becca's heart on national television, but here we are. The ABC psychiatrist has deemed her ready to do the damn thing. I remembered to set my DVR 17 minutes into the episode so I missed the Arie recap (PTL) and the former bachelorettes exorcising the bad blood from house. Sounds like I didn't miss all that much.  I struggle to decide how to recap the first episode as there really isn't a plot line to follow. We always get introductions, we always get limo exits, and then we watch the men steal time from each other. Becca strolls onto the freshly watered driveway in time for dapper as ever Chris Harrison to welcome her to the mansion of her nightmares. Time to meet her men! Clay He is a professional football player and is in his 9th year in the NFL. He's told he's a big sweetheart and loves his family. He's here for Becca and metro-sexual coats with popped co...

To refresh your memory, our flight from Prague to Amsterdam was cancelled so we were en route back to London to make sure we would make our flight on May 1st. We landed at London Stansted Airport shortly after midnight, which really shouldn't even be considered a London airport seeing as it's 40 miles outside of London proper. At this point all public transport into London had stopped running and the first train was scheduled to depart at 5:30 AM. We were exhausted, starving, and freezing. We addressed the middle problem first. Burger King was the only open restaurant in the facility so we begrudgingly got in line. Jordan's nuggets appeared as though they had been sitting in a warmer since 8 AM and my burger was doused in mayonnaise to the point of in-edibility. We managed a few bites before focusing on our next problem: exhaustion.  Since Stansted was so far outside of London we weren't able to get a hostel and resigned ourselves to an airport slumber party for 2....

We left our hostel in Budapest shortly after 4:30 AM  to catch our 5:40 AM train. Construction prevented us from using the metro, so we ended up having to walk a mile to the train station. Normally, I would have felt uncomfortable walking in a strange city in the dark, but Budapest was fairly lively for 4:30 AM! Our train trip to Prague was uneventful and we arrived just a few minutes after noon.  Hostel Ananas  was located right off Wenceslas Square. We dumped our backpacks in the luggage room and went in search of lunch. Nothing sounded amazing and we ended up at an Asian restaurant where I ate THE best spring roll. We perused the open market in search of a ring for Jordan, but came up empty handed. We headed for the Old Town Square to see the Prague astronomical clock, which was undergoing renovations. We still decided to climb the clock tower for some killer views of the city! We meandered through the alleys of Prague in the general direction of the Charles Bridg...

Our journey to Budapest started out relatively rocky. Keep in mind that we speak zero Italian. We arrived at the train station early (per usual) and scanned the board for our departure platform. Our first train was heading to Bologna, Italy where we would then board our night train. Underneath the platform listings we saw a running header that listed Firenze, Venezia and Bologna as places with cancelled trains (at least, that's what I thought it said...). We went straight to the customer service desk and took a number, wanting to confirm before properly panicking. I have never in my life been so happy to be wrong.  We located the platform and boarded our non-cancelled train at 8:20 PM with no issue. We were scheduled to arrive in Bologna at 10:35 PM with 22 minutes to catch our connecting train. However, our train from Rome ended up slowing down and we pulled into Bologna at 10:45 PM. We had 12 minutes to find our next platform. We bounded off the train and the race was o...

We woke up in our B&B in Genova, Italy on Wednesday, Jordan's 23rd birthday. Our train to Rome left at 6:10 AM and we arrived at Rome Termini station a little after 10 AM. Our hostel was located a short 7 minute walk away. We dropped our luggage off at Hotel Alessandro Palace and Bar and announced it was Jordan's birthday. The gentlemen at the reception desk told us to visit the rooftop bar that evening for free champagne. We made a mental note before slathering on the sunscreen and setting out to explore with a paper map.  We hadn't eaten a proper breakfast so we were on the verge of hanger. We turned our steps toward the Via Nazionale which was dotted with restaurants. We made a poor choice. Eliseo's was imitation Italian at best. The cheese on my pizza was waxy and the bolognese Jordan ordered tasted as though they were serving cans of Chef Boyardee. Disappointed and only somewhat full, we continued into the city center of Rome. We found the Trevi Fountain firs...

We arrived in Nice on Monday evening around 8 PM and quickly located our hostel just two blocks down from the train station. We checked into Hostel Baccarat  and a very kind man that we think was the owner upgraded us from our 10 bed dorm to a private room at no extra charge. After the day we spent dealing with the train delay in Paris our voyage was looking up! We rode up in the world's smallest elevator, tossed our backpacks in the room, and marveled at the attached private bathroom before heading downstairs in search of food.We stopped at the front desk again to ask for a map and restaurant suggestions. The nice man drew a line down the main street and told us to walk all the way down it until we reached the restaurants. We thanked him and headed out into the nice Nice night.  After taking a couple of wrong turns we found ourselves on the main avenue, but couldn't see a hotbed of lights and activity at the southern end. Instead, we stumbled into the nearest Mcdonald'...

We woke up in London early Sunday morning and took ourselves and our packs to Kings Cross St. Pancras train station. Our Eurostar train was scheduled to depart at 8 AM. We settled into our reserved seats and arrived in Paris at 11:47 AM after entering another time zone. We were now 7 hours ahead of our family in Oklahoma. Zee, my friend from the study abroad program in Dundee, met us at the Gare du Nord train station. He was our tour guide for the afternoon and he absolutely crushed it. First order of business was ditching the packs at our hostel, Smart Place Paris , which was just a few blocks away from the Gare du Nord train station. We grabbed sandwiches and cheese at a nearby Monop before taking the metro to the Eiffel Tower for a picnic lunch. Along the way we stopped at the Champs-Elysees for the Arc De Triomphe and my one request: an authentic french baguette that I promptly chomped into.  We found a shady spot at the Eiffel Tower and devoured our lunches while catc...

Our journey began bright and early on Thursday, April 19th. Per usual, airport security at Will Rogers took approximately 7 minutes and we quickly found our gate by 5:30 AM. Our initial flight was delayed by a couple of minutes, an omen of what was to come. Keep in mind that this was Jordan's first flight EVER and we were flying Southwest Airlines to Denver. Just the day before social media was inundated with the story about the woman who died on a Southwest flight when the window popped open. I nervously hoped Jordan hadn't watched the news. She had. However, our flight was uneventful and Jordan took 8 billion pictures of the wing outside of her window seat.  We landed in Denver at 7:30 AM and made breakfast at Chick-fil-A our first priority. Starbucks was my next stop as we struggled to stay awake. Our flight to London didn't leave until 2 PM so we had loads of time to kill. Around the lunch hour, we grabbed a sandwich at Subway and filled up our water bottles in pre...