A Very Lucky Girl

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 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'...

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...

My sister-in-law and I recently returned from a 13 day adventure around Europe and I couldn't think of a better avenue to share our experience. We both received a multitude of questions of how we planned, executed the plan, and saved $$ for the plan. Do you sense a "plan" theme? Stay tuned, not very much actually went according to plan once we were in motion.  Jordan and I talked on and off about making this trip a reality, but it honestly came together fairly spontaneously. Jordan ordered her passport in January and we booked our trans-Atlantic flights in February, with only about 2 months to go. We decided on April 19th through May 1st, strategically celebrating Jordan's 23rd birthday in the middle! Once dates were selected, destination decisions were made. With this being Jordan's first out of country trip (and her very first flight!), I wanted her to pick most of the places. I had 2 places on my wish list: Nice, France and Budapest, Hungary. After stud...

The journey from Paris to Brussels, Belgium was needlessly arduous. I KNOW there is a train that goes directly from Paris to Brussels, but the lady we made our reservations with obstinately disagreed and booked us on THREE different connections. A journey that should have taken 2 hours took 4. Astrid Loomans, another friend from my North Carolina days, mentioned we could probably stay with her family when we traveled to Belgium and the Loomans family was gracious enough to take Kylie and me in for the weekend. Astrid's older brother, Thomas, picked us up at the station. To say he looked different is an understatement. I did NOT recognize him in the slightest.  It was so strange to stay in a real house again! It was the only place I've stayed since being in Europe that reminded me of American homes. Kylie and I shared Astrid's room and bathroom and I giggled at Astrid's old Twilight series books. I couldn't resist opening her old St. David's yearbooks and remi...

We took an early train out of Switzerland, bound for Paris! We passed endless yellow field on the way in and when we arrived and tried to navigate the metro a guy handed me a free metro ticket. Paris was off to a great start! Until we got to the Louvre. We walked all around, looking for an entrance, until we saw the sign stating it was closed on Tuesdays. Guess what day it was? Typical. No Mona Lisa for me this trip. I had arranged to stay with one of my friends, Penelope, who I knew from my North Carolina days, so with our afternoon plans shot to hell, we headed toward her apartment through the Jardin de Tuileries. We only got slightly lost and I threw myself down on the ground in the nearest park and prepared to have a slight breakdown. I hadn't been there 3 seconds before a policeman asked me to move to a different patch of grass. I still have no idea as to why. But I followed his instructions and moved myself and my emotions. I was tired of planning, tired of plans not going as...

Switzerland was everything Gibby and I needed at that point in our euro trip. As soon as we crossed the border I think I breathed a sigh of utter relief. The terrors of Milan and Naples were behind us and the Swiss alps were before us. We chose to stay at a hostel in Interlaken, a small town situated next to lake Thun (pronounced toon as in cartoon, not thun as in thunder up). I learned this from my super awesome paragliding guide who looked scarily similar to Sean Bean from National Treasure . Did I mention I went paragliding? Yeah, I did.  We originally were only going to stay one night in Switzerland and then head to Paris, but we loved it so much (and the trains were so messed up) that we decided to stay for two. I'm so glad we had an entire full day!  Switzerland is on the Swiss franc and we honestly could only afford McDonald's. So we ate it for dinner two nights in a row.  We spent our time aimle ssly turning corners and reveling in actual beds and hot sho...

The first thing we learned in Venice was that the train doesn't drop you off in the midst of all of those canals because DUH.  So after we wandered (our speciality) and figured it out, we hopped on a bus to take us to the picture-perfect location. I went to Vegas last summer, and though the Venetian is spectacular, the real thing is a million times more amazing. Venice was extra special to me because it was the beginning of the fulfillment of life-long dream to travel to Italy. We got there on a beautiful Sunday morning, just in time for an early lunch. I thought I ordered spaghetti, but some weird yellow-looking pasta came to me instead with bits of ham in it. It wasn't too great so I stole bites of the rest of the squad's pizzas. Especially the Parmesan shavings on top of Gibby's. When I first tasted one I solemnly vowed to seriously go to a grocery store in Italy and purchase Parmesan.  I think Venice was made specifically for the cadet squad. It's a place...