Romin around!

Christina and Cheryl at the Pantheon

So the last I left off we were heading to Rome on an awful train ride. To Christina and I Rome would be place to relax and enjoy ourselves having visited before. To be honest I can’t say that I look forward to doing anything touristy in Rome. The weather is hot, too sunny, and way too many people! My advice is if you ever intend to visit Rome or the surrounding area do avoid visiting during the months of July and August. What were we thinking?

The first day we were in Rome, we had to say good bye to Alyssa. Her flight left the next morning very early so she decided to stay in a hostile closer to city center. Christina and I however were able to get a bungalow in a camping area right on the outskirts of Rome. The campsite was huge, almost like it’s own community having a grocery store, restaurant, laundry, pool, volleyball court and much more. We arrived too early to check in so we decided to take advantage of the pool for an hour or two. Coming straight from Vienna where the sun isn’t as strong, we didn’t even consider putting on sunblock. I mean we were only out there for a short time. Yeah in like the hottest times of the day. When we got the key to our room, we changed from our bathing suits and realized that we had one of the worst sun burns since we were kids. The best part was, since we didn’t think that we were out there that long, I never rolled over. My backside is still pretty pale. I have all of these weird sunburn lines all over my body. First stop, Christina and I picked up a huge bottle of sun block and a huge bottle of Aloe Verae (thankfully written the same in English and Italian.) The rest of the day we spent lounging around and eating dinner with some fellow travelers!

Eating Gelato outside of the Ruins

The next day we devoted to sightseeing. Since it was the last Sunday of the month, the Vatican was free. We bought our shuttle tickets bright and early for 8am (we didn’t miss the bus this time!), since the Vatican opens at 9am. The travelers that we met from dinner the previous night joined us. I’ll let the pictures tell the story of the Vatican, I took a quick video of the Sistine Chapel. Brandon (a fellow traveler) drew a portrait of me, while waiting for his friends at the Vatican.

Cheryl's Portrait

I can’t say Christina and I were in the mood for sightseeing when our sunburns ached underneath our clothes. We of course had to wear jeans and t-shirts since we were going inside churches.

Recreating a fight!

The rest of the day consisted of roaming around the city, visiting ruins, the Pantheon, and other must sees. The weather was hot, the sun was just plain mean on our already burned bodies. We tried to cool off with some gelato, (Tiramisu was soo the best, good choice Chris!!!).
Later that night, we enjoyed dinner at the campground. Some roast chicken and a bunch of other stuff from the grocery store. We had a feast, well until the bees found us and we were forced to move indoors to our bungalow. Talk about cramped eating!!!

Our Massive Feast

Thank god for facebook, it allowed us to stay in touch with Josh. He was still in Madrid doing his own roaming around. He told me that we went to go see a bull fight and now I’m super jealous!!!! I soo wanted to see a bull fight, he told me he took a ton of pic so I’ll try to post them asap if he doesn’t update the blog himself. Soon he’ll be off to Barcelona where we should eventually meet up.

Off to meet our distant relative, Asunta!!! We’re renting a car, this is sure to be an adventure!

~cheryl

Vienna, Paris' rival!!!!

Cheryl, Josh, Alyssa and Christina at the Orchestra

Sitting on an overnight train to Rome should be one of the highlights of our traveling experience. Trains are comfy, cozy, spacious forms of transportation. I mean, even the seats come down to form a bed. So then how the hell did we get stuck next to the two worst smelling men in all of Europe!!!!! The cabin is hot with very little ventilation and of course the men don’t speak a lick of English! How should I describe there awful stench? Think of a man in a whole who has not showered in over a month, defecating himself while in 110 degree weather without bathing once. Then times that by ten and you will have what the men next to us smell like. You may be wondering, well then why don’t we just move? It’s because the train is sold out! There are absolutely no seats available and the dining car is full, people are sitting in the hallways because there’s no room. For the first two hours we’ve been spraying this tiny can of deodorant in the air every five minutes, I even took off my shoes to see if my feet could make the smell any better. Nope, it’s at the point where I don’t want to get up to move because when I walk back into the cabin, the shock of the odor makes me want to vomit. Thank god, I didn’t buy that Kabob for the train!!!! (ill gross he just touched me!!!! Alcohol pads, I need alcohol pads!!!)

So back to Paris’ rival, Vienna and euros!!!!! We spent the last two days enjoying this city. Which also must have the best looking hair because there are hair studios every two feet! So far we’ve learned that they speak German here, so I can use my few little words. Although, it’s kinda a touristy area so almost everyone speaks English. The first day we wondered around the city, taking pictures of old cathedrals and political buildings. We even took some super funny pictures of us on a statue of an elephant, well that was until we realized that since we uploaded Pragues’ pictures and didn’t replace the memory card in the camera no pictures were actually taken. Sorry guys we missed out on some really cute pics! That’s when we bumped into some guy on the street selling orchestra tickets. Looking at all the signs, we kinda had a hint that an important part of coming to Vienna is to see an orchestra, especially one that plays Mozart. So after some haggling, we got him to reduce the ticket price to ½ of what it was worth while throwing in some free champagne. (Mean while we were praying that this guy was ripping us off.) I‘m not gonna lie, the show was much smaller than I had imagined. I pictured a huge Opera house (kinda like the Stanley in Utica, NY), instead we got a small section of a huge building! None the less the show was very impressive as the orchestra was accompanied by singers and dancers. At the end of the show, we went to the stage to take a group shot.. Taking our sweet time actually worked out in our favor. Right as we were about to leave a huge storm rolled in, with hale and strong gusts of wind. We were trapped with the performers. Therefore we had nothing else to do but watch the rain, drink some more free champagne and enjoy our time talking to the performers, there was about 15 of us! It was so much fun, we danced the Waltz with the professionals from the show!!! Alyssa, looked amazing dancing. I however think that I have to work on my kicks. After the rain had let up, we walked back to the hotel admiring the destruction that mother nature had caused through out the city.

We woke up today with fond memories of the night before, luckily no headaches today. Thanks to Poland, I think we were prepped for a night of drinking. Sadly, Josh and us girls parted ways. Josh is hopping on a bus to Prague where he will jump on a plane to Madrid only to meet again in Barcelona. Christina, Alyssa and I will take the train to Rome for a few days before saying our good-byes to Alyssa. Thank god for our hotel though, they let us keep our luggage there all day so we could roam around the city. They even let us check out late and do our laundry. Our day consisted of visiting the Freud Museum because this is where his practice was (well besides his later one in London where he died). Then we hopped on the hop on hop off bus. This was the first time we did the tourist bus thing. It was nice, no walking and all the sights. It was a good way to take in all the sights on such a limited amount of time. It really brought in how Vienna contributed so much to the world of classical music and art. If you ever visit Venice, the city is so big that the hop on hop off bus is so the way to go, we however had a difficult time catching it. Leave it to us to get to the bus stop early to only miss it twice in a row! We have also discovered that there is no possible way for us to eat an apple strudel and take a decent picture!

So that’s about it for now. Check out the pics and videos !!!

Czech us out!!!

Just a quick update while I get a chance to steal the computer in the am.
Prague is a cute little city in Czech Republic about four hours from Berlin and four hours from Vienna. Our difficult challenge in this country has been the currency. First, we couldn't figure out what the hell kind of money they use (it's called krowns), when we got to the bus station of course I had to immediately use the bathroom which you had to pay for. 10 cents is what it will cost you to use the bathroom around here or at least what I thought was 10 cents. See around here it's 18 krowns to $1. The woman at the counter in the bus station looked at me like I had three heads when I asked her to break a 2 krown coin. Apparently there are no 10 cent pieces (their currency doesn't go that low!!!) That meant that I needed 10 krowns!!! So this has been the whole trip, trying to figure out what everything costs in dollars. A whopper is 109 krowns, you do the math!

(The Castle at Night)

(This is the clock tower that has every Czech name on it, there's what the call your name day.)

We stayed in a cute little hotel, Josh and Alyssa got the room while Christina and I are just "visiting". They charge like an extra $50 per person, so we figured this would save us some mula. It's definitely interesting only having two beds though, I can't say I enjoy sleeping in the crack!!!!
The first day that we were here we took a walking tour of the city, I'll post the pics asap. It was pretty interesting considering that Prague is a land locked city yet every country wanted to take it over. They've only had two victories in their country and one was revoked because the Red Army showed up later that day! Just a quick tid bit, Prague is where the sugar cube was invented!

After a night on the town! Don't ask!

So after a few touristy dinners, and some quick shopping I can now say I did it... That's right after leaving Josh and Alyssa to take naps at the hotel. Christina and I went down to the piercing studio to get my nose pierced. Man did that hurt like no other!!!!! I'm such a wimp and will never get that done again! Although I really like it, it took Josh about a 1/2 hour before he noticed and Alyssa talked directly to my face for at least 5 minutes before realizing. Of course I couldn't tell them what I was doing (I didn't want to have to come back and tell them I couldn't go through with it.) Check out my before and after videos:

So that's about it for now. I have to start packing and eat breakfast. Our bus leaves at 10:30am to Vienna. I think Josh still wants to get his hair cut, poor guy hasn't found a place yet and he's been looking since Dublin!!!!
Czech you later...

Warsaw.... where?... We've Seen....

... and then some!!!

In every country we have hit so far we have all tried the beverage they are known for. In Ireland it was Guiness, England their scotch, France their wine, Germany their beer, but in Poland its vodKa.

In Poland vodKa is not generally taken with a mixer. To fully appreciate it you drink it by shot. That’s great!!! The first one starts off smooth, and it is quickly followed by the second leg. The second shot is called the second leg because that shot is meant to balance you out. Now I don’t know if you have all seen me so take a good look at the pictures. After about the fourth or fifth leg… yeah I am hammered.

Cheryl has told you a lot about the nights we were there, but I have to say this past few nights have been the funniest in Europe thus far.

Woz has been a great tour guide and has shown us the cultural and the party scene of Warsaw.

Here is a first…

In every city we have hit so far we have had a great time and have loved every minute of it… well almost every minute (we all have our moments), but Warsaw… Wasrsaw is a different story. Maybe it is because we got to see Woz, we met a lot of cool people, had and insane time or because Kup went back to the states, or maybe it is because of all these reasons that I found leaving Warsaw difficult. I am truly sad that this leg of the trip is over. I wish I could stay in Poland for a few more weeks and see the entire country.

Since you now know my feelings twards Warsaw, here it goes!!!!

Top memorable moments of Warsaw :

Afromania!!!!

I don’t know if you guys already know this, but if you don’t check out Cher’s blog. Afromental is Woz’s band and he was nice enough to invite us to go to a concert. IT WAS AWESOME!!! They are a really great group of guys. Not just the band members, but the whole crew. Everyone was so polite and welcoming. The Poland boys are by far the most polite boys we have met so far. I can honestly say their momas raised them well!!! None of them let us really carry our bags up the stairs and they always held the door open. (Don’t worry Mrs. Tefel, you raised Josh well too. He is always offering to help us and always opens the door for us)

Ok… ok.. I know I am rambling.

Mine and Alyss's Dream Apartment in Old City of Warsaw

The concert Woz and the guys performed was awesome! Check out all of the videos on our website, but here is a taste, I really hope they come to the US soon. So we can show them New York!!!!

Shoving cake in Robs face!!!

I know this is kind of mean, but I loved it. I really wish I had a picture to show everyone. However, vodKa was involved and the camera taking thing didn’t happen.

Anyhow, at the hotel we were staying at where there was a wedding. They were nice enough to give us some of there cake to try. It was delicious cheese cake. We loved it!! It was soooo good (not as good as my Dads, but really can you even compare the two!!!)

Rob asked me for a piece and well I just couldn’t resist. I meant to just get a little bit on his nose, but a force inside of me shoved it a little bit harder then I thought and it went all up his nose!!! Hilarious!!! Rob took it well and laughed it off… again… thanks to vodKa.

Trains are the way to travel!!!

Since we have been on such a tight budget we have been taking a lot of buses to places. Going from Berlin to Poland however was cheaper to take the train. This was a luxury I am happy to say was on the second part of the trip. Lets just say once you go choo choo you never want to go vroom vroom again!! This train was cool we had our own car on electricity for our laptops. We were on cloud nine. It made our ride super smooth.

Plus on a train like this you can run really fast and slide in your socks down the isle.

Traditional Polish Food.

Having Woz as our guide allowed us to properly discover Polish food. The first day we were there he brought us out to a traditional polish restaurant where we tried Prorogues (all different kinds), and fat. What they call fat is this really good spread you put on fresh bread, add some salt and eat a pickled cucumber with. ( I liked the fat, but I wasn’t a fan of the pickle). Since everyone at the table ordered prorogues, I decided to mix it up by ordering a pancake with a pineapple in the center served with a raspberry sauce ( I don’t remember the polish name). It was AMAZING, really filling, but amazing. I am craving it right now!!!! They gave me four and I was luck to get through two!!!

Culture and history:

Let me give you a little background information on Poland. During world war II much of Poland was bombed and flattened. This meant that much of Warsaw’s building were built post war. It is a very new city in an old way. The buildings arr newer and reflect mainly the style of the 20th and the 21st centuries. Old city is a part of Warsaw where many tourists go, and now we know why. It is beautiful. Alyssa and I picked out the type of Apartments we would by if we could, just based on this area. It was gorgeous!!!!

The Mermaid:

The mascot of Warsaw is the Mermaid. You will see a number of sautes of a mermaid around the city, just like the one you see below.

This particular statue is the most famous and was placed here after it survived WWII.

This statue is the cast of a sculpture made by Konstanty Hegel in 1855.

The Tower:

Abover is this really nice tower in the middle of Warsaw. It has a clock on all four sides. You can climb the tower too, but we went and saw Bruno in the bottom. That was a hilarious movie. It played in English, but subtitled in Polish. Really though the tower is really cool. For a while I guess the people of Poland were debating about tearing it down. I really hope they don't!!!

The Park:

This is the Agrykola Park ( I think, I am not entirely sure) in Warsaw!!! It was really beautiful!!! There was a really pretty bride and groom here taking pictures and you can understand why. It def. looks like the most peaceful and beautiful place in Warsaw. Although, Alyss did get eating alive by bugs. There were many cool buildings and statues.

This was better said by Afromental, but here it goes!!

Thanks guys you have been a great audience!! (now picture a virtual bow)

Catch you guys soon!!

~Chris

Afromania!!!!

So now that the days are flying by, its harder and harder to keep up on the blog. Christina's doing great with updating the pictures and videos to the website but it's still difficult to find time everyday to write, especially when there's no internet access. With that in mind, please don't mind the gramatical errors of the next few blogs. I'm way too tired tonight to re-read everything. Plus, I type faster than I can think!!!!

Warsaw, is one of Poland's most European city! It's pretty large, and everyone drives like maniacs. Every time we take a taxi, I'm surprised we're still alive. They must go through so many breakpads because every light they slam on their brakes!!!! We didn't do too much site seeing as our main priority was visiting Woz, a friend of ours from high school. He was our foreign exchange student our senior year. He lives about fifteen minutes away from the hostil we stayed at. Right now he is a lead singer in a band called Afrometal, a pretty popular band in Poland. To be honest I hadn't heard much of his music until about two days ago. He took us to old city where we saw the oldest buildings in Warsaw, they were beautiful and full of life! Traditional perogies were our lunch that day, I didn't think I'd be a fan but not bad at all!! It was also nice because we had Woz there to interpret. The afternoon was of course spent in one of Poland's most beautiful parks were we watched a couple celebrate there wedding. Although, we were very amused at the random peacocks walking around.

It wasn't until that night, that we realized Poland guys like to party hard!!!! We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, then the Mono Bar for a jam session. This was pretty cool, because a bunch of Woz's friends were at the bar and are very talented. The have a set of instruments on stage and whoever wants to play or sing goes up and plays with whoever's up there. It was amazing!!! I'm also pretty sure we are now know in Poland as the crazy Americans that can't dance!!! We didn't get home that evening until about 6am, the food and the laughter was heavy that night. So of course the next day we spent passed out in bed (apparently we got some complaints because we were too loud!) Shopping was our next priority! Still there was no place for the girls to get our nails done (way too expensive), no piercing studio found, but the boys bought some new clothes because they ran out of clean ones. One of the top picks for the evening was some wacky ball thing that Woz bought the boys, you spin it in your hand to see how fast you can get it to go. I guess everyone's into this game over here. And of course the boys were then occupied for the rest of the night.

Last night, would be our craziest and wackiest night. Since Woz is in a band (we kinda got a gist that he was a semi celebrity when people would stop him in the mall and ask for his picture or autograph) we were invited to watch him play up north at Bikupiec. We left early that morning to catch the tour bus where we met the rest of the six band members and crew They even gave us a before show, show using Josh's guitar on the bus. All of the guys are super sweet and really fun to hangout with (check out the pics on the website to learn more). Lucky for us they all spoke English really well. I can only say about two words in Polish!!!! The manager was sweet enough to book us a hotel room at their hotel. Three hours later we were watching the band setup and get ready for the night. To my surprise, the guys were pretty serious about their music. After we had settled into our hotel room, we went back to the concert as the guys were playing last. This is when it hit me that the guys were kinda a big thing in Poland. Girls were screaming everywhere, asking for autographs or pictures. It was super cute! Of course we got backstage passes and took a ton of pics, Kup was all over the place! He really seemed comfortable walking around the stage and even on some parts of the stage. The guys were super good, we took a video of the show and plan on posting some of their songs to the webpage! Alll the guys are really talented and such good musicians! It wasn't until the end of the show when a crowd of girls covered the rec building chanting the guys names that I was the most entertained. There were so many girls who wanted to meet them!!! Even one of them asked for Josh's autograph (way to go Josh!!!) We actually had to wait around quite awhile before we could go back to the hotel room. Talk about the other side of the spectrum, it wasn't even a month ago that we were those girls waiting for Dave! Ok, ok at least we didn't scream and throw our panties on stage!

The party didn't really start until we got back to the hotel. It was ridiculous and so much fun. The guys were hysterical and couldn't stop making me laugh!!! Every two seconds theree was a joke, or something fun going on. I especially loved the little pup that followed us around. (Probably because I kept sneaking him food) Again we didn't go to bed till about 6am, only to have to get up only a few hours later. Oh yeah, apparently Woz and I were married at some point during the night. So for the rest of the day today we refferred to ourselves as a married couple. The relationship started off on a high note, but fizzled when he found out about my love affair with another man. Only took a day to ruin that marriage!!! I even picked out my rings while the boys tried to play golf (it started to rain, so before they could finish the first hole they came running back!) The ring is a million dollars and will be engraved to me. Thanks WOZ!!!!!

We are now back in Warsaw, no hostil was booked so we decided to check out the hotels online, finding a super good deal for a five star hotel righ tnext to the train station. We took super long baths and are now just trying to get back to reality. Kup, however is done...finished!!!! He ran out of money and only has enough for his plane ticket home. So he stayed at Woz's place, his flight leaves tomorrow from Warsaw into NYC. None of us had planned on it happening so quickly. We're all really sad to see him go, I mean he is our mojo! :( It's only been a few hours since our good-byes and we already miss Woz and Kup. I think we need to start planning our next trip out here.

Tomorrow, we will be taking a train to Prague (the four of us Alyssa, Josh, Christina and I.) So now your caught up. I'm sorry Iwasn't more entertaing but I'm too damn tired from the partying, so not used to that life style!!!! Well, now it's off to bed!!!!

Later gaters!!!

~cheryl

Choo...choo...Warsaw!

Good-bye Berlin! Our train was the best way to travel thus far, we had a nice little cabin to ourselves (which we destroyed in all of ten minutes!), a dining car to have super cheap food at, and if you wore your socks in the walk way you could slide from one side of the car to the next! By far the best way to travel in my opinion! The train was so good that when we arrived in Warsaw we sat on the train for about ten minutes not realizing that we had arrived. We may not have flown but the time sure did!

Our hostel is in a family run old house, very homie! It's perfect for what we need, and only about 15 minutes from the train station. We just wish we knew that before we walked the hour and 1/2 to get here, missing the street not once but twice!!!!

Today, we're meeting up with a friend of ours, Woz! He was our foreign exchange student from high school. He should actually be here in about a 1/2 hour to give us a tour of the city and hangout!

Well, till next time!

~cheryl