The Post-Mortem

January 27th, 2009
June 3rd 2009

Coffee with our awesome cousin who was a big inspiration for both of us for this trip

Well, I'm sitting here on my couch in Laguna after an amazing night's sleep in my own bed and believe it or not it's been 4 and a half months since we left. Yesterday we left sunny London and landed in rainy L.A. It was great to see Mum and Dad again and as luck would have it, our cousin was in town for a business meeting so we were able to meet her and yak over coffee about our travels, her travels, our parent's travels and all the stories we could recall. Though we could have talked for days, the the three hours we did talk were so nice as they helped churn up some of the smaller already almost forgotten stories.

Though we questioned it along the way, we decided that the January to June dates that we traveled were much better than the alternative June to September. As we were leaving, the lines were growing long, the temperatures climbing higher and the hostel rates raising. The winter weather didn't stop us from seeing any of the sights and we were lucky enough to see the seasons change and the gardens and people come back to life with the sun. We met so many interesting people along our trip that were long-term travelers (one or two years) really keen on meeting new people, seeing beautiful towns, having a fun time and experiencing the foreign cultures and people. As we were leaving, the post-study abroad kids and the summer Euro-trip kids were multiplying in number each day, pouring into the hostels with their huge wheelie suitcases. Intent on getting wasted, meeting other Americans and seeing only the sights mapped out for them in Lonely Planet, we found ourselves reminiscing about the people we met along the way and the cool things we'd seen and done.

When we landed in Barcelona way back in February we checked into our first hostel and promptly met some people who had been on the road for 6 months. Wide eyed and ready for the trip of a lifetime we sat hanging on their every word; soaking up their stories, taking note of all their recommendations and do's and dont's. By the end of our trip, the tables had turned and we were the experienced travelers sharing our stories and our do's and dont's with those just starting out on their adventures. The travelers mentality is very different from the tourist mentality. Already talking about our next trip, Trev and I are both heavily infected with the travelers bug.


So, 19 countries, 35 hostels, 2 couches, 1 cave, 7 flights, 30 train rides, 7 night trains, umpteen jars of Nutella, and countless baguettes later, this trip is now a memory to look back on with a smile for the rest of our lives. Thanks everybody for following our trip and we can't wait to see you all!

Back Again

A stroll across Abby Road
Winter trees

Summer trees

Winter in Trafalgar (Feb. 3rd)

Summer in Trafalgar (May 29)

Well it seems hard to believe but after 4 months of hopping about the continent, we are back in London with our friends. The weather was absolutely beautiful at 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Taking full advantage of this rare occurrence there was not a soul inside for the weekend. The commons and the parks which when we left were covered in 2 feet of snow were now filled with people playing football and cricket and eating feasts of fresh fruit and icy drinks. Save for a couple of wicked hangovers after a night at the pub with some friends from home we too were outside for much of our last week abroad. We took a day trip down to Brighton, a small beach town just south of the city where our Dad grew up. In about three hours we got the worst sunburn either of us has had since we were little kids. Ross, our British friend, took great pride in the fact that he got the southern Californians burned in England.

Our last night we had a big goodbye dinner with Ross and his mates, some friends we met in Budapest who happened to be in London at the time, and two of my good friends from home. It seemed hard to believe that the trip was at an end. What an amazing time.

An Amsterdam Good Time

Amsterdam is a very beautiful city with very beautiful people and a museum filled with very beautiful Van Gough paintings. As brother and sister, walking through the red light district was nothing short of awkward so we made more of a blitz than a stroll. We found our way into some coffee shops and yes, we did actually drink some coffee too. We met our last group of travelers here and shared with them our last bit of road knowledge and took with us some final must-sees. Knowing we were going to be back in London with friends soon, we both felt a sadness for our last country on this trip.

Sunrise in Amsterdam

Bikes. Bikes. Bikes. Watch out for the bikes. They'll get you.

If it is Tuesday it must be Belgium!

Essentials!

EU Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium...future workplace?

The Fairytale canals of Brugges

The Tower In Brugges!

Spring Brugges Canal

A Belgian Waffle, some Belgian Fries, and a Couple of 10% Belgian Beers...ah Belgium

How Berlin has transformed the Berlin Wall "Death Zone".

(20 years ago you would have been shot her

The Bunderstrat (Upper House of German Govt

Berlin Wall

West/East of the Wall

Memorial to the Jewish Victims of the Holocaust

The Brandenburg Gate

Here is a quick pictue blog of our time in Berlin and Belgium. We cant believe we have only a week left! Hope you enjoy the pictures!

F*%$ Museums!

Just kidding! (kind of)
Well as our four month marker approaches we found ourselves tiring of the big cities and not fully appreciating all they had to offer. Museum and church visits became merely perfunctory with nothing gained or learned, statues and monuments were going by unnoticed, and perhaps the biggest bummer of all, Trevor and I were getting on each others nerves like crazy. The solution: find a beach, get their quickly, stay there a while and do absolutely nothing. Croatia provided the perfect escape. I headed to Split for a few days by myself and Trevor followed a whole 36 hours later.

The Dalmatian coast is absolutely beautiful and rivals the Greek islands for the most idyllic setting. Huge sloping hills covered in thick, deep green trees flow into steep rock faces that meet the gentile green waters of the Adriatic forming tiny coved beaches for hundreds of miles. And it's not just mainland Croatia that is like this, as the hundreds of islands only a few miles off the coastline are exactly the same.

We spent 3 days in Split before heading on a five hour bus ride south to Dubrovnik. Here we stayed at a simple hostel with one of the most perfect views imaginable: to the left the red roofed houses of old town, and to the right, a big sweeping bay bustling with beach-goers during the day and dance parties at night until the wee hours of the morning. There were some great people staying at our hostel and we were even able to meet up with John, one of the travelers we have been with for most of our trip. We spent some of the days at a secluded little cove on the point of the bay and one of the days at a great cliff jumping location. No matter what though, we were in swim suits and sandals and happy as clams. The weather was perfection each day and night, and as we packed our bags on the last evening in preparation for our long travel day the next morning, it began to rain. It was as if it were meant to be.

Seven days of beautiful sun and no tourist expectations was just what we needed to see us through to the end of our trip. After a grueling 36 hour train ride from the south of Croatia to Berlin, Germany, we are fully charged and ready to see the sights, not because we feel we should, but because we are excited to.

Wow, just read that blog aloud and it's kinda sappy. Hmm, I guess that's what total relaxation brings.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Trev boosting from about 25 feet
The Adriatic
On top of the castle wall
Late afternoon yoga

Nighttime view from our hostel. (The tripod used for this picture was a seat cushion on top of a sleeping bag on top of a chair on top of a table).

Praha, Salzburg, Munchen

Where to begin? It´s been a while so here are the last three places we´ve seen. We visited Prague first, Salzburg second and Munich third, but technology eludes me and I can´t get the order correct on the blog. Cest la vie. Deal.

Salzburg - We couch surfed Salzburg and had another awesome experience but I´ll get to that later; the really important thing is that we did the Sound of Music tour!! Soooo cheezy, but so fun. Basically this horendously large bus painted with the entire von Trap family cruises through the city and points out all the places where the movie was filmed in addition to taking you out to the countryside to see the hills in which Maria and the children frolicked. Please note that all the while an extremely flamboyant tour guide is cracking the lamest jokes ever and yodeling for your attention...oh, and the soundtrack is playing in the background too. It was well worth is as Salzburg is one of the most beautiful places I think we´ve visited. It is perfect; it´s almost as if one would need to invent a word which encompases preserved, beautiful, quaint, lush, historical and idyllic.

We stayed with 6 college aged kids and basically felt like we were all hanging out with old friends. We watched the football game, drank some beers, and because the weather was so perfect, we had a big outdoor barbeque with them, us and a bunch of their other friends. Later that night, our host took us to a club built into a rock face that used to be a WWII bunker. It was like nothing I´ve ever seen. At first sight, it just looked like a cliff with an awning but when you walked in the ceiling was low and you walked down a 30 foot reinforced tunnel until coming to a T-intersection where you had the option of entering any of 5 rooms now featuring a bar, a karaoke area, trance music, punk music, or live music but which I´m sure used to hold guns, ammo, food, bombs and probably still some alcohol; the bar even had bars all around it like it used to be a prison cell. That was a pretty amazing night and did not make getting up early to catch our train to Munich any fun.

Tourists!

Wow!

As close as I could come to singing and spinning on the mountain-tops

They don´t let you jump inside the gazebo anymore because a few years back an 80 year old lady broke her hip while hopping from bench to bench for her photo-op

I am 16 going on 17... (which by the way is a totally sexist song)

You may recognize this as the lake the kids fell into in their curtain clothes

For the moms

Prague- I´ll be blunt: not my favorite. Pretty, yes; cheap, yes; overridden with North American tourists, oh yes. After spending so much time in small medieval towns in eastern Europe, it was hard for me to see past the hundreds of tourst shops lining the street or the packs of American kids being herded from bar to bar on the apparently obligatory pub crawl. There are so many beautiful towns just like Prague that have maintained their charm whilst accommodating tourists. That being said, it wasn´t all bad; we were able to meet up with another one of the guys we have been traveling with and together we managed to party like the stories I´m sure you´ve all heard about Prague lightlife. The others hold a more favorable opinion of the city, but as I am writing this blog, my opinion is the opinion.

One of the best breakfasts we´ve made ourselves. Mmmm

Praha

View from the top of the castle

Munich - Munich was an unexpected blast; we only went because everyone we talked to along our travels said we simply couldn´t skip it, and it turns out they were correct. We took a walking tour of the city, and I know I´ve said this a billion time in this post, but the weather was beautiful; spring in Europe is amazing. The trees come alive, the people come alive, everything is bustling with energy. We had a great guide who really knew his history as well as carried a love of the city as a whole. Over the course of 4 hours, we learned about the extensive Nazi history and the even more extensive action the city has taken to wash it out. Interesting fact: Only four buildings in Munich were left standing after WWII and all the rest are no more than 60 years old, but were reconstructed to look exactly as they did pre-war. Also, the only busidings with any remaining shrapnel marks are the university, so that the students growing up to run the country will remember the history, and government buildings so the people running the country don´t forget their history.

We of course drank our share of beer there too. It seems a liter, served in a stein which could easily kill someone is used correctly, is standard accompanyment to any meal. Munich is currently in the midst of a lesser publicized beer festival called Maibach - or May festival. The beer gardens were overflowing and the glasses were swinging back and forth with the cheers of happy drinkers.

Government building: Glass so they know what they are doing is seen by all, and shrapnel so they don´t forget why they are doing what they are doing.

A standing wave in the river which runs through the English Garden!!

The English Garden park alive with holiday makers. I even tried my hand at tight rope walking here!

May Day in Poland

Mi scusi!
Park in Krakow

Main plaza of Krakow Old Town
MAY DAY!!!!!!!!!!!
Fences at Auschwitz I camp double fencd and electrified (three camps total)

Auschwitz Birkenau (second camp)

Railway Entrance to Auschwitz Birkenau Camp
(large camp where 3 largest gas champers were and most of the killing happened)

Entance to Auschwitz I Camp "Work Brings Freedom" (part of the Nazi deception tool)

Happy May Day Everyone!

Have no fear, the end is not coming and we are not proverbially "going down! Mayday, Mayday!" Here in Poland the 1st of May is a day to celebrate Spring and the end of the frigid Polish winter, May Day!

We spent a few days in Krakow, Poland. The city streets were hung with flags and masses of people strolled the streets enjoying the beautiful weather for the holiday weekend. Our hostel was located in Old Town so we were not to far from the action. We wandered through the streets, mainly in search of Pierogies, and would come across open plazas where outdoor concerts had been set up. So we would sit and enjoy the orchestra playing or an opera singer belting out some Polish tunes all the while basking under the warm sun and surrounded by a quaint medieval surrounding of tall churches with high steeples and horse drawn carriages.

In spite of the good times, the music and Pierogies will not be what we remember most from Poland. Our main purpose of going to Krakow was to see the Concentration Camp at Auschwitz. It was an experience that is really difficult to explain to anyone who has not been there. We took a guided tour of the place and heard so many stories of the awful things that happened there. Our guide was very informed and when I asked him why he chooses to do such a job he confided in me that his great grandfather was imprisoned there and that it is their family duty and privilege to get to inform people of what truly happened.

It was such an emotional place. The mood of the fellow tourists so somber and quiet. Most people walking with a look of utter disgust and shame at how negative humans can be. Many people walked with tears in their eyes as they walked past the heaps of shoes, glasses, human hair, luggage, pictures and kids toys all pilled so high that each one fills an entire room and our guide told us that this was all less that 3% of the total. Again, words cannot explain what we experienced and it is something we should all see and learn from. We did not take to many pictures here, mostly out of respect but also out of a lack of desire to see the sights again. It is also forbidden to take any pictures of the gas chambers, crematoriums, or inside any of the buildings. Over 1,000,000 people were killed at Auschwitz, including 200,000 children, the largest of all the camps. It really is the black eye of the human civilization.

All in all we are very glad we saw the camp and overall had a great time in Krakow, it really is a beautiful city with a rich history. We are now in Prague and eager to explore the city that has been recommended to us by every traveler we have encountered!