bonjour!!!

hello from the beautiful city of Brussels!!! this will be very short because the keyboard is ridiculous here!!!!!!! i had the best waffle today and the girls enjoyed frites, which originated in Belgium!

more tomorrow with a better keyboard!

love

When in Rome....

Ciao!!!!

So our last day in Rome, and we really wish we weren't leaving Italy!! Yesterday we spent the day at the Vatican and saw some really cool stuff and visited St.Peters Basilica and San Pietro. We had a good lunch of pizza and anti pasto and headed off to another museum....well graveyard slash creepy place haha. I cant remember the name right now, but basically while digging up a church to build more they found 4000 bodies of monks and other royalty. ...but thats not it...they then took all the bones and made huge sculptures and designs out of them...sick. needless to say i was happy to walk out of there with all my bones intact! We came home for a short siesta and got ready for a night out in Rome...armed with Italian wine we had a good night in the city.

Today we visited the Colosseum and Palintine Hill. The Colosseum was by far our favorite part! It was huge and super cool to see that piece of Rome. Tonight we head to the Jewish Ghetto for dinner (don't worry it isn't the realll ghetto :) mmm cant wait!

Tomorrow we travel to Belgium....we are all a little sad to leave Italy though!

Glad to hear that everyone is ok from the quake! And p.s. UK hope you are feeling better, and that your surgery doesn't get in the way of your leopard swimsuit!

CIAO!!!!

Ciao from Roma!

Well it is 1:15am and we are finally settled into our diggs in Rome! We had another long 2 days of travel and are exhausted! We BARELY made the last bus of the day to the port...literally running and begging to get on it! Then our ferry (which left at 11:30pm) took 3 hours longer, so by the time we got to the train station in Bari the train we were planning to take to Rome was full.... :( luckily after Katie's Italian we got a later train that arrived at 10:40 (and can I please tell you all that they had the NASTIEST NASTY NASTY food!!! haaha mayo and ham sandwich, heavy on the mayo)...by the time we got here the metro was closed so we decided to take a cab to our hostel, where we found a note from the owner saying to call him when we got here because we were supposed to be here at 6pm...haha after begging the nearest grocery / mini mart owners to let us use their phone, we got a hold of him and are settled in a place with only 4 other rooms! haha

Tomorrow we will go to the vatician early and see some sights around
Roma and maybe head out for the night. Wednesday we will see some more sights and try and get as much pizza and pasta in as possible before we head back to french fry land (belgium)....we LOVED the food in greece...but we will all puke if we eat another Gyro or Suvlaki plate anytime soon.

Thats all from rome tonight!

Ciao!!

p.s. mom and fam thanks for the pic! Hope you didnt have any fun without me ;)

ohhh the adventures we have had....

so last day at the pink palace and we are getting ready to head to the port to take our last ferry! (thank GOD)

We had a great time at the palace and did lots of things and made some great friends! Just a quick snap shot and i'll write more later (we have to catch a bus in 5)...we kayaked, snorkeled, rode ATV's around the island (yes and i didnt crash) went to a toga party, had plates broken over our heads, got 2nd place in a flip cup tourney, and got a reallly nice tan!



We made some good friends with some English guys from surrey (the town where the movie "the holiday" is set in, another 2 from Australia that kept singing California here we come every time we saw them, and a brother and sister from Germany.

All is all we are ready for a slower pace and not excited to take another ferry!

See you in Rome!!!

p.s. sorry that last post is full of typos and spelling errors...this keyboard is impossible!


:)

We're Alive!!

Hello! We have finally made it to Corfu!



First, if you didn't see it...a few posts down there is one about the hostels so far if you are interested and didn't see it. Second, we love reading the comments you write so keep them coming! :)






NOW...the last 2 days were quite possibly the longest and most exhausting of our lives. On the last day I wrote...Tues? (I have lost my sense of time) We took a crazy van ride down to the port in Santorini, waited a few hours for our boat and got aboard the 'Romilda' to Athens. This boat was a little different from our last one, and we found a spot on the floor of the deck. We thought we had picked a good spot but boy were we wrong! (my comma button just stopped working cool). we were surrounded by kids that were loud rude annoying and smoking packs upon packs of cigarettes...a few of us fell asleep for a little while but overall it was a horrendous ride! fifteen hours later and we arrived in Athens and trekked to the hostel where the bus would get us to drop off our stuff. i think it was probably THE hottest day in Athens too.

after finally getting rid of our bags we headed to the acropolis and the ancient Greek sites. if you didn't know the acropolis is HIGH on a hill in the middle of the city...so more fun climbing and walking. despite our sweatiness (i know gross but it is true) and tiredness we spent the day around the city and saw some really magnificent sights.

back to the hostel Aphrodite we waited for the pink palace bus...the bus ride took twelve hours and included another ferry ride with by far the best sleeping conditions we have had on a boat yet!

now we are here at the pink palace with an AMAZING room that is so clean and has a great view of the water! we had the best dinner last night which is included in the price of our room along with a decent breakfast. this place is great there are hundreds of twenty somethings here and lots of activities...today we are going kayaking and snorkeling and have a fun night ahead...tomorrow is a toga party :) haha one bummer is that the Internet costs two euros! haha so it might not be in the budget to come on again while we are here...but i am probably to addicted to not come on!

love neen

Last Full Day in Santorini....

We began today by grabbing some baked goods at the local 24 hour bakery and headed to "red beach". The sands were red from the cliffs, but we found the beach to be rocky and full of umbrellas that charged 7 Euros a seat....from there we headed back to Fira to see the Old port and cable cars down to the port. After a quick bite we trekked back to the car to hurry home to return it....our busy day yesterday made us a little slow today, so we did some laundry (yay!) and headed to the beach for awhile. Katie and I got a little lost on the way back, but after climbing a wall and almost getting attacked by 2 dogs we got home and went to the pool to cool off...we are headed to "God's Garden" for dinner...haha recommended by John of our hostel...we will see if the food is heavenly or not...;)

Tomorrow we get a 15 hour boat ride back to Athens....not looking forward to that. Then we can spend the day seeing the ancient ruins in Athens before heading to Hostel Aphrodite to catch the bus to the Pink Palace in Corfu. We might not be able to post until Wednesday or Thursday...depends on where we can find a computer.

Until then!

Neen