As most of you probably know (since Amy and I basically
talked about the trip nonstop before we left), we went on a month-long extravaganza
through western Europe. We didn’t do the
whole hostel thing, so maybe it wasn’t the true backpacking experience, but we
did literally only take a single backpack of luggage.
There were definitely good and bad things about the whole
backpacking trip setup.
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| Amy and I all ready to start our trip. |
First off, we learned fairly quickly that even with the
limited space, we still took way too much stuff and I think we each threw out
some of our luggage before the end of the trip.
Having to carry that backpack to and from where we were staying was THE
worst part for me (just ask Amy). Also,
the first cities were unbearably hot and then London and Dublin were rainy and
cold, which makes the whole clothing thing difficult. Also, laundry. We tried to do laundry in Florence and
thought we were clever buying laundry soap at a grocery store so it’d be
cheaper. Turns out it was fabric softener but we didn’t know when we bought it since
it was all in Italian!
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| Amy at the Trinity College library |
We used public transportation to get everywhere. So many planes and trains and buses. I think we were a little public
transportationed out by the end of the trip.
If you ever want to get us riled up, just mention the bus we took in
Venice. I have never been on anything so crowded before. We weren’t sure if we
were even going to fit on the bus when we first got on, and then a couple of
stops after we got on, another 20 people (at least) got on the bus. They just
kept coming and coming and all of a sudden I discovered that I do apparently
suffer from claustrophobia. Also,
people who use public transportation really need to work on the whole deodorant
thing. Yeah, it was gross.
We also used Airbnb for the first time on this trip. Our place in London was amazing! The place
had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and everything we could possibly
need, including guidebooks and maps. We were so grateful to not have to share a
room for those few nights (we were a little sick of each other by that point). Our host was so cute and he made us homemade
bread and he also bought us fruit and other breakfast food. He was so helpful with directions and even
printed our plane tickets to Ireland for us.
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| Amy and I eating Gelato |
The place in Dublin was a different story though. We had
reserved the place a month or so before our trip with this guy and a few days
before we were supposed to arrive in Dublin, we tried emailing him about
getting the keys. But he never responded
after multiple attempts. We landed in
Ireland in the late evening and still hadn’t heard anything from him. So we found a pay phone, and after getting
very frustrated and having to ask someone how to work it (how were we supposed
to know to dial a 0 first?), we finally called him and…he didn’t answer. We ended up just taking our chances since we
didn’t really have much choice at that point (it was pretty late), and caught a
bus to the apartment. When we got there, Amy ended up finding the keys
underneath a rock, so we helped ourselves in and ended up staying the 3 nights,
the whole time feeling a little bit like we had broken in...We were half
expecting him to show up unexpectedly one day because he forgot we were there. We never did hear from the guy – Amy thinks
maybe he died which is a little morbid. It was very strange, though, and for a
couple of hours there, we really thought we might be sleeping on the street
that first night.
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| Me at Notre Dame |
Overall, though, the trip was so amazing! We stayed in 7
cities: Barcelona, Rome, Venice, Florence, Paris, London, and Dublin. And we got to see so many things. 5 different countries in the course of a few
weeks definitely keeps you busy. We saw
La Sagrada Familia, the Colosseum, the city of Pompeii, the Cathedral of Notre
Dame, the Harry Potter studio (so awesome!), a play at the Globe theater, Stonehenge,
and got to kiss the Blarney stone (in the pouring rain I might add) just to
name a few of my favorites. My least
favorite? Definitely Buckingham palace. I still get angry thinking about how
long we stood waiting to see the changing of the guard when turns out you can't
see anything anyway! And if you want to get Amy angry, just ask her about the
Trevi fountain being closed for construction. :)
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| Amy and I in London |
We also got to meet a ton of people. We met a crazy lady in Barcelona who
repeatedly told us how cold some pastries were (“Fr
ío frío frío!”), a waiter in
Florence who was totally in love with us, a store owner who gave us free
keychains in Paris, a driver in Ireland who repeatedly told us the rain was "RELENTLESS!" (now one of our favorite phrases), and some crazy drunk Australians who we had
dinner with. We also ran into some LDS
missionaries in Ireland who gave us directions, which was fun.
London and Dublin were definitely our favorites. Maybe it was just the cool accents and the fact
that we could actually communicate with the people there but I loved them. I guess the beautiful, green rolling hills
scattered with sheep didn’t hurt either.
Ugh. I already want to go back.
