I am home!

So sorry I didn't write sooner, but I had so much going on with arranging how to get home and all the trains were on strike! I flew home on March 10th, had an eleven and a half hour flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Las Vegas, Nevada. Then I had a 6 hour layover in Vegas, so I arrived in Seattle around 1 am where my mom picked me up. It is so nice to be home, I really missed my family and my animals, and driving!!! My little netbook that I had while traveling has completely stopped working for some reason, so I have no pictures to give you guys : ( but I will take it in today or tomorrow and see if they can fix it! I will begin my 3 month animal internship on March 28th, and am deciding if I should start a blog for that adventure. What do you guys think? Keep in touch either by email, phone or whatever! I love all you guys!!! XOXO 

Busy last week, busy next week!

Lots of new pictures with the busy week we had! I was going to add a caption under each picture, but then the website makes the blog entry so long, so I will just describe them in order, hope that works okay for you guys! After the awesome donkey carriage ride on Sunday, we went to a cute little cafe basically in a forest with Julianes mom, Anna, and I had my first Irish Coffee. Let me just say it was Whiskey with a side of coffee... it was really fun though and we had time to plan our week, so  we began by going to look at castles on Monday. The first couple pictures are of Wewelsberg Castle, which was built from 1603-1609. After 1934 it was used by the SS (protection squad for Hitler) under Heinrich Himmler and was to be expanded as the central SS-cult-site. It is triangular in shape, which was very unique for it's time. The next castle is the Paderborn Castle, which was built around the 13th century, and was the former residence of aristocratic bishops. It is gorgeous and has a museum inside that at times has art and photography exhibitions, one of which Juliane, her mom and I went to. It was about the natural beauty of nature and it was stunning. Now we are on to the Buchenwald concentration camp, which was one of the first and largest concentration camps on German soil. 238,380 people of various nationalities were incarcerated in Buchenwald, and the number of deaths in Buchenwald is estimated at 56,000. The camp was not technically an extermination camp, but the massive number of deaths were primarily caused by literally being worked to death, starvation and human experimentation. Being at the camp was such an intense feeling with overwhelming emotion to know what those people went through. It was about 18 degrees when we were there and we were all freezing, but the conditions were nothing compared to what they suffered through, obviously. The room with the doors is where many, many prisoners were being punished for any reason the SS wanted, and they basically waited to die from being hung, shot in the back of the neck or tortured to death. Anyway, it was an educational experience to say the least. The next pictures are in the town, Weimar, which is where Hotel Elephant is located. Hitler gave a well-known speech from the balcony and the town is well known for him staying at that hotel on occasion in the 30's and 40's. We had lunch at a nice cafe, and Weimar really has beautiful architecture all around, including the city hall which is the 8th pic. The picture of me is when I was driving 160 kilometers per hour on the AUTOBAHN!! It was so awesome! My main goal at some point is to rent a Ferrari and take a tour through Germany using only the Autobahn. Even going as fast as I was, Audi's and BMW's were FLYING by us. On Friday, Juliane, her mom and I went to an unbelievable cave in Attendorn. It is 3 million years old and so gorgeous. I have never been in a cave before, so I became a little claustrophobic, but I was fine after a little while. The rate of growth of the formations is estimated at 1 mm every 10 years. Can you believe that!  Friday night, Juliane, me, Julianes mom, Lena and her boyfriend went bowling! It was really fun, and they bowl just like we do in the states. The bowling alley was actually called New Orleans! Needless to say, Lenas boyfriend won all the games; there was also a raffle drawing going on and the man picked me to draw numbers out of a hat, but I lost for our team : ( We would have won a bar of chocolate, so we were all not to upset.The last four pictures are of last night, and for the first picture of us, left to right is Sabine, me, Lia and Juliane. Lia and Sabine are Julianes best friends, and they were so sweet and welcoming! I had such an awesome time with them. **Thank you both for having me over, it was so fun!!!** We had a fabulous dinner as well as a cocktail party with delicious drinks including Rumba (soooo goooood) and strawberry daquiris! We played a game called SingStar, which starts out pretty embarrassing because you sing along to all kinds of songs and the game judges you on how well you sing the song, but after a couple drinks, it becomes really fun! The picture of me with my arm up was when I was singing Air Supply, "All out of Love". It helped me with my pitch ; ) The dinner was with a hot plate type cook stove and these little mini-pots, and you pile the mini-pot full of vegetables, fruits, meats or whatever, then you put cheese on top of the mini-pot, place it under the hot plate and wait a few minutes. After the cheese is deliciously melted, your mini-pot is done and it is SOOOO YUMMY!! So that explains my amazing week in Paderborn! A few random things I forgot to mention: we also rode bicycles to town which was so nice and parts of the trail were so peaceful. We have lucked out with nice weather lately! Today it rained, but I think it was due. Juliane and I also visited an animal shelter last Thursday and took some very sweet, excited dogs on a walk. Germany is wonderful in many ways, but in regards to animal care, they truly take such good care of the animals in the shelter. They do not euthanize the animals, they just  try to create more room and have very strict spay/neuter rules. The cat rooms actually had so many warm, fuzzy beds, heaters and so many toys, you wouldn't believe it. They were really overwhelmed with cats; I think there was about 35-40 of them. Many of the dogs were German Shepherds, as well as smaller, mixed breeds. We took an older German Shepherd and a Chihuahua/ Jack Russell mix on the walk. It was a satisfying thing to do, and there were so many other people doing it as well, I loved it. This morning, Julianes mom invited me, Juliane, her sister Anna Lena and her boyfriend Jannis to an amazing breakfast buffet at a beautiful cafe in town. It was so filling and you could not have asked for a better selection and more delicious food! Also, every day we go over to where Julianes horse Nina is, and clean the paddock area and while Juliane works with Nina, I brush Eddie, Carlos, or any of the other wonderful animals there. I have really fallen in love with Glissi, a 30+ year old Icelander who is so sweet and has a bum front left leg, so he reminds me so much of my Cheyenne. Anyway, it is getting late and I am getting pretty tired, so I hope you all enjoy the pics and are surviving the crazy weather all around the world! Juliane and I are heading to Freiberg on Tuesday to visit her sister, so I am really excited for that and will post again soon!! Have a fulfilling week everyone!

I couldn't resist uploading pictures now rather than later!! By the way, it was below freezing temperature!

Eddie and I!

Juliane with her horse Nina, and dogs Ben and Sally

Heading out on our adventure!

Mona the donkey, Patrick the owner, Nikole and I!

Carmen, Patrick, Me and Nikole with an Icelanders head between us!

Brrrr.... say cheese!!

I was afraid Sally would scare Mona the donkey by jumping up on the cart but it didnt phase her!

Carlos, the cutest little donkey and I, and Juliane with Nina, Ben and Sally

In Paderborn!

 Hey guys! I arrived in Paderborn Thursday evening and really like it here. Juliane and her family are SO, SO welcoming and sweet, they make me feel right at home. I am almost back to 100% healthy, although yesterday I fell down their stairs in the house and totally broke my toe! There really isn't anything you can do for broken toes, so I just ice it and take Ibuprofen. Other than that, I am doing great and it is so nice to be with Juliane, we mostly talk about Mallorca and how much we miss it! Yesterday we went into town (above pictures other than the last one, thats in Mosbach) and walked around to look at all the shops and cafes. We went to a beautiful cafe and had a lovely latte, then we went to a little restaurant and had the typical Paderborn meal; it's a big sausage covered with ketchup and a little curry powder sprinkled on top, with pommes frittes! It was very delicious. After that, Juliane took me to meet her horse, Nina who is a very interesting, moody little mare but she loves her owner so that is all that matters. I have never met a horse that when she meets a stranger, she will not let you pet her, pins her ears and squeals at the top of her lungs! But, at the facility where Nina is, there are many other horses and donkeys, one of which I fell in love with, Eddie, who is a very cute, sweet little donkey. They also have Icelanders, which are these short, stout little horses who are very sweet and I think next week we will take them out and ride! The people who own the property have two very cute dogs, one is an Australian Shepherd actually, and the other is a mix of collie and who knows what else, so since Juliane cannot ride her mare anymore due to old age, we took Nina and the dogs on a walk! We walked down a nice trail which also bordered two big lakes that the dogs loved to play in, even though it was SO cold! It has been pretty cold here, averaging about freezing, but we bundle up with lots of coats and seem to do fine. Last night we went into town and tried to go to a couple bars, most of which were full but we finally found one and had very tasty Sangria which made for a really good time. Today we are heading to Wewelsburg where there is an amazing castle to look at that was built in 1603! Afterward, Juliane wants to show me how the donkeys can pull a cart so I will definitely take pictures of that for you all to see... should be interesting!! We head to her sisters in the south of Germany on the first of March, which is when I think we are going to Switzerland! For this coming week, Juliane and I have made plans to go sightseeing, drive on the Autobahn (YAY!!!) and visit a concentration camp, Buchenwald, which is about 3 hours away. I will post next weekend with new pictures and tell you all about our new adventures! I hope everyone is doing absolutely lovely and will post soon! Tschuss! -informal goodbye in German : )

I have Broncihitis!!!

Hey all, how is everyone? I have been REALLY sick since last Sunday, so I apologize for nothing new until now. I had a fever of 103 on Wednesday, and that is when I decided to go to the doctor. Lisa was kind enough to find me a doctor that was close and took my insurance. He did not speak much English, but I pointed to what was hurting or bothering me, and he sent me home with 6 boxes of medicine and told me I had Bronchitis! I am sooooo happy because I am feeling SO much better, and just have a horrible cough left which should be gone hopefully soon. I can't explain to you all how happy I am that I feel better, I was in pretty bad shape for a couple days, thats for sure. The Friday before I got sick, Mikey and I went out and met up with some of his friends, and we had SO much fun! We met up with a group of like 6-7 people and went to a few bars to start the night out, then went to a place called The Cave which literally is a cave and had amazing music with an awesome dance floor! One of Mikeys friends introduced me to a nurse from Bosnia, and we definitely hit it off and had so much information to share with each other so I hope to meet up with him again because he completed his nursing studies in the states, and now does basically traveling nursing which is something I have always been interested in. Anyway, the weather here has been really nice and I hope it continues to be that way since now I am feeling up to go outside! I leave here in 5 days to Paderborne, which I am definitely excited for. Tomorrow I think we are going into Rammstein which is two hours away, but it should be nice to see another city I haven't seen before. Sorry, I only  have  a few pics from our night out but hopefully soon I will have some more of towns and stuff! I can't believe I am heading home in less than a month! I am looking forward to it actually, and I am not sure if I already wrote about it, but I have applied for an animal rescue internship up north of Seattle; it is a 3 month long, housing included internship and I would be working mainly with cruelty investigations as well as taking care of horse rescues. I completed my phone interview last week (in the midst of being super sick, but the lady was so sweet about it) and I will find out later next week if I was accepted! I will absolutely keep you all informed as to how that goes, as well as everything else that is going on around here! Talk to you all soon!!!

It snowed yesterday in Germany!

Hey everyone! For most of you, it is like 2:30 am but its 11:30 am for me and I thought I would write a semi-quick blog post! I am in Mosbach, Germany which is where my wonderful friends, Lisa and Michael live. It is such a cute little town, and just about an hour away by train is Heidelberg, which is a bigger town with lots of shops and restaurants, as well as that awesome castle you see in my pictures. These pictures are random ones I took when we were in Heidelberg, and I will definitely take more when I get a chance, but it was absolutely FREEZING cold that day, and I could hardly push the button on my phone to take a picture my hands were so cold, so I will definitely take more soon. It snowed yesterday which was really fun! I haven't seen snow since I started traveling, and Lisa and Michael have a yellow lab, Moose, who I actually found and gave to them when he was a little puppy, so Mikey (LIsa and Michaels son) and I took Moose out for some fun with his ball in the snow. After that we went and bought Doner (pronounced durner) which is like the gyros but Turkish, not Greek. Anyway, then I wanted to buy Lisa some fresh flowers for the house, so Mikey took me to a flower store and the man strictly spoke German, so that was kind of difficult, but it worked out fine and the man was so nice although the entire time, neither one of us had any idea what each other were saying, but the bouquet turned out very pretty. Mikey and I also went and played pool a couple days ago at a pool hall down the road, which was SO fun! I don't know why I love pool so much because I am not that good, but I really enjoy it so we had a great time. The awesome thing about this place, well, in Europe generally, is that you walk everywhere you need to go, and if the place is to far, you can take a train or tram! It is such a nice experience for me to live in a small town with so much to do and everything within walking distance. I will take pictures of where I am, Mosbach, today and show you how cute it is on my next blog post. Other than that, I am loving my time here with my great, wonderful friends and having a nice, relaxing break. I will leave to meet up with Juliane (friend from Mallorca, who lives in Germany) on the 17th and spend time with her and her family until March 1st, which is when we leave to her sisters, and it sounds like the town she lives in borders Switzerland, so I think we will head there for a day or two! After that, we will both leave her sisters on March 5th, but I am coming back to Lisa and Michaels until I fly out home on March 10th, and Juliane will go home. Their place is closer to Frankfurt which is where I fly out, and Julianes place is about 5 hours from there. Lisa and Michael were kind enough to invite me again to stay, which is so awesome, because hostels in Frankfurt are expensive and I was going to just head there and stay at a place close to the airport, but I would much rather be here with them : ) I really hope you all are doing good, I heard from a couple people the weather in WA seems to be mild lately, and even had a few days of sunshine!! Thank you everyone who looks at my blog, I really appreciate it more than you know! Keep in touch either by email or comments, I love to read them! Have a great weekend!

New pictures!

Hi all!! Here are some pictures I took with my phone. I went to the Van Gogh museum and took a picture of one of his most famous paintings, being that this is believed to be one of his last paintings he did before he died a few weeks later. The others are of random pictures throughout town, with a horse-drawn carriage, an actual Hemp Marijuana Museum, and the last one is actually something the city authorities created to stop tourists from urinating in corners after visiting pubs!! All places charge to use the restroom, even in bars and cafes, so apparently the town got sick of tourists using corners of buildings and streets as their personal toilet... crazy, huh? It is SO SO SO SO SO SO cold today, I think the highest temperature today was 2 degrees Celsius! I went on the free walking tour today and FROZE, but I met a couple girls from Washington, DC and we are going out for sushi later, so I am excited about that. We saw some beautiful places, along with the red light district, which, needless to say, is one of the craziest things I have ever seen. Prostitution is completely legal in the Netherlands, so there are all these windows everywhere in the district where women advertise themselves in very interesting ways, mainly being mostly naked and using hand gestures and other ways to get your attention. Pretty interesting I must say... We learned a lot about the history of Amsterdam which I thought was really great. I leave tomorrow for Heidelberg, Germany which I am so excited to see my friend Lisa! I will stay there till about the 17th, then I will meet up with Juliane and we will visit her sister who lives on the border of Germany and Switzerland. Apparently there is this amazing lake to see there, plus DELICIOUS chocolates!! I just got back to the hostel from the Anne Frank house. That was emotionally intense. You feel the history there and how much the people in hiding suffered daily by being terrified they would be caught at any moment. I am happy I saw it though, it is something everyone should do. Well, I just wanted to post the pictures and give you all an update. I am going to thaw out and rest for awhile before going to dinner. Hope you all are having a wonderful Thursday!!!

In Amsterdam!

Hi guys! I arrived in Amsterdam yesterday in the afternoon, and this place is great! I am staying in a hostel that is close to the tram and its a decent hostel with an awesome breakfast. I walked for about 5 hours yesterday, and got pretty lost but the good thing is you can always find the tram to take you back to where you need to be, so that was definitely helpful. Amsterdam is so cute, with so many, SO many shops and cafes, and there is a canal running through the town so you cross so many awesome little bridges. The only problem is everything starts to look really similar as you are walking, so I got turned around quite a bit but the place I am staying is right next to the Van Gogh museum, so I am going to see that today I think. There is an awesome tour guide company that gives a free tour as well, but seeing as how I climbed 720 stairs up the Eiffel Tower the day before yesterday and walked 5 hours yesterday, I think I will do the tour tomorrow to give my legs a break. in my room there is people from Ukraine, Spain and Brazil. It is amazing how many people around my age are traveling all the time! This is really a cool town so I am happy to be here rather than Paris. Paris was okay, but just visiting for a couple days was fine with me. I dont know if I mentioned it in my last post, but I went to the Salvidor Dali museum when I was in Paris, and that was really cool as well. So, I am off to explore some more, but I will try to take pictures with my phone and post them tomorrow or soon!! Hope you guys are all doing great!! I leave to Heidelberg, Germany on the 28th to stay with a friend I haven't seen in a long time so I am so excited for that! Talk to you all soon!!

In Paris, France!

Hey all! I arrived in Paris on Friday night, and there is quite a story to tell you about my little adventure from London to Paris, then finding my couchsurfing host's house. So, to start off the story, I have never seen or heard of how they transport buses using the 'chunnel', but basically, the bus driver drove the bus into this very small, very tight container and parked it. It was actually pretty claustrophobic, because your inside a bus that is inside a container, and once the container started moving, it was such a weird feeling! So, apparently a train takes these containers from London to Paris underground, which was about 20 minutes or so. Then, the container stops, the huge door at the front opens, and the bus pulls out and there we were in France! It was beautiful scenery to drive through, rolling hills, green pastures, just awesome. Then we started getting towards the city, and everything changed into graffiti, homelessness and basically it seemed really dirty. We arrived at the bus station, and my couchsurf host, Ihsen, had emailed me a map of how to get to his house. Now, anyone that knows me well, knows that I am very bad with directions, and I am still a total beginner to this whole Metro subway stuff. I wasn't able to print the map at my last hostel, so I figured, oh well, I have the address on my phone and most of the directions (metro directions that is). Well, my phone had completely and totally died. I forgot to charge it the night before, and was in the middle of Paris with no phone. Completely my fault. I wasn't panicked yet, because I had my laptop which had the more detailed directions and his phone number in my email, so I went to a cafe to use their free WIFI and have something to drink. Nowhere in France does FREE WIFI exist. They charge anywhere from 3-10 euro per 5 minutes; it was crazy! I ordered a Coca-Cola, which was 4 euro (about $5.00) and figured, okay, I will see if there is a cell phone store where I can pay to charge my phone for just 5 minutes. So, I found one and the man, although extremely flirty, was nice enough to let me charge it for free for 5 minutes. At that point, it was about 7 pm and dark, and I thought, I will just take a taxi because its worth it for me just to get where I need to be. I found a taxi driver who spoke no English, but I had written the address down and gave it to him. He knew exactly where it was, so I was totally relieved. SOOO we drove for about twenty minutes, and after 24 euro, he dropped me off at the address I had given him. I felt relieved, but there were huge business like buildings, and I didn't know exactly where his place was. So, I was about to call him, but my phone had died, yet again! Okay, so I said, no problem, I will just start walking and find somewhere where I can charge my phone again. Keep in mind, I don't think I could have looked anymore like a completely lost tourist with my HUGE red backpack and a somewhat concerned look on my face. I tried a laundromat, a grocery store, a cheese factory, and finally a little Indian restaurant where they were SO nice and luckily spoke English! They sat me down, poured me tea, and plugged in my phone. There was probably 4 of them, all guys and the restaurant was completely dead. I gave my phone a few minutes, and tried calling Ihsen, my host. No answer. Tried again, no answer. Its about 7:30 now, and he ended up calling me back about 5 minutes later. Oh yes, one more thing to add to this story; all of the sudden, after being there for about 6 minutes, the Indian restaurants electricity goes out. I said to myself, seriously, the place you find where they speak English and you can charge your phone, and their ELECTRICITY GOES OUT?!! My phone was still without one bar of energy, but it was on at least for now. Ihsens accent is fairly strong, and we had a bad connection, so it was pretty tough talking to him, but I kept asking him, can you just meet me at either the Indian restaurant or the grocery store you have close to your apartment, because that would be Hey all! I arrived in Paris on Friday night, and there is quite a story to tell you about my little adventure from London to Paris, then finding my couchsurfing host's house. So, to start off the story, I have never seen or heard of how they transport buses using the 'chunnel', but basically, the bus driver drove the bus into this very small, very tight container and parked it. It was actually pretty claustrophobic, because your inside a bus that is inside a container, and once the container started moving, it was such a weird feeling! So, apparently a train takes these containers from London to Paris underground, which was about 20 minutes or so. Then, the container stops, the huge door at the front opens, and the bus pulls out and there we were in France! It was beautiful scenery to drive through, rolling hills, green pastures, just awesome. Then we started getting towards the city, and everything changed into graffiti, homelessness and basically it seemed really dirty. We arrived at the bus station, and my couchsurf host, Ihsen, had emailed me a map of how to get to his house. Now, anyone that knows me well, knows that I am very bad with directions, and I am still a total beginner to this whole Metro subway stuff. I wasn't able to print the map at my last hostel, so I figured, oh well, I have the address on my phone and most of the directions (metro directions that is). Well, my phone had completely and totally died. I forgot to charge it the night before, and was in the middle of Paris with no phone. Completely my fault. I wasn't panicked yet, because I had my laptop which had the more detailed directions and his phone number in my email, so I went to a cafe to use their free WIFI and have something to drink. Nowhere in France does FREE WIFI exist. They charge anywhere from 3-10 euro per 5 minutes; it was crazy! I ordered a Coca-Cola, which was 4 euro (about $5.00) and figured, okay, I will see if there is a cell phone store where I can pay to charge my phone for just 5 minutes. So, I found one and the man, although extremely flirty, was nice enough to let me charge it for free for 5 minutes. At that point, it was about 7 pm and dark, and I thought, I will just take a taxi because its worth it for me just to get where I need to be. I found a taxi driver who spoke no English, but I had written the address down and gave it to him. He knew exactly where it was, so I was totally relieved. SOOO we drove for about twenty minutes, and after 24 euro, he dropped me off at the address I had given him. I felt relieved, but there were huge business like buildings, and I didn't know exactly where his place was. So, I was about to call him, but my phone had died, yet again! Okay, so I said, no problem, I will just start walking and find somewhere where I can charge my phone again. Keep in mind, I don't think I could have looked anymore like a completely lost tourist with my HUGE red backpack and a somewhat concerned look on my face. I tried a laundromat, a grocery store, a cheese factory, and finally a little Indian restaurant where they were SO nice and luckily spoke English! They sat me down, poured me tea, and plugged in my phone. There was probably 4 of them, all guys and the restaurant was completely dead. I gave my phone a few minutes, and tried calling Ihsen, my host. No answer. Tried again, no answer. Its about 7:30 now, and he ended up calling me back about 5 minutes later. Oh yes, one more thing to add to this story; all of the sudden, after being there for about 6 minutes, the Indian restaurants electricity goes out. I said to myself, seriously, the place you find where they speak English and you can charge your phone, and their ELECTRICITY GOES OUT?!! My phone was still without one bar of energy, but it was on at least for now. Ihsens accent is fairly strong, and we had a bad connection, so it was pretty tough talking to him, but I kept asking him, can you just meet me at either the Indian restaurant or the grocery store you have close to your apartment, because that would be easier. After our connection was lost about 7 or 8 times, he finally asked to talk to one of the Indian guys in French to figure out where I was. Get ready... turns out, the address I gave the taxi driver was correct, but there are about 47 "Emile Zola" streets because he is some famous writer. The taxi driver, who had not looked at the zip code I had given him with the address, had taken me to just about the farthest one of the 47 Emile Zola streets he could have from where Ihsen lived. Now I was a little panicked. I had to find where the nearest metro was to the Indian restaurant, transfer 3 or 4 times and figure out how to pay for Metro tickets in French. Can you say, learning experience? : ) So, I bid my farewell to my Indian friends who were in the dark, paid them 4 euro for their help, and started out to find the metro. I did, but the maps were so confusing to me so I started asking random people if they spoke English. I found the sweetest, most helpful girl who honestly, without her, I think I would have been in trouble. After all was said and done, I found the correct stop, Ihsen was there to meet me, and we went to his apartment where his wife was waiting for me with pizza and wine. It was a good end to a hectic, confusing day! They are a nice couple, but I find that I don't really enjoy Paris. I think I would like Nice, and other places in France, but there is so much poverty and it really breaks my heart. I have never seen so much graffiti in my life! I am happy I was able to see the Eiffel Tower, and my phone took those pictures. The entire Eiffel Tower sparkles with thousands of lights at every hour for 10 minutes. It is so gorgeous! I am going on a walking tour tomorrow, and yesterday I went to one of the biggest shopping malls in France which was quite an experience. Today I went to the Salvidor Dali museum which I have always wanted to see (it was amazing), and also saw an unbelievable, huge church, which had such an amazing view. I can't think of the name, but I will blog it when I remember. The people that try to sell you all kinds of trinkets and stuff like that are very aggressive, and that made me uncomfortable. They literally grab you by the arm and hold on tight as you walk away, speaking right in your face to buy their stuff. I have talked to a couple nice ones; they are all from Africa and are just trying to make a living, but they can become very intense. Other than that everyone, I am doing fine, just can't wait to get to Amsterdam and from there, visit my friends in Germany! Hope you enjoyed my crazy, interesting story, and I will post some pictures hopefully tomorrow from my walking tour! Au revoir!! (goodbye in French) : )

In LONDON!!

Hi everyone! I just arrived in London about an hour ago, and so far, people don't seem to be the most helpful, but I am trying to be patient. I tried taking one of their many public transportation systems, but it was SO confusing and once anyone saw my huge red backpack and me looking utterly confused, they did not want to give much detail about where to go. It was pretty complicated, but I ended up just giving in and getting a taxi. The hostel is really great, and is actually a bar downstairs with pool and games so that is awesome! The guy that works here is really nice and helpful, so that is already making me happier! I had an amazing time in Wales; I stayed with a guy that I had met in Cancun, Mexico which is where Tricia and I went for a little over a week to celebrate graduating college a few years back. We managed to stay in touch since then, and it was really great to feel at home so far away! Him and his friends were all so nice, and Wales seems to be very welcoming. The weather was not the best, but we did end up with one day of semi-sunshine so we went to a few castles and drove to some cute little towns. Castles fascinate me, how are they still there after SOOOOO LONG?? : ) It was really nice to have some down time rather than being busy, busy so I didn't do to much sightseeing or tourist-type stuff in Wales. Although, I found out that Wales has 600 castles!! Anyway, there is my update for now! I am meeting up with a friend I met in the last hostel in Dublin tonight hopefully and he has some good London tips and tricks to getting around, because it honestly is really, really confusing! How are all of you? I cannot believe it is already getting to the end of January. Wow. I really hope you all are doing wonderful and I will write again soon!

What a week!

How is everyone?! I have had quite a week, from staying on a farm in Ireland for 2 days, then going back to Dublin, now I am in Galway! I have had such a change in plans, I am actually not going to do workaway because I feel like I need freedom to travel where ever, whenever. SOOOO here is my plan!! 1- Leave Galway tomorrow and spend one night in Dublin, then off to take a ferry to Holyhead, then train to Cardiff and I will spend 4 nights with a friend, then off to London for 3 days, then take an underground bus (weird, right?) to PARIS!! Then spend 5 days there, then off to Amsterdam for 3 days, then rail it to Frankfurt to spend time with my friend Lisa in Germany. Then, spend some more time with Juliane, my roomie from Mallorca, then possibly home but we shall see what my bank account looks like. I have no pictures to show you guys because when I went home for a few days, I accidentally left my camera!! Dublin is amazing, so many nice people and a wonderful park to walk around in, as well as beautiful cathedrals and schools. Galway is really nice as well, and what a nightlife!! Myself and a few other people at the hostel I am in went out last night to a bar, and for a Wednesday night, I have never seen so many people out in my life! Tonight I think we are going out again to the same place, but I am not staying out as late as I did last night, that's for sure. The hostels have been so great, and I think I am really lucky to have been in nice ones that are clean and have wonderful staff! I will definitely write reviews online for them because that is the way I chose to stay in the ones I have, and believe me, there are some really bad ones out there from what people have written! I hope you all are doing great, and I think I will try to buy disposable cameras, then just develop them when I get home. Ireland is really expensive, so I might try to price some cheap digital cameras in Wales or England, so I am really sorry I don't have any pictures : ( I will write soon again!!!

Sorry it has been so long...

Hey everyone, I am so sorry it has been awhile since a new post. Sadly, my love of my life, Cheyenne, had to be put down on December 28th due to mainly old age problems. I flew home for 5 days to help my mom with all the details but everything had been taken care of. Unbelievable thanks and appreciation to Celena, who is such an amazing, wonderful sister-like friend, and Gale and Dennis, who helped arrange burying Cheyenne and I am forever in their debt. I miss him terribly but know he is pain free and happy where he is. I posted some Christmas pictures of my last days at the finca in Spain, and tried to have the best time I could which I absolutely did with Julianna and Steph helping me along the way (as well as quite a few bottles of wine). We spent Christmas eve on the beach and watched the sunset, then had dinner that night. As for right now, I arrived in Dublin, Ireland 5 hours ago. It is such a amazing, busy little town! Not little actually, pretty good size. So, so many people walking around town, it almost feels like New York! My battery i running low and I still want to walk quite a bit around town so I just wanted everyone to know I am still alive, it has just been somewhat of a rough last couple weeks. Ireland will definitely help me through and I look forward to blogging more soon!