So it's been about 3 weeks since I've been back in the States and my trip seems like a huge blur now. It's really unfortunate because that trip has probably been the most exhilarating and eye opening experience that I have ever had in my 21 years. I know some of the events may seem stupid to you guys as readers, but they truly are the funniest moments in my life. Everything that happened on this trip, I am glad that it happened. I'm glad that my wallet got stolen in Prague, and that Jenna and I got lost in Rome, or that I had a near death experience with a man with herpes. The way that I look at it is that it's funny and it's very typical for these events to happen in my life. So everyone....just laugh. Take a moment now to realize that I am back in the states, in one piece and still healthy. It's ok to laugh about the stupid things that we did! We're 21! Give us a break and let us live! I know most of you guys wouldn't have experienced your trip like we did, but that's also why this was my trip and not yours! This blog also goes out to my aunt Carol who has been so bored in life without reading a daily dose of me! Even though she can see me on a daily basis, she would rather just read about my life! hahahaha
So our last week in Brussels was absolutely amazing! It rained everyday I think and it went by extremely fast even though we begged for the days to go slowly just so we could feel like we had more time. As each day passed, we knew that that was one less day for us to be there. We took advantage of every opportunity that we had there. We went to Daokta's boy scout ceremony and made fools of ourselves while all of Dakota's friends were convinced that we were his girlfriends! haha One boy even thought that Lindley was one of the boys mom! hahahahaha sucka.
We celebrated the 100th day of school about 2 weeks late with my first graders. The activities that they did were so hilarious. They made their faces as if they were 100 years old. They looked so funny because some were bald or some had hair just above their ears and some even gave themselves mustaches and beards and hair coming out of their ears! I took photos don't worry! There was this one little girl in my class who loved this other little boy and she wanted me to grab both of their 100 year old faces to see what they would look like together when they are 100. So I took both down and put them side by side and go "aww that's cute". I look at her and she is making a nasty face and goes..."ummm maybe I don't love him anymore!" hahahahahha she thought he was ugly at 100 and didn't want to marry him anymore.
The teachers took us to dinner that last week and we thought that we should bring them all flowers for helping us and putting up with us. Tracey takes us all around and we can't seem to find decent priced flowers that looked good. We ended up bring our teachers potted plants! hahaha. They said they loved them.
We spent that weekend wandering around Brussels and trying to get the last of our gifts. Tracey took us to the Stockel market and we had the best and I mean THE BEST waffle ever. It was fresh and gooey in the middle and it didn't need anything on it to make it soooo good. I think I died and came back to eat another waffle. We bought a crap ton of chocolate. Which now it is almost gone. We bought some Mankin Penis souvenirs and I even bought an apron made out of true Belgian lace. We'll see if I ever wear the apron. I think I just bought in my feat to be more domestic. I want to say FAIL.
Tracey took us out to this fancy restaurant where they are known for their mussels. Yuck....I had chicken. The girls had the mussels and they claimed they taste like chicken, but that makes me wonder....does chicken actually taste like chicken?! We then went to Delirium with Tracey. This place has over 2000 different beers! It's in the Guinness book of world records and in the book of 100 things to do before you die. I can cross that off my list now! They even had Duff beer from the Simpsons.
The next day we had to leave and it was a really sad departure. We had to leave the house by 6:00 am and even Dakota got up to take us to the airport! We were waiting in line to check our bags and the line was taking forever when there was about 10 people in it. It was ridiculous. We were right up front and this lady working was just chatting on the phone and saying ridiculous things. She told Jenna that she would have to put her purse in her bag because she couldn't have more than one carry on. Me, not knowing when to keep my comments to myself blurted out "Are we in the wrong line?! Is this Ryan Air?!" (Those who have flown Ryan Air or know anything about Ryan Air will know why that is an insult). The lady didn't appreciate that I guess and looked at me and told me "that if I had a problem I can leave and fly another airline" hahaha oops. She was definitely sending my bags to anther place than I was going! Turns out that my bags were 1 kilo over the limit and I was about to plead with her and she stops and goes "it's too early for this" and let them through!
We then said our last goodbyes and it was really sad. The Deverill's were amazing people and we weren't ready to leave them yet! I had to walk away fast because, I'll admit, I did start to cry. But the good news is that they are coming down to Texas in June so we get to see them again! WooHooo.
We got back to our house around 4 pm and Jenna and I had to start student teaching the very next day. We were exhausted and depressed. We've been teaching for 2 weeks now and I guess you can say we've settled back into our routine of things, but it's still different. I miss Tracey driving us to school and playing ABBA for us. I miss none of us being morning people and forcing conversations just so it wasn't silent. I miss the dogs. I miss Dakota. I miss Tracey and Dirk. I miss my kids. I miss the waffles and the chocolates and the beer! I just miss Europe.
Top 10 things I learned on this trip:
1. Beer is soo good.
2. Waffles are sooo good.
3. The chocolate is soo good.
4. Always have an umbrella ready because you'll never know with the weather.
5. I want to learn another language desperately.
6. People are fun in Europe.
7. Always have a house key on you. The no door knobs on the inside or outside can really throw you off.
8. Coffee is a necessity.
9. Some people smell really bad. They need the DO for the BO.
10. Europe is absolutely amazing and I now know why some Europeans aren't that fond of the Americans.
I LOVE BRUSSELS!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Holiday part 3....Roma!
So, we arrive at the airport in Dublin with time to spare. We were excited because this airport was nicer than Prague and things had worked out with Ryan air at this point in time. We walk to our gate, which is probably the very last gate in this airport. We tried to get something to eat, but everything was shut down because of a gas leak....important fact...remember. So we are waiting in the boarding line forever and we finally get up there and they pull Lindley to the side. I look at the situation, but they took my boarding pass and let me on through. I look back and Jenna and Whitley are all pulled aside with Lindley. I can't hear what's going on so I step closer. This man working there is trying to get me to board the plane, but there was no way I was getting on that plane without the other girls. Turns out, that they didn't get their passports checked and didn't have a stamp that I had because I ended up checking my bag. The guys wouldn't let them onto the plane until they had their passports checked which meant that they had to run back to the check in counter and back to the plane in about 15 minutes. Keep in mind that our gate is probably about 2 miles away from the check in counter. The next thing I know, Jenna, Lindley and Whitley are bolting down the airport and I'm left standing at the gate. I shouted after them "don't worry you guys, I'll wait here" great words of encouragement huh?! So, I'm sitting at the gate waiting for the girls to come back and time is just ticking away. An announcement comes on saying "the gate for Rome will be closing in 5 minutes"...then I hear "the gate for Rome will be closing in 2 minutes"...then I hear "the gate for Rome will be closing very shortly"...ok at this point I am the only one sitting at the gate so It's fairly obvious that they are talking to me and I'm sitting there staring back at them and tapping my watch saying "don't worry...they'll be here". So I hear "the gate for Rome is closing...soon"...and "the gate for Rome is closing...please get on the flight"...and I'm just sitting there staring back. The announcements keep coming just like that....they should have just said "Sarah Bourland get on the damn flight!". So, they finally announce that they are closing the gate...for real this time...and I go up to this guy freaking out because I don't know where the girls are and my bag is on the plane and this all just sucks. So the guy is trying to stall the plane and I start crying and then I make him really uncomfortable by crying so he sends me away to go look for the girls. I finally see Whitley's head bobbing down the hallway and I start screaming to the airport man that they are coming and to throw my bag back on that damn plane. After Whitley, Lindley comes bounding down the hallway and finally Jenna trickles in. Their faces were hilarious!! They were exhausted, sweating, red, and shiny. I couldn't help but laugh and they all yelled at me for laughing because it wasn't a funny situation....oh but it was!! They were also running with their huge travelling backpacks! hahah....once they got back they realized that they should have left their bags with me! hahahahaha oops. You'll have to read their blogs for their side of the story because I don't think that I could do it justice! We finally get on the plane, and everyone stares at us! They had been sitting there for about 20 minutes ready to leave and then we walk on...it was obvious that we were the ones delaying the flight. To our luck there were no seats together that were open so we all had to snag seats randomly on the plane. Which happened to work out for Whitley because she sat next to this 22 year old guy and a local of Roma. The local gave us tips of where to go and the 22 year old agreed to hang out with us.
We arrived in Rome and had to take a bus to the train station and then a bus to a stop close to our hostel. It's also about 10:30 at night as well. So, we get off at this stop and we are not in a good neighborhood. The only directions we have are some simple directions that the hostel gave us when we booked the room. I don't think we have a map at this point either. So we guess on a way and start walking. We are standing at a street corner waiting to pass, when this cop car turns onto the street drives by us, immediately reverses and pulls up to us. We are all like what the hell did we do now?! These cops (2 guys) get out of the car and ask us what we are doing. We are all slightly nervous and confused because we were just trying to find our hostel. We explain to the cops that we are "lost" and they decide that they will try to help us find our hostel. They park their car in the middle of the street with their lights flashing and pull out their map. At this point, we are seriously holding up traffic. People are staring and even these girls walk up and ask us if we are ok. Jenna and I cannot stop laughing because something like this would happen! It was ridiculous. So the cops decided that they were going to help us find our hostel, but there wasn't room for 4 girls in their car. They turn their lights on and proceed to drive slow enough that we could keep up with them while walking next to their car. At one point we had to turn down this other street and instead of telling us they started to drive down the street the wrong way while they are still driving extremely slow. I guess the police can do anything in Roma. We finally find our hostel and it isn't clearly marked, so we ask if this is the correct place and we hear this "if it's bad, then no but if it's good, then possibly" umm...that's not really the response you want when you were just escorted to your hostel by the police at 11:00 at night. So we are checking in and the guy asks us for our passports. We were really cautious because no other place has asked us for them. He said he needed them to make copies incase the police needed to protect us and to sell us on the interent! He had some really bad jokes...or at least we hope they were jokes.
Jenna and I went upstairs to shower and we realized that the restroom was a sink and a shower faucet. No dividers, no curtains, not even a door really. It had walls, but no ceiling. So, when you showered the steam and moisture went directly into the room and made everything damp. When you showered you were standing directly over the sink. It was the first time that I could actually be showering and brushing my teeth at the sink at the same time! When I went to bed that night, I swear I had a dry shirt on, but when I woke up it was wet because of all the moisture in the room from the shower. Lindley even asked me if I had showered because I looked wet! Sick.
We headed out and dominated Rome the next day. We hit up anything and everything in Rome. We ended our day eating gelato on the Spanish Steps. Such a tough day. We went back to get ready for a pub crawl we were going to, which started at 7:45 back at the Spanish steps. We didn't leave our hostel until 7:15 and the bus wasn't coming for another 15 minutes. We thought that a taxi would be the best solution, but of course we couldn't find a taxi when we actually needed one. We finally hunted down a taxi at 7:50....we were 5 minutes late and we hadn't even left our street yet. We arrived shortly after 8:00 and luckily there were people still waiting there for late comers like us. The pub crawl wasn't that great because they had all their bars spread out across Rome. They had us walking at least 20 to 30 minutes to get to the next bar. First off, it's never a good idea to have people drinking and have no immediate access to a toilet for another 30 minutes. So, I blame this next part on the pub crawlers. I won't go into too much detail, but basically I had to pee so I decided to squat behind a car. Apparently, a guy who worked for the pub crawl saw me run off and went after me to make sure that I wasn't lost. As he is coming up yelling at me, 4 old Itallian guys coming walking up from the other direction shouting explicit things in Itallian. I was being attacked in both directions. I decided to run for it, but when I tried running my scarf got caught on the car's side window and I was stuck. I look up for Jenna and she is gone!! I was caught red handed with my pants down by 5 guys and Jenna is no where in sight. There was absolutely no way of saving myself after that scenario, so I just let the jokes come and then Jenna and I called it an early night.
We left early and Whitley and Lindley stayed. Jenna and I thought that we could make it back home, but then we realized that we were mapless, didn't know the hostel's name, or what street the hostel was on. Crap. The pub crawl guy was able to get us to the train station and another guy was able to tell us what buses to take after that. We thought we could manage those directions, but once we reached the train station we found that all the buses had closed!! We hit up the group of taxi men to see if they could help, but they either didn't speak any english or had no idea what us silly American girls were doing out at 2:00am in Rome without any idea where we were! We were able to get a taxi man to take us to a metro stop that we frequented and we knew was slightly close to our hostel. After he dropped us off, we were on our own. We thought that we recognized familair street signs or stores, but then we realized that the same store with the same sign is on EVERY STREET CORNER!! Rome really doesn't make it easy to lost people to find their way. So just a recap. Jenna and I are wandering the streets of Rome, at which the time is now 3:30, with no map, no idea what our hostel is called, and basically no sense of direction. Jenna and I are also the WORST peopel with directions. As we are walking, we see hookers being dropped off. To this day, we still have no idea how we didn't get mugged or something. Finally, we did something right and stumbled upon our hostel around 4:30. We can just say that the other girls beat us home. Oops.
We decided that sleeping in would be a wonderful thing for the next day. We then hit up the rest of Rome that we didn't get to the previous day. We decided to take the night easy since we had to catch an 8:00am train to Pisa to catch our 12:00 plane ride back to Brussels. Why we flew out of Pisa and not Rome...who knows?!
We managed to catch our train, which was on time. We got to the airport with plently of time. We caught our plane with no problems and we were even able to sit next to each other. I'm not sure what it was, but somehow everything was going right for us...for once! When we arrived in Brussels, Tracey was already waiting for us! Such a saint. We arrived home and passed out!
1 week of travelling...3 different countries...4 girls...and the adventures that we went through can really tire you out! I wouldn't have changed anything though. The trip was amazing.
We arrived in Rome and had to take a bus to the train station and then a bus to a stop close to our hostel. It's also about 10:30 at night as well. So, we get off at this stop and we are not in a good neighborhood. The only directions we have are some simple directions that the hostel gave us when we booked the room. I don't think we have a map at this point either. So we guess on a way and start walking. We are standing at a street corner waiting to pass, when this cop car turns onto the street drives by us, immediately reverses and pulls up to us. We are all like what the hell did we do now?! These cops (2 guys) get out of the car and ask us what we are doing. We are all slightly nervous and confused because we were just trying to find our hostel. We explain to the cops that we are "lost" and they decide that they will try to help us find our hostel. They park their car in the middle of the street with their lights flashing and pull out their map. At this point, we are seriously holding up traffic. People are staring and even these girls walk up and ask us if we are ok. Jenna and I cannot stop laughing because something like this would happen! It was ridiculous. So the cops decided that they were going to help us find our hostel, but there wasn't room for 4 girls in their car. They turn their lights on and proceed to drive slow enough that we could keep up with them while walking next to their car. At one point we had to turn down this other street and instead of telling us they started to drive down the street the wrong way while they are still driving extremely slow. I guess the police can do anything in Roma. We finally find our hostel and it isn't clearly marked, so we ask if this is the correct place and we hear this "if it's bad, then no but if it's good, then possibly" umm...that's not really the response you want when you were just escorted to your hostel by the police at 11:00 at night. So we are checking in and the guy asks us for our passports. We were really cautious because no other place has asked us for them. He said he needed them to make copies incase the police needed to protect us and to sell us on the interent! He had some really bad jokes...or at least we hope they were jokes.
Jenna and I went upstairs to shower and we realized that the restroom was a sink and a shower faucet. No dividers, no curtains, not even a door really. It had walls, but no ceiling. So, when you showered the steam and moisture went directly into the room and made everything damp. When you showered you were standing directly over the sink. It was the first time that I could actually be showering and brushing my teeth at the sink at the same time! When I went to bed that night, I swear I had a dry shirt on, but when I woke up it was wet because of all the moisture in the room from the shower. Lindley even asked me if I had showered because I looked wet! Sick.
We headed out and dominated Rome the next day. We hit up anything and everything in Rome. We ended our day eating gelato on the Spanish Steps. Such a tough day. We went back to get ready for a pub crawl we were going to, which started at 7:45 back at the Spanish steps. We didn't leave our hostel until 7:15 and the bus wasn't coming for another 15 minutes. We thought that a taxi would be the best solution, but of course we couldn't find a taxi when we actually needed one. We finally hunted down a taxi at 7:50....we were 5 minutes late and we hadn't even left our street yet. We arrived shortly after 8:00 and luckily there were people still waiting there for late comers like us. The pub crawl wasn't that great because they had all their bars spread out across Rome. They had us walking at least 20 to 30 minutes to get to the next bar. First off, it's never a good idea to have people drinking and have no immediate access to a toilet for another 30 minutes. So, I blame this next part on the pub crawlers. I won't go into too much detail, but basically I had to pee so I decided to squat behind a car. Apparently, a guy who worked for the pub crawl saw me run off and went after me to make sure that I wasn't lost. As he is coming up yelling at me, 4 old Itallian guys coming walking up from the other direction shouting explicit things in Itallian. I was being attacked in both directions. I decided to run for it, but when I tried running my scarf got caught on the car's side window and I was stuck. I look up for Jenna and she is gone!! I was caught red handed with my pants down by 5 guys and Jenna is no where in sight. There was absolutely no way of saving myself after that scenario, so I just let the jokes come and then Jenna and I called it an early night.
We left early and Whitley and Lindley stayed. Jenna and I thought that we could make it back home, but then we realized that we were mapless, didn't know the hostel's name, or what street the hostel was on. Crap. The pub crawl guy was able to get us to the train station and another guy was able to tell us what buses to take after that. We thought we could manage those directions, but once we reached the train station we found that all the buses had closed!! We hit up the group of taxi men to see if they could help, but they either didn't speak any english or had no idea what us silly American girls were doing out at 2:00am in Rome without any idea where we were! We were able to get a taxi man to take us to a metro stop that we frequented and we knew was slightly close to our hostel. After he dropped us off, we were on our own. We thought that we recognized familair street signs or stores, but then we realized that the same store with the same sign is on EVERY STREET CORNER!! Rome really doesn't make it easy to lost people to find their way. So just a recap. Jenna and I are wandering the streets of Rome, at which the time is now 3:30, with no map, no idea what our hostel is called, and basically no sense of direction. Jenna and I are also the WORST peopel with directions. As we are walking, we see hookers being dropped off. To this day, we still have no idea how we didn't get mugged or something. Finally, we did something right and stumbled upon our hostel around 4:30. We can just say that the other girls beat us home. Oops.
We decided that sleeping in would be a wonderful thing for the next day. We then hit up the rest of Rome that we didn't get to the previous day. We decided to take the night easy since we had to catch an 8:00am train to Pisa to catch our 12:00 plane ride back to Brussels. Why we flew out of Pisa and not Rome...who knows?!
We managed to catch our train, which was on time. We got to the airport with plently of time. We caught our plane with no problems and we were even able to sit next to each other. I'm not sure what it was, but somehow everything was going right for us...for once! When we arrived in Brussels, Tracey was already waiting for us! Such a saint. We arrived home and passed out!
1 week of travelling...3 different countries...4 girls...and the adventures that we went through can really tire you out! I wouldn't have changed anything though. The trip was amazing.
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