Recently

Alrighty, we've been quite busy since our last update! After we left Florence, which was so fantastic, we went to Venice for about 36 hours, and that was plenty.  Venice was beautiful and the sunsets were breathtaking, but it was expensive and so touristic.  We took an overnight train to Vienna, which wasn't AS terrible as I was expecting, it definitely wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever had.  The overnight saved us time and money ( and had a clean bathroom), so I can't complain.

Vienna was grand.  The German language was.. difficult to say the least, but thankfully a lot of people speak English.  Our hostel had a bar, with pints for 1 euro during happy hour, so I took advantage of that, had an awesome night with
Koby, some Australians, and some annoying people from the East Coast, but I definitely paid for it the next morning.  Being hungover in a hostel really sucks, although our was quite clean so that was a plus.  When I was able to function again, at about 3 PM, we decided to try goulash.  An employee gave us directions to a good goulash place in city centre so we began our trek there.  Let me just say, our map was garbage, and the street signs are confusing, so it took us about to hour and a half to find this place, whilst I was still in my hangover daze.  We found the flea market that this restaurant was located in, but it was a Saturday, so the businesses and vendors were boomin'.  The market was great, lots of fresh fruits, veggies, street foods, goods, etc.  We finally found our restaurant after asking for directions, sat down, ordered goulash and dumplings, beer for Koby, big ol' glass of water for me, and enjoyed our delicious stew-like meal!  We walked around for a bit after that, then made our way back to the hostel because I still felt like poop.
The next morning, we were determined to make up for the previous, slightly uneventful day, we got an early start to do the walking tour that our hostel puts on for free.  The Wombats Hostel has three different locations in Vienna, and the walking tour left from the hostel closest to the market we were at the day before.  So we made our way there, but apparently, the hostel does the walking tour every day EXCEPT for Sundays, which our hostel location neglected to tell us.  So we ask what to do/see in Vienna, and head that way.  We went to an area called the Museum Quartier, an area with a few museums surrounding it and places to hang out in the middle.  Koby and I were hanging out in the middle and this guy approached Koby and asked if he could take a picture of his beard for his school project.  Of course Koby said yes and was on cloud nine the rest of the day.  The photographer also told us that there was a free, acoustic Portugal. The Man show in the same spot in a few hours! Very cool, neither of us are huge fans, but 'acoustic' and 'free' are two of my favorite things so obviously we were going to go.  We had some time to kill, so we decided to go for traditional Viennese coffee and apple strudels at Cafe Central, a well known cafe in Vienna.  Holy macrol, they were delicious! We enjoyed the surrounding areas for a little bit before heading back to Museum Quartier for the show.   It ended up being really fantastic and they even handed out free beer!  We met a nice Viennese girl who translated some German things for us and also sent us to a good place to get Wiener schnitzel. I ended up getting chicken schnitzel, because veal makes me sad, but it was really delicious anyway!
We walked around Vienna a bit more and made our way back to the hostel to make dinner and get our stuffed packed and ready to leave the next morning.  We woke up early, had breakfast, then made our way across town to catch our bus to Budapest.  We arrived in Budapest 3-4 hours later, and checked into our hostel.  We walked around the city, grabbed dinner, and talked to others staying in our hostel.  One of our roommates lives in the Sunset District of San Francisco!  Small world.  It was nice to meet an American because we really haven't met too many since Ireland, but we've met a hell of a lot of Australians.
This morning we woke up early, had breakfast at the hostel, and made our way towards the free walking tour.  The walking tour was fantastic!  Our guide was hilarious and we saw a lot of the city.  We're staying on the Pest side, which is the more industrial side apparently, but we also walked to the Buda side, which is apparently where all the "lucky bastards" live.  It is more of a "posh" country side.  After the tour, the guide showed us a cafeteria type place that was really inexpensive.  I got a mushroom stew with dumplings, and Koby got the veal stew with dumplings, both were delicious!  We then stopped by a pastry place to try some Hungarian desserts, which were also delicious.
Now we are in a laundry mat doing our laundry because the one in our hostel is out of order.  We plan to head back, make some dinner, then head to one of the ruin bars, which are run-down communist buildings that were turned into bars!  Should we a fun night.
A few other things that don't really fit in anywhere else.  Hungarian is in the top five hardest languages to learn, so I don't feel as dumb for not being able to learn any phrases, but that doesn't make it any easier to communicate!  Thankfully a lot of people speak English here as well.  The Hungarian currency is weird and SO confusing.  The denominations are huge, like there are 10,000 bills.  We looked up some conversions to help with our confusion a bit, but most the time we're still totally lost anyway.  USD is on the left, Hungarian Forint(HUF) is on the right:
1- 221
5- 1106
10- 2213
15- 3318
20- 4427
25- 5530
30- 6636
40- 8848
50- 11069
100- 22121

Budapest and Vienna are quite cheap though=].
Also, it seems as though meat and cheese plates are normal for breakfast, at least in Vienna and Budapest.  Like, people make sandwiches out of them for breakfast.  I realllly miss scrambled eggs, and bacon.  Oh, bacon.
It's quite common to charge for public restrooms.  Wtf, Europe?
One of the reasons I am most excited to leave Europe and to get away from all the cigarette smoke.  Really, it's disgusting and it's everywhere.  I feel like I've already lost five years of my life in like five weeks.
Anyhow, we leave here Thursday afternoon, return to Vienna for a couple hours, then take an overnight train to Munich for OKTOBERFEST!  We're very, very excited.  We'll be celebrating our anniversary there, which isn't the most romantic, but hell, it's Oktoberfest, c'mon.

We only have about thirty-three days left =[, time is flyin'.

^^ The above was written last night in my notes while we were doing laundry, but I forgot to post it.
We went to three different 'ruin bars' last night, which are old run-down buildings, mostly old communist buildings, that are turned into bars! Some are multiple floors, have multiple bars, rooms, clubs, retro furniture and decorations.  They're really awesome! So we went to one bar before to get a drink and also took a shot of palinkas, a Hungarian drink that is made from local fruits and is high in alcohol... it tasted like tequila, weird.  Then we went to the ruin bars and had a good time, got gyros, and stumbled home.  Budapest is awesome and crazy; some of the bars don't close until 6AM!
Anyhow, we just had breakfast and now we're going to head to one of Budapest's notorious hot baths!

Hey Updater

Ciao de Firenze!
Its been a while since we've updated and its because we were volunteering in Southern Italy outside of a town called Martina Franca. We used a website called Helpx to contact a host and arrange a time, date and amount of time you would be available to come and help them with simple, tedious, fun or difficult tasks around their property. It could range from anything between washing dishes, building green-house to getting the eggs from the chicken coop. Unfortunately for us, our host did not elaborate on what exactly our stay would be like. Normally a host has a house with a spare room for you with at least somewhat comfortable accommodation. Our host however, had a Trullo, which isn't that bad, but it was more like a partial Trullo with one room that was a kitchen and a partial room that had the sink and fridge. It was cute, kind of, but besides that, he had two trailers, one he slept in and one we slept in. It was kind of dirty and there were spiders everywhere. Needless to say, Kelli had a hard time, I wasn't necessarily happy either but we dealt with it. Again, that is all doable, its like camping, its fun, its an experience that we can tell our friends, family and future kids about. But here's the kicker, he didn't have any running water, or a source of water on his property, he had buckets, bathtubs, big glass containers and water jugs that he had a man come fill up every so often (with the exception of our drinking water, which we went and filled up ourselves). So again, this seems manageable, until its time to shower.. If we wanted hot water we had to boil it on the stove then run it over to his make shift 'bathroom' to ensure a comfortable shower experience. The other part of this 'bathroom' had a toilet, but it was literally only a toilet. If we had to do anything other then pee we had to take a jug of water to the toilet to "flush it down." Again, this was quite the experience. So much different than what we are normally used to, it was humbling, quite humbling, to say the least. I'm glad we did it, but I wish we would have had a heads up about what we would have been getting ourselves into.

As Koby said previously, we managed.  I might have cried to myself the first morning we were there because it was the opposite of what we both envisioned..  For example, we thought Gazy was a girl who lived in a nice house on some property that she needed help maintaining, and I also hoped she had an espresso machine so she could teach me the Italian secret to making those delicious cappuccinos. But nope, Gazy was a boy and we were way off on all of our other predictions as well.  I'm glad we volunteered and I'm glad we're done.  I would do it again if the circumstances were different, I'm just not a totally "roughin'" it type of girl.  I like having running water and being able to shave my legs.
Anyway, now we're in Florence and everything is fantastic. We tried AirBnB for the first time, it great! Our 'host' is really nice.  We've just been exploring and going to lots of the places that our friends have suggested.  We've both been quite tired though, I think our journey is finally catching up with us. We went to Pisa a couple days ago.  The tower was great! But Pisa itself is quite boring and kind of smells like poop.
After Florence, I think we're going to Venice.  We booked our Oktoberfest accommodations!  Which is camping for 4 days and 3 nights, they provide the tents, air mattresses, and a hot breakfast, so it should be fantastic! Our camping dates are September 27th-30th, so we have to figure out what we want to do with our time until then; I would like to go to Vienna and Budapest, but we have to see if we can afford it.  It may sound ridiculous, but I feel as though we haven't done much for being here for 5 weeks because we've only been to two countries, which is why I want to go to Vienna and Budapest before Oktoberfest.  Yesterday, we planned out the rest of our journey, because we'll only have 27 days left after Oktoberfest and we have a whole lot to see.  We'll be going to Poland, the Baltics, back to Germany, Amsterdam, Scotland(hopefully), London(maybe), Wales, then back to Dublin.  So it's a lot to cram in, but I really want to enjoy as many countries as possible while we're here!
Sorry my portion of the post is a little scattered, I've had about 4 shots of espresso today!

Ciao

Ciao da Roma!  We are currently updating from our hotel which is a gorgeous 20 minute walk from the Fontana di Trevi and Colosseo! Today we are touring the Vatican. Yesterday we started to walk to the fountain, and we ran into an English couple that was lost but also heading towards the fountain, so we all walked together and hung out for the rest of the day.  After enjoying the fountain, we got gelato (so freaking good), then we walked by the Piazza Mignanelli and saw the Spanish Steps! Then we began to wonder to this giant park.  On our way there, however, one of those annoying, persistent f***ers that tries to rip off tourists tried to hand me red roses, while yelling "you're so beautiful, you should have these","you are so beautiful" and repeated himself about 10 times. We continuously said "no", "no thank you" and so on.  Finally he backed off as we continued walking up the steps.  Then he popped up a minute later, handed me the damned roses and said, "you're so beautiful, have these." By that point, I assumed they were free.  Side note: We've been to Paris, I've encountered these little a**holes before, I knew to avoid them because they target/rip off tourists and make to feel like an idiot for falling for their tricky ways.  Back to the story.  So by this point, I had the roses and we continued to walk the steps, not being bothered by anyone.  I thought I had won, not been scammed, and scored some free roses in the mean time, what a fabulous way to start our Italian adventures, right?  WRONG. Little a**hole comes out of nowhere when we reach the top of the steps and says, "this place is so beautiful, let me take a picture", "picture, picture", "let me get a picture of the beautiful couple".  We were definitely apprehensive about handing this little a**hole our camera, we thought, "okay, well free roses probably equals a stolen camera."  So after much debate, all while being harassed by this annoying a**hole, we hand over our camera and he hands us the bouquet of roses and tells us to hold those for the picture too.  He takes a bunch of pictures, and we thought, "okay cool, cute couple pictures, awesome."  After, he hands us the camera and we hand him the roses and he, then, OF COURSE asks for money.  How could we be so stupid?! With much hesitation, Koby tries to hand him the change in his pocket and he says, "no, not enough". EXCUSE 

ME YOU LITTLE SH*THEAD?! So Koby, now this was not very smart on his part, pulls out his

wallet to look for a small bill, but the smallest bills here are 5 because the small coins are 1 and 2 euro.  So this guy tries to grab the 10, and Koby is like, "no, here's the 5", and they have a small argument and guy eventually accepts the 5 and we walk off with the damned roses feeling like complete idiots that fell for the typical tourist trap.  I began to resent the roses and eventually left them on a bench. It was frustrating, but definitely a good laugh and now a hilarious story, especially after you look at the brilliant photos the man took of us.  

After the scam, we walked with our new friends to this giant park, then went to a restaurant for pizza and drinks.  After that, we both went to our separate hotels to chill out for a minute because it is quite hot and quite humid here, and after all that walking, we needed a break.  Our hotel charges 5 euro a day for air conditioner, so we're trying to avoid that. We then met up again around 9 at the fountain and shared a bottle of wine, it was a little more peaceful, but I think we'll venture back there at about midnight to really enjoy the fountain, since it's such a tourist attraction.

All in all, we had such a fabulous first day in Roma.  All of the buildings, and even the alley ways, are so so beautiful!

Anyhow, we're off to our tour, ciao!

*Excuse the language, those words are just so fitting.

^^ the aforementioned photo..

(We haven't uploaded our pictures yet) 

It's been awhile..

Greetings! We are now in Belfast, Ireland, which has quickly become our favorite stop so far, along with Galway. The city is awesome and so much more diverse than anywhere else we've been so far, it seems that self expression is a lot more accepted and pushed for. Mohawks, tattoos, colored hair, etc etc. Since our last post we have met more friends and crossed Ireland more than once. West to East and South to North. We have spent time in Kilkenny which is a smaller more medieval town that had a lot to do and a thriving night life. After Kilkenny we hitchhiked to Tralee, where we couchsurfed for a couple  nights with an amazingly nice woman named Sona. Tralee was small and didn't have much to do, so we did a bus tour around the Ring Of Kerry, a beautiful beautiful beautiful trip and we also made our way to a tiny town called Dingle, right on the Dingle peninsula for the day. Our couchsurfing host offered us a ride up to Belfast, a 5 hour ride, so naturally, we took it, which brings us to now, sitting in a coffee shop, drinking "black coffee" as they call it, which is just an americano..  Also currently trying to figure out accommodations for Oktoberfest, which is quite pricey!

So much in so little time

Greetings from Galway! We just finished cooking dinner, a vegetable and turkey breast filet stir fry, at our new hostel, Wood Quay.  Since our last post we stayed in the Lough Rynn Castle in Mohill, which was my graduation gift from Koby.  It was absolutely beautiful! We had "proper tea", strolled through their Walled Gardens, and roamed around the castle property quite a bit.  We also took advantage of the private bathroom to do a little laundry. Although, we didn't take into account that there isn't really a breeze here, nor is there much sun, so our clothes weren't even dry the day after we washed them, sooo we had to spend a few hours drying them individually with the hair dryer provided, which was quite comical! Staying in a castle was definitely one for the books.

<3
Kelli


I don't really have much to say, except that I am having a fantastic time! I really love Ireland, it's ridiculously beautiful and green, which is a lot different then everything I'm really used to. I also did not realize that Ireland is tiny, well not tiny, but small. Its super easy to get from one side to the other, nor does it take long. Kelli and I have spent time in Dublin at a busy hostel, Carrick-on-Shannon at a small, more homey hostel, Mohill in a huge Castle and now we are in Galway at a smaller hostel, which is also supposed to be "the place to go." We'll see how that holds up!

Here are some pictures to give you an idea.

 

The lake behind Lough Rynn Castle

The view from out River Boat trip in Carrick-on-Shannon!

Our travels so far

Lough Rynn Castle from the front

and behind

Drying my boxers with a hair dryer.. :(

Carrick-on-Shannon

Hello! Currently posting from Cafe Lounge in Carrick-on-Shannon.  Now we're in the countryside and it is beyond gorgeous.  It's what you imagine, but better.  The people are even more friendly and willing to help! The owner of our hostel, B-side Hostel, is so accommodating and is even driving us to our next destination tomorrow morning, which is Lough Rynn Castle in Mohill, where we'll be for about three days.  It's Carrick's 400th anniversary, so there is a lot of celebration going on! It's also a popular time for "stags" and "hens" parties, which are bachelor and bachelorette parties, except everyone here dresses up and it's pretty entertaining!
We've been cooking most of our meals lately(nothing fancy), at least one a day, which makes a HUGE difference.  We made dinner last night and breakfast this morning for less than 10 euro, which normally would've cost about 40-50 euro.  Which also means we have more money for alcohol and adventures=].
I really, really love Ireland, like maybe live here someday, love it.

Also, we've had so much support from both of our parents, siblings, extended family, and friends which made the biggest difference and really made this trip possible.  Although, most of the people we told have responded with, "That's so awesome, I'm so jealous" or something along those lines.  If Koby & I, two college students, working part/full time, living in one of the most expensive cities can make this work, what's stopping everyone else with similar circumstances?  If where you are now isn't where you want to be in the next couple years, what's stopping you?!  This is all out of love, I really just want everyone to be able to experience the fantastic adventure that we are.  We decided that we wanted to do it, bought our tickets at the end of April, and had no choice but to figure the rest of it out.  This is already so much more rewarding that whatever new shirt or pair of shoes I could have ever, ever purchased.  Happy (future) travels!

Much, much love,
Kelli

Day Two

Currently posting from Starbucks( :| ) because our hostel wifi is down.  Today we did a Guinness tour and became certified Guinness pourers!  They had a sky bar with a view of Dublin, so amazing! We also got coffee and walked around Stephen's Green, a beautiful park in central-ish Dublin.

Things we've noticed:

Guys wear sweatpants and pop their collars A LOT

Girls put on their make up at the cake store (Koby made a funny today..)

Apparently tights are pants here.. EXCEPT THEY AREN'T

No one wakes up before 8 AM

No one sleeps before 3 AM

The food is mostly carbs..

EVERYONE IS FRIENDLY AND IT'S REALLY REFRESHING