Hostel Takeover (Part 1)

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."

- Kahlil Gibran

Sunset in Prague

No matter how many times I get the opportunity to see new places, experience their cultures, and see some of their great landmarks; I find myself just as in love with the fields and blue skies of Indiana, as I do the Vatican in Rome, or the countryside of Ethiopia! Beauty isn't only found in certain places, but truly lies within the eyes of the beholder. Which is really good news! It means no matter where you find yourself, you can be surrounded by beauty if you simply allow your eyes to see!! That said, I love the beauty of both traveling and being home.

I know many of you have been looking forward to hearing about my travels and life as it is!! My apologies that I haven't blogged in....uh...well...a long time. You know how life gets really busy? You become overwhelmed and your hobbies fall to the way side? Yep...that has been me.  The worst part is (and dumbest thing is) that whenever I find time to actually blog or do something I enjoy, it has been so long or I become so distracted that my hobbies feel more like a job! UGH! Then has the months go by, the thought of blogging becomes even more overwhelming because so much life has past and how does one shove so much life into a post?!  Welcome to my conflicting life... :)

As many of you are aware, I was able to spend three week this summer on a backpacking trip through Europe! It was absolutely incredible!!  Olivia (my co-traveler) invited me and Gateway allowed me to take that much consecutive time off {thank you Gateway!}.  So I thought... "why not?!" Between my addiction to travel and my dreams of seeing Europe...it was destined to be! My absolute favorite part of the trip was the people. Seeing all the landmarks, scenery, and culture....AMAZING!  However, meeting people and developing relationships with others from different countries, cultures, ethnicities, ages, etc. is absolutely incredible! There is so much to be learned from people!! I believe the greatest thing travel gives people is the power and beauty of relationships.  This doesn't go just for travel either....its for all of life.

Olivia & I all set for our adventures!

PARIS

We both started and ended our trip in Paris.  Both of our stays there were at St. Christopher's Inn, which was a pretty nice hostel!! Our room was a tinge warmer than I tend to like it....actually a more accurate account would be that it was stiflingly sweltering.  Like you sweat as soon as you walked in the room, all night long, and woke up sweating! One of the girls said the night before we arrived, she had gotten up in the middle of the night and walked in the shower with her pjs on to cool down and then crawled back into bed!  Really though...all such things get chalked up to part of the experience, memories, and great stories!! :)

Alejandro and Aidan stayed at the same hostel and were part of the friend group we met & hung out with there!  Remember the part I said about learning from other people? Aidan's advice was that you take lots of selfies....because anyone can download pictures off the internet of any of these sights...but there is only one with your face in it. :)  Unfortunate for all of you...that means you have to endure a bunch of my selfie pictures! Ha!  We also had to search for a bubbler every now and then..... (for you Americans...that is a water fountain.😄)

The land in between the two bridges is where the city of Paris originated from.

This building is the "Keeper of the French Language." The people there keep the dictionary up-to-date and try to keep the French language pure.

 The Louvre
The museum is absolutely massive!! You could spend an entire day in there and still not even be close to seeing all of it!!  We made it through the Egyptian, Greek, and a good portion of the paintings.  We did get to see the Mona Lisa too.  Let me tell you....

Here is the great Mona Lisa! For those of you who haven't seen it in person...you can see it just as well in a picture.  Fighting the crowds is not really worth it.  Part of this might just be a personal thing, but I don't really enjoy being squished, contorted, and pushed around by a mass of people shoving their way to the front to see and take pictures of Mona....or anything for that matter! If you don't mind that though...have at it! :)

Arc de Triumphe du Carrousel

This was my first bowl of gelato...there were many more to come:)

 Eiffel Tower

We spent some time napping & reading in the park in front of the tower. Talk about a sweet place to do some relaxing!!!

We went up the Eiffel Tower in the evening and got some great views of the sunset!!

Notre-Dame

This is where all the kings of France were crowned by the Pope.  With the exception of Napoleon who took the crown from the Pope and crowned himself emperor.

One of my favorite things to do is try new foods. So I finally got to try escargot while in Paris!! It was absolutely delicious!! All slathered up in butter and garlic....mmm

So when you go to the Louvre for the second time at the end of your trip, you have just spent three weeks traveling, and you are tired....some of those hidden parts of your personality start showing their colors....

ROME

We flew into Rome around noon and decided to try out some pizza for lunch! I actually don't know exactly what I ordered....I asked the lady which one was best and the picture below was one of them.  There was squash, possibly rhubarb?, corn, spinach, and not sure what else...it was interesting! :)  Rome was one of the two places were we stayed at an Airbnb rather than a hostel.  It was really nice and the hosts were very helpful!   

We did a tour of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill.

Colosseum

Beneath the arena were multiple elevator shafts where they used to raise up the gladiators and take the dead ones down from the arena.  This was much easier and kept the fighting going without losing the crowd's interest.

Arch of Titus

Roman Forum

We met Ben on our tour. He is from Ohio, but is currently stationed in Italy.  After the tour, we went out to eat at a restaurant right across from the Colosseum and got some delicious pizzas! I got a tomato basil one!:)

Once we were filled up on pizza, we headed to the Vatican. It was absolutely amazing!! Highly, highly recommend it to anyone! Pictures don't do it any sort of justice (as they don't most things really.) I think I walked around the whole place with my mouth opened in awe.  We also got to go into the Sistine Chapel (picture taking wasn't allowed...sorry) which was so incredible!!! I can't even really put into words the beauty and the incredible talent that has been poured into that art work!!  All I really can say is that you must go see it for yourself!!

After the Vatican, we walked over to St. Peter's Basilica.  Stunning.  So here is (in my mind) the most striking thing about Rome. The absolute enormity of the buildings, statues, and art work. I mean they are massive!! There is no way to describe how little you feel standing in or next these structures!  But that is only half of what strikes you.  The other half is the extreme intricacies and details poured into each one by the builders/artists. So you have this massive statue that shows every detail of a person, down to the little wrinkles of the dress that make it look like its moving. Anyway, I feel like I'm restating the same thing over and over...so sorry. :)  It is so just so mind blowing to me and leaves me absolutely amazed!!! Ok, ok, I hope you get what I'm saying...go see it for yourself!!

That Olivia standing in the middle in black...:)

Looking out from St. Peter's

Sitting at the base of one of the columns next to the entrance. Olivia couldn't even get a picture of the full column from where she was!

After that, we headed back to our Airbnb and relaxed for a bit and then grabbed some supper. That evening, we met up with Ben again and went to the Trevi Fountain. It was definitely "the hangout place" in the evening!  We sat and enjoyed the fountain and even more so enjoyed people watching!!  There was apparently a rule that you couldn't sit on the edge of the fountain and there were officers there to enforce it.  I kinda felt sorry for the officers because we all know how well people follow or even pay attention to the rules...especially tourists...haha. We did learn why it was a rule though...as one guy actually fell in the fountain!! So then we got to watch the officers haul him away...

Unfortunately I don't currently have any pictures of the fountain yet, as Olivia took them on her phone!

VENICE

We got to see some of the beautiful countryside of Italy, as we rode the train from Rome to Venice! The only stressful thing about the train, was that the train station in Rome was rather confusing.  We had arrived in plenty of time, but then couldn't figure our which platform was ours!  Lets just say we were both slightly stressed as we rushed around trying to figure it out!  Never fear though..we made it on in time and on the right train!

The cool thing about Venice is that it is basically this huge labyrinth! I liked the challenge of trying to figure out which streets we needed to take to get to different places! Sometimes the challenge was simply figuring out where we were!! ha..

The other thing I kept thinking of the entire time I was there was....can anyone take a guess?  ...The Italian Job....:) 

The day we arrived, we settled into our hostel and then went out to eat at a nice restaurant.  I found the place on Yelp and decided that it was close enough to just walk too.  We ended up walking through a {ehh} somewhat sketchy area.  Olivia was convinced that I was going to get her killed....  Never fear, the restaurant was worth the risk. :)

We had one full day in Venice.  We had actually stayed right outside of Venice, so in the morning, we got on the bus to head into the city.  The problem was we got on the bus going the wrong way!! We got to the end of the line, realized the mistake, and had to wait another 30 minutes before the bus headed the way we wanted it to go! :)

The first Opera house!!

This is the closest we got to our gondola ride! The price we could afford or wanted to pay, was far from the price they offered.... so pictures were good enough for me. :)

Yes, yes I did have gelato every day in every city. No, no I did not feel even an ounce of guilt.

Bridge of Sighs

This bridge got its name because it was used to walk prisoners down to their cell. Therefore the windows on the bridge were the prisoner's last glimpse at "freedom."

I met Chianty on our walking tour and enjoyed getting to know her a little bit!  The crazy cool thing is that she is currently attending Purdue University and we had a mutual friend! It's kinda crazy just how small our world is!!

Because one must try fish if you are in Venice...

So, since it is taking me so long to put this post together....and this current post is already pretty long...I will post my trip in two parts. :) So you can at least see part of my trip!!