Greetings from London!
Thursday, July 3, 2008 11:04 AM
Hola!
Well we arrived in London Tues morning 7am (2am NYC time). We didn't sleep all night so we went to Green Park and napped for a couple of hours. I guess it was the hottest day of the year, which is funny cause it really wasn't hot out. My ankle started hurting on the plane, and I thought I had sprained it somehow. The rest of the day we walked around Buckingham Palace/Big Ben/ London Eye, that whole area. Yesterday my ankle was the size of a tennis ball so we went to the hospital (free healthcare, what a concept!) and it turns out I have an infection. I got some antibiotics, and should be fine, minus the walking around like a gimp part. After that we walked down to the Tower Bridge, and all along the South Bank, which was beautiful. We went to Covent Garden/Soho at night. I think today we are going to the Tate modern art museum. Not sure what we are doing after. I went to the Globe Theatre yesterday, but it was closing, so I couldn't go inside. I might stop by there again. We are having fun here. The people are so friendly and helpful. The weather is shit, but that's to be expected. Heading to Paris tomorrow morning.
Love you all,
Carly
Matt says hello to everyone
p.s. Anna do you have Julia's email?
Brooke, I left my messenger bag, I am sure you saw it :)
Bonjour from Paris!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008 7:36 AM
We r leaving today. Checking out of hotel in an hour; taking night train to Barcelona at 10pm. Not sure what we r doin between then cuz we have our backpacks with us. We have mixed feelings about Paris- the city has beautiful parts of course, but it we also saw a lot of okay/not so nice parts outside of the heart of the city. People we met always stated, dont u love paris! and i was a little hesitant with my yes, i do. Got here 4th of july. went to top of arc de triumph. after went to eiffel tower, all lit up, had wine in park. saw notre dame, loved it, champs elysee, the cemetary where jim morrison is buried, a museum- saw richard avedon exhibit, the louve, went back to eiffel tower n went up it. i am sure i am forgetting other stuff. ankle is much better. matt thought it was going to be amputated. love u all
We Love Barcelona!!!!
Friday, July 11, 2008 7:38 AM
Hola mis amigos!
We love Barcelona! Arrived here by train Wed morning. I actually slept on it, Matt didn´t at all. You wouldn´t believe the luck we are having here. The hostel is in the heart of town, very hip, great staff. Across the hostel is an apartment building, and the hostel owns one apt. and rents out the three bedrooms. We are in one of the bedrooms, so we have our own apartment here! We think they ran out of room because we paid the price for the 8-10 person room. Then we found out we can go to the running of the bulls with a group from the hostel! We can´t believe our luck that it´s still going on the days we are here. We are SOOOOOOOOO excited!!!!!! We take a bus at 3am on Sat to Pamploma, and arrive at 9am, then we are doing the running of the bulls and partying all night, and get back to Barcelona at 9am on Sunday. We extended our trip here an extra day, so we leave Tuesday. We met these awesome girls from Denmark on the train, and partied with them by the beach last night. We are going on a Gaudi walking tour today. It´s 4 hours, gonna see the churches and buildings he designed. Then we are going to the beach after. The food is good, had some tapas. That´s about it. Wish us luck in Pamploma. Matt bought the funniest white Spanish shirt and it going to wear a red bandana around his neck. He might run, but I will just cheer on. Oh, and my ankle is healed I am pretty sure. Finished antibiotics a day ago, and it seems fine. Oh yeah, Matt also has developed an Irish accent along the way, and is slowly turning into my father (he liked looking at antiques at the flea market yesterday, and won´t stop sneezing!!! hahhahahahh). Love you!!!!!
Bonjorno from Florence!
Thursday, July 17, 2008 6:49 AM
Hey there,
Well our itinerary got a little screwed up, and we had to reroute our trip the last couple of days. There were no trains available going to Milan, all of them booked, so we stayed in Barcelona an extra night, and went to Nice the next night. Nobody told us that it might be impossible to get trains from one city to the next, and that is the most challenging part about the trip.
The running of the bulls was quite an experience. On the bus ride up there we met two nice Canadian folks who we ended up hanging out with the whole time in Pamplona. It was freezzzzzzzing!!! Everyone was in red and white partying in the streets. Lots and lots of beer. Also, everyone was peeing in the streets, including Matt and I. We got our spots on the fence at 5:30am, and the bulls were released at 8am. The run lasted a couple min, and we saw about 15 sec of it! Needless to say the bus ride back was hell, and Matt and I just went to dinner later that night.
We stayed in a hotel in Nice. We were only there about 12 hours total because we had to catch the train to Florence. The nightlife in Nice is great, very cool, local bars with live music. Had crepes and gelato. Would love to go back, and spend more time. Went to Monaco the next day....so boring, nothing there. Then, we went to the very rocky beach in Nice for an hour, and Matt jumped in the water, while I watched. Spent about ten hours on the train yesterday, switching 3 or 4 times to get here.
Our hostel here is attached to a church and Matt and I are convinced it used to be an institution, hahahhahah, scary. There are a bunch of Aussie kids here. Today we are exploring the city...David here we come! Love you all!
Danke? from Prague
Friday, July 25, 2008 1:04 AM
The only German word I know is Danke, which is thank you. Florence was just alright. Don't really know what the hype is about. Yeah there are museums, and some churches, but you can see the city in a day, and there isn't much going on at night. The bird-eye view is gorgeous, but there is tons of graffiti everywhere on the street level. We went to the "best" museum there, saw about 90,000 pictures of Jesus, got our fill of him, then left. Went along the water and into the shops. Saw the street markets, and at night they have a sort of county fair, which seems out of place.
We went to Venice from there. Matt and I were there about eight years ago, so it was nice to be back. We explored all the streets, ate too much pizza, and just wandered around. The receptionist guy at our hotel informed us that we were going to catch our 1:30 am train at the wrong station! Thank god he asked, we were so close to just waiting around, killing time, only to find out we missed the train.
We took the night train to Vienna, and got there about 9:00am. I lovvvveeeee Vienna!!! We both did. It's not what I expected at all. The streets are spacious, peaceful and relaxing. We saw beautiful churches and parks, the architecture is spot on in the simplicity and detail. There are so many cute areas, so much to see, we couldn't fit it all in. We were there three nights. We saw many of the landmarks. We went to a lot of art galleries and flower shops, and were both inspired. Our hostel was really nice, very new and modern, like an Ikea hostel, and it had a tv. It was sunny the first two days, then poured the last two. The freakin rain never stopped! We went to this huge palace in the rain, then at night drank beer at the amusement park, very random.
We left Vienna this morning. Had a little more train trouble (got kicked off cause we didn't make a reservation, ended up in some hick Czech town, and had to wait a couple hours), but we got to Prague at ten this evening. The city looks amazing, as far as I can tell in the dark. We walked around. Matt had a shot of absinthe....as I type this he is getting drunker off that shot by the minute.
That's it for now. If you wish to unsubsribe to my bi-weekly newsletter of Carlita and Matteo's Europe Vacation, please let me know :)
p.s. The Spanish think I am Italian, the Italian think I am Spanish, the Czech have no idea what to think. Everyone thinks Matt is South American. I don't know, something about his light eyes and dark hair they say.
Amsterdam!!
Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:21 AM
Prague was as beautiful as I expected it to be. Small enough to walk around all of the areas, but big enough that we didn't get bored. The hostel was very crowded, and there was a creepy old man in our room, which had 16 beds! The exchange rate was confusing- 25 crowns to 1 euro to 1.6 dollars. We walked around Jewish Town, saw the ghetto which is a bunch of synagogues. It is pretty large. We saw the cemetary there. We walked along the river, the mountainside of Prague was amazing. There are old churches and shops on that side. At night we walked around. One night we went to the infamous 5 story club (Alex u know what I am talking about), very cheesy club. We went to a traditional Czech brewery and had beer and cabbage and dumplings there. We mostly explored the city the whole time. Saw a cool skatepark on a little island on the river. Ate delicious potato and mushroom soup.
We were only in Berlin two nights and one full day. Got there in the evening on Monday. It felt like a hundred degress, so hot, the "dry" heat. Walked around the market square. Very random night. We were sitting on a bench chilling and a guys in his early twenties asked for directions. We started talking to him, and he invited us to an acquaintence's house that he was going to. This was his first time hanging with these people, and he took us along! There was a girl, the hostess, and two guys. They were like the family in Wedding Crashers, pretentious scholars. They had dinner, and Matt and I sat with them and chatted about philosophy and politics. One guy went to Brown for a little. The kid that invited us called them pretentious pricks after we left, but we thought they were interesting to be around. Except, I took a picture of the girl and guy and they deleted it, saying that they didn't want there picture on facebook or out in the world! The next day we took an awesome 4 hour free bike tour around Berlin. The guide was a little Irishman, and told us about the history of the city. We went to all the main sights, which was great because we really got a good overview of the city. We tipped him after.
Arrived to Amsterdam last night. Everything I expected and more! Saw the areas with bars and coffee shops, wink wink, and saw the red light district. We stayed at a hotel last night, and are at a hostel the next three nights. Today we are going to explore. There is a flowermart on the river so I wanna check that out. Until,then my loves, talk to you soon.
So long from Bruge
Monday, August 4, 2008 2:02 PM
hello yall,
this is matt writing the last email....carly is too emotional since its our last day in europe. amsterdam was a trip...very surreal...very touristy. but tolerance is tolerated to the full extent of tolerance. we were dorks and were talking about the new batman movie throughout europe and we walked past a theater with it playing so we decided to see it there...it was in english but subtitles were in dutch. our last full day there we rented bikes for a day and road them next to the Amstel river all the way down to the next town south of amsterdam...it was a very dutch village. we also took a free walking tour of amsterdam and got all the low downs with the history and saw where the stockmarket and big business started at the vos. learned about prositution and hookers rights like healthcare...they built a church next to the red light district back in the day so sailors with wives back home who stopped through amsterdam could have sex and then pay a priest a handsome price to be saved. the church and the prostitutes worked hand in hand and benefited each other. we are staying in brussels but we are in bruges for the day and we come home TOMORROW.
chow. matthew and carlita.
Thursday, July 3, 2008 11:04 AM
Hola!
Well we arrived in London Tues morning 7am (2am NYC time). We didn't sleep all night so we went to Green Park and napped for a couple of hours. I guess it was the hottest day of the year, which is funny cause it really wasn't hot out. My ankle started hurting on the plane, and I thought I had sprained it somehow. The rest of the day we walked around Buckingham Palace/Big Ben/ London Eye, that whole area. Yesterday my ankle was the size of a tennis ball so we went to the hospital (free healthcare, what a concept!) and it turns out I have an infection. I got some antibiotics, and should be fine, minus the walking around like a gimp part. After that we walked down to the Tower Bridge, and all along the South Bank, which was beautiful. We went to Covent Garden/Soho at night. I think today we are going to the Tate modern art museum. Not sure what we are doing after. I went to the Globe Theatre yesterday, but it was closing, so I couldn't go inside. I might stop by there again. We are having fun here. The people are so friendly and helpful. The weather is shit, but that's to be expected. Heading to Paris tomorrow morning.
Love you all,
Carly
Matt says hello to everyone
p.s. Anna do you have Julia's email?
Brooke, I left my messenger bag, I am sure you saw it :)
Bonjour from Paris!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008 7:36 AM
We r leaving today. Checking out of hotel in an hour; taking night train to Barcelona at 10pm. Not sure what we r doin between then cuz we have our backpacks with us. We have mixed feelings about Paris- the city has beautiful parts of course, but it we also saw a lot of okay/not so nice parts outside of the heart of the city. People we met always stated, dont u love paris! and i was a little hesitant with my yes, i do. Got here 4th of july. went to top of arc de triumph. after went to eiffel tower, all lit up, had wine in park. saw notre dame, loved it, champs elysee, the cemetary where jim morrison is buried, a museum- saw richard avedon exhibit, the louve, went back to eiffel tower n went up it. i am sure i am forgetting other stuff. ankle is much better. matt thought it was going to be amputated. love u all
We Love Barcelona!!!!
Friday, July 11, 2008 7:38 AM
Hola mis amigos!
We love Barcelona! Arrived here by train Wed morning. I actually slept on it, Matt didn´t at all. You wouldn´t believe the luck we are having here. The hostel is in the heart of town, very hip, great staff. Across the hostel is an apartment building, and the hostel owns one apt. and rents out the three bedrooms. We are in one of the bedrooms, so we have our own apartment here! We think they ran out of room because we paid the price for the 8-10 person room. Then we found out we can go to the running of the bulls with a group from the hostel! We can´t believe our luck that it´s still going on the days we are here. We are SOOOOOOOOO excited!!!!!! We take a bus at 3am on Sat to Pamploma, and arrive at 9am, then we are doing the running of the bulls and partying all night, and get back to Barcelona at 9am on Sunday. We extended our trip here an extra day, so we leave Tuesday. We met these awesome girls from Denmark on the train, and partied with them by the beach last night. We are going on a Gaudi walking tour today. It´s 4 hours, gonna see the churches and buildings he designed. Then we are going to the beach after. The food is good, had some tapas. That´s about it. Wish us luck in Pamploma. Matt bought the funniest white Spanish shirt and it going to wear a red bandana around his neck. He might run, but I will just cheer on. Oh, and my ankle is healed I am pretty sure. Finished antibiotics a day ago, and it seems fine. Oh yeah, Matt also has developed an Irish accent along the way, and is slowly turning into my father (he liked looking at antiques at the flea market yesterday, and won´t stop sneezing!!! hahhahahahh). Love you!!!!!
Bonjorno from Florence!
Thursday, July 17, 2008 6:49 AM
Hey there,
Well our itinerary got a little screwed up, and we had to reroute our trip the last couple of days. There were no trains available going to Milan, all of them booked, so we stayed in Barcelona an extra night, and went to Nice the next night. Nobody told us that it might be impossible to get trains from one city to the next, and that is the most challenging part about the trip.
The running of the bulls was quite an experience. On the bus ride up there we met two nice Canadian folks who we ended up hanging out with the whole time in Pamplona. It was freezzzzzzzing!!! Everyone was in red and white partying in the streets. Lots and lots of beer. Also, everyone was peeing in the streets, including Matt and I. We got our spots on the fence at 5:30am, and the bulls were released at 8am. The run lasted a couple min, and we saw about 15 sec of it! Needless to say the bus ride back was hell, and Matt and I just went to dinner later that night.
We stayed in a hotel in Nice. We were only there about 12 hours total because we had to catch the train to Florence. The nightlife in Nice is great, very cool, local bars with live music. Had crepes and gelato. Would love to go back, and spend more time. Went to Monaco the next day....so boring, nothing there. Then, we went to the very rocky beach in Nice for an hour, and Matt jumped in the water, while I watched. Spent about ten hours on the train yesterday, switching 3 or 4 times to get here.
Our hostel here is attached to a church and Matt and I are convinced it used to be an institution, hahahhahah, scary. There are a bunch of Aussie kids here. Today we are exploring the city...David here we come! Love you all!
Danke? from Prague
Friday, July 25, 2008 1:04 AM
The only German word I know is Danke, which is thank you. Florence was just alright. Don't really know what the hype is about. Yeah there are museums, and some churches, but you can see the city in a day, and there isn't much going on at night. The bird-eye view is gorgeous, but there is tons of graffiti everywhere on the street level. We went to the "best" museum there, saw about 90,000 pictures of Jesus, got our fill of him, then left. Went along the water and into the shops. Saw the street markets, and at night they have a sort of county fair, which seems out of place.
We went to Venice from there. Matt and I were there about eight years ago, so it was nice to be back. We explored all the streets, ate too much pizza, and just wandered around. The receptionist guy at our hotel informed us that we were going to catch our 1:30 am train at the wrong station! Thank god he asked, we were so close to just waiting around, killing time, only to find out we missed the train.
We took the night train to Vienna, and got there about 9:00am. I lovvvveeeee Vienna!!! We both did. It's not what I expected at all. The streets are spacious, peaceful and relaxing. We saw beautiful churches and parks, the architecture is spot on in the simplicity and detail. There are so many cute areas, so much to see, we couldn't fit it all in. We were there three nights. We saw many of the landmarks. We went to a lot of art galleries and flower shops, and were both inspired. Our hostel was really nice, very new and modern, like an Ikea hostel, and it had a tv. It was sunny the first two days, then poured the last two. The freakin rain never stopped! We went to this huge palace in the rain, then at night drank beer at the amusement park, very random.
We left Vienna this morning. Had a little more train trouble (got kicked off cause we didn't make a reservation, ended up in some hick Czech town, and had to wait a couple hours), but we got to Prague at ten this evening. The city looks amazing, as far as I can tell in the dark. We walked around. Matt had a shot of absinthe....as I type this he is getting drunker off that shot by the minute.
That's it for now. If you wish to unsubsribe to my bi-weekly newsletter of Carlita and Matteo's Europe Vacation, please let me know :)
p.s. The Spanish think I am Italian, the Italian think I am Spanish, the Czech have no idea what to think. Everyone thinks Matt is South American. I don't know, something about his light eyes and dark hair they say.
Amsterdam!!
Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:21 AM
Prague was as beautiful as I expected it to be. Small enough to walk around all of the areas, but big enough that we didn't get bored. The hostel was very crowded, and there was a creepy old man in our room, which had 16 beds! The exchange rate was confusing- 25 crowns to 1 euro to 1.6 dollars. We walked around Jewish Town, saw the ghetto which is a bunch of synagogues. It is pretty large. We saw the cemetary there. We walked along the river, the mountainside of Prague was amazing. There are old churches and shops on that side. At night we walked around. One night we went to the infamous 5 story club (Alex u know what I am talking about), very cheesy club. We went to a traditional Czech brewery and had beer and cabbage and dumplings there. We mostly explored the city the whole time. Saw a cool skatepark on a little island on the river. Ate delicious potato and mushroom soup.
We were only in Berlin two nights and one full day. Got there in the evening on Monday. It felt like a hundred degress, so hot, the "dry" heat. Walked around the market square. Very random night. We were sitting on a bench chilling and a guys in his early twenties asked for directions. We started talking to him, and he invited us to an acquaintence's house that he was going to. This was his first time hanging with these people, and he took us along! There was a girl, the hostess, and two guys. They were like the family in Wedding Crashers, pretentious scholars. They had dinner, and Matt and I sat with them and chatted about philosophy and politics. One guy went to Brown for a little. The kid that invited us called them pretentious pricks after we left, but we thought they were interesting to be around. Except, I took a picture of the girl and guy and they deleted it, saying that they didn't want there picture on facebook or out in the world! The next day we took an awesome 4 hour free bike tour around Berlin. The guide was a little Irishman, and told us about the history of the city. We went to all the main sights, which was great because we really got a good overview of the city. We tipped him after.
Arrived to Amsterdam last night. Everything I expected and more! Saw the areas with bars and coffee shops, wink wink, and saw the red light district. We stayed at a hotel last night, and are at a hostel the next three nights. Today we are going to explore. There is a flowermart on the river so I wanna check that out. Until,then my loves, talk to you soon.
So long from Bruge
Monday, August 4, 2008 2:02 PM
hello yall,
this is matt writing the last email....carly is too emotional since its our last day in europe. amsterdam was a trip...very surreal...very touristy. but tolerance is tolerated to the full extent of tolerance. we were dorks and were talking about the new batman movie throughout europe and we walked past a theater with it playing so we decided to see it there...it was in english but subtitles were in dutch. our last full day there we rented bikes for a day and road them next to the Amstel river all the way down to the next town south of amsterdam...it was a very dutch village. we also took a free walking tour of amsterdam and got all the low downs with the history and saw where the stockmarket and big business started at the vos. learned about prositution and hookers rights like healthcare...they built a church next to the red light district back in the day so sailors with wives back home who stopped through amsterdam could have sex and then pay a priest a handsome price to be saved. the church and the prostitutes worked hand in hand and benefited each other. we are staying in brussels but we are in bruges for the day and we come home TOMORROW.
chow. matthew and carlita.