Italy and Spain Pictures

Here are the last of the pictures! We'll start in Venice....

 This is St. Mark's Square....

Here is the start of Rome. I think you might know what this place is....

This is The Vatican....

These are pictures from the Vatican Museums...

Leaning Tower!!!!

At the beach in Nice...

In Monte Carlo looking like a couple cool kids....

The Sagrada Familia. Started construction at the end of the 19th century and won't be completed until 2080. What's taking so long?!?

Park Guell (very cool place)...

Supposedly where Christopher Columbus first stood after discovering the New World...

That's it folks!

WE"RE BACK!

We did it everyone! We made it back. Now, I know what you're thinking..."Levi, Natasha...what the heck? What happened to Italy pictures and Spain stories?" Before you work yourself into a fit, calm down and take a deep breath. We couldn't find a good computer in Spain so we are updating the blog now that we are in the states. So, here are the stories!

We got to Barcelona and quickly discovered it was going to be more of a challenge than previously anticipated. Our hotel was waaaaaay out in the Spanish equivalent of the middle of nowhere and our commute just to get into the city was 45 min by train. That didn't stop us, though, and we made our way around Barcelona to see the Sagrada Familia (great big church), Park Guell (great big park), and the Monument a Colom (great big statue of Christopher Columbus).

Our travels have shown us that the world is a pretty big place, but we also discovered that it is small at the same time. I (Levi) discovered that one of my old classmates from high school was living in Spain while we were traveling. On a whim, I Facebooked her and asked if she was anywhere near Barcelona. Next thing I know, we are planning dinner with her and her family and we got to meet their two little girls (who were AMESOME) and her husband who was equally as awesome. We caught up on life and she filled Natasha in on what I was like as an awkward middle schooler. It was really cool to have such a random encounter while on the trip.

Then came the trip home. If I learned anything on this trip, it is this...NEVER SPEND THE NIGHT IN AN AIRPORT TERMINAL! Our flight left very early Monday morning and I thought, in all my wisdom, that staying the night in the airport wouldn't be a big deal. So we got to Barcelona's airport at  7PM on Sunday evening. We were then informed we could not check out bags until 4 the next morning. Looking like homeless people with our bags and our luggage cart, we looked for places to nest for the night.

Well, airports are not very comfortable places to find rest and after getting bustled around by security guards, we were finally able to check our bags at 4 in the morning. By the time we get off the ground in Spain, we had been awake for a full 24 hrs. We then had 2 1/2 hour plane ride to Frankfurt, the 10 hour long hall to Charlotte NC, then a connecting flight to Chicago and finally our stop in Springfield. Amazingly, everything went better than expected. We got to Frankfurt on time, passed through security which took awhile and was very thorough, and started our flight over the Atlantic Ocean. We had TV's in our seats, so we passed the time easily. Customs was a breeze in Charlotte and, even though we had been awake now for almost 45 hours, we were still feeling good. We had gotten a little sleep here and there and we would be home soon! We got into Chicago early and we were ready for our last flight.

Chicago O'Hare Airport ruined everything.

As soon as we stepped out of our gate, our next plane came up as delayed by an hour. This meant that instead of waiting an hour for our flight home, we were now waiting for two. Now two hours might not seem like much, but for two very tired people who haven't gotten any rest in almost 48 hours, two extra hours was deflating. Now, instead of getting into Springfield at 10 we would be getting in at 11. We were both exhausted and since we hadn't had a good experience in O'Hare ever, it didn't make it any better. I started to loose consciousness, Natasha started to get a headache and now all we wanted to do was get home.

Well, despite all of O'Hare's evil efforts, we finally got off the ground and back home. We both had never felt anything so wonderful as our own bed and pillows when we got to our apartment and are now recuperating from a very long two days of travel. We both go back to work tomorrow and start preparing for our next adventure :)

Thanks to everyone who was praying for and supporting us while we were gone. We could not have done it without you!

Italy/France Updates

Hey all! It has been awhile since we posted last. If we are lucky enough to find a public computer here, it often has outdated software and it wont let us post. Dumb, right? Anyway, here is what we have been up to!

We got into Venice, Italy last week (wow, its been a week!) and ran into a few problems. We quickly discovered that the way Italy is attempting to pull out of their budget crisis is by putting taxes and hidden fees on everything. The restaurant we ate at gave themselves a 5 Euro tip on a 15 Euro meal and most of the places we went to had some type of extra charge. The worst by far was when we went to exchange currency and the shop charged us a 5 Euro cover charge on top of a 20 percent tax. So out of every 10 dollars you had exchanged, the store kept 2. This is in direct violation of Rule #2, which is this....Dont rip Levi off when it comes to money. But this also violates Rule #1...NEVER rip Natasha off when it comes to money. We were both livid, but after we calmed down, we decided we werent going to let it bother us and enjoyed the beautiful city that was Venice.

After that we went to Rome. We stayed in a hostel where the room breakdown was 6 random  smelly guys, me and Natasha. Poor Natasha. But we really enjoyed Rome and Vatican City with all its history and nice weather. Then it was off to Pisa to see that tower and from there we headed back through the southern coast of France on our way to Barcelona.

Now, before we got to Nice (our first stop), we didnt have the greatest opinion of the French. In Paris, they had been snooty, unhelpful and over all unpleasant. However, getting to experience the coast was something different entirely. The people in Nice and Montpelier, our two stops, have been so nice and so helpful. Its really made us realize that you cant judge a country by just one city.

Our last stop is Barcelona and we are so excited! Fingers crossed, there will be a computer that works where we can put up pictures and update some more. We miss you all and are excited to see you when we get back in less than a week (that just doesnt seem possible!).

Keep looking for updates!

Pictures....FINALLY!!!!

Well, they are a little late, but here are the pics.

By the way, computers in Europe = SUPER SLOW CONNECTIONS

These are some creepy statues in Ljubljana. This was our reaction to them.

 

 

Street view....

This is the Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana...

This was a photo of the 5 min we were in Croatia. We are sure this is an important building\statue, but we dont know why.

This is a creepy doll woman holding a sign. We just thought it was photo worthy, ha ha. 

Austria, Slovenia and Croatia Update

Well, we are on Day 16 of our trip. It is crazy to think we are over the halfway point.

This last leg of our trip we have traveled through Salzburg Austria, Ljubljana Slovenia and Zagreb Croatia (mouthful, hu?). Our one night in Salzburg was spent visiting Mozarts house, which was HUGE by the way, and eating giant chocolate covered pretzels. We also met some very nice people from Great Britain at our hostel and learned all about the English higher education system. Natasha pulled a Sandy and asked a bajillion questions about their culture and how they did things. All in all, very enjoyable time.

The last three days have been spent in Ljubljana (pronounced LOO-BLAH-NAH) Slovenia. Its a very nice city for being the countries capital. This was the first place, however, that everything I had scheduled didnt go to plan. We had booked a hot air balloon ride for SUPER cheap months before we left and were really looking forward to it. We went to the tourism office the day before the flight and everything just to make sure all was in order. We got to the meeting spot at 6:45 in the morning to meet our tour guide.

And we waited...and waited...and waited. For two hours we stood in front of the building we were supposed to meet him at and no one came. At 8:30, the tourism office opened and we went in to find out what had happened. They didnt know and said they were sorry for the inconvenience, but we werent going to be able to go up in the balloon. They are refunding us our money, so at least that is good. We were disappointed, but we made the best of the day and had a lot of fun anyway. To ease some of the pain from missing the balloon ride, I had wild boar and deer goulash that night for dinner that I scooped out of a pot with a ladle and everything.

This paragraph is named "Croatia According To Natasha." Croatia....oh what a day. Well our train was 30 mins late to arrive in Ljubljana so we made some friends from Wisconsin. They were delightful people and learned all about this family and adventures on our two hour train. In this two hour train ride we had our tickets checked three times, our passports stamped twice, and a call in to someone on the other side of their phone checking for who knows what...

WE ARRIVED! 45 mins late but excited to start, then we realized our train leaves to return us to our safe haven in Ljubljana is in 1 hour! we made a mad dash for information and then found we had to exchange money into whatever they use down there. A quick trip to the money exchange turn our 5 $ into 30 whatever they use! Feel empowered with wealth (something that has not happened on this trip) we sprinted for the city!

We were off....20 steps later we were in the city at some park and a statue that meant something because it was on the post cards. We cheered! Then explored about 5 more blocks with a very intense walk that probably would have scared anyone who saw. With satisfaction in our hearts, we turned and started back. Just then a pastry stand caught my eye. There it was, all alone, calling to me. We stopped and looked, it read: Reykkejvekjskl.....Jekkavskes.... at least that is what I could make out. I had to have whatever this amazing word that filled that mouth was. I looked at the lady, pointed and nodded. Then she handed me this little turnover thingy that looked like heaven. I looked at her, at levi, and then down at me hand... paused...and then shoved the thing in my mouth......It was ok, I think it was a cherry turnover....Then we walked back to the train station spent the rest of the money on lunch and got back on the train. It was a good day. And that is our day in Zagreb according to me...Natasha...that is right, I wrote something!

Back to Levi....

I dont think I can compete with that, so I will sign off and promise pictures will be coming soon.

Pictures From Belgium to Germany

Ok, well not Belgium. We have no pics from there because we were afraid wed get stabbed, ha ha. But these are from Luxembourg....

 

....and these are from Zurich...

And these are from Germany! The castle was the home of King Ludwig. Its also the castle that Disneys Cinderella Castle is modeled after.

We have gone throgh Salzburg, Austria and are currently in Ljubljana, Slovenia. We will give updates and pictures hopefully before we leave for Italy. Miss you guys!

Germany!!!

Hey everyone, we are in Germany today! We have been to four countries in the last three days: Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and today Germany. It has been a blitz but it has been lots of fun.

First, Belgium. Im sure it is a lovely country, but we did not see those parts. When we got off the train from Paris in Brussells (which was Levis first train ride!) we walked into a dingy neighborhood that had only scary looking men walking the streets and no other people. We were hoping to go and see the city square, but after a quick walk we both felt it was just better to go back to the station and head on to Luxembourg. We bought ourselves some chocolate and moved on.

Next was Luxembourg. I will admit, I did not expect much. This was intended to be a tiny stop on our journey through Europe. Neither of us had ever been there or heard much about it. We figured it would be a lot like Belgium. What we discovered was...we love Luxembourg! It was a beautiful city filled with very nice people and a wonderful atmosphere. The streets were clean and since it was the weekend, there werent very many people out. We felt completely safe as we walked around. We even ran across a full orchestra playing jazz in one of the pavilions we passed. This was such a nice chenge from our disappointment in Brussells. We were able to sit back and relax before moving on to Zurich.

Switzerland was nice, but expensive! We had to exchange our Euros for Swiss Francs and everything was twice the price of what we had incountered anywhere else. We stretched our money as far as we could and made out just fine. The weather finaly cleared up and the sun was a much welcomed relief from the rain and clouds. This was also our first stay in a hostel. We were a little nervous about getting a couple of crazies as roommates, but we ended up getting a young German couple who we only ran into twice.

Then there was today. We took a risk with our train schedule and decided to hop off at a tiny train station instead of heading on to Munich to get to our destination: Fussen. So, instead of stopping at a large station that added an extra two hours to the train ride, we hoped of in Buchloe, Germany which is basically the middle of nowhere, ha ha. If we had read our cards wrong, we could have been stuck in this tiny town for awhile with nowhere to go. But we did well and we ended up in Fussen ahead of schedule. Our hostel is very nice and we are loving the culture...and the pastries.

We will be in Fussen for a few more days, so keep looking for updates as we put up more pictures.