let's start at the very beginning...

...a very good place to start.

No matter how hard I try, every time I think of break and Salzburg comes to mind, the music from The Sound of Music becomes ingrained in my brain for a solid three days. Needless to say I am rather bored with the music.

I will attempt to recap a few of the more memorable moments from each city and a few in between. So, here goes nothing...

Dec 13 - Kate and I got all of our things together and were ready to walk out the door when we picked up our packs for the first time fully packed. A sense of dread filled me as I envisioned hauling it all across the Continent. I hurriedly removed several things and slung the not much lighter pack on my back. An easy ride from the Nott'm bus station to Stansted, just outside London, gave us an easy start to the trip. We caught our first Ryan air flight without a hitch and safely arrived in Bratislava a few hours later. After trying to remember the ridiculous conversion rate and taking out money, we decided on a taxi instead of navigating a non existent bus system to our hostel. Our driver spoke about as much English as we did Slovakian, but he was very friendly and took us right to our hostel. We made our way into the hostel and were greeted by a quadrilingual receptionist who gave us all the info we needed about Bratislava. An early night in (after calling and emailing) was relatively uneventful.

Dec 14 - We woke early enough and checked out of our hostel. We began walking around the city, with our packs (we had yet to figure out that luggage storage was our friend) and did a bit of sight seeing. The castle was impressive, even in the mist, but was mysteriously closed... or so we thought until we trekked all the way to the other side and by that time we were too tired to check it out... we stopped by the Christmas market and looked a some interesting food and admired the craftsmanship on all of the goods being sold. After some churches and traversing the old city streets, we hopped on a tram to the train station. A bit of a queue and we caught an hourly train to Vienna... using our Eurail passes even though they aren't technically valid in Slovakia. Thankfully the language barrier played to our advantage. We arrived in Vienna and eventually figured out which station was that we wanted and got off, much refreshed from a nap on the train which was induced by the gently lolling rock of the train. Immediately, the city felt less foreign to me, even though I still didn't understand the language, and somehow I felt safer. Perhaps it was the fact I had heard German before or perhaps because there was no prominent evidence of semi-recent wars. Either way, I was excited for the city. Our hostel proved to be fantastic (it was called the Wombat... and ended up being the best hostel of the whole trip) so Kate and I set out for the night to see what there was to see. After an hour or so of night wandering through Christmas markets and whatnot, we stumbled upon the magnificent Vienna Opera House. We popped in and discovered that the opera Don Carlos was on that evening and we managed to finagle tickets for 3.50 Euro. The inside of the Opera house was exquisite and the performance was beyond worthy of its venue. A walk back through the city to our hostel in the chilly night was interesting as everything had shut down while we were in the performance. Although the streets were a bit darker and the shops were all closed, countless couples and groups still walked through the streets, enjoying the Christmas lights.

Dec 15... who am I kidding... if anyone is still reading I am amazed... I will do this by city now to speed things up a bit. Vienna became one of my new favorite cities. After Don Carlos the next night Kate and I went to see Der Nusscraker aka the Nutcracker which was only 2Euro this time and possibly the best ballet I have ever seen... excluding Barishnikov of course. We visited at least four museums (only two of which were actually worth our time and money) and basically had a great time. Oh yeah, we also visited on of the largest palaces in Europe casually known as Sisi's palace. Another simple train connection to Budapest and we were in Hungary.

After wandering the streets, useless map in hand, we got to our hostel. It was more like a big flat than a hostel... different, but very friendly. Kate and I wandered the city that night for hours. The palaces and cathedrals and parliament buildings along the Danube were beautiful...
... the next day we explore the city more in depth, went back to the famed Gerbaud patisserie and reveled in the goodness of real hot chocolate and fine pastries.

That evening we spent time in the amazing baths. The indoor pools and steam rooms were filled with older people and the water was... cloudy green at best. Needless to say Kate and I spent little time there and were grateful when we discovered the inner courtyard. The pools were immense and elaborate. Fountains, waterfalls, currents and jets in the steamy water shimmered in the steam rising from the pools into the cold night air. Thankfully this water was lightly chlorinated and the company was much younger. We met several nice Americans and Canadians and before we knew it, it had been over two hours and our fingers were rather shriveled. After the baths, we treated ourselves to a nice meal out in a cute French Cafe. Back in our hostel I stayed up late chatting with some Aussies while we watched a movie while Kate slept to ward off illness. Early the next day we caught a train to somewhere, changed again, and made it to Salzburg. Salzburg was great because we met up with Mary and Kevin (and later Emily and Anna who got separated bc of tickets). It was wonderful to have the group somewhat back together. We visited Festung Hohensalzburg, the Christmas market several times (I had the best Austrian butter Crescent cookies of my life there) and had a meal of pretzels (ham and cheese, cheese, chocolate, cinnamon and sugar, you name it, they had it...) It was strange to be back in Salzburg after seven years, but I really enjoyed recognizing all of the old places... the Wolf Hotel... the H&M... the castle... meeting cousin George there... Anyway, it was a good city. Many trains and hours later, Kevin, Mary, Anna, Emily and I arrived in Prague. Again, the Eastern European atmosphere was slightly unnerving (especially when seen from the train track view) but we safely arrived, luckily met Aaron at the train station, and made our way to the hostel. We searched for a restaurant reccommended to us, but never found it. We ended up at this restaurant that served excellent food, the only slightly odd thing about the place was the waitress walking around with black pants, nice shoes, a nice shrug shoulder sweater... and nothing else. Incase you aren't getting my drift, she was pretty exposed... no one paid her any extra attention and everyone acted as if everything was normal...everyone except the six sheltered American students who were incredibly awkward and uncomfortable everytime she walked by our table. We never figured out any reason for her manner of dress as the restaurant seemed to be a respectable place... The next day we explored the city (churches, cathedrals, castles, christmas markets, cool clocks... same old, same old) and celebrated Emily's 21st birthday by going out to a great restaurant in downtown Prague. Thank goodness for the week Czech koruna, everything was expensive by their standards, but pretty affordable for us. An early night in, due to early departures and that was all we had of Prague.

A long train ride into Germany and we were safely in Munich. We decided to spend only one night in Munich so that we wouldn't have to travel on Christmas Eve. We checked into our hostel, walked to the Christmas market for dinner (brats and crepes... yum!) and then headed on to the Haufbrauhaus. We all enjoyed the beer and pretzels there and met some intersting people. Although this was considered the most 'touristy' brew house of them all, we met a group of older men who have been going to that place, once a week, for twenty years. It was neat to talk to some of them, those that spoke English and especially the Bavarian that we (and his doctor friend who was trying to translate) had absolutely no idea what he was saying... we had a fun walk back to the hostel and an early night in. The next morning we left for Geneva.

In Geneva, we spent quite a few happy hours in Starbucks, just chatting, reading, and journaling. On Christmas Eve, Kate and Brandon arrived and we enjoyed all being together. On a long night walk through a beautiful park with cool statues and the old part of town, some of us stumbled upon a church that was having a late service. We attended the eleven o'clock service in the beautiful cathedral and sang carols in French. After midnight we walked back to our hotel and went to sleep, dreaming of the snowy midwest. The next morning we awoke late and had a nice breakfast to send Kate off to meet her mother. We entertained ourselves all day and at night attended an orchestral and choral concert in the same cathedral we attended the night before. After excellent music, we went to a great Italian restaurant and had a relaxed dinner. Good food, excellent wine and friends made for a different, but good Christmas abroad. The day after Christmas, Mary, Kev, Brandon and I headed to Cologne.

Cologne (aka Koln) was an interesting city, but by the time we got there, we were all a bit tired of traveling. We spent two days there and the boys enjoyed the brew houses (sampling the house brew at several establishments) and Mary and I went off for some girl time. We met up with the boys back at the hostel and went out to dinner... at another brew house. Unfortunately, the restaurant was out of soup, so Mary and I ordered something that we had no idea what it was...

...needless to say, we ended up sharing with the boys. That night, night wanderings provided good conversation and bonding. It was a beautiful night and I thoroughly enjoyed it... From Koln, I was to leave a day early to meet my cousin (my dad's nephew) in Paris. The rest of the group decided to come as well, so I had some travel buddies on the incredibly full train ride there. I still had a hotel room to myself for the night, so I waded into the crowd in the metro and sent the other three off to their hotel. I checked into my hotel and took a nap and grabbed some dinner before meeting Mary, Kev and Brandon. It was WONDERFUL to have a hotel room all to myself... that night we walked around the city. It was great to be back in Paris and to be a semi-knowledgeable tour guide. {side note, if anyone is still reading, you are truly amazing, this is the post to end all posts... good job}The next day, we met for breakfast and I headed off to meet my cousin George. We had a good day together: a great lunch out, going up to the Eiffle Tower for George's first time, and later, a phenomenal dance performance at La Theatre de la Champs Elysees. It was good to see George again (he lives and works in Norway and I hadn't seen him in years). The next day was fun with Friends. We walked all over and did the Eiffle Tower again. Somewhere in there, we went to the Louvre which was more crowded than I have ever seen it before and a good dinner of bread, cheese, wine and chocolate in the hotel. Kevin's friend Alex was there and so was Emily's friend Keri. New Year's Eve was fun... we had a dinner of Mona Lisa pizza and Hagen Daz icecream. We stayed in Kev and Alex's hotel room until around ten and then headed down to the Seine. It was a fun night with friends... New Years in Paris... what could be better?... entirely too early the next morning, I got onto a high speed train to Spain. I got safely into Barcelona and checked into my hostel. I had a relaxed evening and waited for Kate to arrive. After sharing stories from the previous week, we went to bed. Barcelona was a beautiful city with amazing weather... blue skies, sun, and balmy breezes. I especially enjoyed visiting the Olympic grounds. It was quite surreal to be there... fifteen years after the even. Anyway, Kate and I enjoyed our time there and headed to Madrid after two nights in Barcelona.

Madrid was also enjoyable. We stayed in a nice hotel right across from the Atocha train station... I later learned that my friend who studied in Madrid for the fall semester stayed near there and his parents actually stayed in that same hotel... small world. While in Madrid, we visited three wonderful museums, had great tapas and met up with Ryan a couple times. On the last night in Madrid, I met up with and went out with my cousin Brent (my mom's nephew who is living in Madrid for the year teaching English), his girlfriend, and his friend from home. It was a really fun night and great to see Brent and Ginger again.

That was it... after three and half weeks, it was time to go back to England. At 4:20 the next morning, Kate and I caught a taxi to the airport and flew directly into Nottingham. A short bus and tram ride later, we were back in the flat. It was silent, Anna and Kevin were still asleep, so we napped a bit. Over the next 48 hours, the rest of our flatmates arrived home, excited to sleep in their own beds. It was a whirlwind tour and a lifechanging experience with countless memories created. I can't wait to do it all over again in the spring.