Hello from Scotland! -Matt

Me Kilt and Katy at the Edinburgh Castle, ignore the elvis hair, it was really windy!

Kilt and Katy overlooking Edinburgh
A couple hundred years later....

At the Roslyn chapel

(this is the castle I found in Dublin, it was pretty cool)

Yep you read right, Im actually blogging again!  Its been a great great time in Scotland with Nick and Im loving it here.  It was great to see him again not to mention Edinburgh is absolutely beautiful!  We have seen a good amount, my favorite is just the countryside itself.  Everywhere you go its giant green rolling hills spotted with white sheep.  Unfortunately it is true, Katy did lose her camera the other night but we still have not lost hope.  To be positive, we still have all of my pictures (many of which are very similar) and Katy still has her first memory card, which has about her first 800 pictures or so.  But its still a real bummer.  The first day we arrived in Edinburgh we hung out with Kilt, and then got to meet a couple of his friends and watched some rugby, then went out to a couple of really neat bars.  The first was called the Standing Order and it was originally a bank so the inside was amazing and it was a really beautiful building.  The second was called Opal and it was really cool as well.  It was a real good time.  Tuesday was definitely the day of rest we needed.  Slept great, Katy had been off and on with a cold, and now I have it was well.  Luckily its just been a little bit of a runny nose, nothing that is affecting our trip at all.  We still managed to get out to town and look for Katy's camera.  We checked both The Standing Order, and Opal but didn't have any luck at either.  We then got some great Italian dinner and some desert which was amazing and headed home to relax back at the house.  Then Kilt and I took a drive for about 80 miles through the countryside.  Katy wasn't feel so hot so she stayed home and relaxed.  We drove all through the middle of nowhere in the countryside, blasted music and caught up, it was a great time.  Then today we got up around 11!  We couldnt believe we slept that much!  I woke up with a cat on one side of my head, a dog on the other side of my head, another cat on my chest, and another one on the couch next to my bed.  Im starting to get the feeling they like me.  But we got up and got going right away.  We first went to Roslyn Chapel, then to the Edinburgh Castle which was so awesome!  There was so much to see!  The Crown Jewels, the names of all the Scottish soldiers lost in WWI and WWII.  It was really something to see.  Then we had some great Chinese Buffet!  Kilt and I ate until we were sick, we then had to sprint 3 blocks for the bus so by the time we got on we were feeling it!  We then came back to the house and have been relaxing ever since!  Its been awesome to see Kilt and meet his family.  Were taking a train down to London tomorrow evening at 5:30.  Should be exciting!

Because I know some of you LOVE to pray...

Umm I lost my camera last night. There are only two places I think it can be, and then just the short distance that we walked in between them. I called both places today, and neither has seen my camera. :( I also called the Edinburgh police station and wasn't able to get through, but I'll try again. (They have a lost property number you can call.) I'm just really frustrated. I never forget things, and I'm always super, super careful with my camera. At this point it's not even so much the camera as it is all the pictures that are on it. 

So please pray that it'll show up. I'm worried that someone took it and isn't going to return it. I don't know. Please just do me a favor and pray that it turns up. Thank you, thank you.

Matt's Turn

This is in Dublins St. Stevens Green

Alright alright Im blogging again. Been a while but the trip is good. Everything has been great so far and Im having as good as a time as katy. I am having a little bit of withdrawl from the sports world, its starting to really take a toll on me. You never realize how much you take sportscenter for granted until you get to Europe. Getting to Dublin was a little stressful but since then everything has been great. Met some really great people from a lot of different places, seen a lot too. Dublin is cool because I dont feel like we are going from Church to church and museum to museum and all that jazz. There are only a couple real sights to see here, but other than that its just hanging out and enjoying the everyday beauty and atsmosphere of the area and the people here. The people here are the nicest of any place I have ever been to, better than the States, better than Bellingham. I have never met happier and nicer people in my life. The parks are awesome, the shopping is really cool here, they have entire districts simply dedicated to Pub Bars and Clubs, another section with just shopping and stuff like that, none of which have any cars running through them. Makes it really fun and really nice to just stroll around and see all the cool stuff. Im loving it here. Its a really fun place to come and stay. I think Katy has covered all the other basics on what we have been doing, but as far as Im concerned its fantastic and hope the trip finishes out just the way it has been so far...great!

Evan: Wakeboard and jet ski soon yes?
Harry: See you soon, blazing sattles night when I get home.
Mom: Never missed home cooking more in my life...
Lizzy: Keep watching Thomas the tank engine while im gone, make me proud
French movie being shot at Versallies

New shirt

Finally in Dublin!

Hey everyone! Its Katy, but Matt will be posting something in a sec. He is on the phone with Lauren right now. :)

Here we are walking around beautiful Dublin at night! This is us in the Temple Bar district- right outside our hostel.
So, we had some awful delays when we were trying to leave Paris. Our flight was canceled due to an Air Traffic Control strike, so we had to stay an extra night in Paris. This isn't quite as lovely as it sounds- we were sitting at this random bus station for 2 hours, trying to make a plan, and then didn't get back to our hostel until late that night. We were up at 5 the next morning, got on a metro and the shuttle bus and were out at the airport by 7:15. We had to sit there until 1:20 when we were put on a flight. We were worried RyanAir wouldn't compensate us, and that was what was so frustrating. Its a long, detailed story which involves me crying in a phone station and Matt devising plans as to how he planned on giving RyanAir a piece of his mind. We were not happy.

Oh well. We're here now and we LOVE it!! We've made new friends again, for wonderful girls from England, and we are going to visit them on our trip from Edinburgh to London! We can't wait. We went out with them last night and had an absolute ball. Today we went to the Guinness Storehouse and sampled a pint of Guinness at the top of the building that overlooks all of Dublin. It was so fun, and really interesting. There was a lot of history that we were able to walk through, and we learned all about how they brew their beer and why its so special. :) I still don't like the taste of beer, but I've got to say, the 7 or 8 sips that I actually took were pretty good! We also walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral and yesterday made a trip to St. Stephen's Green, Trinity College and walked through the shopping district. There was tons of live music and lots of entertainment!

Here is the something something Christchurch church. (Sorry about the redundancy there...)

Yes! The Guinness factory. It was so cool to walk through this building! Did you know that Arthur Guinness got a 9000 year lease on the St. James building because he was so confident that his product would be this good??? They are celebrating their 250th year right now. Unreal. haha I was apparently mad at Matt and ripped our map right in half. Oops...

Okay, I think- op, yep, he just walked over. He will write a blog next. :) Love you all, and I can't wait to come home so soon! We're heading to Edinburgh tomorrow.

Miss you all,
cheers,
Katy

Hark! (That was for you, monkey!)

I love Paris.
(So does Matt. I also love blogging- not the same for him.)

Okay, here we go...

Yay! We made friends! We met two new friends from eastern France in the train station the other night, and they had just missed their train and needed a place to sleep for the night. They have been away in Sweden for ten months and were trying to get home. We walked them over to our hostel, and they asked if we would like to go out with them for the night. There names are Emily and William, and they were so much fun! So the four of us, plus Netty and Henry (our roommates from Texas) and another friend from Paris, Thomas, went out on a late night adventure. We left our hostel at 11 at night and walked around Paris for a few hours! We had so much fun!! We laughed so hard and also got to see Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower all lit up. We sat on the Pont Neuf (a beautiful bridge overlooking all sorts of gorgeous buildings) and shared stories and adventures. I just realized that I have a new memory card in so I cant show you pictures of us all. Bummer. Sorry.

Today I've been a little under the weather, I started to feel really gross last night and ended up laying in the hostel reading for a few hours while Matt went out. We walked to the pharmacy this morning and got me some meds, so hopefully that'll help out. We had a pretty low key day today because of this, but it has actually turned out to be my favorite day in Paris! The sun finally came out, and we were able to walk around and really enjoy the scenery. Everything is much more beautiful when the canvas behind it is a bright blue sky!

We walked back over to Pont Neuf, and then walked over to the Louvre. We decided not to go inside, but instead walked around the gardens and fountains. It was so gorgeous! Next we walked over to the Arc de Triomphe. This was a few mile walk, but it was really nice in the sun today. Lots of peope were out walking and biking around.

Matt on Pont Neuf.

Us at the Arc de Triomphe.


Yesterday we went out to Versailles, which was amazing. The decoration in there totally blows my mind! The gardens are absolutely stunning, and to see the King and Queen's chambers was really something!



Can you imagine having every single room in your house painted like this?? Yeah. Crazy stuff.

We head out late tonight to Dublin. We have to catch a bus at 8:30 tonight to get to the little airport, and we have a room booked for tonight. :) We are SOO excited!

Hope all is well, here are some prayer requests:
-That I'll start feeling better.
- That our flight will go smoothly. (Apparently these little planes are a little sketchy!)
-That we quickly find our hostel tonight! We're arriving after midnight so we won't have much help getting around.
-That we'll regain some energy. We have both been dragging for the last couple days, and we want to keep going as hard as we have been. We've seen a lot, and definitely want to keep that up.

Thanks everyone, hope Bellingham isn't too lonely without us. :)

Oh! Oh! Oh!
PS. We found our first Starbucks yesterday and it was amazing. I was a very happy girl!

Au revoir!

Bonjour!

Hey everyone! All is well in Paris. I only have a couple minutes so I will make this a quick post! We climbed the Eiffel Tower today and despite freezing temperatures, it was so so wonderful!Its a long way down, and Matt doesnt like heights!!

When it rains in Paris...

...it pours.

We arrived this afternoon and unfortunately hadn't heard back from Hugo, so we booked a hostel for the night right around the corner from the train station. This is our first time doing a dorm room, but I think it will be alright! We met the girl earlier today, she is a student at the University of Houston. Her and her boyfriend are just ending their three week trip through Eueope. She's really nice and we got along quickly. After a quick bite to eat, we walked to Notre Dame! (It was about a half an hour walk from our hostel.) We walked inside and there was a service going on. There was beautiful singing ringing through the whole building. It was great to be there when a service was going on. We'll head back tomorrow or the next day and walk around some more. There was a lot to see. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the title, it is absoultely pouring down rain. I'm wearing shorts and flip flops and there are droplets of water all over the keyboard right now! Rain is just pouring off of my jacket. Oh well, we're used to it. Since its raining so much, we decided to just hunker down for the night. Matt is across the street at a grocery store picking up our usual. (Diet Coke and iced tea... mmm...) and then we'll head back to the hostel. Here are some pictures!

This one is from our hotel terrace last night in Milan. You can't really tell, but the moon was absolutely brilliant! It was shining down on us and lit up the whole street. We sat out on the terrace with our iPods until late last night, it was great!

Heres a shot from our morning in Venice yesterday before we got on the train to Milan:

And here is today on the walk to Notre Dame.I just realized that this picture is a little awkward. I think I was trying to point to both buildings behind me, but I don't think Matt knew that was what I was going for. Haha

...and heres Matt!Okay. Just kidding. I apparently dont have one of just Matt on my camera... Sorry Matt! But, here we are in front of Notre Dame. :)

Love you all, tomorrow if its nice we are going to the Eiffel Tower. If not, we'll figure something else out!

Attack of the crazy man. Welcome to Milan.

Oh Milan. Here's a good story for you all:



We arrived at the train station this afternoon, and Matt and I walked downstairs to book our tickets for Paris tomorrow. So I tell him to go jump in line, and I proceed to sit on the floor about 25 feet away from him. A man walks up to me and explains that he is homeless and needs some money. His english was really, really hard to understand, but I shook my head and said "No- I'm sorry. Can't help." you know, the usual. So, he keeps talking to me. From my view down on the floor, he looked HUGE towering over me. I'm extremely uncomfortable, and dear Matt is just watching me (probably laughing to himself). I kind of stopped making eye contact with him, hoping that he would just walk away. Two police officers walk up to the man to get him away from me at this point. The guy throws up his hands like "Hey- leave me alone! I'm not breaking the law!" The policemen pull on their black gloves and are gripping their baton things, ready for battle. (Mom, are you laughing yet!?!) Everyone in the ticket line is watching this little episode, and Matt informed me later that the two American girls in line next to him were saying "That poor girl! She's all alone!" Matt goes "Oh no, shes with me." He's so great. Always looking out for me. ;) After a few solid minutes of trying to escort the man out, a third officer walks up and they all walk him out the door. One of the officer winked at me as he walked through the door, and I lifted up my hand to thank him. Great. I officially hate Milan.



It got better though, promise! That was just a little taste of our first 30 minutes in Milan. We found a little hotel a few blocks away from the train station, grabbed some dinner and walked around the city. We get on a train at 8:10 tomorrow morning, and will arrive in Paris around 3 in the afternoon. We're still waiting to hear about our arrangements, but I have faith that it will all work out.



Thanks for following our blog, we love getting comments and hearing from you!

xoxo

Katy

Venice!

Yesterday sucked. Lets be honest. We had a stressful few moments on the train ride over here (I wanted to cry. Matt was fine though, of course) A certain someone was in an awful mood all day, and I was hungry and feeling extremely dirty and gross after using the mens bathroom on our train ride... Translation- I wasnt happy either. Then we got to our extravagant hotel. We're talking five stars, overlooking the canals of Venice. Soooo gorgeous. Welp, wouldn't that have been nice? Our actual home: A cheap little campsite. The first thing I said to Matt was that it looked like a cult site. All the cabins are built the exact same. There are rows and rows of them. Too funny. :) But we're actually really enjoying it! Theres a big swimming pool and restaurant on the campus, along with a tiny supermarket, volleyball courts etc. etc. But basically last night was spent doing this:

Today we walked around Venice for hours. We loved it! Venice is totally our type of city. There were lots of little shops and San Marco was absolutely gorgeous. Oh my word. It's hard to describe the beauty. We had lunch and dinner in the city at a couple little restaurants overlooking the canals, and we enjoyed some live music when we were by San Marco. It was a great day! Its amazing to us that this city is run primarily by use of the water. We took about a million pictures of the flowers, canals, boats and gorgeous churches and old buildings. A day well spent.

We changed our travel plans a bit. Tomorrow instead of going to Geneva, we are going to take a train to Milan. After we spend one night in Milan, we will be going up to Paris where we will (hopefully) stay with a friend of Matt's. Our Paris plans aren't working out anymore, so we are crossing our fingers and praying that this will work. Unfortunately for us, we are still poor college students, so a free place to stay would be just lovely. :)

Oh... I almost forgot. I had the most glorious cappuccino today. The glass was covered in nutella or chocolate or something. I dont know. It sounds like sugar overload, I know, but it was amazing! Then the caffé was poured inside along with five or six real hazelnuts. I had no idea what I was ordering, I just saw the word hazelnut (in Italian) and knew I wanted it. It was amazing. This is a real silly thing to post, I know, but it was heaven. Absolutely wonderful.

(Oh, and dont mind my hair. Matt thought it would be super funny to just not let me know abouot that. Gotta love backpacking and looking like a trainwreck the whole time...) ;)

Okay. We're off. Tonight we are going to hang out with our new friends from Wyoming, and then we are going to pack up and get ready to head out tomorrow. Love you all, miss you so much!

Katy & Matt

At the top! (Piazza del Michaelangelo looking over all of Florence.)

Here we are on the streets of Florence.

Well, I tried to post two more pictures. The internet keeps cutting out though. Sorry!

Florence.

Today we spent a good six hours walking around Florence. We saw two of the David statues, walked into the Uffizi gallery, saw the Santa Maria del Fiore and the Duomo and also walked to the top of Florence- the Piazza del Michaelangelo. That was my favorite stop of the day- it was so gorgeous. It looks over all of Florence. And we definitely had a perfect day to be up there. There was bright blue skies and plenty of sun for us! We are tired though. It is sooooo exhausting to walk around all day. But thats okay. We are definitely getting used to it! This felt like our crazy Rome day. We just walked around and popped into whatever we thought was worth seeing. These cathedrals are amazing. You cant focus on the extravagant marble floor designs because you have to look up and see the crazy paintings on the ceilings. But then you have to turn to your right and left to see the statues on the sides! They are gorgeous. Its crazy to think about all the hours that go into building them.
Apparently there are usually three hour lines for the Uffizi, or you have to make reservations, but we stood in a ten minute line and got right in! We have been pretty lucky, dont you think. Oh side note- I cant make an apostrophe, question mark or parenthesis on this stupid keyboard... sorry about that. Its all weird and wont let me make them. Its totally bothering me.

Its also taking forever to load the pictures. I will get on later tonight to post some shots from the day. I need to go buy more minutes for my internet use. Check back in a couple hours to see pictures!

Love you all, Katy

Sad to Leave

Hey guys! Katy here again. We arrived in Florence this afternoon and easily found a GREAT hostel. It is totally aimed towards college aged kids. There are a ton of Americans here so we're enjoying the company! Google "Plus Florence hostel" and something should come up. :) Yesterday we enjoyed the beach like we said we would. It was so nice! This morning we took the train back to Vernazza, our favorite town, and had a quick lunch before getting on our train to Florence. (We got seats this time!) Anyways, there isnt much to post because all we have done in the past 40 hours is relax, but here are some pictures anyways!

Here we are this morning in gorgeous Vernazza!


Yeah, see this view? This is from our roof top terrace at our hostel in Florence!! Gorgeous.

Tear. :( This is us our last night in Levanto.

Okay, we're going to go up to the roof again and hang out with some new friends. Love you all! Tomorrow is our day to tour Florence; we'll see the major sights and hit a flea market for some shopping. Talk to you soon!

Dear Italy: We love you.

Good morning everyone! Katy here. Matt is back at the room showering up before we head to Monterosso for our beach day. Yesterday we completed a loooooooong hike that stretched across all of the five lands of the Cinque Terre. BEAUTIFUL. Parts of it were like walking through the jungle, and other parts were through true Italian countryside: with little bridges and stone pathways high above the sea. I can't even descibe it. Amazing. The hike took most of the day, because we stopped in a couple of the towns for lunch and, you guessed it, more gelato. :) Yummm! We love the town of Vernazza, it's my favorite for sure. There is a little cove with boats docked in it, and there are tons of bright buildings and colorful umbrellas that line the streets. It's exactly what I pictured Italy to look like! (I guess you can just look at the picture and see what I'm talking about.) Parts of the hike were challenging because it was stairs straight up for MILES (okay. exaggeration.) But it sure felt like it! Otherwise, it wasn't a super difficult hike, but it was so rewarding to look at the views!

This is me in Vernazza. This was our first stop on the hike, about two hours into the hike. Here is Matt at a local wine bar. All of their products are made right in the Cinque Terre!

This is us on our hike, looking down on the town below.

We took the train back to Levanto at around 7:30 last night, showered up then bought some pizza and had dinner on the beach. We both plugged into our iPods and nearly fell asleep on the beach for a good 2.5 hours just listening to music after the sun went down. So today we are going to lay on the beach all day. Yes. All day. We have no other plans. Have a good day everyone, love you all!

Here are a couple more pictures from the day before yesterday. We went into the neighboring town of Bonassola for dinner. It was so beautiful!!

Matt and I found out pretty quickly that Katy and tequila don't mix well...

Matt and his pina colada. :) Happy camper.

We love you all!! Miss you!