green green and more green

We are on our final leg of the trip in beautiful ireland... it has exceeded both our expectations and has turned out to be one of our favorite places. We did a day tour yesterday that took us to a bunch of cliffs and wonderful views. pretty much a national park kinda thing. We have experienced true irish culture at a couple pubs. they do party hard. very hard.  today we are doing another tour and going to the guinness factory ..... the queen has been here the last couple days and has been putting the city on hold - everyone wants to see her and a whole bunch of the main streets have been closed, making it hard for us to do the shopping we have wanted to do for weeks.  we feel we are part of irish history as this is the first time royalty has come to ireland.. seems weird she has been to canada a bunch of times but not ireland which is sooo close to where she lives.

We cant upload pictures but we took a ton. This may be our last post from the European continent and we are sad about this -- we dont want to leave Ireland but are happy to come home to everyone and get into a routine again.

They have a 24/7 misty rain that happens here but we have learnt to appreciate it.. kinda suits dublin.
anyways, talk soon!!
h and j

Sexy, sophisticated city of lights

Hello from Paris!!

Yep, skulls. We went to the catacombs which has tunnels for about forty minutes filled with the remains of parisian bones ...

Eleven metres deep...

This is day three of four in Paris, and we have seen a ton. We have packed everything possible into every day. We went on another walking tour a couple days ago and our lovely tour guide told us about the history of many of the famous buildings and statues in Paris. We then took their advice and looked at all those monuments in greater detail. For example, we had our intimate moment with the mona lisa, which wasnt even really intimate because there were hundreds of people around us. We then found our way through the labrynth they call the louvre to the venus and then got out of there. We went to the arc de triumph (excuse our inability to spell any of these words) and waited to watch an accident happen. Apparently they happen every fifteen minutes seeing as it is a twelve lane round about with NO LANES. unbelievable.



Oh and did i mention we went and saw the eiffel tower!!!! ha. it was huge and wonderful. It didnt dissappoint us at all..


today we are taking a tour on a famous hill here called Montmare.. mountain of the dead. so we'll see how that turns out.

Seeing as it is Jess'' birthday today( cant find the apostrophe button on this comp) we are going to get escargot and probably duck and spend hours at a restaurant tonight sipping on wine and feasting on french cuisine.

The people in Paris are huge on manners. You have to be careful how you talk to them, and how polite you are when asking whether they speak english.. we havent had any rude rude people answer us, but we are trying to be careful.

Tomorrow we are off to dublin, our final stop on this trip :( But for now, we must get ready and have some french breakfast consisting of croissant and pain de chocolate. yep, chocolate bread. we love pastries.

xoxo
H and J

Quick Clarification

We are home may 19 at 2300    which is a thursday i believe. i will blog more later with jess and tell you all about our first day in paris!!!talk soon
h

Barceloneta Beach, largest in Barcelona-10 steps from our hostel door

One of Gaudi's most prized work of art

Here we are in beautiful BARCELONA Spain. Amazing and so far we love it, completely different from anywhere else we have been, but it is very refreshing. Of course the first night we get here we did go out and stayed up till 5, the bar was really good, great music and multiple rooms but the drinks are pricey. Our goal is to not pay for any of them:)

We went on the Gaudi art tour and it was great, alot of history that we had no idea about. The sun was shining all day and we both continued to tan/burn, it is no longer painful.

We had paella at a nice spanish place today, which we were over charged for. It was good, classic spanish rice dish but, it didn't blow our mind.

On a different note, during our travel days we tend to remince about what we have learned from the places we've been and people we have met. And we have discovered just how little we know about history, culture and the world in general. Having said that, this trip has inspired us to expand our horizons and knowledge when we get back home....We will try to cook new meals, have different attitudes towards situations and people, basically a new perspective on life. That in itself is worth having done this EuroTrip...and we are having a ton of fun:)

If you want to know what our go to music is, here are a few songs...

Jess likes...six foot seven foot (lil wayne), mr.saxobeat (alrxander stan), take over control (afrojack)

Heather likes...anything by The National, Damien Rice & Adele

Time for a siesta!

xox-J&H

Napoli= getting hit by scooter.

Amalfi Coast.. a day trip from Napoli

Couch Surfer made us a delicious "sea fruit" linguini.

Capri Island, one of our highlights so far on this trip, rumored to be vacation island of the stars. Apparently Matthew McConaughey was there

Still at Capri..

A boat took us around the island and showed us a couple of the grottos

Yep, it was inevitable that one of us would be hit by one of the stupid scooters. They are everywhyere, whizzing in and out of traffic, not caring for lane markers whatsoever. They swerve between cars like nobodys business. We were doing pretty good, following the signs and keeping a look out for the speeding cars but last night when we were crossing the walkway, all the cars had stopped but one speeding scooter came darting out of nowhere. Somehow, they managed to scoot right in between us, slamming on their breaks, in the meantime giving jess a little love tap on the knee. No serious injuries, we just gave dirty looks and kept walking. It had to happen.

As you can see from the pictures, Naples has a beautiful landscape. Nice waters and scenery outside the city BUT inside the city is one big garbage hill. We didnt know that Naples was known for its garbage. It is basically a tourist attraction, much different than the rest of Italy. Not that exciting within but it is the surrounding areas that make it amazing. Yes, we did eat pizza everyday - it was invented here so we figured it had to be good. and it was.

Off to Pompeii today, going to be interesting. and then tomorrow... SPAIN!!! yay.

talk to you soon,
ciao
heather and jessica

Ammazza che bono!

This is the only phrase we seem to remember in Italy. It means that we like it a lot. So basically we say it after everthing we eat and everything we see.

We left Rome a day early because we were kind of unimpressed by it. It was beautiful and all but we saw everything we wanted to in two days.. We hung out with our couch surfer Roberto who was awesome, he told us the best places to see, cooked the best risotto of my life AND did our laundry for us. what a gem.  We had such a great meal yesterday night as well. Me and Jess sat in a restaurant for four hours polishing off a bottle of wine and a four course dinner. no big deal. We were craving red meat and we found steak with a balsamic strawberry glaze which was great. definitely trying that at home.

Today we arrived in Naples and it is crazy. There are garbage piles on every street corner which smell, but if you  look around to the coast you see hills and crisp blue sea. We have three day trips planned from Naples- Capri Island, Pompeij and Amalfi.

Italy has almost come to an end and then we are off to Barcelona - the city that never sleeps. except at three in the afternoon for their siesta.

Here are some pictures of Italy thus far.
Hope you like!

yumm   our first italian meal in Venice

i spillt all over myself that meal.

out for dinner with Marco to a local pizza place in Florence

Highest point in Florence, took about a thousand steps to get up there. We are going to have calves of steel by the end of this trip

yup you guessed it, the colloseum

Roberto our Rome Couchsurfer

Windy day today in Naples, picture taken from inside a castle.no big deal.

Pizza originated in Naples and you better believe it was the best pizza we ever had. Mine had corn, ham, basil and moz cheese on it. Brilliant.

Cheers everyone!

Rome-day1

We arrived in Rome yesterday in the early evening. We made our way to our new home for the next 2 days with our friend Roberto. He made us delicious zuccinni, sausage and smoke cheese risotto and chocolate torte. We shared 3 bottles of wine and each bottle was 3 Euros! (shout out to my Aunty Holly, I will toast my next glass of wine to you as I said I would) We finally found the jackpot of cheap delicious wine in Italy, and we are starting to enjoy it!

Today we are on our way to Vatican city and Trevi fountain, the weather is beautiful and the sun is shining. And yes Ben, we had our morning dose of cappuccino and it is 10x better than Tims or Starbucks and its about 2 euro.

Ciao for now,
J&H

there is no love more sincere than the love of food.

Bonjourno from Italia!

Our first day in Italy was in Venice, literally the city with no streets and only water. There were water buses that took us around and other than that we walked all around Venice. It was pretty, and we literally got lost, which is the number 1 rated thing to do in Venice. Done. Our first Italiano supper was delicious, and it is strange because in italy, pasta is an appetizer or first course and then you get 2 more courses after that. We had our first bottle of red wine and have since discovered that we are a fan of white:) We only stayed in Venice 1 day because we pretty much saw everything there was to see and were rather unimpressed. Then we went to Firenze(Florence)...

IN Florence, was our first couch surfing experience with our friend Marco. And thanks to him, we had our favorite day of our trip yet. We arrived at his place and he made risotto for lunch (which happens to be H's fav dish), he played "Thats Amore", the song for us...and laughed at us as we sang along and giggled. After lunch, Myself, Heather, Marco and his friend Francesco grabbed some Gelato(which we have had every day so far:)) And drove 1 hour outside of Firenze to Roma Terme (hot mineral springs). We lounged there for hours in the spring watching the sunset over Tuscany...AMAZING, literally an out of body moment. We snacked on bruscetta 3 times that day:) After the springs, Marco made reservations at a local and fabulous Italian Pizzeria, where we had the best white wine from Tuscany and more bruscetta, some cheese dish and pizza de napoli. Yum and it was all so delicious.

We woke up today to a sunny Florence, gazing off of Marco's balcony we knew it would be another good day. We ventured up to Piazza de Michelangelo, the highest point in Florence where we admired a view and shared a caprese salad.

Italy is amazing, breathtaking and more beautiful and delicious than we ever imagined, it is above and beyond what you ever see in the movies. Thanks Marco for showing us the real Firenze way of life!...off to ROME tomorrow after seeing Pisa.

Amore Italia-xox

J&H