Home Again, Home Again!

Hey Everyone,
well we returned home safely on April 18th, and after a week of rest I'm feeling a bit more ready to start thinking about things like work, next fall etc. Its good to be home, but I am definitely missing all the fun times in Europe, too!
I've put a whole bunch of pictures up on a different internet site, so if you have facebook you can go see them or you can just click on these links:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1928&l=7e3c9&id=511844214
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1927&l=78c78&id=511844214
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1923&l=b2dfa&id=511844214
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1922&l=525d0&id=511844214
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1921&l=9a304&id=511844214

I'm not sure whether I'll put any more updates on this blog or not, the posts may slow down a bit until my next overseas trip!

God Bless,
Starr

Stuttgart

Hello! Wow- only a couple of days left here in Europe! Craaaaazy. We got here to Stuttgart on Thursday, and we´re staying with Sarah Weiler who went to Capernwray with the girls. She went to classes on Friday and we three went with another guy from Capernwray, Patrick, for a hike through the woods and up to a castle called Solitude schloss. The weather here has been soooooo amayingly beautiful, I can't even believe it! Yesterday we finally got smart and actually put on some sunscreen, to keep from getting sunburnt yet again. Anyway, we went to a town called Tübingen for the weekend, a beautiful old town with a river running through it, on which we went for a paddle boat ride. We found the most beautiful chocolate shop, a little french place- wow everything in there was amazingly beautiful and interesting, like chocolate with Curry and Peppers in it? Too bad it was too expensive for us to buy any to try. We went to Sarah's parents' home for the rest of the weekend, which was so good. They are a very beautiful family, so generous and kind and welcoming. We were well fed too! :) We got to meet some of Sarah's friends, and yesterday went to church with her and saw about 10 people get baptized which was cool. Now we're back in Stuttgart, and today we plan on doing a little shopping at a chocolate factory where it is apparently very cheap! hahaha. We'll also probably do a little sightseeing, and go out for supper, and have a relaxing girls' night here at Sarah's. We're having so much fun here, but sadly tomorrow we'll head to Frankfurt for our last night in Europe! If you guys haven't looked at the pictures on Sheri's blog, you should do so, I don't have quite enough time to put any of my own on yet. I have thousands of pictures to sort through when I get home!

Love love love love
Starr

Back In Munich!

Hey everyone! So our time in Interlaken, Switzerland was pretty much incredible! The weather was BEAUTIFUL (I got another sunburn-oops!) and we did some super fun stuff such as kayaking and PARAGLIDING. We jumped off a mountain and flew through the air. We have pictures to prove it, which is good because I´m still somewhat in unbelief myself! Last night we had a campfire and it was all homey and BCish, what with the mountains, the lake, the birds chirping, night falling, the fire crackling. This morning we caught a bus at 6 in the morning, and took a train back here to Munich, just for one night. Its a really nice city, and I think that we´re planning on going to the Dachau concentration camp tomorrow before heading off to Stuttgard. Ahhhh one week left! Hope everyone is having fun studying for exams! (okay sorry that was kinda mean) I´ll eat some chocolate and think of you ;)

love love love
Starr

München

Hello, I'm in Munich! Hope you're all doing well, I kinda wish I could be home for Easter. Hopefully we can find some sort of a church to go to on Sunday? We'll go to Vienna on Saturday.... Life is fantastic!
:)
Starr

Prague

Hey Everyone! So I realize I haven't posted a blog in a while..... just thought i'd tell everyone that we're all alive and well, and lovin' life. We're heading to Munich in just a couple of hours (night train) where we'll be staying with some friends of Stephanie's. From there we plan on hitting Vienna and then goign back to Germany for the last leg of our trip! Ahh!!! Prague is where we are at the moment, and its a very beautiful city. All of the buildins- wow! We spent 3 days there, and pretty much just wandered the streets the whole time. The weather has been beautiful, and time is flying! I'm always thinking of everyone at home, I'll get to see you soon!
xoxox
Starr

PICTURES! :D

Hey everyone! So we finally got the chance to put some of these pictures onto our blogs, because we are staying here in Austria with some friends of Steph's who have a computer that actually works! These ones are pretty random: from Barcelona, Toulouse, Nice, Pisa, Rome, Corfu, Athens, Venice, Salzburg.... can't wait to tell the stories that go with them! :)

Greece

Well, our time in beautiful Greece is quickly slipping away! Its been so great so far though! :) We stayed at the 'Pink Palace' in Corfu, a world famous hostel that is actually very centered around partying, but since we were there at a slow time when there weren't many guests, we didn't feel very out of place. We rented quads one day, which was really fun (even though I flipped my quad and almost died haha) and we swam in the sea at 2 in the morning. I think my highlight was our last day when we simply lay on the beach for hours! I got a sunburn, but it was so worth it just to spend a day being totally lazy, reading a book and feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin! We took a night bus from Corfu to Athens, and got here at 5.30 am. We were on our way to our hostel, and things were all going smoothly, until we were stopped by security in the metro station and asked to show our tickets. Now we had bought tickets for the bus, and on the back they said "athens urban transport" so we had assumed that they would work for the metro as well. When we got to the metro station, we validated them in the machine, and it worked fine, so we figured that everything was good. But when we showed our tickets to the security guys, they said 'THis is not a valid metro ticket' and fined us 48 euros!!!! Each!!! We were outraged, and soo tired and grubby from our night on the bus. We tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding, but they wouldn't budge. Wanting to get the whole thing sorted out, we went straight to information and waited for it to open (which wasn't until 7.30) and when we explained everythign to the ladies there, they seemed a little sorry for us but told us that we could either pay right there, or go to the port and pay later. So finally we paid, begrudgingly..... it wasn't exactly the best way to start off our stay in Athens! When we got to the hostel (finally) they gave us a good breakfast and let us sleep on the couches for a few hours until we were able to check into our room at 1:00. For the rest of the day we just went for a walk and went out for some supper. I had yoghurt and honey for dessert, which is typically greek and very good! Our hostel here is pretty cool- you can go up onto the roof and see the acropolis which is all light up at night. Its also got a nice common room/bar/restaurant where you can meet lots of people, and everyone who works here is really nice. Today we went to the Acropolis with a girl we met in Corfu named Jayna, and it was really cool, I took a lot of pictures! :) We also walked around Plaka, a district where there are lots of little shops, narrow streets, fruit vendors etc. We plan on going out for supper tonight with a bunch of people, and tomorrow we're going to take a tour offered by the hostel all around Greece. We're all healthy and the weather had been amazing this week. I'm out of internet time- love you all and wish you were here!!!

starr

I've been trying to upload pictures... its not working! So frustrating. Rome is officially my favourite place on this trip so far! You should all go. Seriously. First of all, it is very pretty, also there is tons to do, and the history is so cool and so so old! You see things from like 800 BC, all the way through the emperors and Bible times and Michelangelo's time up to Mussolini's time... pretty much all of history, right here! We did a tour of the Sistine Chapel today and some of the other Vatican museums; it was unreal. Then we took a tour of the Palentine hill where the emperors lived and saw the Roman Forum which was even more unreal. The best of all, though, was probably going to the Mamertime museum where we saw the place Paul and Peter were emprisoned. You can see the hole they were thrown through, graffiti on the walls from prisoners from that time. The place is at the bottom of a valley and of course the cell is deep underground so the idea was that when the Tiber river flooded, the water would come into the cell and drown the prisoners. When water was coming into the cell, Paul and Peter were so calm that the guards didn't understand it. They shared the gospel with them and the guards converted to Christianity, and Paul and Peter baptised them right there in the cell with water that was filling up their cell! I can't believe I got to stand where they stood. This, and everything we saw and did today is stuff i will never forget! I'd better get going though, we leave early early tomorrow morning for Corfu in Greece so lets pray that warm weather holds because we can't wait to hit up the beach!
Truckloads of love,
Starr

Roma

Wow, so I'm super tired but I'll try to take a few minutes just to update you all on what we've been up to. We left Florence on Sunday, and made our way to Rome. There was some question as to how we were going to do this, as the trenitalia (that's their rail company here) workers were apparently going on strike. As it turned out though, only the little short distance regional trains weren't running, so we just had to catch a bus to a different station and take a different kind of train- it all worked swimmingly. The Termini station in Rome is huge, there is like a mall in it and restaurants and everything! We soon realized that the hostel we had booked wasn't actually in the city of Rome, it was in Ostia, which is kind of a suburb. This is a little bit too bad, since we have to ride the train for half an hour just to get into the city, and then we still need to take the subway to wherever we'd like to go from there. We just got transportation tickets that are good for three days, however, so its not too bad. The hostel itself is really nice- it is new and we have a huge room all to ourselves (there are three empty beds). We even have an ensuite bathroom! The hostel is right on the beach, but unfortunately the beach is quite dirty. Ostia is kind of a poor town, and the location of our hostel is pretty much in the ghetto! haha. So there is quite a bit of garbage on the beach, its not exactly the type of place you'd want to lounge for the day. (Don't worry though Dad- we feel very safe! :) ) So we'll leave the beach lounging until we get to Greece- there is tons to do in Rome! On our first day here (yesterday) we went to the Colosseum which was sooooo cool. You walk up the steps out of the metro stop, and there it is- this huge monument you've seen in pictures and on tv all your life! We took an English tour which was very cool, I'm glad we did it because there are no signs or anything on the inside, so if you didn't take a tour or at least get the audioguide you'd probably pay €9 just to wander around the place for half an hour wondering about what you're missing out on because of your lack of knowledge. (trust me, we've experienced this!) The tour price also includes a tour of the Roman Forum, but they only go at certain times and we had missed the ones for that day, so we just walked around the city for a few hours. It was so beautiful! We went past the Roman Forum (which we will tour tomorrow) and a whole bunch of other historical buildings/monuments. We got some pizza at a little pizzeria (where they sell it to you by weight) and by then it was dark enough to do some night sightseeing! We went to a few of the fountains (there are so many) including the Trevi fountain, which was so pretty! Everything was light up and there were tons of ppl, including guys selling everything from roses and postcards to bubble blowing guns and little mouldable smiley face ball things (does anyone ever buy these???) There are tons of squares everywhere, and its pretty easy to stumble upon a place and suddenly realize that you've seen pictures of it on postcards. Today we went to Vatican city and went into St. Peter's basilica, which was pretty cool. We wanted to see the sistine chapel as well but because of a long story we're going to do it tomorrow instead. We came back to the hostel for supper tonight (they have a bar/restaurant where you can get pasta and coffee and such) and since then we've just been doing laundry, trying to figure out our next hostel etc. I'm pretty excited that we just booked 3 nights at the Pink Palace on Corfu in Greece! :) We'll be in Rome all day tomorrow and we'll leave here on Friday. I think that this is possibly the coolest city we've seen yet! I feel as though you could spend a lot of time here going to museums, parks etc., checking out concerts and restaurants, shopping (I haven't done any here yet! Pretty impressive, no?), and checking out the night-life. (Which we aren't able to do because the trains stop running early but we're not too heartbroken over this). For some reason, my feet are sore tonight, even though we probably did half as much walking today as we usually do. Maybe it was the standing on the crowded metro and trains?? Love you and miss you all.....
Starr

Firenze- hooray for culture!

Today we got up to try to get to the Uffizzi Art gallery as early as possible, since yesterday as we walked by there was a huge line-up. Well we didn't end up getting there until 10.30, and the line up was huuuuuuuuger than yesterday! We later found out that this was because instead of opening at 8.15 like it usually does, it had been closed for a meeting and didn't open til 10.45. Luckily there were some cool girls to chat with standing right in front of us, so we waited in line for 2 hours.....it was definitely worth it! I saw artwork that I've seen prints of all my life! El Greco, Michelangelo, Rafael, Da Vinci.... wow it was super cool. After the gallery, we were starving so we found a cute little restaurant and I had some pasta (yum!) Then we found a market which was super fun to shop in! The funniest part though was when Stephanie and Sheri were looking at sunglasses that these guys were selling when suddenly, wham, they closed up their tables and collapsed their stands and ran around the corner! we were like 'umm...... where are they going?' and then we turned around and saw the police strolling by! So apparently these ppl don't have business permits and/or their sunglasses are stolen! I am really enjoying Florence, I cannot wait to tell you guys about it and put some pictures on here. Tonight we're goign to go to a concert at a church (mezzo soprano, violin, organ) that we think is free, so that should be fun. Maybe we'll hit up a gelato stand on the way there??
love love love
Starr

Ciao

Hey everyone! I'm already overtime on my computer usage here, but I thought Id let you know that we made it safely to Florence tonight. This morning we left Monterosso, I'll tell you all about that later, and we to Pisa to see the tower. We seriously took pictures for an hour! haha it was so fun though, the tower is really funny when you actually see it. Then we got on the wrong train and went to some little town about an hour and a quarter out of Pisa, turned around and went back to Pisa, and then finally got to Florence. By then the info. booth was closed, but we found our hostel anyway only to find that it was full!! So we're in a little place right on the same street that is actually pretty nice, it just is more like a hotel and doesn't have breakfast or the fun, meet-people, hostel atmosphere. So in the morning we'll go back to the hostel to see if they have room for us tomorrow night, and then we'll go explore Firenze! Italy is so cool, I love it so far, but I really wish I could speak Italian! Ill be even more lost in Greece.....

yes, we're alive and well!

Wow, where to start??? I realize that its been like two weeks since my last blog entry....sorry :) Its becoming more and more difficult to find a computer at our hostel, especially one with free internet which is what we had for the first couple of weeks of our trip. now we're spoiled and it seems like such a rip off to pay 3 euro and hour and to have a keyboard that is really weird and takes forever to type on... still worth it though to stay connected to everyone!
Since Madrid, we've done A LOT, but time has been flying by soooo quickly. We went to Barcelona for a couple of days and it is definitely one of my highlights thus far on the trip! We were staying right downtown, close to "La Rambla", a street where people walk, there are street performers, and about a million little booths selling flowers. We got to see some friends that we'd met in Lisbon who were going to school in Barcelona, so that was really fun. On our last day there we went to the beach--it was 18 degrees and so very beautiful! We didn't have time for any sunbathing, since we had to catch a train, but seeing the mediterranean was definitely exciting.
On Friday, we left Barcelona and took a bus to Andorra. It continues to crack us up that we actually went to this country that barely anyone has heard of and which ended up being really difficult to get into/out of. (There aren't any trains and the buses only run on certain days... we almost had to go all the way back into Barcelona before we could get to France, and Andorra is right on the French border!) The best thing about the place, aside from the skiing, is that they don't have any taxes, so there are lots of rich ppl there and apparently it's where you go to shop. We went into a lot of sweet clothing stores, but we're pretty much out of room in our bags, so we didn't buy anything. Good self control eh? Anyway, we spent 3 nights there with a friend of Stephanie's named Todd who is teaching English to all the little Andorrans. We had a nice relaxing time there, getting to sleep in every day :) There's a real ski-resort atmosphere everywhere there, because pretty much everyone who goes there as a tourist goes to ski. I wanted to snowboard so badly! I may have looked into going, except that they haven't really had any snow this year so it probably wouldn't have been very good. One day we went up to a little town called Ordino (about a 15 minute bus ride) and we went for a hike up the mountain, which was really fun! It was so beautiful!
From Andorra we took a bus to Toulouse, there was kind of a snow storm going on but it cleared up just in time for us to go through the mountain pass, and so we got to see some gorgeous scenery there, too. We hadn't booked a hostel there, and since our train was a bit late the tourist office had already closed when we got into town! There was a very helpful man at the train station, who gave us a bunch of numbers he found on the internet, but all we succeeded in doing was to pay over 10 euros for the really stupid payphones without even getting ahold of anyone! After finally figuring out where the hostel was from a receptionist at a hotel, we got there and found it full (apparently its reading week in France, too) but the woman there called a cheap hotel for us and they did have room for us. It was quite the adventure. I have to say though, I was kinda expecting ppl in france to be snobs, and they aren't at all! We haven't met any mean ones, really. We went to Carcassonne for Valentine's day, which has was midieval city and is really cool, but unfortunately it rained, so we didn't enjoy it as much as we had hoped. It was still fun though, we ate veggie soup, rabbit, and crepes and a little family-run restaurant.
From Toulouse, we headed to Nimes for 3 nights, which was really fun. We saw the sights, met another Canadian girl who we hung out with one night, and stayed at a hostel that felt like a camp, which was cool, but which also was wayyy up on the hill, not so much fun!
I'm almost out of time....
Yesterday we came from Nimes to Nice, and we are loving it so far!! I think the other girls have probably described it more, but today we went to a parade because their Carnival is on right now. It was over and hour long, and really fun. I have never seen so much silly string in my life, though! Its been raining today but not too much so its not going to keep us in, we'll go see the lights of the city tonight which is something we really enjoy doing.
I can't wait to put some pictures on here! We'll be in Nice two more nights, and then we're going to Italy! ahhhh!!!!! I'm always thinking of and praying for you guys at home, I miss ya!
starr

So I just went to look at Steph's blog, and I realized that she's pretty much the most amazing blogger ever. I realize that I haven't exactly been putting details into my entries, and they're probably a little confusing sometimes because I forget what I have and have not written, so I just thought I'd tell ya that if you really want to know what we've been up to, read Stephanie's blog! The link to it is at the very bottom of this page.
:)

Well we'be been in Madrid for 5 days now, and we're not sure when we'll be leaving! The plan was so head to Barcelona tomorrow, but Sheri-Lee is quite sick with an allergic reaction to something, and the doctor recommended that she not travel for at least another day, so here we'll stay! We can hardly complain, Elaine and Brent are spoiling us rotten, and we are just loving staying in a safe, clean house with super fun people!
Today, I got to go to a football (soccer) match!!!!! It was Real Madrid vs. Llevanta, and it wasn't actually a terribly good game, but it was so fun just to be there. About 2 hours before the game started, a friend of Brents' showed up with these two tickets that he couldn't use, so Brent took me!! He said, "It'll be just like home, you'll be out with Brent!" hehe. Anyway that was a real experience. I've done such a variety of cool things here in Spain which has been so great; everything from seeing old castles and medieval cities to eating Spanish breakfast at noon and tapas at midnight, to sipping cappuchinos in the Ritz hotel and eating dessert at the Hard Rock Cafe. Plus seeing Real Madrid play!! I think I'm in a state of unbelief, actually, at how blessed I am to be here right now.
These pics are of a few different things. Steph was victorious after having climbed about a million stairs in the gardens at Sintra, when we finally got to the 'top'. I enjoyed some 'Kono Pizza', a delicious food that definitely will come to Canada: its Pizza in a cone!! yum. There's a picture of the Real Madrid Stadium empty, from when Steph and I went on a tour of it, and also a picture of it full of people and players earlier tonight! I love the picture of me 'with the team' haha. Notice Beckham and Ronaldo standing behind me there :P There's a picture of the the S Club hammin' it up in a Museo de Jamon, where they sell ham and other meats, but mostly ham. That's all pig legs behind us!! Its called jamon iberico and its a cured meat that last forever and is very expensive. It tastes pretty good too. We went there for tapas with Brent and Elaine (basically that's just the word they use for snacks, where you order plates of stuff to share and stand around eating it.) They also took us to the Hard Rock Cafe for dessert, it was great.
Well its almost 3 in the morning here, so I should really be getting to bed. Hopefully we can go to Barcelona on Tuesday, and then to Andorra for the weekend. Good luck to everyone writing midterms at home! I think of you all often.
love love love love love love love
starr

some pictures!

Alright, so one of the great things about staying here at someone's house is that I can put some pictures on my blog!! I'll quickly tell you what they are. Starting from the bottom of this last group of pictures (from feb. 1st), the first 5 were taken at Sintra, a little city about 45 minutes by train from Lisbon. I think Sheri talked about this place in her blog. The girl with us there is Claire, a girl from California who we met in our hostel. The next picture, which I accidentally put on there twice (sorry I don't know how to fix it!) is of an ancient Roman aqueduct that we saw in Segovia today. It was soooo cool!! They were very smart- they channeled water from the mountains all along the top of this thing in a big trough which has a slight grade to it so that they could get water to their towns. Its so neat be shopping in some trendy store, and then walking out, looking down the street, and seeing this thing! Modern life goes on in ancient surroundings everywhere in Europe. The next 2 pictures up were taken on our boat tour of the Rio Douro in Porto. It was a lovely day, and the tour was so much fun! Then we see the main building on the Plaza Mayor (main square) in Pedraza, another town we went to see today. It is a medieval walled city, with narrow streets and arched wooden doorways... so cool. Standing in the square felt very much like being on a movie set! The next picture up is from the castle in Segovia, which is your typical fairy-tale castle. It was so so so fun to be able to go out with Elaine today to see these places where we'd never have been able to go by train or bus. She's amazing! Hope you're all doing well,
xoxo
Starr

Hola de Espana!

Hey Everybody! We arrived in Madrid this morning after taking a 10 hour train ride from Lisbon, preceeded by a 3 hour train ride from Porto. Steph and I slept soudly pretty much the whole way, so it didn't seem too bad, but poor Sheri-Lee had a long trip; she only slept a couple hours! The weather here was clear today and about 10-12 degrees, so cool for Spain, but nothing for us to complain about! We're staying here with Elaine and Brent Miller, connections of ours through friends in Saskatoon, and it is sooooo nice to be here in a home!! Brent is away for work today but Elaine was here to welcome us. Her condo is really big and nice- we're not even staying in bunkbeds!! One of the first things we did was put a load of laundry in :) Madrid has an amazing metro system, so today we made good use of it and found our way to Sol, the old downtown of Madrid. All of the buildings are so old and beautiful! Madrid seems richer than Portugal, but its still very much a different culture than North America. I love that the language here is Spanish, so I can understand some things, and communicate at least a little bit!! Portuguese, wow, it is so incomprehensible!
Have I talked about our time in Porto? I don't believe that I have. The best part was a boat trip down the Rio Douro. The sun was shining and everything was beautiful! A girl from our hostel named Claire made the trip with us, and so we got a 4 bed-room which was pretty fun, although compared to our amazing hostel in Lisbon the place wasn't very nice (after that and now staying at Elaine's, we are going to be completely spoiled!!)
Elaine is letting us use her Skype tonight, so I'll be calling home soon. We tried to upload some pictures earlier but they didn't work, so maybe I'll try again tomorrow? There aren't lots of people waiting for the computer here, or staring over our shoulders while we type, so I'll probably write on here again in the next couple days! We plan on spending 5 days in Madrid, maybe making a trip or two out to Segovia or Toledo. I'm getting excited to see the Prado!!!
love love love
Starr

"we're here for a good time, not a long time, so have a good time, the sun can't shine everyday...." (unless you're in Lisbon, where it does shine everyday!!!! YAY!!!) We are having the time of our lives here!! There is much to say, but I am just on my way to bed here, I just though I'd check in and tell you all that if you ever travel to Lisboa you absolutely MUST stay at the Traveller's Hostel on Rua Augusta! I feel like I'm best friends with everyone here, and I'm so sad to know that some of them are leaving tomorrow! We love it so much here, we decided to stay another night, so we'll leave here on Sunday and head to Porto. We were going to go to Lagos, but someone who has just been there told us that its really not very exciting, and quite cold. Porto is Portugal's 2nd largest city, and has quite a bit of historical stuff etc. We have booked 2 nights at a hostel there, and a girl we've met here named Claire is going to come with us if it works out. Hooray for new friends! That doesn't mean we've forgotten our old ones though, I wish you could all be here with me!
love love love
Starr

ps- i'll update you all on what we've done here when I'm not so tired. :)

So today we took a day trip out to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, which is pretty much the whole area south of Galway that is Co. Clare. It cost 16 euro, and was soooo worth it! We left at 10 this morning on a coach bus with about 25(?) other people. Our guide drove us around and told us about everywhere we went. We got to see castles, caves, dolmen (a 5000 year old stone tomb), and lots of adorable sheep, cattle, a billy goat, llamas. The highlight, however, was going to see the Cliffs of Moher! These 750 foot limestone cliffs drop straight down into the Atlantic, and they go on for.... I think 8 km. It is so breathtaking! On top, the green green grass grows and there is an ancient tower looking out over the sea. It all felt a little surreal to actually be there! Today was the first day in hasn't rained in who knows how long, so overall it was the ideal day! I finally feel that I have stood on Irish stone, walked on Irish grass, and breathed Irish wind... When you're in a city it would be easy to believe that you were in any other city on earth, but today there was no doubt that we were in Ireland! Sadly, tomorrow we have to head back to Galway to catch our flight to Lisbon which is very early Wednesday morning. You can pray that we will be able to figure out which buses etc. to take, and how to spend our day with our big packs after we check out of our hostel! The thing I am looking forward to the most about Portugal is hopefully not having to wear my long underwear to bed every night!

lots of love,
S
ps- i realize the pictures didn't work yesterday. these computers are very tempermental.

We're staying in Galway at the Claddagh hostel. We haven't gotten out to see too much of the city yet, because it has been very cold, but we did attend a little church this morning that's right down the street from our hostel. Then our little nap to warm up under the covers this afternoon turned into a 3.5 hour snooze! (oops!) But all is well; we feel that we've warmed up somewhat and we're getting used to our tiny little room. The trip to Galway yesterday was really good- it's so strange that you can cross the entire country in 2.5 hours! The train was comfortable and fast, and it was really good to get out of the city and actually see some green. The sheep are so cute!! :) Anyway, we're hoping to maybe watch a movie or something tonight, although there are 6 other ppl watching tv right now. Tomorrow we're taking a bus tour down the West coast, and I am sooooo excited for it!! It's an all day thing, only 16 euro so that's a steal of a deal (hopefully!). I hope these pics work; you should all check out Sheri and Steph's blogs for some different ones! (i can't wait to show them all to you guys with explanations!)
xoxoxox <- here's a backpack full of these (believe me, you can cram a lot into a pack)
Starr

I love Dublin

hey everyone!! Well today marks the 4th day we've been here in Dublin. It's been super fun!! Aside from getting lost alot on the south side of the Liffey river because none of the streets go north/south or east/west, our time here has been great so far! Its so much fun to just be able to do and see whatever we want! On our second night in Dublin we hung out in the hostel for a bit and played pingpong with a guy from Strasbourg named Matthieu. Then later on we went out to a pub in the Temple Bar area and heard an AMAZING little 4 piece band. (accordion, fiddle, guitar, boran!) ahhh they were so good. We went up and danced which was super fun, but unfortunately we didn't get there til later and the pubs close around midnight here so they quit playing far too soon!! (i think we heard about 25 minutes). Yesterday we wanted to go see some Irish dancing and live music, but the place wasnt' all it was cracked up to be, so we ended up going back to the same place to hear some music. We connected with my friend Riaz from Swift, who is going to med. school here. It was really fun to hang out, and he gave us some useful info like how to catch our train to Galway ( where we're going tomorrow!!!) He also got us in to see the book of Kells for free today-- so cool. During the days we've been checking out the sights (saw St. Patrick's cathedral yesterday). We've also just been buying groceries and making ourselves supper, which is super cheap and fun. Things are really expensive here, especially eating out (a typical meal costs arouns 15 euro, which is about 25 bucks. even a burger and fries from Burger King is like 6.25 euro!!) so its sweet that we can cook at our hostel. We're now staying at Abraham House which is on the North side of the river. It's really clean and our room rocks, we even have our own shower!! Must run, people are waiting for the computer....
xoxoxoxo
starr

Dublin, baby!

Well we've arrived here in Dublin! We're staying at the Avalon House hostel right downtown. This is a very cool city- kind of like downtown Vancouver except a few hundred years older. We took the bus here from the airport, and got to see a little bit of the city from the top level of the bus. We went for a walk this evening and got lost! :) We didn't mind the long walk though after sitting all day on planes and in airports. When we did find our way back, we were so tired we went right to bed (7pm) and now its 2:30 am and I can't sleep! Our room is very hot and humid. Once I got here I suddenly realized just how far away April is, and I'm a little homesick. When I think about it though, I still can't believe that I'm actually sitting in a little room in a cement basement that's painted bright blue in the middle of Dublin city!! I'm so blessed to be here, and I am excited to see how this trip unfolds. Tomorrow we're going to explore this part of the city some more, and also kind of figure out what things we want to do in the next week. We also have to find another hostel, as this one is only booked for tonight and tomorrow night and its too expensive to stay any longer. (we have a room all to ourselves, which is really nice).
Well I should try to get some sleep, I have a feeling my confused internal clock might be translating itself into a confusing and incoherent blog. :P
love you all,
Starr

5 days and counting...

I am ever so excited to head off on our journey! I have to admit I'm feeling slightly unprepared, as though I'm going to forget something crucial or do something completely dumb. I guess that's how everyone starts out though- as the inexperienced traveler. And the only way to become experienced is to just do it! Which is what we're doing!! Hooray!!! There sure is a lot to do to get ready to go, though, and lots of people to see and talk with. I know the time will fly by and we are going to have so many cool experiences! I wonder how I'll change...

~starr