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aquarium in barcelona


barcelona harbour



Getting our sketches done in paris


In front of Versailles


[tilt your head. didn´t have time to rotate haha...] Eiffel tower, right before it lit up

Finally got a hold of a real computer, but cant stay on for long. stupid international keyboard again.
Crazy hot here! probably low 30s. Went to the Barcelona aquarium today, saw lots of fishies!
There are hookers everyyyywhere.

wifi here is slow. we have taken over 700 pictures, and i want to post up at least a few highlights, but the computer is restricted. sigh. next time, i promise!

Barcelona = love at first site.

Got To our hostel not too long ago. Stressful day, rushing between Versailles, trains,metro, Paris hostel, airport, last train to Barcelona, closed metro , but finally made it to our hostel. Great host @reception. Going for food/drinks in a bit; his city never sleeps! Keep sending those addresses my way!

Ps. Nam and I are slowly but surely driving each other crazy. I'm sure be can attest in his next post, which he has promised to come soon...

Finally got some wireless on my iPod. Can't type a lot on it though-- small keyboard. Hard to type in Internet cafes cause the keyboard is really different. It's not a qwerty board. Quite a few letters are "misplaced", mking it really difficult to type efficiently.

Flight to JFK was only an hour. Connecting from jfk to paris was delayed 2.5 hours. Sat on taxi strip waiting for take off took forever! And when we finally got there, we were told out luggage wasn't there yet. Didn't get delivered to our hotel til 24 hrs later. Watched the tour de France yesterday. So many ppl!! Went to notre dame cathedral during the Sunday mass too. Beautiful. Woke up late this mining, but finally getting over jet lag. Spent the day at the louvre, saw the Mona lisa. Went through champs élysées and saw Eiffel tower. Wanted to go up, but the lineups were huge, so we just took lots of pictures of it haha. Been eating a lot of pasta for staying in Paris, France.

The metro here is pretty crazy, but the leaning curve isn't steep. Driving is pretty all over the place tho, and it's kinds scary walking across the street sometimes. Weather was really hot yesterday, but today we had rain and it cooled down quite a bit; probably low 20s. Going to Versailles tmrw, and if we have time, the catacombs. Flying to Barcelona tmrw night. Nam has much more interesting stories, but his fingers are too big for my iPod. Comments would be appreciated on the blog itself, as I'm not checking twitter and facebook as frequently. Tell me your addresses if you want a postcard!!

arrived in paris early yesterday morning.
lost luggage. it came this morning.
tour de france yesterday. louvre and eiffel tower today. will blog more when i have access to non-french keyboard.

Exactly 72 hours and counting...

Stupid shouldn't-have-left-these-til-the-last-minute stuff...

_I bought a 1 terabyte external hard drive yesterday. Yes, probably overkill, but I needed a hard drive anyways, since I accidently deleted my entire music folder and have no more room on my hard drive to transfer it back from my iPod. As of right now, the only physical evidence of my life's worth of music is my iPod, and I would very much like to back that up before I leave. Unfortunately, I just ordered it from Dell yesterday, and its estimate delivery date is Friday. *fingers crossed*

_I ordered euros from TD Bank this weekend, but miscalculated the time it would take to get delivered to my bank. SHIT. So, on Tuesday I got an e-mail confirmation saying that it would take 3-5 business days to get here. That's crazy pushing it. And then today, I get my second confirmation e-mail saying that the czech currency (I ordered them within hours of each other) would get here in 3-5 business days too. SHIT SHIT. Ah well...looks like I'll be converting it at the airport then...

_Extended travel insurance. Yep, I should get on that.. Done.

_Laundry. Yes, as stupid as it sounds, I can't pack a bag full of dirty clothes...and it takes time to sort them, throw them in the washer and dryer/hang them. Oops. Done.

_Misc. items: USB card reader to upload pics on the go, mesh bags, locks...

_And I still need to book Venice/Vienna, and the train rides to/from/inbetween. Not to mention the complete itinerary for the trip is still up in the air...

6 days [!] left til we fly out. I still haven't booked the Venice and Vienna hostels, nor the train rides between Venice/Vienna and Vienna/Prague. [freakout]

Just put in the order for money tonight. Hopefully it should arrive at the bank by the end of the week. Can't order czech currency yet..no money in the bank =\

_updating template. Bear with me for the next few days, as I try to squeeze that in between work and planning..

Finalized half the rest of the trip! Woohoo!


Paris
Boissiere
http://www.hostelbookers.com/hostels/france/paris/1477/
(2 nights)

Barcelona
Barcelona Ramblas Hostel
http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Barcelona-Ramblas--Be-Hostels/Barcelona/435
(4 nights)

Rome
Stargate Hostel
http://www.hostelbookers.com/hostels/italy/rome/1478/
(3 nights)

Venice
Hotel Minerva & Nettuno
http://www.hostelsclub.com/hostel-en-6045.html
(2 nights)

Vienna
Red Carpet Hostels Vienna
http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Red-Carpet-Hostels-Vienna/Vienna/24892
(1 night)

Prague
Czech Inn
http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Czech-Inn/Prague/14982
(3 nights)


Overnight trains:
Rome -> Venice --booked (Trenitalia)
Venice -> Vienna --not yet booked
Vienna -> Prague -- not yet booked

Spent the last 5 hours looking up hostels in Europe. Most Def didn't think it'd be this hard. *sad face* Trying to balance between budget and comfort.

I've narrowed down my top 2-3 picks for Prague, Vienna, Venice and Rome (working backwards!). Still need to look up Barcelona and Paris. Ugh, it's frustratingly expensive. Decided not to go white-water rafting in Slovenia after all, too much of a rush. Took those two days and added it to Venice & Rome instead.

19 days and counting...

Still so many things we need to do!

-Book flights from Paris to Barcelona and Barcelona to Rome
-Book hostels and/or hotels
-Buy a Eurail Select train pass Opted to get individual train passes instead
-Get Nam to buy a backpack
-Book whitewater rafting date Not going to Slovenia after all

And then there's the small detail of actually planning out our itinerary and what we're gonna do...