You’d think we would have learned from last year’s flight. I don’t think we did. Here’s what we should have done: We should have gotten a terrible sleep the night before–that way we’d actually be tired when we got on the plane at 8 PM. We should have brought ear plugs. Instead, we listened to the lady seated behind us, who snored for 95% of … Continue reading Europe 2014: How Not-To-Do the Overnight Flight
Is it still considered a stopover when you deliberately plan to spend a full 24 hours? Anyways, that’s what we did. Spent some time chilling in Halifax before the flight across the Atlantic. It was some well-spent chill time. Watched the hockey game with a bunch of Habs fans at “Durty’s”. Also ate delicious nachos and reminded ourselves what Guinness tastes like. Took the Dartmouth-Halifax … Continue reading Europe 2014: Halifax Makes for the Perfect Stopover.
That expiry date on your passport? Yeah, not always telling the truth. We learned this the hard way when checking-in a couple days early for our flight from Denmark down to Switzerland. “Error-your passport must be valid for three months from the date you leave the country”. Wait. That’s a rule?! Yes, yes it is a rule. It’s also a rule in Denmark, Spain, Italy, … Continue reading Europe 2014: Passports Sometimes Tell Lies.
It would seem that traveling can be compared to getting a tattoo. Once you start, you just can’t stop. (That’s what they say, anyways.) (Although, I got my first and only tattoo 3 years ago and would be completely okay if I never got another one). Anyways. I totally understand the travel books that claim, “You can’t see Europe in one trip”. You really can’t. … Continue reading Bitten By The Travel Bug.
All of our lives, McDonald’s has basically had a bad rep. One could probably lump most of the fast food chains into the same bad rep pool, but since McDonald’s is the most popular, I guess it has the worst name. Movies like “Supersize Me” probably didn’t help matters much. Before the trip to Europe, I only ever went to McDonald’s for the coffee. (I admit it, … Continue reading Europe 2013: Say what you will about McDonald’s. But it saved our backpacking butts.
Hard to believe we’re in our final European destination: Greece. We finally pulled the shorts and bikinis out from the very bottom of our backpacks. It’s a wonder they weren’t dusty–sitting down there for so long. Our first impression of Greece is the overall friendliness–even to tourists. The bus driver from the airport offered to bring us right to our stop, and then an older … Continue reading Europe 2013: Relax. It’s Greece.
We ate a lot of gelato in Europe, especially during the four days in Italy. Because it’s basically everywhere. We feel like we got to the point where we could judge a gelateria based on appearances. Which we were taught never to do while growing up. We did it anyways. (Sorry, Mom). After about 30 scoops of gelato between us, we noticed a trend. In … Continue reading Europe 2013: Gelato 101. From Italia.
Venice is like another world. It starts when you take a water bus from the airport. And then there are boats everywhere. Boats for absolutely everything and anything. Ambulance boats. Police boats. Firetruck boats. Mail boats. Subway boats. Taxi boats. We even saw a hearse boat. Boats, boats, and more boats. It’s incredible. We didn’t stay directly in Venice. Instead we stayed on the island … Continue reading Europe 2013: And then we ended up in Narnia. Also known as Venice.
Paris is beautiful. From what we packed into two days, anyways. In just two days, though, we somehow managed to visit the Eiffel Tower no less than three times. We’re suckers for Le Tour Eiffel, it seems. On our first day, we rode the Metro to the Notre-Dame, and slowly made our way to the Louvre, the Champs-Elysees, and eventually the Eiffel Tower. The next … Continue reading Europe 2013: Paris in a Blur. Avec des Macarons.
Why didn’t anyone tell us how delicious the food is in Germany? In all of your defense, however, we stayed with a friend of ours–a local– so he knew the best places already. Which makes it easier being a tourist–he pretty much did the hard part of already weeding out the not-so-great eats. (We eventually had to confess to Patrick that we had McDonald’s. We … Continue reading Europe 2013: Rick Steves, can you publish a German Food Tour Guide?
Jess & Jana 