germany stole a little piece of my soul. I think there will be a piece of me that would always think I could go back and live here. So not only is germany cool, but crossing the german/polish border on halloween is probably the best thing that could happen to someone. basically anywhere for halloween is cool, but me and kim decided berlin won the honors of our halloween and so there we were.

We met up with a friend of mine who lives in Berlin and settled into her place quickly and decided the need to go out and find some type of costume was important. So for about 2-3 euros each, we found fantastical costumes.

we ended up at some scary/awesome bar/club/thing underneath a metro line. We semi-danced to music, semi-listened to a live band, and then semi-passed out because when it comes to berlin, there is one thing to remember. The people here know how to party. They dont start partying till about 2 am, and i dont think they ever really stop. We were long away from a schedule like this, but within 2 nights, we had ourselves up to par with the best of them. Rolling through the nights like bowling balls on speed, we were successfully elevated to temporary berliner status. yay. and seriously..berlin is the new york city of europe. no other city comes close. (i was not paid for this testimonial)

wait i talked about germany already didn't i? man i can't help it..i could just erase this..but NO..germany deserves two posts.

so where did i actually leave off? Leaving for Paris.

Pareeeeeeee. yeah whatever. Paris is a beautiful city that no matter how much of a nontourist you are, you will do tourist things here. It was probably the place where I did the most touristy things this whole trip..but how can you not? The whole city is dotted with beautiful walks, awesome museums, rivers, parks, and just a vibe of wanting to walk around becuase of how much there is to see.

We stayed with a friend of mine who was quite busy, but found the time to still come out with us when she could, and even took us along to her tae kwon do classes two nights out of the week we were there. So yes, i spent my time relearning my tae kwon do skills in french. Actually every time the teacher would talk to Kim or I, we would kind of look down at the carpet and wishing we could say "Je ne parle pas le français" but realizing our blank looks must have said enough. Silence is deafening. We enjoyed crepes, cheese platters, baguettes, people laughing at us, coffees, sparkly eiffel towers, crazy pigeon obsessed homies, blustery windy days, our first winter snow (while in the lourve), water fountains, windmills a la moulin rouge, the smallest cutest mouse I have EVER seen, and random other things a city like paris has to offer in plenty. We even celebrated thanksgiving in Paris and made dinner for my friend in her apartment...of course having a view of the eiffel tower from one of her windows did a lot to help ease the homesickness. Oh yeah..nothing helps to not miss home more than taking photos in front of "Paris Hilton". ew.

We were meant to leave paris a bit early to get to amsterdam, but the prices of transport there were a bit more than we wanted to pay, so we ended up carpooling with this person Franklin. We could only get a hold of franklins mother, and by the way she talked about her sweet baby boy, we figured frankline was probably a freshman in university. She talked about making food for him, how sweet he was, and it sounded as if she was looking to pair franklin off, but hey lady, we're only looking for a ride to amsterdam, calm down.

So the day of meeting up came around, and we waited on a street corner in a region that was technically out of the Parisian district, but yeah it's still paris. At the same corner as we were waiting, we realized another guy standing there was also waiting for frankie-poo. So we waited. and waited and waited. Finally Mike, the other guy, called franklins number and reached franklins mother..who alarmed us by telling us "franklin forgot his fruit!!!" and could we tell him. An hour and a half after out meeting point, we meet franklin. A middle aged man, or middle aged boy rather. A freak behind the wheel, who insisted the front seat passenger sat on plastic. Franklin even had his own coffee maker in the car. So we were off, on our 4-5 hour journey to amsterdam.

856 hours later, in a car that smelled like more farts than a nursing home that had bad broccoli soup for dinner, cramped spacing, annoying chatter, me and kim being educated becuase apprently the two dumb american girls need help from their older french peers, an alternate route that included driving through belgium becuase franklin just HAD to have his belgian chocolates, and mike preaching the word of a black man pushed down and rising up again, we arrived.

I pulled kim aside at this rest stop, and asked her what people would think driving past our car..."what a happy little family plus some black kid", "look at that deranged car next to us filled with vagrants", "dont stop wilbur, drive!!!"....who knows...but tired, cold, hungry, irritated, and trailing with the legacy of the secret farter, we left our happy little family and went to meet up with our amsterdam host.

At this point, because we had opted to ride with franklin instead of taking a bus/train to amsterdam, we had less than 2 days in amsterdam. So this meant one thing, no sleep..or as little as possible. We strolled around this city of canals, went to markets, hung out, went to museums, and just exhausted ourselves in the span of 40 something hours, in order to get the most out of this city.

We managed to find these amazing coats (cian dont kill me, its in the name of being chronologically correct) for 5 € each, but we wont discuss how two of us left that market with coats, but only one would return to the U.S. still coated. All I have to say is, I'm still warm in Europe with my coat, and kim...well naked kim is freezing in the U.S. through her tear stained face. I guess I can't speak too early, since I'm not in the US yet, and there are still 47 days left for me to lose it.

Upon leaving Amsterdam, we flew over france, further southward to Spain. I hadn't even really considered going to spain..hey im from south florida..what do i need to go to spain for...but I am so glad I was persuaded out of my ignorant mindset by kim to head there. Spain just seemed like this place my 8th grade spanish teacher would go on and on and on and on about for too long, that I just didn't really care. Because we had spent the last week and a half in cold paris, and really cold amsterdam, when we stepped off the plane in Valencia, I looked at Kim and just said "ohmigod i love spain". It wasn't that it was particulary roasting hot, but it was the most warmth I had felt in three months.

We arrived somewhere in the city by the airport bus, and once we stumbled off of it, exhausted from the lack of sleep and cold hours in amsterdam, i dropped my bags right there and refused to go any further. It would be the second time in a year that I understood the necessity of warmth and sunlight. I sat on this piece of concrete, looked at her, and asked if we could please just wait 10 minutes to just feel that warmth before we attempted to situate and find a hostel. I didn't have to twist her arm twice.

while sitting there, we also discussed our travel plans in spain..which were meant to be valencia, up through to madrid, then san sebastian, bilbao region, then into barcelona. I took one look at that shining sun and new I would not want to go back north. I danced around the idea of maybe skipping madrid and when i realized she didn't really care to go there either, we both decided we were only doing one thing..skirting the southern coast of spain to stay as close to the warmth as possible..with the exception of Barcelona, because you can't go to spain and skip barcelona, and because our flight out of spain was from barcelona. So it was decided. We would stay close to the meditteranean, dance around the south and manage to make our way back to Barcelona, all in three weeks.

Okay well, it's not that I don't want to go into some inane detailed description of Spain, but it's that I just don't want to sit behind a computer right now. So digest this, and I'll post all about the amazing spain, christmas in ireland, new years in scotland, and how I am now winding down the remainder of my days here in Ireland before I pass through London for one last week of awesomness, and then homeward!