Long Rambly, or: The Update

The screen on the Chromebook broke so I have really been unable to update, since that would require prying Steve's Surface Pro away from him for something other than booking bus tickets. Right now, though, he's watching The Football soooo here's my chance!

"Where, perchance, did I leave off?" I wondered to myself, swirling a glass of Tesco budget whiskey and ginger beer with dangerously vigorous movements. And then Steve's Surface Pro broke. Well, it still works, but it has to be plugged in. Also, I didn't actually break it. But Steve may have broken the Chromebook, because I left it on the floor and he stood on it. He just now dropped a can of Stella on the carpet so I'm going to say everything is Steve's fault.

Really, though, I left off in Tbilisi, Georgia. It was definitely one of my favorite places. We intended to go elsewhere in Georgia but just...didn't. We went to a couple museums, including the National Gallery, which was small but had some very cool paintings. I highly recommend it. If, you know, you happen to be in Tbilisi. We also went to the sulfur baths twice, and it basically functioned as most of my showers for the week. If anyone wasn't sure yet whether I'm gross or not, there's your answer.

Turkey and Georgia: Ephesus, Pamukkale, Cappadocia, and Tbilisi

I left off in Ephesus and so much has happened since then, obviously, since I haven't updated in approximately one million years. Natural wonders, overnight transit, Steve getting hit on in a toilet, arriving in Georgia at 3:30 in the morning, eating the best food of my life...umm, I thought I could complain about gaining weight in Greece, but I ate everything in town in Georgia. It was nuts. Literally. Walnuts are in everything.

Library of Celsus, Ephesus

The ruins of Ephesus, an ancient Greek city, is an archaeological site near the town of Selcuk in Turkey. We flew from Istanbul to Izmir, a one hour flight, and then took the train directly from the airport to Selcuk. Selcuk itself is kind of a nice little place, and there was free Turkish breakfast at our hostel. Our first night, I ate way too many roasted garbanzo beans and had the worst stomachache ever. Lesson learned. (Not really.)

Istanbul, Turkey: Gobble Pun Pending

Once again, I've taken a long time to update. I can't tell if that means I'm being lazy or not...on the one hand, it means I'm spending less time sitting around on the Internet. On the other hand, I'm probably still sitting around doing something else so...? Is playing cards lazy? 

We've been in Turkey for the last week and we stayed in Istanbul (not Constantinople (sorry, that was lame)) for five days, eating food, walking everywhere, and drinking gallons of tea.

Turkish tea

We took a 15 hour overnight bus from Athens to Istanbul and it was about as pleasant as you might imagine. Although, they did give us a couple snacks and some tea. One snack was a sort of salty shortbread thing aptly named Stick, which I found strangely addicting. The other was a cherry and chocolate packaged cake called Darky Kek. As far as packaged cakes go I'd say it was pretty much amazing.

BREAKING NEWS: Girl gains weight, blames it on entire country

I haven’t updated my famous “Most Boring Blog in the World” in a while, and that’s because I’ve been busy stuffing my face. Ah, remember where I left off, in Meteora, where I ate dolmades and and a stuffed eggplant thing and, of course, a Greek salad? I do, it was grand. The restaurant also had a grand view and a bunch of stray cats begging for food. And one not stray dog.

We need to talk about Greek food. A lot of it, especially the vegetarian options, is healthy in theory, except that it’s probably swimming in olive oil. Now, I fully embrace the latest health craze assuring us that good fats are good for you, but surely you can’t eat that amount of olive oil without some consequences. Take the classic Greek salad for example: cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, maybe a few olives, some oregano, and a chunk of feta. That doesn’t sound too bad, as long as the feta isn’t out of control. But did I mention the cup of olive oil drizzled over it? Hmm.

I Love Albania, and Now We're In Greece

I left off in Kotor, which unfortunately was also the end of our stay in Montenegro. We had a long day of buses to get to Tirana, the capital of Albania, where we stopped on our quest to get to Greece before bad weather moves in. 

I really liked Tirana the last time I was there. It's not a particularly beautiful city, but it's interesting and has a good vibe. It's definitely different from any other European capital. Steve and I ate dinner at Era, the same restaurant I went to last time with my mom, and it was just as good as I remembered. They had an option to try all the appetizers, so we did that and it was so tasty--lots of cheese, peppers, and eggplant.

After that we went to a brewpub called Brauhaus and it was enormous, but mostly empty. On our quest for one last drink before bed, we stopped at a bar called Duff (obviously). I instantly knocked our beers over with my big butt. Oops! 

Croatia and Montenegro: Water, Pizza, Water, and Burek

I'm really bad at updating. I'll never have a really great cool informative blog and I've come to terms with that. Information is boring, anyway, right? Right? Will add pictures later!

Zagreb, Croatia

After Ljubljana, we took a bus to Zagreb. The bus was coming from Munich and was an hour late. All we did in Zagreb was walk around and eat at a vegetarian restaurant, which was pretty great, since we got to eat some actual vegetables. I don't care what congress says, pizza does not count as a vegetable....

Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

Plitvice Lakes is one of Croatia's most popular destinations due to its brightly colored lakes and many waterfalls. We got a late start as usual and didn't get to Plitvice until late in the afternoon. We stayed at a guesthouse type place, which was really nice and cheap, and the owner insisted we have two shots of homemade rakija when we got there. There was a pizzeria nearby where we ordered a veggie pizza, and it literally had frozen vegetables sprinkled over it (corn, diced carrots, peas...?) but it was somehow really good. We were hungry? Pizza in Croatia is really good in general, in my opinion. 

Germany, Oktoberfest, Mountains, and Northern Italy: "Where is the Kahlua?" and Other Questions Never to Be Answered

Finally, an update? I've been super busy/sick, so a lot has happened. Beer, pretzels, pizza...errm, I mean, history, cobblestones...frescoes...?

Basel, Switzerland

Basel is stupidly pretty, and I kind of wished I could stay another night so I'd have the chance to sit on the steps by the river drinking a beer. I love drinking convenience store beers in exciting places, it's at least as good as drinking beers in brewpubs. I didn't think the prices were toooo unreasonable. I mean, it's not a cheap place, but I had three Swiss francs left and I managed to cobble together breakfast/lunch from the supermarket no problem. I was feeling good about the amount of money I took out at the ATM at this point.

Then when I went to buy my train ticket to Freiburg, I used a ticket machine that accepted both euro and Swiss francs. Since I didn't have any francs left and no ticket machine in Europe accepts my debit card apparently, I paid with some euro. And...it gave me francs back as change! Aaahh no! I was so close to having no leftover money!






Freiburg, Germany

I chose to go to Freiburg because it is nearby the Swiss/French borders and I could buy a pretty cheap bus ticket to Munich from there. It's known for its university and proximity to the Black Forest. Shortly after I arrived, it started pouring down rain. I'm not in the habit of checking weather forecasts in case anyone was wondering.

I climbed up a hill to an observation tower to get a view of the city and surroundings. I meant to go hiking in the Black Forest, but as I was on my way to the tram (called the VAG, make of that what you will), it started raining, so I went to a cafe and ate a slice of Black Forest cake instead. It's almost the same thing.

Paris, Strasbourg, the Alsace, and More Cities Please

Ahh, Paris. It's the perfect place for cemeteries and macarons, my favorite things. Well, actually, macarons are off the list of favorite things. I ate way too many of them. Good thing the last one I ate was the best one. LOOK NO FURTHER: Winner of the macaron tasting tour is Pierre Herme, specifically, the vanilla and olive oil flavor. I didn't go that many places, though, because I was fed up with sweets. I'm all about the cheese and bread now.

I had a macaron from McDonalds...I don't want to talk about it

Winner of the cemetery tour? Pere Lachaise, duh, although it had an unfair advantage considering it was cloudy and thundering while we were there. Also, Oscar Wilde's grave.

Iceland, Paris, and No Sleep

Steve and I didn't sleep for probably two days and we still haven't really adjusted yet. What a great feeling it is to finally be in Paris with no flights to catch for the foreseeable future, though. Airplanes, am I right? Maybe I'll finally stop yelling at Steve for daring to speak to me at a cranky moment. He calls me "Snappy the crocodile" now. It doesn't help matters.

After an uneventful 7 hour flight from Seattle, we had an 18 hour layover in Iceland, where I rented a car for the first time. It went mostly well, except for the times that I took the wrong exit at one of the 80000 roundabouts. I also was getting close to falling asleep at some point, so we decided to take a nap in the car at the Geysir parking lot. I awoke to the person parked next to us standing next to the window, probably admiring my record-breaking drool production.

Thingvellir National Park

I visited Iceland the last time I went backpacking in Europe (2011), but somehow didn't do the Golden Circle tour or go to the Blue Lagoon. Oh man, did I ever make up for it this time....

6 Months in Europe: Yes, It's Happening

The day is finally here. Steve and I are leaving for ~6 months to backpack around Europe. This is my first time traveling with a giant backpack instead of a carry-on sized one and it looks comically large. This is the main thing I'm worrying about right now because I literally cannot remember how checked luggage works, and it's also very concerning to be separated from anything in my carefully (ha) selected inventory. Also concerning: it took me about 10 minutes to remember the word "inventory".

So far, our itinerary looks something like this:

September 14th: Fly from Seattle to Iceland.

September 15th: Arrive at Keflavik airport early in the morning. Rent a car. Drive around all day until our flight to Paris.

September 16th: Arrive in Paris very early in the morning. Be tired. Brace self for Steve’s nonstop impressions of French people.

Septermber 19th: Leave Paris. Steve goes on to visit his family in England, while I take a train to Strasbourg.

September 19th-21st: Alsace region of France.

September 22nd: Freiburg, Germany

September 23rd: Bus from Freiburg to Munich

Septermber 24th and 25th: Oktoberfest

September 26th: Innsbruck, Austria

September 27th: Meet back up with Steve in Verona, Italy

September 28th: Bolzano, Italy

September 29th: Venice, Italy

?????

Greece! Turkey! Georgia! And so on.

I am really, really looking forward to Greece, Turkey, and Georgia. I've never been to any of those countries and they sound great. Sometime in mid-November, we will be in central Europe before going to England for Christmas. Then, we will hopefully fly to Morocco.

Crossing fingers for no major volcanic eruptions in Iceland!

The Macarons of Seattle: An Excuse to Eat Cookies

Keeping with the theme of millions of posts about desserts for no reason--and also in honor of my upcoming visit to Paris--I’ve decided to tackle a macaron tasting tour of Seattle. “But what happened with the ice cream mission? Is there a winner of the Best Ice Cream in Seattle crown?” ask the 0 people who read my ice cream posts. Um, they were all good, so they all won. I’m a very sophisticated taster.

Will there be a winner of Best Macaron in Seattle? I’m not sure yet. I know I haven’t had my ideal macaron yet, so I suppose if I find it, that will be the winner. But I haven’t had one I hate, either. I’m very easy to please, especially when a rainbow of colors is involved.

As every dessert enthusiast knows, a macaron is a wonderful little French cookie comprised of two light, crispy, and perhaps chewy almond cookies with a creamy filling. They come in a variety of flavors with bright colors to match and are pretty much perfect in every way.

Paris, City of Metaphors

Can you believe that when I first restarted this blog I said I was going to update twice a week, and now it's been almost a year since I last posted anything? I can, because that's how I roll. Unfortunately. *puts on sunglasses sadly*

Somehow I don't have any pictures from Paris?! I thought I for sure had 800 pictures of gargoyles. Um, so here's a picture of where I've been instead of Paris: Seattle.