hello st. charles!!!

welp, i'm home. yesterday was a really long day of flying but it went really smoothly. i got to watch 3 movies on the plane which made the time fly pretty quickly. and i got a couple magazines which made my layover in philly go by pretty quickly too. and i think the thought of being home made me so giddy that i couldn't sleep or anything :) i was so excited to be greeted by my parents at the baggage claim.... but that didn't exactly happen. my mom asked me not to tell anyone what happened but i assured her i would be blogging about it ;) hahaha. so my plane landed about 15 minutes early so i figured that they wouldn't be there yet so i wouldn't get the welcome that i thought which was ok. i was just so excited to see them. so the minutes began pass and after i got my bag and checked my clock i realized it was about 9:30. i wasn't really sure where they were at and started to worry that maybe they got the day wrong and didn't even know i was in town. but that couldn't be right.... i mean, i blogged about it in almost all of my last 12 blogs. so i decided to walk around the airport a bit and see if maybe they were waiting for me outside. i checked in the underground parking - not there. i checked in the passanger pick-up area thats outside - not there. hmmmmm i thought to myself as i started to get irritated (keep in mind that it was really like 4:30am paris time and i was extremely sleep deprived by this point). so i tried to call my mom's cell phone collect since i didn't have a cell phone but i found out you can't make collect calls to a cell phone. so this nice old man let me borrow his cell phone to call them. so my mom answered and was like "you're here!" and i said "yeah, i am. where are you?" and she explained that they had been waiting for my call to come pick me up. which i thought interesting considering the fact that they knew i threw my phone away when i left for europe and they knew what time my flight arrived.... so as i got choked up on the phone i was like "but you know i don't have a cell phone. how was i supposed to call you??" so i think she felt really bad and said they were on their way. so i basically stood at the side of the passenger pick up area pouting and thinking about how i could look the most mad with my body language. hahaha! i was making sure that i wasn't looking in the direction where the cars come from and i had my hands crossed, and of course a pissy look on my face (i'm so mature aren't i?!?!?!) ;) but that plan didn't work because a little after 10 i heard someone behind me say "umm, miss jackson...." and i turned around and it was my dad. and all i said to him was "i'm trying to not be really angry right now but its not really working...." but they both felt really bad about everything and the mix up and after a few minutes i wasn't quite as mad and immature :) and it felt soooooo great to walk into their house and know that i was home!!!!! and i slept like a baby in my bed!!!!! i thought that maybe i would sleep a lot since i was so pooped, but i woke up bright and early at 6:53am.... and once my parents woke up we went to none other than ------ FIRST WATCH!!!! yum! i have been craving it the whole time i was gone so it totally hit the spot. now i am just going to get back into the swing of things. i guess i will eventually have to find a job..... but really, who wants to rush into that :)

oh yeah, my new phone number. my dad made a good point that since this is a public blog i might not want to post it. so i will email it out. i'm pretty sure that i have everyone's email address, but if you don't get an email from me today with my new cell number let me know and i will send it your way.

it feels weird that i won't be letting everyone know my step by step of every day.... but i'm sure that will be a nice change for some ;) i can't wait to see everyone and talk more about stuff that i'm sure i forgot to blog about and catch up on whats been going on in everyone's lives since mid-july!!!!! :)

this is not gonna be my final blog

welp, i am sitting at my hostel in paris and it is way too early to be up. but thanks for my roomates and the fact that they packed EVERYTHING they own in plastic bags i am up...... annoying but whatev. that gives me more time to blog :)

so cinque terre was a bit of a bust. i mean, it was beautiful and i would definitely go back again. but i would want to go earlier in the summer when it is more consistently hot. my last full day there it rained ALL day so that was a bummer. jennine, i tried to find the pizza place but for some reason i couldnt find the stairs that you mentioned. and since it was pouring i wasnt really in the mood to go on a full fledge search :) but i did have a piece of pesto pizza at a different joint i found and it was delicious! so thanks for recommending it or i probably wouldnt have tried it :) cinque terre is known for their pesto sauce and it was great. i bought a jar and some cool shaped pasta to make for my parents. thats a fair trade off for rent right?!?!?!? ;)

and then yesterday was the longest day of my life, or at least it felt like that. i left at 10:50am and got to paris at midnight... yikes!!! and i was surrounded by really not great smells on the train (i will spare you the details) which gave me a headache, and mixed with the movement of the train i was feeling a little queezy at points actually. but i pulled through :) and there was a kid sitting behind me who was super annoying and banging on my chair almost the whole time and another guy playing indian music on his cell phone with no headphones. i mean, who does that?!?! i was ready to punch somebody, but i didnt ;) instead i finished my 4th jane austen book, emma. whoop whoop!!!!

mom, i am sooooo sorry that i wasnt able to actually blog or email yesterday so i hope you have a super wonderfully special birthday!!!!!!!!!!!

welpers, basically all i have left to do is get ready and then get my booty to the airport. not sure i am going to be able to swing one last crepe but thats probably a good thing :)

i get home tonight around 9:15!! and i dont know what my cell phone number is going to be yet but once i know it, probably tomorrow, i will blog it so that everyone can have it. before i left i wrote everyone's numbers down so i should be good to go :) and i will maybe blog about my final thoughts and reflections about my last 2 months.... but as of yet i havent really been in the mood to try and be deep. hahaha

ok, enough rambling..... i will SEE you all super soon!!! :)

the leaning tower of whattttt?

hello all! we are coming right down to end of it folks. probably only a couple more europe blogs left........ thats a weirdly sad thought. but the plus side will be that i will actually be able to talk to you all face to face instead of keyboard to keyboard :)

lets see.... yesterday i got a bit of sun. whoop whoop! we layed out for a good 3 hours and i got a teeny bit of tan..... but a teeny bit is better than none i guess. today i wasnt able to lay out because i decided to take a day trip to pisa to snap some awesomely touristy shots of me pretending to hold up the leaning tower of pisa ;) its a good thing that we just made it a day trip because there is a whole lot of nothing in that city other than the tower. but it was nice because i went with the "party like a rockstar" girl lindsay. she was leaving cinque terre today to head to naples and i needed to go to la spezia which is a major train station to book my trip back to paris. so she decided that she had some extra time to make go to pisa with me. so that was a double bonus because #1 at the train station she pointed out that they sold magnums bars which i havent really been able to find. so i ate one in honor of marci and sarah's request even though it was 10:30 in the morning. gotta love double chocolate ;) and #2 we took the cheesy pics of each other leaning against the tower so i didnt have to ask a complete stranger. good times :) i was supposed to go to pisa with this american guy in my room but he turned out to be uber annoying and i really wanted nothing to do with him. he ate all my pasta last night while we werent in the room (ummm, who does that??) and then this morning accused lindsay and i of eating this other girls bananas. ummmm, sorry bud but i dont eat other people's fruit....lame. so i wasnt really in the "travel buddy" mood to spend the day with him.

so all in all today has been excellent. the weather has been great, sunny but breezy so there should be a great sunset tonight! holla!!!! and we ate lunch at a kebab place which rocked. oh yeah, and i played tetris on my iPod on the train ride back from pisa and set a new record!! and i was so intense that the tip of my thumb actually went numb......... lamely awesome i know ;)

tomorrow if it is sunny, no matter if its breezy i am gonna hit the beach (and by beach i mean the rock hard cliffs) to lay out ALL day!! and i am also going to hit up the pizza joint that jennine recommended. i cant get enough of their pesto here (well now i can because some lame american ate all my pasta) so pesto pizza has to be a good second best :)

i think thats all to really report on. on the 16th (here's an early happy birthday to my very own MAMA!!!!!) i will basically be on trains from 10:40am to 11:30pm getting back to paris. hopefully i will be able to make time for one last nutella crepe the morning of the 17th before heading to the airport. i mean, i have priorities and all ;)

have i said that i cant wait to see everyone, because if i havent - I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE EVERYONE!!

you're all too good to me :)

thanks for all the sympathy!! and rock on for all the offers for sweets. i will take you ALL up on those offers :) jess, just a big tub of your famed white icing would do the trick and rooms, too bad we dont still live together because i'm sure you'd have the fridge stocked with an assortment of things i cant resist ;) i mean, its not like i'm getting enough pure sugar while i'm here ;) and thankfully the fall did not ruin my outfit. suprisingly there was just a bit of dirt on me that i brushed off. not a bad deal.

so i guess when i heard that cinque terre was a beautiful place i was under the impression that it was just a goergous tropical place. with lots of sandy beaches. and there is definitely lots of ocean views but they are all surrounded by freaking mountains. and dont get me wrong, its super beautiful here but i just wish that the actual beach was a bit closer. its just a 15 minute train ride but i'm lazy and want everything at my finger tips ;) in my last blog i forgot to add something to the part where i said i am sick of traveling alone. what i meant to add was that most other solo travelers i have met say they like traveling alone because they get to meet so many new people and make new friends. now, if i was a binge drinker that might work out for me, but i'm not. so i dont really want to just "party like a rock star" like this one girl keeps saying.... and i've never been one to really enjoy making lots of surface level, 2 day friends. so thats why i am looking forward to coming back home to all my wonderful friends and family that i already have. that might sound kind of bratty, but.... ;) so after i blogged last i went to my room and met this girl lindsey (the party like a rock star girl) and she basically talks nonstop. which works out ok since i am not always that big of a talker (shocking i'm sure) ;) so yesterday we went hiking together. there was a hiking trail that connects from each of the 5 cities of cinque terre. and it was brutal. it was a full days worth, 5 hours of actual hiking. very very hard and steep in several spots so we worked our booties off. and when we'd stop at the different cities to look around or each lunch my legs were like shaking violently. awesome! :) but it was a great feeling to accomplish it and see where all we'd gone. pretty cool and great views. and she is a big beer and wine drinker so she was trying to figure out what kind of wine i might like. so when we were at the grocery store getting stuff for dinner (fruit salad - incredible!!) i bought this little pack of 3 mini bottles of what we think is either sparkling white wine or champagne. turns out it is champagne, which is a bit strong tasting for me. so i am gonna snag some orange juice and make myself a momosa (not sure how to spell that). ghetto i know but so good :) hahah. but since i exerted quite a bit of energy yesterday i am laying low today. it hasnt been crazy sunny.... definitely hot but sort of overcast. so i dont know if i am going to get any good laying out in today. but if not thats ok with me. i will go to the beach no matter what tomorrow and lay there in rain or shine :) and someone left a beach mat in my room so i am going to borrow that while i'm here. whoop whoop!!! :)

so yeah, things are looking better for me. funks usually last a couple of days for me so it is quickly going away :) i am going to relax and enjoy the rest of my time here, eat some more good but healthy food, i'm pumped to try the pesto sauce which they are known for, and i will of course be partaking of one last magnum bar before i go ;)

when can i come home to everything & everyone i know and love?!?!?!?!?

ok, so i am in a funk but i will get into that shortly. i first must tell how the rest of my time in luzern was. so after i blogged last i went and rented a bike for a halfday. the weather couldnt have been more perfect. i think i might have even gotten a little sun on my cheeks. they had a very vague map of different routes to take to get great views of luzern, the mtns and the lake. so after getting lost a couple of times at the start i was on my way. i dont know if i was actually on the mapped route but it worked out ok and it was so beautiful. the really neat thing is that my bike ride allowed me to get a few souvenires - some of which i will have forever.... and no i didnt get another tattoo. thats right folks - ROAD RASH!!! you guessed it, i wiped out!! hahaha :) i mean, i have been on a roll this whole trip making bozo mistakes (face/butt plant) so why not keep it up... lame. anyways, what happened was the bike path ended so i was on the road. and i dont really feel comfortable as cars pass me so i wanted to "hop" the curb to the sidewalk. but i didnt really take into consideration the height and composition of the curb and needless to say no "hop" was accomplished and i came crashing down. thankfully though i reacted quick enough to pull my head up so i didnt bust out any teeths or smear any of my beloved freckles ;) but my right ankle, shin, knee, elbow and wrist took quite a beating. right when i got up i started laughing at myself because really!!!! a guy in a car who witnessed the tragedy stopped to make sure i survived. and another guy walking came back too. that was nice of them and didnt at all add to my embarrassment.... :) i took pics that i really hope to post soon... so due to the fact that i was bleeding everywhere i didnt know if i should turn back. but what would i do if i went back - sit and mope? so i decided to press on because there was a glassblowing place down the way which is what i really wanted to see. so i made it there but didnt have a bike lock so i risked it and just left it outside. thankfully swiss people arent theives :) but i got to tour the factory and museum for free and the front desk lady even gave me a bandaid for my hand :) and i got to actually watch some of the guys make glass. i could have watched for hours (i L-O-V-E glassblowing!!). i want to do an apprenticeship.... but i will get to that after spanish school... yeah right ;) i bought a few tiny ornaments that were the cheapest things but cool nonetheless. i would have loved to buy it all! so after that i headed back, got lost (no suprise) in a neighborhood but somehow found my way out with the help of a kind lady and made it home. i did get the worst nights sleep ever though thanks to all my boo-boos.... :(

but todays travels went totally fine and i am in riomaggiore, italy. i guess its part of cinque terre.... i am still a little confused about how that all works. but i am definitely in a funk. i started getting in a funk during the train ride and it didnt help that i was listening to depressing music.... oops :( hopefully it wont last long. i am sure i will enjoy my time here. i will be here for six nights, 5 days. it is beautiful so far but i am just really ready to be home. and i am really hating being alone. i mean REALLY! when i am home i enjoy my alone time, but not for weeks at a time!! sheesh!!

so yeah, thanks for the comments on the previous post. they brightened my night for sure!! and i will get pics posted asap. hopefully while i am here :)

where's waldo?????

i seriousy love how when i don't blog for a couple of days people are wondering where i am at. that gives me reassurance that you do in fact care about me ;)

i feel the need to back track a bit... staying at kelli and mark's was seriously soo great! i had so much fun relaxing with them. it rained the whole time i was there so i didn't really get out and see much of newry but i was fine with that since i wasn't really feeling good. i am feeling better now except i still have a nice cough. but i will probably have that till i get home.... no worries. it was great though because after just one day of knowing mark i got his sense of humor and it was fun to ribbing him ;) i mean, i must be at least 14% irish since my last name is jackson. shoot, trinket shops had coasters with my family crest on it and all.... ;) and kelli finished reading redeeming love while i was there which is mz all time favorite book so i was pumped for her because she loved it just as much as me!! one highlight was that upon lindsey's urging we ate dinner at Friar Tuck's which is a place that mark always talks about when he is in the states. it was soooo good! i had a chicken sandwich (the best one i have ever had) and chips (fries). yumtastic! too bad everything is fried there because its not so healthy but too hard to resist :) also, we went to belfast one night to have dinner with some of their friends which was really nice and a lot of fun. i was sad to go but nonetheless i had a flight to catch. so thanks kelli and mark for everything!! especially the scones and soda bread :) *has anyone noticed that the main highlights of my entire trip has been food.....oops*

anywho.... i got back into paris and had another long day of straight up travel. i took all forms of transportation - taxi, plane, bus, metro, train, foot. i was able to get a bunch of connecting trains to eventually end up in........ luzern, switzerland!!!! i met a nice italian guy on one of the trains who was coming back to luzern after a holiday in france to come back to work. and it was nice b-c one of our trains was cancelled and rerouted and i would have never known if he wouldnt have told me. and he even pointed me to a hotel, so that was so nice. thanks dario :) anyways, i figured since sarah and i meant to come here back on day 4 it was only right for me to actually make it :) and its perfect!! exactly what i was hoping for. the weather has been phenomenal!!! sunny, breezy, but warm enough for shorts. yay!! yesterday i walked around and took lots of pictures. and there are tons of shops and stuff. but since i am not really in the mood for "souvenirs" i didn't buy much. but i did buy a new pair of sunglasses because i crunched my other pair that i LOVED apparently one day when i used my bag as a pillow while reading on a bench. oops. but my new pair is even more ghetto and huge and a tribute to my childhood ;) just wait to see them... so yep, luzern has been good to me. today i am renting a bike and hopefully getting my bike on finally!!!! i've been wanting to for weeks now, so my dream will come true today :)

then tomorrow i am taking a train to riomaggiore, italy which is in cinque terre. i am really excited, even though i know sarah is gonna hate me forever now :) i just hope that it is still really hot there so that i can get some good sun before i come home :) and i think that there is a park/forresty area close to my hostel so i might be able to do some more biking or hiking too which will be fun. i will be there for 5 days so i don't know if i can just lay on the beach the whole time.... ;)

but speaking of coming home - i come home a week from tomorrow!!! whoo hoooooo!! i feel like i have been gone a whole semester without getting to come home at all for a visit, its ridiculous!!! so i can't wait to see everyone and actually TALK face to face!!! i have 3 more cards to open between now and then. can you believe that i actually spaced them all out and didn't open them all on the plane ride over here?!?!? i guess i really am growing up :)

ps. if anyone knows of anyone looking for some temporary work (for a few months till i leave for spanish school) let me know b-c i will be looking for some work once i get home.... i'm a real good worker i swear :)

gotta love that honey rum... ;)

ok, for starters i apologize for leaving anybody out on the shout out for some TLC. i meant to say that i really needed some roomie tlc, some poppy tlc, som bff tlc, som CG tlc, basically - some USA tlc!!!! :)

and beer was a good idea steve, but kelli and mark took it one step farther and made me a nice mug of hot honey rum and it really helped. it licked my cough in a matter of minutes. so maybe another dose tonight might just do the trick :)

so yeah, needless to say i am in newry, ireland right now!! it is absolutely beautiful! it is more in the country than the other cities i've been to so its just perfect!! my trip here yesterday went smooth as silk. i didn't realize that i had to switch trains a couple times, and take a bus from one station in dublin to a different one, but i worked it out :) and the sun was bright all day yesterday which made for a nice day of traveling. its just too bad that its not sunny on one of the days that i want to spend outside... :( if the weather improves today (and stops raining) i am gonna bike this one path that kelli and mark told me about. its about 20 miles one way. i'm pretty pumped about it. so hopefully the weather will clear up. if not mark is gonna take me into town and i'll walk around, go shopping, putz around and then kelli will pick me up after work. and some of their friends are having peeps over tonight for dinner and they have graciously allowed me to tag along. so that'll be fun. kelli and mark have been great!!! kelli is quite the hostess with the mostess and it has been wonderful just to chat and catch up! and mark is full of stories that just crack me up! and his accent is awesome (of course), i can understand about 90% of what he says :)

a major highlight to my arriving in newry was a little goody bag that lindsey had kelli's mom bring over when she was here visiting last week!!!!! it was full of all things i love - pringles, cookies, hot tamales, you name it! so great. thanks SOOOO much linds! you're just about the best BFF in the world!! :)

right now i'm watching THE OFFICE and its 9:30 in the morning. whoop whoop!!!! its the sexual harassment episode and the dundees (my all time fav!!) - freaking awesome! :)

oh yeah, i mentioned some life reflection that i've been doing.... i'll take a couple minutes to go into that. its nothing really major or anything but i've just been doing a lot of thinking while i've been traveling. if this trip has showed me anything about myself its that i am much more a homebody than i thought. i mean, i've always enjoyed an evening in as opposed to going out on the town. but i've been missing my family and friends immensely while i've been gone. and the other night i was sitting on my bunkbed looking thru the photo album that liz made me for this trip and seeing pictures of my neices made me start to really question if living/working overseas is something i really want for my life. i mean, i've never been 100% set on working overseas after spanish school but its been at least an option. but i just really love the relationships i have back at home and i really don't want to be away from everybody... if that makes sense. and i don't know, maybe it is selfish of me to want to be home and an active part of people's lives (instead of being maintaining long distance relationships). i'll have to work through that or something. but as of right now, its just something i'm thinking, so don't hold me to it :) but its weird how things work out b/c i would have never thought that i would want to actually plant myself in st. charles! i mean, what?!?! but i've grown to love it, i love my church, i love my family, etc! so who knows, thats just something i've been thinking about. and i am definitely still planning on going to spanish school, thats for sure! b/c i still totally want to become fluent in spanish. but another thing i've been thinking about since i've been here is the idea of translating. i know that a girl who used to go to church goes around with spanish speaking people to doctors appointments and things like that and she translates for them. that sounds really interesting to me so its something i'd like to at least look into. once again, don't hold me to it at this point - these are just thoughts.... :) so yeah, who knows where life will lead me. things might totally change once i'm down in costa rica, but as for now, i'm excited for the few ideas that have come into my mind thus far...... so now huge life reflections, but life reflections none the least ;)

i'm totally out of it.......

so... i'm sick :( i have a pretty bad sinus cold which is totally kicking my butt. and thanks to the sinus/cold pills i'm taking i am a complete zombie! i really really wanted to bike through the national park today in killarney, since thats the only real reason i came to this city, but i just didn't have it in me. i am so lathargics its ridiculous. i got a good 10 hours of sleep last night, forced myself to get out of bed and eat something, then went back to sleep for 3 hours. once i did get around to getting outside it started pouring and i of course didn't bring my umbrella. so i was soaked thru by the time i got back to my hostel. so i basically just crawled back into bed. this is one of those times where all i really want is some TLC from my mama :) but i guess its not a bad thing to do nothing for a day or so.... considering the fact i like to do a whole lot of nothing as much as possible when i'm at home ;)

but yeah, so last night, even though i was already starting to feel sick i still decided to go out to a pub to hear some irish music. and it actually was irish music this time! so that was really cool. just 3 old men doing there thing. it was nice, but once again i didn't enjoy sitting at the bar by myself, sipping a beer that i wasn't really enjoying, watching some soccer that i didn't really care about. so i only lasted for about a half as hour before i headed home.... lame i know. but whatev. on a positive note, i did feel safer being by myself last night so thats a plus :)

after i finish this blog i'm gonna go get some chinese takeout - yum! and then just chill for the rest of the night. all i want to do is watch a movie but this hostel doesn't have TV's. so reading it is i guess.... depending on how i'm feeling i might try to go hear some more music but i can't make any promises :) then tomorrow i'm heading to newry to see kelli for a couple of days. should be a good time and i've prepped her about my cat phobia so hopefully i won't have yet another traumatizing cat story to share...... ;)

my first theft :(

someone stole my freaking beach mat that i bought in greece!!!!!!!!! i mean, it was super cheap so its not a big loss, but i was REALLY looking forward to using it on my last leg of the trip when i do absolutely nothing at the beach for days on end.... so that was disappointing. at least they didn't steal anything of value i guess...... but still, its the point of it all. dang roomates!

i kissed the blarney stone!

well that traditional "irish" music that was advertised in the pub in dublin turned out to be not so traditional. it was like the guy was playing straight up KEZK soft rock with a slight irish twist in the guitar. i mean, the guitar playing really was great but he was playing songs like "don't worry, be happy". i mean, WHAT?!?!?! so that was disappointing to say the least. BUT, i did try an irish beer. i didn't have guiness b/c i only like that in irish car bombs and i wasn't about to go chugging those on my own ;) so i had a red ale called Smithicks and it actually wasn't too bad. i had 2 glasses suprisingly :) but i will tell you what, its not really fun being at a pub alone......... lame.

anywho, yesterday i trained it from dublin to cork and everything went really smoothly. and i got here around 11:25 and i was walking to my hostel when i happened upon a presbyterian church that started at 11:45 so i decided to go on in, with all my junk strapped to my back. and it was absolutely wonderful! the sermon was great and very encouraging and challenging. it was from 1 peter 3 and talked about not being ashamed of the gospel and always being able to given an account for what you believe in and why, and doing it in a respectful manner. it really hit home for me b/c when sarah and i were in paris getting one of our many crepes, the crepe maker asked us about christianity and stuff after he found out what i majored in. and i basically froze and didn't really know how to answer lots of his questions. it was pretty lame, but at least sarah represented :) so anyways, it was a good sermon for me to hear. and afterwards they had a time of tea and coffee and people were super friendly. and they told me that the Tour of Ireland, which is a huge bike race that draws competitors from all of the world, was ending today in cork. so that was freaking awesome. i went and dropped my stuff off at my hostel and basically walked down the street to the finish line. it was a lot of fun!!

there doesn't seem to be a ton to do in cork other than go shopping, and since i have no money to spend i'm glad that i only stayed for 2 nights. and since i've been here 2 drunk old men have come up and talked to me and it makes me feel somewhat hestitant/semi-unsafe to be by myself. so last night i was going to go to a pub to try again to hear some irish music but i wasn't really feeling it. i mean, where is my night in shining armor who is supposed to protect me?!?!?! :)

so today i got a bus ticket to blarney and i went to the blarney castle and kissed the blarney stone!!! as i was walking up to the castle i started to tear up. i'm not exactly sure why. i mean, part of it was happy tears, but another part of it was it made me wish that i could have been there with my parents and dorothy when they were there a few years back. i don't know what my deal is ;) but it was great!!! i even forked over too much money to buy a pic of me kissing it, but it was worth it. b/c the little, frail old lady in line behind me took a pic for me on my camera but it was blurry :) but i told the little old ladies behind me about how my parents came with a little old lady, dorothy, a few years back and she kissed it (i hope she did at least...) so that gave them the courage to do it b/c they thought they wouldn't be able to. so that was fun. and all together beautiful! i'm so happy i got to see it. and then i took a train to this place called Fota Wildlife Park which some people at the church recommended. its like a zoo but there aren't really walls that keep the animals in. they all roam together for the most part and are only separated from humans by little wire fences. so it was pretty cool to be so close to giraffes (my fav!) and zebras and i literally could have petted the kangeroos if i wasn't super scared to!. hahahah so that was something random that filled my afternoon.

i was gonna go try to go to a pub tonight but on my train ride home from the zoo place i wasn't really feeling well. sort of light headed-ish which is weird. so i think i might just stay in and try to finish my book. yay!!! :) i still have a couple nights in killarney to hit up a pub and from what i hear they have great music there. and that is where i'm headed tomorrow. i am so looking forward to it!! its actually been the place i've most been looking forward to (other than kelli's) b/c jeff branson told me about the national park that he biked through so i've been really looking forward to doing that. i don't think my body remembers what its like to do any form of physical activity other than walk, so this will be a welcomed change for sure :)

i've been doing some life reflection which i will talk about more later when i have more time. this blog is already getting too long...... :)

and nikki said that augustino was talked about at church which seriously cracks me up!!! so if you want to see pics you can go to sarah's snapfish account. my dad so graciously put her login information on my previous blog. he is the greek guy with the longer hair :) it won't take long to figure out who we've been ranting about ;)

alert - more pics have been posted!

hey all. i was able to post more pics today. yay! as a reminder, go to snapfish.com, and login as me. my login is: jjackson@seekrefuge.net and my password is: jodi1. i just chose 76.... :) and considering the fact that i couldn't even remember what all the buildings were i figured i wouldn't put too many of them in..... but i know for sure that i added pics of greece...... but i don't have many b/c i was super lazy with my camera. so sarah has all the good pics on HER camera. sarah - have you added pics yet to your snapfish account? once you do can you post a comment on my blog with your login and password so peeps can check out augustino?!?!?! thanks playa ;) ok, so after greece is the concentration camp, our walk thru berlin including the berlin wall as well as the off white building - which is where michael jackson held his baby out the window a couple years back. holla!! :) then back in paris where sarah tried yet again to capture my heel click unsuccessfully :( but it was fun nonetheless... our shout out out to magnum bars before sarah left, and then our sad parting at the airport :( after that is the super cute B&B i stayed at and lastly is Christ's Church Cathedral in dublin. i had to take a pic of this nasty mummified cat and mouse and i also photographed the explaination of it.... i hope you can read it :) i feel like i just can't get away from the dang things!!!!!!! ;)

so enough of photo recaps. on to what i actually have done in dublin :) yesterday was really nice. i made it to one of the beautiful parks, sat and drank some coffee, and read my book. it was wonderful but got sort of chilly and i was wearing a skirt so i had to head back to the hostel earlier than planned. but i'm going back today and i wore pants so i should be set for hours! i am just gonna walk about and hopefully get some beautiful pictures of all the flowers and gardens. i also went to Christ Church Cathedral which was pretty cool. very old school brick work which i love. and i got there in time to participate in the eucharist and take communion. freaking awesome! so that was quite possibly the highlight of my day just b/c i miss taking communion and it was my first real experience taking it in a catholic church.

and when i first arrived here and was looking over the map i figured i would have to take the tram or bus system everywhere b/c it seemed like a huge city. but instead, i've decided to walk everywhere. it makes me feel a little less fat, a little more active, and saves me some $$ :) i did walk a good few miles to the train station this morning to find out that there are tons of trains that leave to Cork tomorrow, so instead of walking it back (since my feet hurt from wearing flip flops like a moron) i did hitch a ride back on a bus. but other than that i have been footing it all over the city and loving every minute of it. so my plan for the rest of the day is to go to a few little shops here and there, go to both the parks and spend hours looking around, reading, and relaxing. and then tonight i am gonna go to a pub that is playing free, live, traditional irish music. so that should be fun :) and q-money, i will try an irish beer, but i can't promise that i'll finish it..... ;)

then tomorrow i am training it to Cork for a couple of days, then to Killarney for a couple of days to bike and walk through the huge national forrest they have there, and then i am finishing things out up in newry with kelli. whoop whoop! along the way i do plan on kissing the blarney stone, just to say i've done it :) oh yeah, at this time i would like to give a big old shout out to PATTY QUINN!!!! :) i wish you could be here with me b/c one thing i've noticed is that it seems like most irish peeps have the same eyes, and you'd fit right in meggie poo!!!!!!!! :)

ok, thats it for me. i might not blog for a couple of days seeing as i haven't really been doing a whole lot and don't want to bore you all with the dull play by play of my walks around the town ;)

**dinah, you look soooo cute in the pic you posted!! chip and jimmy, you both look stellar as usual :) but dinah's top is too cute to not comment on!!! :)**

who's the tannest lass in dublin?? its ME, its ME :)

i am really enjoying dublin. i won't even go into my trip over here b/c it kind of annoyed me. well, i guess i'll go into it a little bit.... ;) i flew on ryan air which is europe's version of southwest. so my flight was super cheap which was great. but the airport that it flies out of in paris is in BFE so i booked a hostel/guesthouse place the night before because you had to take a 2 hr-ish bus ride to the airport and since i was leaving early i didn't want to miss my flight (since i don't have the best of luck it seems). so when i got there i paid WAY too much for a freakin taxi to the guesthouse (but could have asked the toursist office to call my guesthouse for me and they'd come pick me up, but didn't know that till afterwards...). but once i got there it was TOTALLY worth it! it was a bed and breakfast run by this super cute and nice french couple. it was an old farm house that they rehab'd and made a bed and breakfast. i got to sleep in a king size bed which rocked! and just relaxed the rest of the night. it was so seriene and just what i needed :) then getting to dublin after that was a sinch. and thanks to the time change i basically got there 30 minutes after i left paris, so talk about not losing any time! so i found my hostel after asking several people who - SPOKE ENGLISH!! its so nice that everyone speaks english here. and so far i have actually been able to understand people :) my favorite is listening to kids talk. i love hearing different accents on kiddos for some reason. and i bet you were asking yourself, "self, i wonder which european accents jodi likes best?" well, let me tell you :) my top 2 favs are the french accent because it sounds so elegant and smooth to me and i also love the irish accent of course. my least fav is the italian accent b/c for some reason where they put emphasis on words gets on my nerves. haha :)

ok, enough of that tangent.... so once i arrived at my hostel and climbed about 5 flights of tiny stairs to get to my 10 bed bunk i busted out my map and figured out where all i wanted to go. and i made a list of all the places that seemed cool to see (b/c i'm just organized like that) :) then i may or may not have taken a little cat nap - sarah, i figure you'd get a kick out of that ;) then i headed out to go to an art museum that was free. it was pretty cool i must say. it was mainly impressionist art which i like much better than a lot of art that i've seen thus far. i much prefer abstract art as opposed to painting of people who all seem to have the same face and eyes (if that makes sense). there were even a couple monet paintings so that was cool. then i went grocery shopping and i bought stuff to make none other than A GREEK SALAD!! yay :) sarah and i really went crazy eating a bunch of straight CRAP so now i am trying to detox myself a little.... we'll see how that goes. i mean, i am gonna have fish and chips at some point just to say i had them. and who knows, maybe i'll actually like it.... even though i'm not a fan of fish, other than sushi. while i was eating my salad in the hostel kitchen i met a girl from chicago who is studying over here so that was neat. i may go to a pub tonight with them if i see them around the hostel when i get back..... but since yesterday was just a day to get acclimated to the city i chilled for the most part. it was great walking around b/c even though the sun only came out here and there it wasn't cold. and there was a pleasant breeze the whole time. so on the theme of "chill" i decided to go see a movie :) i saw the dark night and it was seriously sooo good i thought! so i recommend it highly to everyone :) i was walking back to my hostel around 11ish and i've got to say that i didn't really feel all that safe. so that might be the one major downfall of flying solo. i might not venture out too much once it gets really dark.... or maybe i'll just hold my mase with the safety off now that i don't have captain kurate to protect me :)

q-money......... i miss you immensely!!!!! and i'm so sorry that you have a cold :( i am having a good time so far, but its weird and much more quiet to be by myself. but its funny because when i have been walking around i feel like i have a hop to my step. and i realize that what i'm about to say makes me look like a goobtard but we all knew that already so i'm gonna say it anyways :) but sometimes when i'm walking around just looking around, taking in the sights, and smiling like a moron at people, i feel like i'm in a movie. hahaha! and that happens especially if i'm listening to my iPod b/c then its like a soundtrack to the movie that i'm in. hahaha. and i sort of feel like meg ryan when she's walking around NYC in you've got mail :)

alrighty, i am headed to a church right now and then i am gonna start knocking out the rest of the sights that i want to see from my list. one of which includes a couple beautiful parks that are great for picnicing. so i'll go there and read sense and sensibility and continue loving life :)

flying solo starting tomorrow

sorry its been a couple of days... we left berlin and are now in paris. sarah leaves tomorrow and then i will officially be on my own for 3 weeks!!! should be good but it will definitely be different and i will miss sarah tons!! but we went to another cool bookstore today and i got sense and sensibility so i will get to read another jane austen book while i am here :)

i will try to recap the rest of our time in berlin and our journey back to paris. nothing real exciting to tell about the pub crawl... it was fairly disorganized but once it got moving it was fun. i told sarah that i would try a beer even though i dont like beer (i was in it for the vodka orange shots, not so much the beer) ;) so i had a coronawhich was tolerable but still not something i would choose to drink. and i did try a pilsner (german brand) but hated it. we got to talk to lots of peeps throughout the night... ranging from australia, england, new zealand, and ireland. so that was fun, but we were definitely part of the older crowd and my patience level for 19 yr olds is pretty low... :) and sarah started to get tired (thats right folks, i finally outlasted her for once) so we peaced out at the 4th bar and went and got ice cream... and burger king. oops ;)

so then the next day we went to church which i was totally looking forward to! so it was great to get a taste of being back at home and since we were visitors we got a little welcoming gift with some chocolate! so you cant beat that :) after that we went on a free walking tour all over the city of berlin. it was really good and informative, but it was FREEZING and drizzling or raining the WHOLE time so that was a bummer. we were definitely ready to leave the dreary weather. before we left the next day though we made sure to get another doner kebab!!! they are like gyros so if you have never had one you should totally try one! they are quite possibly added to my favorite food list :)

so the train ride to paris was good. 8 hrs but it went really quick. and random sidenote - this whole trip i have thought that sarah has had a nose whistle. its been super annoying and she has never heard herself do it. then on the train i asked her if she had heard her nose whistle at all because she had been doing it A LOT on the train and she said no. then later on she was like, "is this what you think my nose whistle is?" and she made the noise. and i said yes. and then she said that it was actually a nose that she makes with her freaking throat and she doesnt know how she does it or when!!! i couldnt believe it... so that might not have been funny to you but it was a 6 week mystery finally solved :)

so today in paris we went thru the notre dame since we didnt make it last night. then went on a free tour of the city to kill time and learn a bit more history. coolness.

tomorrow morning i will drop sarah off at theairport :( then do whatev around paris for a few hours. then i am taking a bus to a city outside of paris because i am flying out of a different airport tomorrow so i want to be close. so hopefully i can figure it out on my own.... yikes :) anyways, i am flying to dublin, ireland where i will spend 3 nights. i am really pumped b/c hostels are cheap there and lots of see. and i am so pumped just to listen to people talk with an awesome accent!!! :) my plan after that is to hit a couple other cities on the other side of the country and then head to newry to visit kelli bradley (kevin & jesse's sister) before coming back here. once i get back to the main part of europe i am still trying to decide where to go... i will be ending my trip at a beach though, thats for darn sure!!!! :)

eric, i will email josh's aunt tonight to get his sis's email address for you :)

ummmm, i know i am leaving things out.... i hate that feeling. oh well. if it comes back to me i will blog again :)

welpers, we are in berlin and it has been reallz nice (and once again the y and the z keys are mixed up so sorrz about that up front...) but anzwazs, berlin could not be much more opposite of greece, so thats taken some getting used to. i mean, its straight up COLD! quite a change from chilling all daz in our bikinis, now we are busting out pants and jackets :( all i wanted while we were on th tour was to sit in front of a fire and sip hot cocoa :) but berlin is a reallz cool citz. todaz we went on a tour of a concentration camp, which is something that we both reallz wanted to do so that was cool and we learned a ton. the cold, cloudz weather sort of plazed into the mood of it too, so todaz has felt a bit somber, which is to be expected i guess. but the mood will change shortlz because we are going on a pub crawl tonight.... should be interesting since i have never done anzthing like this and rarelz go to bars back at home. but it will be fun im sure ;)

we were going to trz to do a free walking tour of the citz this afternoon but the other tour ran late so we are going to go tomorrow afternoon. last night we went over to this ladzs house for dinner. sarahs sister jessica stazed with her and gave us her number. but she is hosting another familz so we were not able to staz with her but she had us over for dinner and it was so nice. her and her hubbz work for campus crusade over here so it was neat getting to talk to her. and we are going to go to her church tomorrow which i could not be more pumped about!!!! it is an international baptist church that is in english so i cant wait! oh zeah, and heres something random and just shows how small the world is. when we were at the ladzs house last night her neice was there who is 18 and she is from ariyona. she is a nannz for a couple families for a few months. so we get to talking and she asked us where we went to school, etc. and she said that her brother went to trinitz. so i asked his name and her brother is josh neuman!!! mz brother eric plazed soccer with him at trinitz. so crayz. so that was prettz fun. eric, she told me that josh just got engaged so i wanted to let zou know :)

so we were on the train todaz coming home from the concentration camp and i was pooped so i was taking a bit of a cat nap in the train. and if anz of zou have seen me sleep before i am not an attractive sleeper. mz mouth gapes open!! but im over it. everzone on the train is a stranger so thez can stare all thez want :) i was woken up a few times bz sarah laughing at me even :) oh well. once i woke up for good i noticed that this one ladz who was sitting across from me was staring at me and then would whisper to this other ladz she was with and then laugh. SO IMMATURE!! and annozing to saz the least. and i was not in the mood for that so i basicallz would continue to make eze contact with her until she felt awkward enough where she had to break it. hahahah!!!! now thats mature if i have ever seen it right ;) and of course i had to give her a look or 2 also... ;)

sorrz that i dont have manz funnz stories to share todaz... im sure i will after tonight ;)

we decided to staz in berlin another night because it would have been a waste of time to trz to fit anz other cities in before sarah flies out. so i think it will be good because we will hopefullz be able to also go to a holocaust museum before we leave too. and most likelz i will go back to paris with sarah and then flz up to dublin and start mz travels through ireland. but i have to see what flights are like before i firm up mz plans. iw ill keep zou posted though :)

goodness gracious

all i have to say is.... augustino! both sarah and i just can't get over him! we are absolutely pathetic and loving every minute of it! hahah :)

right now we are in athens. we took a super late night ferry and arrived around 6am this morning. i did not sleep more than probably 30 minutes on the boat b/c i just couldn't get comfy. so i've been falling asleep basically everywhere we've been going today.... sarah has pics to show me with my mouth gaping open all over the place ;) plus we have to carry our huge packs on our backs too... in the heat... so that combo equals one tired jodi. and since i'm past the point of tiredness i am straight up slap happy and sarah and i have been laughing (i've been more like cackeling) all over the place and probably looking like straight up hoosiers. but i wouldn't have it any other way ;) even though we're sleep deprived we wanted to make the most out of our 1 day in athens so we did go see the acropolis.... well i should say i saw it from a distance and sarah walked around to get a better view of it while i slept on a ledge whilst holding all our backpack straps in my hands :) then we went to see the olympic stadium but it was closed for a 2 week holiday so we basically just walked around in the heat for nothing. then we came to this gigantic mall where we ate lunch and they have a movie theater so we just saw Mamma Mia!!!! yay!! we've both totally been craving seeing a movie and how perfect that we got to see a movie thats set in greece, in greece! too much fun and a great way to kill time before our flight to berlin tonight. once we email we're gonna head to the airport where i will continue to sleep till our flight :)

but back to augustino and our farewell to paros. we were both sad to leave... but it is what it is. the culture in paros is so funny when it comes to work. augustino and his brother billy are plumbers. and they were both supposed to work yesterday. but their boss called them and told them that he was tired so they didn't have to work.... so we all spent the day at the beach. i mean, how awesome is that?!?!?!? that would be a definite incentive to living there :) so we just chilled, played lots of beach vball, at some great souvlaki (a pita w/ meat, veggies, and tzatkiki sauce = YUMTASTIC!!!). and the guys were such gentleman the entire week. they wouldn't let us pay for anything and were always making sure we were happy and taken care of. so that was wonderful and greatly appreciated by both sarah and i :) then after we played at one beach we headed to another beach where we basically did the same thing - hit the vball around for a while until it started to get dark. then we headed back to their apt b/c they had a soccer game that they invited us to. so we went to that which was a lot of fun. it seemed sort of like a pick up game, 5 on 5, no refs or anything. and tempers were flying throughout the whole game, mainly by the other team. gotta love the passion of the greeks :) so they ended up losing but played really well and it was so fun to spend our last night watching them play. and i knew my dad would be excited that i got to see some soccer while i was over here :) then we went and got something to drink and had pizza on the beach. it was basically HEAVEN!!! i'm sure sarah and i will be giddy about our time in greece for a long time :) then the guys took us to the port and hungout with us till about the time we bored, which was 2am. we got more pics (or course!!!) and i look forward to posting them whenever i get a chance :) this week was definitely the highlight of our trip so far. it was so relaxing (just what we both needed) and such a good change of pace to hang with locals and get a true sense of life in paros. we are sad to be leaving b/c we could easily stay another week.... but who wouldn't want to hangout at the beach with hotties FOREVER!! ;)

ok, enough about that.... :) i am looking forward to berlin even though it will be back to the grind of sight seeing... there is tons to see and we're staying 3 nights so we won't have to try and cram it all into 1 day which is always nice.

i'm trying to think of anything else that i may have forgotten.... they only thing that comes to mind is i feel like i need to emphasize again how many freaking cats there are just hanging around here. it makes me sick to my stomach EVERY time i see one.... and they seem to be everywhere we are :( sarah said that the other night when we were camping she heard 2 cats straight FIGHTING outside our tent! thank the Lord for my dang ear plugs b/c i slept right thru it all.... heaven only knows what would have happened if i had to hear that nastiness!!! :)

alrighty, i miss you all. the next few weeks will be good and i can't wait to actually be home to share more stuff face to face. i'm so thankful for this blog though b/c i know that without it i would definitely have forgotten soooo many things to tell you all! :)

greece has been good to us

hello all. i've noticed that not many people are commenting any more on my blogs.... hope they aren't getting to boring.... i'll try to keep them shorter (if possible) :) and knowing my luck the random stories will continue....

just to give a quick update of the last couple of days, we've spent a lot of time with these few guys that we met when we got here. to give a bit of background.... sarah is friends with a guy in chicago named ilijas who is from greece (albania originally) and he has a few brothers and cousins who live in greece. so we met up with them and they have been showing us around and basically entertaining us the last few days. which has been really nice b/c this is the first place we've been where i feel like i'm getting a true taste of what its really like, like being a 'local'. they took us to a beach where we played beach volleyball for like 5 hours and the sand was sooooo stinkin hot that i literally got blisters on the bottoms of my feet :( but its totally worth it b/c one of ilijas's brothers, named augustino, is by far the most attractive person that i've ever met!!! no worries, we took pics :) and since sarah from the start has been paired off with ilijas's younger brother billy, i got to team up with augustino and we were a pretty dang good pair. especially since all i can basically do is bump the ball. but he would always say 'bravo' and what girl wouldn't smile???? ;) hahah!! anywho.... after vball he made us all dinner and it was wonderful! then yesterday we went to a different beach called Punda Beach and played more vball and swam in the pool there, which was a blast!!! i much prefer pools to the ocean b/c the salt water is just to intensely salty for me sometimes.

alrighty, i'm running out of internet time but real quick - last night we went out dancing again. and this time i decided to just let loose, dance, and have a good time. and i totally did! we didn't get home till 5am and we even seemed to outlast the brothers/cousins that we went with. and i danced with this random greek guy.....

welp, we're gonna go get a crepe for dessert (can you tell i have an addiction) and then catch our bus back to the camp site. we have one more day here and then we are taking a late, late night ferry back to athens and then catching a flight to berlin, germany. we decided to squeeze in one more country before sarah goes home in a week. its crazy that her 6 weeks here has almost come to an end. what am i gonna do all by my little lonesome??? :)

we don't have computers in our tents....

sorry that its been a few days since i've blogged. we were basically traveling for 2days straight, which i'll talk more about in a minute, and then haven't really had much access to the internet seeing as we've been camping this week :) so now that i have that out of the way let me tell you what we've been up to.... we are in paros, greece right now. when we left rome we took a train to bari, italy which is on the other side of italy. that was a 5 hr ride where this beautiful guy named salvatore totally was digging sarah. but he only spoken italian and like 5 english words. it was funny though because i was able to understand most of what he was saying thru his hand gestures and stuff like that. so he would say something and then i would basically translate to sarah :) but he was a soccer player for a 2nd division professional italian team (or so he said) and his team name was brindisi coucha (i don't know if thats spelled right, but i'm just sounding it out) so that was kind of fun. so once we landed in bari in the afternoon we waited for a few hours and then boarded a gigantic ferry boat to head to patros, greece. this boat ride was 14.5 hours and we had a "deck" seat which meant we literally slept on the deck and our seat was a plastic deck chair. so sarah and i bunked down straight up on the dirty floor in our sleep sheet. but it was soooo loud and the vibration from the engine made my nose itch all night (random i know) so i didn't fall asleep till after 3am sometime..... so it was an experience to say the least ;)

we met a guy named stephen from edwardsville, IL which was fun. and he was headed to the train station just like us once we got off the boat. so we just followed him. and as he was at the ticket gate asking for trains to athens the lady told himi that the train right outside was headed there and it was free so he should run to it. so we started running after him and he jumped on the train and it CLOSED!!! i kept hitting the open button but it started pulling away. so we waved by and thought we'd have to weight hours for the next train. but then a lady that works in the office started yelling at the training conductor and told us to start running to catch the train. so picture me with my huge pack on my back and my small backpack on my front, in flip flops running to catch a moving train..... yeah, quality :) but they stopped the train and we were able to hop on. it was seriously histarical!!!! so that was a 5 hour ride...... i hope you're keeping track of how much we are traveling in a row b/c it was insane.

so we arrive in athens and all 3 of us head to the port because sarah and i need to get another ferry ticket from patros to paros which is one of the little greek islands. stephen was heading to crete so we parted ways. so we were actually able to get a ferry ticket for that night, so we had a couple hours to waste and eat dinner since the only thing i'd eaten all day was some oregano flavored chips.... yum. so then this boat ride was another 5 hrs. but we weren't out on the deck this time. we were on 2 little red swivel chairs in a 50's looking dinner inside the ferry. very random..... but whatev, it got us to where we needed to go :)

we landed in paros, greece at about 2:30am without a place to stay.... but sarah has a friend from chicago who is from paros and he used to work at this camping place called Camping Koula. and he said people would be standing outside the port with signs. and low and behold there were!!! so we stayed there the first night we arrived (which was the 15th - sarah's bday!!). so my first time EVER camping was in greece, which is pretty cool :) and it soooooo cheap to stay in tents. and not to shabby at all. i mean, its just a tent and since we have our sleep sacks we are all set. and we just padlock the zippers when we leave. its just that easy :) so basically the last few days we've just been sleeping in and then heading to the beach for a few hours (but i don't seem to be getting any more color so i think my freckley bod-ay has maxed out on darkness. hahaha. and i'm not even that tan.... oh well). then last night we headed into town to eat. the food in soooo great and i eat a greek salad at just about every meal b/c i'm so excited for vegetables!!!! and i also had a lamb kebab pita last night and i really liked it. it was my first time eating lamb so i'm trying to try new things and i'm loving it all. so the dinner was going great and then all of a sudden sarah goes, "oh my gosh there's a cat!!" so i dramatically get out of my chair (b/c its outdoor seating) and hop down the steps to get away. and the cat is straight up in my spot!!!!! and sarah is just laughing, as she continues to eat mind you, and i'm like "i'm done. i don't cerrrr, i'm not going back up there!!!" so after having other greek people laugh at me as they leave the place, i finally went and asked the waitress to move the cat because i was scared. lame i know, but i can't help it!!! so she tried but the cat came right back. so then this other guy came over and kicked the chair and it scurried away but ANOTHER freaking cat also popped out of another chair!! i was like, what the flip!?!?!?! so i basically just scarfed down my food to get the stink out of there. so gross!!!!! but i figured everyone who has experience my cat phobia before will get a kick out of that one :)

sorry, i realize this is getting long..... but there is more to tell :)

so then after the cat place we met up with these 2 guys. the guy that sarah is friends with back in chicago has family who still lives in paros. so we went out with his brother billy, and cousin abi. it was nice of them to show us around and whatnot, but the language barrier got a little old. b/c abi spoke pretty good english, but after him or billy said anything i would basically have to translate it to sarah, who couldn't seem to understand anything ;) it was pretty stinking funny! and yesterday was sarah's 24th birthday, whoop whoop! so they wanted to party..... and partying really isn't my scene. but i took one for the team b/c sarah LOVES to go dancing. so i went along, with a smile on my face the whole time. but i didn't dance. the place was full of 14 year olds and i just can't do it.... hahah! but it was ridicuously fun to watch sarah and the guys! but towards the end of the night the guys didn't really seem to understand why i didn't want to dance.... so that got a little old. plus it was 3:30 and i was super tired. so we headed home. and thankfully a bus was willing to take us close to our camping site b/c the next scheduled bus was 5:15am...... so all in all it worked out and sarah had a good time which is all that matters! :)

soooooo, i think those are the highlights from the last few days. tonight we are getting crepes for a treat because we didn't have any dessert yesterday to celebrate sarah's bday so i'm super pumped for that!!!!

we're not sure how long we are going to stay here.... maybe a few more days. or we might go to another island. but for me, a beach is a beach. so i'd rather just stay here but we'll see :)

oh yeah, i decided that i'm coming home on september 17th!!!! so i'll be back in one month from tomorrow. WHOOP WHOOP!!!! :)

i hope this blog makes sense...... i've kind of been typing fast. :)

i uploaded more pics!!!

i uploaded more pics to my snapfish account!!!! i didn't put all 600+ b/c frankly, thats just boring to look through and lots were repeats since sarah and i aren't the best picture takers in the world :) so i tried to pick ones that gave a good glimpse into what we've been doing, without too many duplicates......

just as a reminder, to view my pics go to snapfish.com, and log in as me. my login name is jjackson@seekrefuge.net and my password is jodi1. yay!!!!

you can also check out sarah's pictures that she's uploaded. lots of ours are the same.... but she takes WAY more pics than i do so you'll get to see more i'm sure :) her login is: kuras.s@gmail.com and her password is green.

a couple more things that i've thought of since i've had to time actually just sit back, relax, and do nothing.....

#1. i took my piercing out this morning :( it was still looking a bit weird on the inside and my biggest fear is that my lip would close around the back part or something.... so i didn't want to risk it so i took it out. oh well, it was fun for a week :) and you can see pics of it from right after i got it pierced as well as when it was swollen.... awesome!
#2. a funny story from our last night in barcelona. we went out to eat at midnight (real healthy i know) and we got back too late and the metro had already closed. so we took a taxi back to our hostel and our driver was this cute old man, probably in his 70's. and the radio was playing a Cranberries song (which i LOVE) so i started singing it and he started laughing at me and it was hysterical! then he cranked the volume so i could just belt it out :) good times... and we tipped him well :)
#3. 85% of the people in ALL of europe it seems smoke like chimneys!! its awful :( and we've decided that if we get diagnosed with lung cancer at some point in our lives we will be able to trace it back to summer 08 in europe :(
#4. thanks for all the comments on my "coming home early blog". its very encouraging and of course makes me even more excited to see everyone :)
#5. we saw the vatican and sisteen chapel which was cool today but for some reason i'm absolutely pooped!!! we are taking a train to bari, italy tomorrow. then getting on a boat (who knows how big it'll be....) to sit in our "deck" chair b/c it was the cheapest to take a 16.5 hour ride to patras, greece. that should be interesting b/c we're under the impression that we'll be sleeping under the stars on the deck of the boat, probably freezing our booties off.... and my sheer scarf might not cut it this time as a blankey.... we'll see :) then we're gonna grab a train hopefully to athens, where we'll either stay a night or get on another flippin boat to head to the greek island of paros to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for as long as physically possible!!!!!!

alrighty, sarah's gonna do some emailing now and i'm gonna go probably zonk out!!! later playas!!! :)

blog 2 of 2 tonight

ok, here is the other blog as promised.... and when i say blog i mean post, sorry ;)

alrighty, so to start things off i'm just gonna get right to it and then i'll explain things more.... after much thought, reflection, and reviewal of my budget, i have decided to shorten my trip and come home earlier. so i'll stay about 2 months total instead of 3. i feel really confident about my decision and i'm feeling much more at peace about things. my thoughts about shortening the trip started fairly early on. I came into this adventure very naive, which i knew, and was ok with it. but the down side to that is that things have been a bit more of a challenge to handle b/c i wasn't prepared. so when we missed our train to vienna during week 1 i was like, "i don't think i can do this..." and in those low moments of the trip (and there have been a few when we can't seem to catch a break or we're lost ALL day or something else annoying happens) i want to call it quits, but i press on and things eventually turn around. but even though things turn around, the desire to go home still remains. i have always sort of prided myself (which is probably my first mistake) on being very independent (shout out to kelly clarkson ;) and i have always handled changed well. but something has felt different during this trip. even before i left i was much more emotional about leaving people and stuff like that. so i think that in the good times and bad i've been craving the "normal" and i want to be able to share it with everyone back at home. which is why i blog so much, b/c its my connection with everyone and i crave that! so yeah, the "homesick" feeling was a bit unexpected.... but not necessarily a bad thing. its good to miss the ones you love right?!?!? :)

but that, added to some other things - like being in completely unknown territory CONSTANTLY, coupled w/ being directionally retarded and getting lost all the time (but i am getting better w/ maps so thats a plus.... still don't know north/south/east/west though...), living out of a freaking backpack, never feeling settled, being tired, having a diet that consists of 85% flippin bread!! **sidenote, i attribute not getting sick yet to JUICE PLUS!!! seriously!!**, being an indecisive person and having to make decisions ALL the time, long train rides, a serious lack of churches (other than ones to tour) and being fed anything spiritual, and oh yeah - the big fact that everything is costing more than i planned so my money is going quicker than expected. so even if i WANTED to stay for 3 months i don't think i could afford to.... so sorry to make this sound way more dramatic than it really is b/c for the most part it has been great!!! but it has been a bit taxing mentally, physically, spiritually, and pyschologically. so even though this is technically a "vacation" it doesn't really feel like one (except for beach days) and i'm sort of spent and its just been a little over 3 weeks.....

so when i started to feel like this i emailed my fam to get their advice b/c i didn't want to jump the gun and wimp out. b/c i was worried that peeps would think i couldn't hack it.... which technically i couldn't. but thats ok. and my fam made a good point that if i don't get to see EVERYTHING i want to this time around, there will be other times in my life when i will travel.

so yeah, thats that :) so now i'll be coming home mid septemberish instead of mid october...... i will let you all know when once i know my final date. if you're still reading thanks for sticking with me thru these 2 ridicuously long blogs..... sometimes i'm rather long winded ;)

hopefully i will let you know tomorrow that all my pics have been added to snapfish. whoop whoop!!!! and a couple funny stories that i keep forgetting to share... :)

blog 1 of 2 tonight

hello all! *before i begin, i just want to apologize for any confusion about me having another blog....i just typed it wrong in my last post and meant to say "check my other post" not my other blog... hope that clears things up :)*

so right now we are in rome. we took a 19 hour boat ride from barcelona to rome. it was a bit more than we expected to pay for it, but whatev! we got to take a cruise ship across the mediteranean sea, so it was worth it just for the experience..... not the most comfy 19 hour ride of my life, and its interesting to try to sleep in a skirt in a chair that reclines 3 inches while using a scarf as a blanket..... but the time did seem to pass quicker than that of a train ride so all was well. when we landed we weren't really sure what to do because we weren't in rome, we were in some "near by town" so we magically found a bus that said "free shuttle bus" so we took that to the train station and caught a train to rome, which was about an hour away... so at least we found our hostel and got all that funness squared away :) and we went out to eat and had some marvelous pasta and then we went to see the coloseum at night b/c we'd heard it is lite up real cool, which it was. but the highlight by far was stumbling upon a couple as they were getting engaged!!! too cute! we walked up right as he must have given her the box with the ring in it b/c she looked stunned and had tears in her eyes. i wanted to be a ghetto tourist and watch, but after i made eye contact with the guy i felt like a complete botard and left them to their own cuteness :)

so today we walked all over rome and it was great! we saw the coloseum, trevi fountain, spanish steps, pantheon, and a few other things that i don't remember the names of. i have been learning a lot of history of so many places that its all starting to blend together. so i feel like if i come away with 1 or 2 tidbits i'm doing good :)

so we had to basically sprint walk from the coloseum to our hostel because we were supposed to meet this man that sarah knows (not a shady man of course) in front of our hostel to go stay with him at his house. and it was 98 degrees and uphill a lot of the way, so i basically sweated thru my whole outfit. awesome :( anways, he is sarah's sister's husband's brother.... if you followed that. he is in the army and is stationed over here with his family. so it was so awesome of him to open up his home to us! he cooked us a great meal - pasta w/ gorgonzola and sundried tomatoes, grilled chicken (which was sooooo great since peanut butter has been our main source of protein...), mozzerella and tomatoe, grean olives (which are a new FAV of mine!!!) and some really good white wine! then he drove us to the beach to show us where its at (like a 5 min drive from his house) so that we would know how to take the bus to it tomorrow. we decided that tomorrow we're gonna chill, do laundry, go to the beach and layout, and RELAX!!! key word being RELAX! and then the next day we'll finish out our time in rome going through the vatican and all its glory.

right now sarah and i are staying up late to watch gymnastics in the olympics (its on at 1am here) b/c we are sleeping in tomorrow!!!! its incredible! it feels like home and is just so nice, relaxing, and comforting. oh yeah, and another great news - WE CAN UPLOAD PHOTOS!!!! so i'm gonna do that tomorrow, so i'll blog again once its all done and ready :)

alrighty, that is all i think i have to say for this blog........ i am gonna write another blog tonight for a couple of reasons. #1. i have all the time in the world to use free internet :) #2. sarah is watching an episode of 24 until the olympics come on so i figured why not #3. this blog is more cheerful, and the other topic is a bit more serious, so i thought i'd split em up. not to mention the fact that this one is already turning into a rambling novel.............

time to get our boat on!

thanks for everyone's prayers because amazingly my piercing has been healed and the swelling has totally gone down!!! so i'm keeping it in! whoop whoop!!!

we said our sad farewell to marci today back in barcelona.... she finally got her suitcase today that never quite made it to her during the trip, so that was good but still annoying for her. but whatev, she was a trooper all the way along as she wore the same 2 dresses she bought every other day. we had to take a FOURTEEN hour train ride to get back from seville to barcelona yesterday. so needless to say that was a long, boring day........ but there wasn't much else we could do. then today after marci left sarah and i made our way to the boat port to book a trip from barcelona to rome. it was a bit pricey, but it will be cool to take some type of ship to rome.... and its a 19 hour boat ride, as opposed to a 26 hour train ride... so thats looking at it on the bright side i guess...... i am gonna pop a tylenol pm once we get settled on the boat though so that i can get a good nights sleep. for the rest of our time in barcelona - which is tonight and tomorrow during the day we are pretty much gonna lay low. i wouldn't mind taking a nap.... because really when don't i like to nap and probably read our books and chillax. we'd like to go to the beach but we won't have a place to shower afterwards since we have to check out of our hostel pretty early...... but i'll stop boring you with pointless details. hah

hopefully i'll have more fun stories to tell after the boat adventure... for now i'm gonna go shower because i feel itchy..... and sometimes i get paranoid with all the germs that i'm exposed to on the trains/bathrooms/etc..... hahahah!! TMI i know.

**special note to comm group.... check my other blog to see my post**

could have done without seville

it is super early in the morning and we are getting ready to take a ridicuously long train ride from seville back to barcelona so that marci can fly home tomorrow. its very sad that the week went by so quickly, but it was a good one. our train ride is 13 hours long which is totally uncalled for. but it was the only train available so i guess we´ll take what we can get..... and maybe they´ll show a movie or 2 like they have on other trains in spain. that really helps the time fly!!!

update on my swollen piercing.... i tried to take it out last night b-c the sensitivity and ugly swollenness (it isn´t tooooo bad) was getting on my last nerve so i wanted to take it out. BUT i couldn´t get it out. and marci tried too and couldn´t either. and after talking to her doctor fiance (and she´s a nurse) she had me scared that i was going to get an infection in my blood and die!! but i highly doubt that will happen. so instead of freaking out we´re gonna try to hit up a pharmacy soon (but prob not today since we´ll be on the train till 9pm) and see about getting an antibiotic. if that doesn´t work then we´re gonna find another piercing place and have them take it out. so either way hopefully it´ll be better. i really want the piercing to last though so i´m rooting for the antibiotic :)

so we spent basically 1.5 days and 2 nights in seville and i didn´t relaly care for it. it was 42 degrees celcious both days which was just miserable!!!! sarah told us it was on the coast so there would be beaches........ not so much!!! ;) so the first night we got here we paid too much (thanks to marci) to go to a flamenco show which wasn´t all that and a bag of chips in my opinion. i mean, it was fun, but not worth the money. then yesterday we slept in till 11am.....oops ;) and hungout at the train station for a few hours to book our trip today.... then spent 15 euro on a stupid bus tour of the city which marci and i slept thru.... sarah has the pics to prove it with out mouths gaping open :) and i´m pretty sure that marci and i got heat exhaustion b-c we were sooooo lathargic it was stupid. so we rested and i tried to get over my migraine. so after a late dinner we did some laundry and just hungout in our room acting like total botards and playing fun games. so the night ended well even though i felt like i was in the middle of hell all day!!!!!

and can i just say that the food so far in ALL of europe has been sooooo good!!! so for all those people out there (including myself) who said i would lose a bunch of weight on this trip......... not so much! take yesterday for example, i ate 2 of these INCREDIBLE ice cream bars called Magnum´s and they are double chocolate and they were a little taste of heaven while we were in hell :) and that was just a 600 cal snack in the middle of the day :) and even though we´re walking a bunch i miss working out and actually feeling like i´ve expended energy. oh well.... i can always workout when i get home righe ;)

i´m trying to think of what else i might be forgetting. i know i always do.... but i´m gonna try to eat something real quick and then catch a cab to the train station. sarah and i are gonna stay one extra day in barcelona after marci leaves so that we can figure out how we´re gonna get to rome.... we want to take the ferry so we´ll have to figure that out....... until then... :)

the bull fight.... :(

this is my disclaimer ----- if you are an animal lover (amber) or an animal rights activist (amber and anyone else) do not read this blog!!!!!

now that thats out of the way i´m gonna try to get in a good blog, but quickly b-c i need to checkout soon. so we went to the bull fight last night. it was quite the experience. i am sort of torn because i am glad to say that i have actually been to a genuine spanish bull fight, but at the same time it was pretty gross and cruel. i won´t really go into extreme detail out of respect for those who don´t want to hear about it, but i did take pics so i can show peeps when i get back home. but i didn´t realize that they actually kill bulls during the fight. i thought it was more just a show for the matador to show his skillz. not so much.... during the course of the show (which was only 5 euros which was awesomely cheap)they killed 6 freaking bulls! i couldn´t believe it. nasty and bloody. and it got pretty old because they were all the same. so i was definitely ready to leave when the show was over..... so all in all it was sort of neat to experience a huge part of the spanish culture but at the same time it made me a little sick to my stomach and i´m not even a hardcore animal lover......... oh, one semi funny thing is that we were SURROUNDED by people smoking in the arena. i mean, we couldn´t get away from smoke being blown directly into our faces. so we figured that if any of us ever get diagnosed with lung cancer we´ll be able to trace it back to all the 2nd hand smoke from august 2, 2008!! :) and a group of spanish men kept trying to explain the bull fighting to us last night in spanish and then they started to offer us some of their alcohol that they were drinking out of this straight up leather cantine. we just kept politely saying no gracias :) and i told the girls that my mom always told me never to drink after a stranger from their wineskin ;)

before the bull fight yesterday we went on a FREE tour of the city. whoop whoop! it was so nice because it took us around all the main hot spots of the city and gave us tons of background info on what we were looking at. so instead of just getting lost on the metro all day it was a nice change of pace to see cool stuff and actually learn about it :)

ummmm.... so i woke up this morning to a swollen lip..... just my right side where my piercing is. so that sort of sucks. i´m not gonna take it out immediately though. last night i had a salad (whoop whoop for vegetables for a change instead of just bread!!) but i think it sort of hurt the piercing because my bites were sort of big thanks to the lettuce. so i´m gonna see if it goes down as the day progresses. if not then i will probably take it out. its not worth it to risk any type of problems or infections, but i will be really sad if i have to take out yet ANOTHER piercing on this trip :(

we are headed to seville today. a fairly short train ride... i think 2.5 hours. and we´ll be there for a couple of days before heading back to barcelona to drop marci off at the airport. i don´t know if i mentioned this earlier but she still never got her suitcase.... pretty frustrating for her but she bought 2 dresses and has just been rotating them :) shé´s been quite the trooper. all i have to say is american airlines is gonna get a mouthful when she gets back to the states ;)

alrighty oh, i need to go back up my bag and hit the road. byee for now

bull fight here we come!

thanks for the primarily encouraging comments about the piercings (*cough cough diney dine*) ;) to give a bit more detail, the marilyn monroe piercing (at least thats what i call it) is on the upper lip, on the side. and linds, i got it on the right side of my face actually..... the same side as my tregus. so LIZ, if you still want to get your nose done we totally can when i get back and then i can be totally pierced up!!!! :) and it is just a metal ball but i will be able to change it out to whatever rocking color/pattern i want later on.

to make a few comments on previous post comments:

suz, the guys shorts were damp.... not drenched but not totally dry ;)

jules, when i right my blogs it is as if you are right next to me with your lollipop!!! :) and everytime i listen to its too late to apologize i think of you!!

adge, if i am able to work out the ONE dread i would probably just cut it out eventually instead of shaving my whole head. i don´t think i could ever actually shave my head, which is why i haven´t done full dreads sooner.... we are both hippies at heart ;)

diney dine, the piercing is just an accessory and i am thinking of it as my one big souvenir of the trip ;) and it doesn´t even weigh my bag down any more so rock on right!?!?!?! ;)

today in barcelona we saw the olympic stadium from the 92 games. pretty cool to see and learn about. right now we are trying to book tickets to a bull fight tomorrow night. whoop whoop!!! only 5 euros a person which is awesome! (ps. we´re in madrid now) and we are going to go on a FREE 3.5 hr walking tour of the city tomorrow. so it should be a good day hopefully..... hot but good :)

internet is free here so i´ll write more tomorrow i´m sure :)

lets all welcome my new addition :)

hello all!!!!

ok, so now we are in barcelona. to be honest, i can´t remember where i was the last time i blogged, so i hope that not too much of this is a repeat. first of all, i thought i would be able to add some pics but the comps with usb ports are taken, and i get a free 1/2 hour so i´m taking it whatever way i can. so sorry for no pics, i was bummed.

anyways, let me add a few details about our time thus far in barcelona. yesterday we picked up our friend marci from the airport. her flight was due to arrive at 9:10am so we got there a little early and were doing great and then found out, after asking the american airline desk, that her flight was delayed till 12:45pm!!!!! so that was really frustrating and i was wondering why marci didn´t call sarah´s cell to tell us. so i said to sarah, ÿou´ve have your phone on right???? and she was like, ummmm.... no. so i was slightly ticked b-c marci had left us a message. so we got up at 6:30 for nothing........ so i told her that i needed a little bit of time to cool off..... so i got a magazine and a couple suckers for us to pass the FOUR hours till her flight arrived. so i eventually got over it and could talk to her again ;) and then it turns out that marci´s luggage never made it to spain. awesome....... so we ended up hanging out in the airport for a good 6 hours. but once we met up with her and got out of the flippin airport our moods improved and we had a fun night. and to get into the details of my latest and greatest addition...... i got a new piercing!!!!!!! the big thing in europe seems to be the marilyn monroe piercing and i ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!! so sarah and i decided to get it done yesterday. WHOOP WHOOP`!!! i mean, especially since i had to take out my nose ring it was only fitting to replace it with something else ;) so we went to a place yesterday, i asked about how they sterilize their tools and they showed me everything and it was totally legit. so i did it!!!! and it literally didn´t hurt at all!!! like, even less than when you bite your lip. so that was great. and it was over in a matter of 2 minutes. fantastic!! i had hoped to post pics but couldn´t tonight.... sorry :( but i really like it and hope you guys do too ;) also, at a store today i talked to a girl who has dread locks and asked her how she did it and she told me. and i´m going to start tomorrow to make one. just one. but i´ve ALWAYS wanted dreads and especially like the idea of having just one to use as a ponytail holder. so maybe by the time i get home i´ll have that dream come true too ;)

but enough about all that..... today hasn´t been the best day. we´ve seen TONS of barcelona which has been great. the picasso museum (by FAR my favorite museum thus far, other than seeing The David) and a lot of other cool building and stuff. but we´ve never gotten lost so much which eventually can wear on you mentally. so i am ready for bed.... especially after a couple glasses of sangria ;)

so yeah, i think those are the main points for now. tomorrow we will go see the olympic buildings here and then head to madrid at some point...... this week will fly by i´m sure and i will blog as much as possible b-c thats just how i roll!!!!! :)

barcelona

alrighty, i just want to note that the man that i fell into was wearing actual swim trunks. so there was no my cheek to his cheek action going on....... :) but i will tell you what, most men do wear speedos or something to that effect, so i think i got lucky falling into one with more coverage :)

we are in barcelona. after not hearing my alarm clock go off for a couple straight minutes at 4:20am due to my awesome ear plugs, sarah woke me up at 4:52am and we were out the door by 5:15 to make our 6am train. our train ride was 12 and a half hours yesterday total. and sarah and i probably slept at least 6 of them on the train. there is something about the trains here but we both pass out the minute we sit down :) we met a really nice american lady on our last stint of the ride so that was fun. and we talked to another guy who was 1/2 french, 1/2 spanish and he gave us some good places to go in spain. and he was straight up beautiful so that added to the fun :)

we´re basically just chilling today. we want to get ourselves aclimated with the city so that when marci gets here tomorrow we´ll be ready to roll. and i think we´ll probably go to the beach at some point.... there´s nothing like getting a burn on top of a burn..... it wouldn´t really be a problem if i didn´t have to have carry 80 extremely heavy bags on my shoulders.....oh well. its my own fault :)

big news folks - as sarah and i were walking around last night trying to find some place to eat (it was her decision b-c she rejected my first recommendation, so little miss picky got to decide) ;) we ran across the first STARBUCKS that we´ve seen since we´ve been here. whoop whoop!!!!! venti iced cinnamon dolce latte here i come!!!! we´re totally going today before we take the metro to the beach :) and if they have a different flavor or special drink that they don´t offer in america i will try it, but my staple drink is really calling my name :) we had a free breakfast at our hostel this morning and i had a cappucino and i´m still shaking from it as i type..... i think that i have broken my caffeine addiction a bit while i´ve been here b-c i have gone a couple days sometimes without anything and i haven´t gotten headaches, and then when i do have it (like this morning) i am out of control jittery. its wonderful!!!!

so last night at dinner we ended up going to a little place off a side street and i tried gazpacho soup which i really enjoyed. and then i ordered some kind of chicken. i was excited and it basically turned out to be really really thin filets of friend chicken and fries! hahahah. so that was scrumptious and then i had rice and milk for dessert. yummtastic!! sarah enjoyed some white wine..... and the waiter brought us a shot of apple vodka ón the house´which tasted really good :)

i´m sorry to report that i don´t have any stories today to top the falling into a man´s butt story..... :( i´m sure that once marci arrives the true adventure will begin :) i am really looking forward to our time in spain (if i´m honest it was not on the top of my list at first) but now i´m totally stoked about it!!

thats all for now..... :)

snapfish login and uber embarassing story...

i do apologize that it has been a couple of days. and i a, typing on a french keyboard so the letters are weird: i might lose my ^patience and stop correcting myself so sorry in advance: lots to say so i will get right to it :) sarah wasnt feeling well for a few days but since i am mama bear and packed daquil and nyquil (which she made fun of me for packing) she is doing much better today: we are in nice france today: we were here yesterday and will be taking the train to barcelona tomorrow and then meeting marci there on the 31st!!! yay!!! nice has been super chill, just a time to rest and get ready for a fast paced week in spain :) we laid out for 4 hours yesterday so i am nice and pink/tan and we will be headed back out to the pebble beach later today for more fun in the sun :) to recap a couple funny things - on our train ride from florence to nice we got off at the wrong genova stop (because there xere 2 and we didnt know that) so we booked it to a taxi once we realized our mistake and made our connecting train just in time!! whoooo! then i felt like i should share my new most embarassing moment... yesterday as we were leaving the beach we were wqlking up the stairs, and i tripped... and straight up fell into a mans BUTT!!!! and this wqs not a graceful fall... this was a full on full body fall. had his booty not been there i probably would have jacked out my front teeth :) so i apologized while laughing profusely! good thing i was sunburnt so that you couldnt see how red my face got :)

a couple other high points - we watched the old school movie for richer for poorer in german on tv the other night :) it was funny because i basicqlly translated it to sarah since i had seen it before until sarahs nyquil kicked in :) also, we went to a bookstore to try and find a cheap read for the painfully long trainrides and i found PRIDE AND PREJUDICE for 3.60 euro. not a bad deal for one of my favorites :) so that has been nice to have on the trains and on the beach.

oh, i also feel like i should mention that this european sun is totally bleaching out my hair and i am getting more and more blonde everyday it seems :( i wish that the sun would make it more red!!! :)

ok - i will give out all my account info for snapfish to view what pics i have been able to upload thus far and then i will let you know when i have put up more. go to snapfish.com. then my login is: jjackson@seekrefuge.net and my password is: jodi1. so far i think there are only pics of the flight over and then some of paris....nothing too exciting :) and once again i apologize if there are lots of repeats because i hadnt deleted many..... :)

the next time i write will most likely be from barcelona!!! :)

blister on my foot.... :(

we are in florence right now. at an internet place where......... guess what....... we were able to UPLOAD PHOTOS!!! thats right ladies and gentleman!! :) i uploaded them to snapfish.com. hopefully they will be fully uploaded by the time that my internet time is over. there is over 200 pics..... so i'm not sure how it works exactly for you all to view my pics. if i run out of time to properly "share" them in this blog i will definitely do it next time. or dinah can put up a post explaining to peeps how it works since she is the captain of pics! :)

alrighty, i have a decent amount of time to write today because sarah and i each got our own hour of internet. whoop whoop. so i can try to recap the last couple of days. so i think i left off after our bike ride to the vineyard in tuscany. welp, that turned out to be about the WORST night of our lives because of the lameos that we had to share a room with. this was our first experience in a 8 person mixed dorm and it was awful. everyone else had just graduated from highschool or their first year of college so they were UBER pumped (and dedicated) to drinking as much as they possibly could. so since sarah and i tuckered ourselves out no the bike ride we went to bed semi-early (10:30ish) and i don't think i actually got to sleep until after 2am. it was ridiculous. there was a drunk guy acting stupid and then once they did all come in to go to sleep this one rather large guy snored like no one i have ever heard before. it was OUT OF CONTROL!!! i tried listening to my ipod.... ear plugs.... nyquil..... nothing worked :( so needless to say we were pretty irritated and pooped when we woke up. but then everything went smoothly once we left. we got to florence via the bus, found our hostel, dropped our bags off, and then headed out to see as much as we could. and i got a nice blister on the side of my foot from my sandals. so that sort of sucked. so today i am forced to wear my flip flops, so we are going slower and just chillin today and probably going to a laundry mat to wash some clothes. i did my first load of "handwashing" the other day.... and i don't think i got all the soap out. hahaha! so i wouldn't mind getting a fresh start...

i know i am sort of skipping around, so sorry about that. but to get back to the rooming situation... sarah and i were a little nervous b/c we were in another mixed dorm. but it was great last night! when we got there we interupted a couple making out on their bunk, but they were the friendliest people ever. liam and bridget, and they were from melbourne australia. our other roomates were deigo and elise from argentina. and diego was paler than me with semi-red hair and freckles :) we went out with liam and bridget to walk to the piazza de michaelangelo on the other side of the city to watch the sun set over florence. ummmm, breathtaking is all i have to say about that. my pictures do not do it justice b/c my camera SUCKS once the sun starts to go down.... oh well. but yeah, it was a great night and we learned tons of australian slang, had a couple bacardi breezers from the 99 cent store (whoop whoop for being ghetto even in florence!!) ;) and laughed a ton. also, i think we saw our first gypsies because they were giving sarah and i the creeps. and then asked me to take a pic of them but we just got a weird feeling from them. sarah was ready to bust out some karate on their butts if need be and i was ready to reach for my mase at any moment. but nothing happened so that was good.....

i realize this is getting super long. i don't think that all my pics are going to be uploaded in time...... but maybe you will be able to view some if you go to snapfish.com. if you need my email address or something to view my albums it is jjackson@seekrefuge.net. ok, the only pics that i had time to upload were from the plane ride and paris. i haven't really gone through to delete many yet and pic the good ones versus the bad ones. so sorry that you have to see them all..... and don't judge for any super lame pics :) sarah and i are basically out of photo options other than the standard "us holding our camera out to snap a pic of us with something pretty in the background" :) i tried to add in a few pics of other places that we've been other than paris, and then i will upload more later for sure..... sorry, this is all sort of new to me. i'm sure i will get better at it with time :)

a couple comments on previous posts: dad, we will be hitting up the beach in spain, naples, and greece so we'll have more down time then hopefully :), linds: you know i'm using your journal!!!! adge: we also played the other game that you and meg and i played with naming 3 guys.... ;) jess: i didn't have any of that soup b/c the place we ate in tuscany only had pizza and pasta :(

i hope everyone is well.... tomorrow we are off to nice, france. i'm not sure what we are doing there. but we have an 8 hour train ride to figure that out :( we might buy a book today to read on the train.... depending on how much it costs. alrighty, i'm gonna end this novel now :) byeeee for now...