SUMMER RECAP: (accidentaly) hiking the Greek mountains

I left the pink palace and headed to spend a week working at a guest house in the Greek mountains. It was a beautiful place called papigno!!

I had a gorgeous room all to myself!

The first day we had no guests so we spent it preparing for our new guest and I spent some time hiking around the area.

Very very happy with what I found.

Our guests arrive the next day. It was two Greek American families who were fabulous. The first night they made us a BBQ.

Then the second day we decided we would go on a short “nature walk” with all the kids which really just meant hiking up to micro papigno (the littler town about 40 minutes up the road). Once we made it a lot of the kids wanted to turn around. We stopped at had our packed lunches (the only food we had brought with us) and then me, tatti, David, and the dads continued. There was a path we wanted to follow so we thought we would hike up for awhile. But then we got so enthralled in the whole hike. We knew there was a refuge you could reach after 3-4 hours and so about an hour in we realized it wasn’t even worth going back down. SO with no food, no clean clothes, no towels or soap, and me the only one having cash, we climbed our way to the top of the mountain!

We arrived and ate a MASSIVE meal. Then we hung out, and passed out in the bunks they had for us there.

The next morning David, Ed and I decided to go for the summit! We woke up at 6am to get ready to go! It was another 3 hours up. And these were some of the hardest 3 hours of my life. My legs were starting to get stiff, it was steep and rocky, and about ½ way through we suffered ridiculous fly attacks. I kid you not I have NEVER been swarmed by that many flies for that long in my entire life. It was not fun in any way shape or form. I wanted out of there.

We finally made it to the summit but didn’t stick around too long to take pictures because of the flies- they were that bad. I just wanted down. I was the first to make it to the bottom another 2 hours later and didn’t stop there. I continued all the way back to papigno within another 2.5 hours.

It was quite the incredible accident, and I was sore for days! But I loved my time working at the guest house before I left Greece and was off to bigger and more exciting things in Albania!

Trying to run

I was going for a nice run the other day in the park casually, until I idiotic, fell, and ate it hard.

and I still had to run home....

 That's excersizing in Europe for you

First day teaching french preschool!

I started last tuesday! It was so much fun (for the most part..)

Don't I look like such a teacher? And I'm eating an apple- haha~ (PS- sorry it was very dark... early morning wakeups for school!)

I get two mornings a week to teach at a french preschool and I LOVE IT. My first day really threw me straight into the experience. They gave me a table and kids to do the activity of the day with. Being in charge of 6 year olds is already pretty dicey- but then add to that 3 year olds who speak french. I speak french but its not my first language, i still trip up and make mistakes. Even better, we were learning how to use scissors.. for the first time.
It was slight chaos... Everytime one of the kids waved scissors in someone elses face I would scream out "GENTILE GENTILE" but that does not mean gentile like in enlish. It bascially means "oh that is so sweet of you".. so Yeah needless to say it was a rough class. I finally got into the groove of yelling doucement instead. Careful is a much better word for that situation.
But I survived and I also got tons of hugs, smiles, and giggles! I can't wait to go back!

Climbing mont st victoire

This moutains was cezanne's muse- Quite a beaut!

Two weekends ago I stayed in Aix so we went to Mont St. Victoire on Sunday. We got there after some serious american idiot struggles and then started out on the "path", only to discover about 30 minutes later that this was NOT a correct path. Backtrack- try again. After wasting over an hour being lost we finally shambled our way up the correct path. It started to get really pretty!

After about 2 hours 2 of us decided to go back down because we wanted to catch the 4:00 bus for sure and didn't want to wait until 6PM. So we went down, ended up getting lost 2 more times, and just barely made that bus.

But our friends made it to the top, and then like complete idiots they went down the other side of the mountain and ended up in an entirely different town than the bus. Not ideal at all. They had no idea what to do until some woman offered to drive them back to aix. Saved I guess.

But after spending a weekend in Aix, I was more than ready to voyage this past weekend to MALTA! Stay tuned for a recap of that adventure!

Some things making me smile in France today...

picked this up on my way to class

walking through the park

RECAP: Berlin and all it's glory

After belgium i took a train to Berlin!! I spent 4 WONDERFUL days in Berlin. There was a lot of walking, a lot of sight-seeing and history, even more culture, and a lot of parties (afterall it is Berlin...)

The first day I did the New Europe tour around to all of the main sites. We saw the Brandenburg gates, holocaust memorial, checkpoint charlie, where hitler's bunker was, and parts of the Berlin wall. So overall I had a fabulous time!

The holocaust memorial is such an interesting experience because you just don't know what to make of it. But it is amazing to see and walk through. Emotional in it's own way

Hitler's bunker is now a parking lot, but it is still the exact spot where so much history took place.
The berlin wall is amazing and that is was captured my attention more than anything!

After the tour I went back and went to the Holocaust memorial information center which is free, and very moving and well done. I spent about an hour in there before I had to escape to keep from getting teared up more.

It was a long first day, and a long first night out! I tried out some clubs with some Aussies I met!


The second day was also a lot of fun! I got up as early as I could and went back to the Berlin wall so that I could see the documentation of the wall museum which was pretty interesting!

And then I went and saw the topography of terror museum which was also nice to see- I liked that! It talked all about Hilter's rise power. Then I made the long walk over to the other plaza for the alternative city tour. If you know anything about Berlin, it's that it is a super Funky underground culture. It has hippies, and awesome neighborhoods filled with amazing street art. I absolutely LOVED that side of the city.

 The tour explored some of Berlin's counter culture, street art, and cool open air style markets. I seriously was in love. I could have spent HOURS walking around Krutzberg and those neighborhoods! SO interesting!!!

I had another fun night out that night with a pub crawl! Nothing like a good pub crawl I tell you!

On my third full day I went back to Kruetzberg! I went to a grocery store and little cafe called Veganz which was amazing and so delicious. Definitely fits in with the Berlin culture.

 Then I went and saw the East Side Gallery which is a MUST do in Berlin. It was beautiful and captivating. I could have stayed there and walked along the paintings for hours!!

 I spent the rest of the day just wandering and exploring and taking in all of Berlin. This is seriously an incredible city.

That night was a fun night out with some random Americans I had met. They were super sweet and we all went to this funky open air club thing in Kruetzberg. I had a blast!

On my last morning I went to an all you can eat vegan brunch place which was delicious! I was happy for sure!

And then I had to get on a plane and head off to my newest destination. GREECE!!!

RECAP: 4 food groups of belgium

 I started out my summer trips this year in Brussels! Here is the start of the recap of my adventure!

I arrived in Belgium ready to enjoy myself and eat the 4 foodgroups of belgium

1. Chocolate (oh MY god)
2. beer
3. waffles
4. fries

Here are some photos of my time in Brussels. I made an awesome traveler friend- one of those traveler friends that you end up spending a few days consecutively with! We went on a tour of town and we went on a beer tour where I learned all about Belgian beer!

Our tour guide for the beer and city tour was AWESOME and he invited us to hang out with us the next night. So we went to this park a little outside the city for some live music and some awesome times playing frisbee in gorgeous weather!!

Who new Brussels was so pretty??

The next day was my traveling friend, makie (nickname) birthday!! So we decided to do a little chocolate tour of the city of course. We tried Neuhaus, marcolini, leonidas, and govida. And then voted. Marcolini and Neuhaus were the winners. Such a good birthday!

And then on my last day I decided to go to Bruge with my travel friend. We had a great time exploring and then I got to go to the chocolate museum! Yay!!

Belgium was quite the success! I would recommend it for anyone!