Day 8- Venice – Rome

Back to the bus and heading to Rome finally! People are coming up with interesting ways to sleep on the bus (see first pic of Brenton in the isle). Get into town early in the day/afternoon for a walking tour with Ryan. We have to be "secretive" about it since Italian tourism could give him a ticket for this, only "real" guides can do tours like this. So before every place we go to, he pulls us in a circle and he tells us some stuff before we get to them. Right from the start there is some guy trying to get Ryan to buy roses for the girls and for like 5 minutes he tells him no. So we walk through the streets, he pulls us aside and he tells us about the Spanish Steps, then we all run to it. Not very crowded at all. We take photos, we hang out, me n V-Mac go up to the top then we all meet up and walk towards the Trevi Fountain. He warns us about pick-pocketers cuz it was pretty crowded and we are off to go take more pictures. We start walking again and I see a familiar building down the street.... I get excited and ask Ryan what it is.. its the Pantheon. I tell him I'll take over this part of the tour... Se we run inside, take pics and videos. Im so excited considering I had to take hard core test over this building (poor Rina, I always have to give her all my history lessons cuz I dont think she knew too much about Italy). Outside we do a YMCA of course.









Since we have another day in Rome (and a mandatory day off for Chris) Ryan tells us we are going to have a party in the parking lot/bus so we go to a Roman grocery store and stock up on booze, Im so excited for this night because at midnight it will officially be my birthday! We grab our stuff, go to dinner down the street at a restaurant. Its decent. Some weird stuff tho. We grab our booze bags and keep walking... down the street I see the Colosseum its so random to see that first of all in real life, but there mixed in with modern Rome. (also passed a ton of ruins/Roman Forum, yes Im a nerd this stuff excites me). Of course we pull out another YMCA, its one of my favorite pics from this entire trip. Next to it is the Arch of Constantine. Excitement once again. Then its time to walk back to the bus, ride about an hour or so to the hotel and get ready for the party in the parking lot!







Me and Rina head down to the bus, Chris is blasting music and dancing like hes a thug. I convince him to let me keep my red bull in the fridge and start drinkin my bottle of jager I got in Germany. Most everyone comes this night, I swear one of the best nights of the trip! Its so freaking hot we are sweating like dogs. Well from what I can remember. Drinking contest start, V-Mac hanging out the window, straddling the bus driver, sitting in the drivers seat, blasting Lady GaGa and or 5 Years Time tour song, dancing on the chairs, doing pull ups in the door frame, turns midnight woo hoo its my bday!. V-Mac flys down the stairs and all I see is her fly out and land on her knees! I believe her massive bruising started here in Rome. Around this time someone noticed that Chris really has a hairy chest, so we pretty much undo his shirt, take pics playing with his chest, pretty much molesting him (sorry...) Its getting pretty late, some go to bed, my jager is gone, Im pretty trashed. Chris lock up the bus
and me, chris, V-Mac, Noff head up to the front of the hotel. Janine, Celeste, and Chrisine pull up in a cab (they stayed in town and went out). Around this time there was a bra being passed around, I put it on Chris, got AMAZING pics at this point... ha! I remember Chris smelling it and saying it smelled fresh. Someone got felt up, we start taking ridiculous pics.... cant post those... About this time me and Chris go "UFC" on each other in the grass and apparently my head got slammed into this plastic thing, I SWEAR I dont remember it nor did I feel it- Jager- Everyone goes to bed and V-Mac later tells me she had to "literally throw me and Chris into the elevators" to get us to go to bed because we wanted to stay out there. This b-day is awesome so far!

Day 4-Amsterdam – St. Goar

Wake up early, pack my stuff up, eat breakfast and get on the bus. Today we have the morning/afternoon in Amsterdam so we go to the Anne Frank House. One thing Ive noticed so far is that in Europe you can take pictures in alot of the museums. We have to pay about 21 Euros to get it and we walk through the house. I unfortunatly dont know a whole lot on the subject, but I read it was a must do. You get an overview of what happened in that house who and why they hid, etc.

After the museum, we all split up and went all over the city for our free time. I was with the Veronic/kas and the power walking began. Us girls all did a fab fab job of rushing through every city, stopping for about 5 seconds at attractions, take a pic and kept going, it was like we all had an unsaid understanding or something..? I of course wanted to find the big yellow shoe I saw in the brochure so we walked ALL over, back and forth looking for that dam thing. Even locals barely knew where it was. Finally, we found it by the giant "penis monument", behind a delivery truck. Took our pics with it, walked through the streets and shopped. Everywhere you look, there are bikes. Millions of bikes. There even a 3 story "bike garage". All you hear is people ringing their bells, so you have to make sure you dont get in their way in the bike paths. We stop to eat at this little cafe, it was dam good, and had "deep talk" and basically got to know each other more, exchange numbers and emails. Walking thru all the streets you see hostels and and those people who "backpack thru Europe" so so cool wish I cold do that stuff. We start walking back to the meeting area and run into Brenton and Annika, who I really didnt know and my first impression was I was not sure if I would like them for some reason. (turns out, I end up absolutly loving these 2) We then head towards the bus and we are on our way to St. Goar, Germany.

It was around this time we were introduced to our day song, "5 years time" by Noah and the whale. I remember V-Mac saying what the f???? when we first heard it, but during the trip we would beg Ryan to play the song really loud, I swear that song was super cheesy but the most perfect song for our trip. (Also, becuase we are such badasses, we ended up re-writing the song for each city we visited with quotes and occurances that happened and performed it the last night in Paris.... it was golden...)

Now know that this is our "quite stop", basically a stopover. Nothing seems to happen in the sleepy little town and Im pretty sure I saw about 5 people and 3 cars. We stay at the Hotel Montag and they only have stairs, no elevator, and the room keys were on hooks. No front desk, Ryan checked in with the bartender. I decide that Im a badass and take my whole suitcase (some people packed an overnight bag) and drag it up all the stairs to our room. The room was pretty ghetto and old. Tiny shower. You learn to deal with these things as the trip goes on so stop complaining!

Have dinner and then some leave for the wine tasting. Some of us stay and grab some drinks from the bar and go down to the Rhine River to drink (Its right across the street from our hotel). V-Mac then decides she wants to "stick her foot in the Rhine River", takes her shoes off does a little dance on her way down to the river and then slips on the funk on the cobblestones and basically "f's her toe up" Absolutly hilarious and I even got it on video tape :)



Chris, the driver was cleaning the bus and hangs out with us for a few and when I ask how old he is he tell us his bday is the next day. I then have him take our pic and come up with the idea for us 4 to do the YMCA, which we end up doing at alot of the places we go. I know we are lame... Its starting to rain, so we head back to the bar and more and more join and this quite night ends up becoming pretty fun. Drinking contest, V-Mac with her iced up toe... it was a fun night. My roommate and a couple of the other girls went to go look at a castle and had not returned yet, and since she had the only key, I couldnt go to bed and was forced to stay up and drink more :)

Day 1 & 2-St. Louis – London

The day finally came, after tons of more research, reading and writing down every tip I found from other reviews, I finally could leave. I was drivin to the airport and went to catch my flight. I was pretty worried that not only would I freak out on the plane (as I kinda hate flying) I would be bored out of my mind. Well I was pretty bored. Caught my flight to London at my layover in Boston around 4 pm and sat next to some weird guy the whole way there. I tried taking sleeping pills to pass out, but they never worked and I slept about an hour. Honestely I have no idea what I did on this flight, read, listened to my iPod....?? Finally the captain says we would be landing in 45 min and as I was looking out the window I finally see land.... Im flying over England! We land and its 6:50 am. Im feeling like crap considering I had been up since 9 am the day before and now its the next day, 6 hours ahead... Im confused at how long Ive been up at that point. I walk about 15 miles to get my luggage and then I go to find the Tube. Took the 45 minute ride to Russel Square, turn left and kept walking till I found the Contiki Basement. ** You can store your luggage here till your room is ready and there is no elevator, only stairs, and with a super heavy large ass suitcase...... So as Im standing there contemplating just throwing my suitcase down the stairs, a guy comes outside the door and offers to take it down for me. I accept :)

Once inside, I store my bag and already knew I wanted to do The Original Tour (dble decker bus tour... research your trip people!) So I buy the ticket from there, go upstairs and catch the bus. They have 3 different lines and are all over the city, easy to find, jump on jump off kind of thing. Went to Buckingham Palace (right in time for the changing of the gaurd)
It was OK, I guess. I can say Ive seen it now but really it was like they were putting some show on and there was like a marching band and crap like that. Jump on another bus see Westminster/Big Ben/London Eye, you know the normal stuff.

I wanted to actually go into these places but I only had that day and had to meet my other Contikiers at 6 pm that night so I did not have the time. I also did a walking tour (something about rock n roll ledgends) with that company which was awesome, even tho I felt like crap and was super tired. Im really into history/culture so this kind of stuff was right up my ally. London was super clean and so beautiful. Honestly, I would go back and live there! After my tour, I hung out with the walking tour guy and this other guy who was in the tour with me. (Note: I thought I would feel like a retard being by myself, sightseeing all over London, but at the time I didnt really care and alot of the people I met on the bus/walking tour were alone too. I found out a lot of the other Contikiers were alone that day too.) It was getting to be the time where I needed to go back to my hotel, grab my bag and get ready for the meeting. I drag that heavy ass bag up the stairs, check in, get lost in the hotel becuase its laid out super weird, or maybe Im just blonde...? I start gettng ready and in walks Stacey from Australia, my roommate. Unfortunalty she is not on the same tour as me :( I get my first taste of using converters and my hair dryer going crazy on me.

Go down to the London Coffehouse, and meet Veronica & Silvia from L.A. We all go inside and get ready for our meeting. We check in, meet our tour manager Ryan and driver Chris. They go over some of the basics, I look around and check out everyone. There wasnt many people there that night, but more show up the next day when the bus leaves. I make plans to hang out that night with Veronica that night, and give her the hotels number and my room number. Oops... I give her the wrong room number... While walking out the door we run right onto Veronika from Toronto (and the veronic/ka sandwich was born) Shes late for the meeting so we talk for about a minute. I know right away that these 2 girls and I would become my "European besties"

L.A. Veronica aka V-Lo goes to her hotel, I go back to my room and hang out with Stacey. Now she has been in London for a week already and after finding out I didnt get to see the London Bridge yet, shes like lets go see it! We hit up a grocery store for some food and then head for the Tube, thank God she knows how to work those things. So we go, we saw, we take pictures and I tell her we have to do the pub thing so we find one and have some beers (gross!)

Head back to the hotel, time for bed. I pack all my crap up, set my 8 alarms on my cell phone as Im not a fan of waking up early and have been up for about 48 hours now, and prob said a prayer that I wake up on time the next day.