Free As We'll Ever Be...

Home sweet home...

2010-02-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, so we have been home for a little over 2 months now...and my mom has been bugging me ever since to finally finish this blog! I guess its time to end this adventure, but don't worry! I know there will be more to come!

Amanda and I arrived in Chicago and took our first steps on American land after 5 months of traveling abroad. Even though we were still a 4 hour plane ride from home, it felt like we'd finally made it. We made our way through customs (no more having to carry around our passports), changed our outfits (we wanted to show off our new dresses), re-checked out luggage, and boarded our last plane of the trip...

I don't really remember the flights from that day, but I do remember the feeling once we landed at Lindbergh Field and finally made it to San Diego. Neither of us could help but smile. Do you ever get that feeling? It really is like there's a hanger stuck in your mouth. I was so nervous to walk down the escalator and see our families standing at the bottom of it, holding up HUGE welcome home signs. My heart was beating so fast as we made our way into their arms.

Once we picked up our backpacks from baggage claim, we headed off to our first meal back in the states...IN N OUT!! Yummy :) Unfortunately, Robby (Amanda's brother) didn't make it to dinner after the airport, but Clay met up with us and welcome Amanda and me home. We enjoyed our delicious burgers and fries, then for the first time in 5 months, Amanda and I went our separate ways- tear :'( . It was LOVELY to sleep in my huge comfy bed, but I sure did miss Amanda and all the other wonders that come with sleeping in hostels!

Thanks for following us along out adventures abroad, and I can't wait til the next time we have something for you to follow!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE :)

A&A

Homeward Bound...

2009-11-16T16:13:00.000-08:00

As we waited for the elevator to come to our floor, we found ourselves jumping and high-fiving over and over. For what reason, we have no idea. What I do know is that time is very bitter sweet for the both of us. Tonight, we prepare (and pack) for our return to our home sweet home of Poway, California. True, we only live 3.5 miles away from each other and we will probably see each other every day anyway, its not the same. No more waking up next to each other, sharing every meal, sharing clothes (well that will happen anyway), traveling around, sharies stories and everything else that goes along with traveling. Our parents have even discussed getting joint custody! But this time has truly been astounding, and who greater to share this experience with than a best friend?!

After 5 months, we have reached the end of our journey. Who would have thought that a random winter text message about boycotting the real world would turn into some crazy adventures to last a life time. My eyes are burning because I am so tired. My body aches from walking around all the time. My chipped nails and splitend hairs have seen better days. But I wouldnt trade any of that for this amazing time that Ally and I have shared. Sure we've been best friends for over 17 years, but whats a few more Euro stories to add to the mix :)

Thank you to everyone who has made this trip something special for the both of us. From Switzerland to London and all 11 countries in between (13 if you count the Vatican City and Monaco), it's time to go home. We of course did not get to see everything or do everything, but that just means that we will have to one day return. Hopefully sooner rather than later!

A travelers motto to share: Be a traveler, not a tourist!

For now, goodnight from London. We fly home in the morning!

Love,
Amanda and Ally

p.s. Moms, try not to cry! We'll be in your sweet loving arms soon enough!! Love you guys!

1 Week left...

2009-11-10T09:32:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone!!
Right now we are sitting in a little coffee shop called Black Medicine in Edinburgh, Scotland :) Sorry we haven't been up to date on our blogging...we're just trying to enjoy our last few weeks over here and now we are down to only 7 days!!
A couple weeks ago, we were enjoying our time in Spain. Sevilla was so much fun since we had a new travel buddy- Lindsay! The second night we were there, we celebrated her birthday! The hostel set up a little party for her filled with wine and chocolate :) We spent the night celebrating around the city! The next day, Lindsay had to go back to Milan. Matt, who we met at the hostel, joined Amanda and I for dinner and a free Flamenco show. Amanda's friend Matt (not the same one we met!!) from TCU studied abroad here last year and told us some great things to do and see, including Flamenco! All in all, Sevilla was an amazing city to visit!!
Then we headed over to Lisbon for a couple days!! The hostel was awesome and in a great location. Since we took a night train there, we were exhausted after arriving around 9am. We took a nice nap then walked around the town for the evening. At night, we met up with our friend Ricardo from camp!! He took us around the town and we had a great time catching up with him :) The next day, we went to a flea market! It was huge and seemed like it went on forever. That night was Halloween, and we were taking a train back into Spain! The hostel let us use their kitchen and showers even though we already checked out, so after eating dinner we go on our train and headed to Madrid, our last stop in Spain!
We got to Madrid around 8 in the morning and went straight to our hostel. Even though we were tired, we left our backpacks there and went to the flea market, El Rastro. We thought the one in Lisbon was huge...this one was way bigger!! We spent a few hours browsing around all the booths, then headed back to the hostel where we rested for a while. The next day we walked around the city and through El Parque del Buen Retiro. It was beautiful!! My little, Maggie, studied abroad here last year and told us of a great place to get churros- so we did that!! Churros are sooo different in Spain. They aren't covered in cinnamon sugar, and you dip it in melted chocolate! Then we went to dinner at a restaurant she recommended. It was delicious! We wrote down the dishes we ordered so we can try to cook them when we get home :) The next night was free entrance to the Prado Museum so thats what we did! Lots and lots of artwork. After the museum, we tried to meet up with our friend Virginia from camp, but again, not having a cell phone made things difficult!!
This past week we were in Ireland where we stayed with our friend from camp, Saoirse! We spent a good number of days wandering the streets of Dublin (after, of course, going on the free tour!), took a day trip out to Kilkenny, baked cookies, visited the Guinness Storehouse, went to the local pubs, and met up with our friend David from camp a couple of times. We had a great time in Spain and Portugal, but it was really nice to change gears a bit and come to a country with some new scenery...and its nice to hear English again :)
In our last week abroad, we are hanging out in Edinburgh, Bristol, and London. It's still hard to believe that the past 5 months have gone by so fast- but left us with tons of memories, new friends, and tons of laughter :)
Cheers,
A&A

pics chose not to upload, we will try again later!

Ally Amanda Barcelona

2009-11-04T11:03:00.000-08:00

Well we didn't film a Woody Allen film, but we did go to Barcelona :) Haha, maybe that was lame, but I thought it was pretty clever! On the 23rd of October, Ally and I left Aix and took a train over to Barcelona, Spain. We arrived that night and checked into our hostel very centrally located right on La Rambla - the main street of Barcelona. It was weird and very sad to leave such a homey place in France, but we were back into traveling mode and ready to go. It was also very hard to switch from speaking all our French to Spanish! Ally took Spanish in high school, so that helped a bit, but we often found ourselves saying merci and then forgetting how to say thank you in Spanish... oops!

We didn't do much the first night because we had a long day of traveling, so we checked into our room, made a great dinner of popcorn and iced tea (without the ice of course), and quickly fell asleep.

The next morning we were so excited because our good friend from home, Lindsay Bracken, was joining us! We met her in the city and took her back to our hostel. We chatted and caught up talking about all of our Euro adventures thus far. Lindsay is currently modeling in Milan, so she has her fair share of adventures! We soon headed out for the day making our way all around Barcelona including the beaches and other hot spots!

The time frame in Barcelona is quite different than we are used to; and we thought France ate late! We had dinner that night around 10:30pm, and we had some seafood-ish paella which Lindsay enjoyed more than Ally and I.

We got back to our hostel just before midnight - perfect timing to shower and get ready for the evening (like I said, everything is much later in Spain). We ended up heading out around 1:30am and the streets were very much alive with people everywhere. We had no idea where to go, so we just walked towards the beach. Along the way, we were lured into one bar/club because they offered us a free drink, and who are we to turn down a free drink!

The bar that we started at would close at 3, then they would take us to another club. We decided it was kind of lame and walked around a bit more, only to find ourselves back where we started from. So we got another drink and sat down and were soon joined by some local guys who worked at the place. After a while, the time quickly passed and we had some new friends who took us to another club. In all, I think we went to 4 different bars/clubs and only had to pay for drinks at the first place! Score! We did a ton of dancing and had a great time just being girls and being together! We had a blast and before you we knew it, it was past 6am (which was really like 7am, because we had the time change) and we escaped back to our hostel!

After sleeping in well past noon (like 4pm HA!), we slowly woke up lounged around for a good part of the day. But it was great to rest and hang out! We were planning on going to park Guell, but it was getting dark, so we decided to do that the next day. A friend recommended a great place for dinner that was near our hostel so we ate there that evening. We shared some tapas and some yummy yummy sangria! We decided when we get home, we will try and perfect our own recipe of sangria! :)

Still adjusting to the time change (my bad!) we woke up an hour earlier than expected, so when we wanted to wake up at 7am, we were actually up at 6am! Since we got a little bit of a late start the day before, we decided to wake up early (extra early!!), grab some fresh fruit from the huge market and walk to Park Guell before our train left for Sevilla.

We wandered around the park for a while and saw a ton of amazing things created by Gaudi. It was really great! Then we walked around a bit more admiring all the architecture and sights.

After a grand time in Barcelona, we were ready for our next stop - Sevilla!

A&A + Lindsay

2 Weeks Left.........

2009-11-03T05:35:00.000-08:00

Happy November everyone!
It's officially November, and that means our time in Europe is coming quickly to an end. On the 17th we will spend the last day of our 5 month voyage around Europe waving goodbye to London from the airplane. Its bitter sweet thats for sure, but we are excited and ready for some stability and rest and routine.
We have officially reached the part in our journey of exhaustion... Our bodies ache and I think my ankles are permanently swollen from walking around carrying 50+ extra weight on my back. We laugh uncontrollably at anything and everything. But thats probably better than fighting or losing our tempers - which we have yet to do! Just the other day, well practically every day, I trip (yes it happens multiple times a day now) and we just crack up for a few solid minutes.
Dont get me wrong, we are still enjoying everything and are so excited to see Ireland and the UK! It just takes us a little while longer to get going for the day :)
Sorry we havent been updating the blog much, we're tired! haha
But incase you were wondering, after Aix, we went to Barcelona, Sevilla, and Lisbon. We are now in Madrid and we fly to Dublin tomorrow! We will try to update this before the trip is over!
Happy Fall and Go Frogs :)
Amanda and Ally

French Cooking

2009-10-29T04:07:00.001-07:00

Our two weeks in the south of France taught us alot about delicious French cooking! We had delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners with tea times in between. We also went out a few times to some of their favorite places to try real French cuisine.

Breakfast sometimes consisted of fresh croissants and pasteries, cereal, fresh squeezed orange juice and tea. Some days we would eat breakfast at noon, since we were really good at sleeping in, but it was great to have a real breakfast! They even had peanut butter for me :) SCORE! And homemade jam from Grandma! (Dont worry, we sent some home to share!)

Lunches were either left overs from previous meals or the big meal of the day on the weekends.

1. Boeuf Bourguignon - Francoise made this for us by request after we saw Julie&Julia. SO GOOD! The meat was tender and she used fresh veggies and potatoes (pommes de terre!) from the garden.

2. Veal in some creamy sauce - one sunday, we all went over to Grandma and Grandpas house for lunch and she made some kind of egg and truffle dish for starters and fried mushrooms with a spinich salad. Then the main course was veal with some yummy sauce - I forgot what it was called. We loved sitting down to a huge family meal - everyone was so friendly. It was funny because Alice and Elise would have to translate for us becuase their grandparents didnt speak english. For dessert we had some kind of upside apple pie deal - but I dont know how to spell it in French!

Many days, Francoise would cook us dinner which of course we loved. And dont forget all the fresh French baquettes that we had with every meal :)

1. Duck in a raspberry sauce - Delicious!

2. Quiche Lorraine - that Alice made! Such a quick and easy and yummy meal!

3. Homemade Lasagna - Ivan had us over to his place for dinner one night and taught us how to make homemade lasagna.

4. Pizza truck - one night we stopped by a pizza truck run by Pauls friend James. He made us some pizzas - one with a white cream sauce and one with red sauce. We brought those home and shared them with the boys and they watched a football match - while we drank some tea :)
5. Truffle Pasta - Alice made us some spaghetti with truffle sauce from the left over truffles from grandmas house. Her grandparents have two dogs that they have trained to go into the fields and sniff out truffles! For dessert, Alice made us tiramisu! YUM

6. Paul's Favorite Restaurant - one night after the boys played football, Paul took us all out to his favorite restaurant. It was very colorful and served typical French foods. The waitress explained the menu to us in English. For the first course Ally and I both got an eggplant dish with tomato and mozzerella. Their favorite first course was some kind of duck liver pate spread on toast. Ally and I tried it of course, not our favorite thing. It was a very interesting thick texture. For our second course Ally got some pork and zucchini and I had some steak and potatoe dish. The boys and Alice were much more adventurous and used to the food, so they ate things like seafood and other meats. Good for them! Then came dessert! I had the traditional creme brulee and Ally had a medley of desserts such as creme brulee, chocolate mousse, tiramisu, raspberry custard and something else.

7. Chicken and Potatoes - When Alice came to America, she made us a French meal with some yummy creamy potato thing (gosh I wish I remember what they were all called - but Alice has it all typed out, so ill get it soon). She made it with fresh potatoes from the garden and Herbs de Provence! To accompany the potatoes, we had chicken, and not just any chicken. One that was roaming around the yard just that morning.... Her grandma was nice enough to clean it for us to cook!

Our American/Mexican Meal!
One night, Ally and I made dinner for the whole family. We decided on Mexican! It was kind of interesting because we didnt have all the same things as we do in America. We made chicken tacos/fajitas! We made homemade spanish rice that was kind of interesting, and had white beans because we couldnt find black ones. The best part was probably the homemade guacamole and salsa that we made! The day before, we went to the market in Aix which was full of fresh fruits and veggies that we bought for the meal.

This was in the "stranger aisle" which is where all the international food is! haha!

Since we usually had wine with our meals, we decided to mix it up a bit and made blended margaritas for everyone to try! Yummy :) Since it was a pretty big meal, a fruit salad for dessert was the perfect ending to our American meal.

Desserts - We always had some kind of dessert after our meal. Sometimes it was cheeses, other times we had macaroons, fruit salads, pasteries, cookies and banana bread. Our last night, Francoise brought us her favorite desserts from the bakery.

Baking - Since we had so much free time during the days, we often found ourselves baking. One thing that Alice remembered from her trip to San Diego was the delicious chocolate chip cookies. She even still had the recipe that I wrote out for her 7 years ago! I think over the course of 2 weeks, we made 5 batches of cookies. They turned out a little different every time because we had to improvise often with baking soda and brown sugar. It was interesting, but we did it and they loved them! One night we baked cookies and played cards with Ivan and Axel and there were probably 10 cookies left at the end of the night. We aslo made banana bread (or cake as they call it) which was a request of Alice. The first one we tried to make was at Ivans house and we had to literally guess at how much we were mixing together because he didnt have any measuring devices. It was pretty good, but the bananas sunk to the bottom a little. Our next try was amazing, and we even put in some chocolate chunks!

So much cooking and baking has made both Ally and I really excited to get home and cook :) Get ready parents!!! Alice also gave us a lot of the recipes, so we are good to go!

Yumm - French food :)

Aix en Provence

2009-10-29T03:00:00.000-07:00

Let me precface this blog with a short story that happened 7 years ago...

The Youngs are a very welcoming (Jean Welcome! Haha) family and hosted a young (the Young family! Haha) French girl for a couple weeks during the summer of 2002. They had a great time in San Diego!! Years later, Amanda and Alice found each other on facebook. Through the wonderful communication of the internet, Amanda let her know that we would be traveling through Europe and would love to visit her. And now, 7 years after Alice enjoyed her visit in Amanda's hometown of San Diego, she is letting us visit her beautiful hometown of Aix en Provence, in the South of France, for a couple weeks!

We had the best time. It was a holiday during our holiday. When we first arrived, Alice and her fiance Paul met us at the train station. They took us home when her family was gathering for her fathers 50th birthday!! Everyone was very friendly and excited to meet us American girls. We ate a delicious homecooked meal for the first time in a while. After settling in, Alice busted out her scrapbook from her visit to California. It was so fun to look at old pictures and reminice on that trip. Then Alice took us into town where we had drinks with Paul and his brothers, Axel & Ivan. That day was a perfect taste of our next 2 weeks :)

Their backyard and a pic with the family!

We spent many of our days just lounging around their beautiful country home. Throughout the day we would hear the rooster 'cock-a-doodle-doo' but since it was a french rooster, it said 'cocorico!!' They live on a farm where they grow lots delicious veggies and fruits! They have horses and chickens roaming around outside. We would use fresh veggies and eggs while cooking :)

The view from our bedroom and a pic with all the kids :)

Paul is an electririan, so he had work everyday. Alice and her sister, Elise, were in university so they were sometimes busy during the day. When they were not home, we would recooperate from traveling! We liked to relax by watching movies and baking cookies and banana bread! Axel and Ivan also had jobs, but when they were free they would come over and join us all! On one of the first days, we all played tennis...that was entertaining for them! Amanda and I aren't the best at this sport, but its always fun to play :) Some of our favorite nights were spent in Alice and Pauls basement apartment with everyone playing Wii, cards, baking cookies, listening to music and just hanging out. When the boys were gone and working, we spent lots of time sitting around the dining room table with Alice, Elise and Francoise (the mom) chatting about anything and everything and enjoying hot tea and verbena. We also managed to learn some French :)

We did many things over those two weeks, including cooking, day trips, relaxing, visiting relatives, tea times, going to the market and so much more. Stay tuned for details about the trip in other posts :)

A&A

To study in Paris is to be born in Paris! - Right Ellie?!

2009-10-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

Our second day in Paris was dedicated to my little (my little sorority sister), Ellie!

She studied abroad last year in Paris, so she had tons of great ideas for us! We werent able to do everything on her list, but we did a few things :) Have to save some for our next trip to Paris...

Below you will find her recommendations (in purple) and what we did (in yellow):

Go buy a baguette right now! They're less than 1 euro and they're incredible. Eat lots of them while you're there!

YUM! French baguettes are so delish and fresh and cheap! Love that!

Go get hot chocolate at Angelina at 226 rue de Rivoli. It's right by the Louvre (to the left of the Louvre when you're looking at it from the Tuileries). It's amaaaazing and different.

SO GOOD! In the afternoon, we went to Angelina. It was very beautiful inside and so relaxing. We had their famous hot chocolate which was unlike any hot chocolate I've ever had. It was super think and so tasty :) The perfect treat for a rainy day!

Of course Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, and Sacré-Coeur are beautiful churches, and you at least need to see Notre Dame, but I also love Saint-Eustache.

Going inside Notre Dame was amazing, it was so big and colorful with all the stained glass. Ally was a little sad that it didnt smell like Christmas like she remembered from her last visit. Bummer! But it was cool seeing a Disney movie come to life (kind of) seeing the gargoyles!

We saw Saint-Eustache at night time, but it was still great!

Right by Saint-Eustache is a really awesome outdoor market on Rue Montmartre- all kinds of foods (some that they'll let you taste) and clothes and jewelry. The street that comes to a V with Rue Montmartre near Saint-Eustache is called Rue Montorgeuil, which I looooove. So many cool little restaurants! Go there!!!

Rue Montmartre was a great street. Tons of people and cool buildings and restaurants. We decided to have dinner here (like suggested). We walked up and down the street and settled for a Sushi place since other ones were so packed.

Montmartre is the traditional cool area in Paris. Has the Moulin Rouge and Sacre-Coeur and sex shops and souvenir shops. I love that area, but be careful around there with your stuff.

After dinner we headed to Montmarte and saw the famous Moulin Rouge! Did you know that Moulin means windmill.... we just learned that! So thats why they have a big windmill outside! We didnt go in any sex shops, but we sat down at a restaurant across from the Moulin Rouge and enjoyed some Kir! YUM! (see below for further information)

Lastly, please please drink some Kir in the afternoon for me. It's white wine with a black currant (blackberry?) liquor in it that makes it purplish-red and it tastes a little sweeter. It's my favorite drink from Paris. Kir Royale is the same thing except with champagne instead of wine. Soooo good!!!

Well it wasnt the afternoon, but we did try Kir! Yummy! I ordered the Kir Royale, but was brought the regular Kir with wine, so I actually got to try both! Pretty sweet deal! And it was delish! (We also tried some in Aix, but we will get to that later)

Have tons of fun, eat lots of pastries, baguettes, crepes (nutella of course, but also cheese, mushrooms, ham and egg), drink lots of wine and kir, and be nice to the Frenchies and they'll be nice to you.

So that was our day. It was great! I love getting little tips from people about the places we are going because it gives us something to do instead of wandering around and picking places at random.
So THANKS ELLIE! Youre the best :)

Overall, great stay in Paris!!! We loved it! We could have spent a lot more time there of course, but feel like we got a good amount of things in. Since we missed some things, that just means we will have to return some day :)

Off to Provence!

XOXO,

Amanda and Ally

Meet Me in Paris!

2009-10-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Although our trip to Paris was a few weeks ago, it was an amazing trip! We spent 3 nights in Paris, our hostel was near the Republique. Our first full day there was spend walking around the city.

We took the free tour and started at the Saint Michelle fountain and saw Notre Dame, the Siene River, the Opera house that inspired the story of the Phantom of the Opera, the Louvre, the gardens, Place de la Concorde, and a few other places.

After the tour we walked down the main street (Ave des Champs Elysees) to the Arc de Triomphe then to the Eiffel Tower!!! We took tons of pictures of course and found out that the Eiffel Tower was built for the world fair back in 1889.

We wanted to go to a nearby supermarket and get a baguette, some cheese and wine and have a little picnic in the park, but it was raining so we went to a little french restaurant where I had some delish French onion soup :) and Ally had a ham and cheese sammy. We waited around for it to get dark so we could see the Eiffel Tower at night!!! We always imagined it would be yellow lights like from all the pictures. But this night, the base was red with a few blue lights and the top was white. We arent really sure why, but it sure looked cool!

Then.... IT STARTED SPARKLING! Oh my gosh, it was the coolest thing! First of all, we were in Paris, second, we were at the Eiffel Tower, and thrid.... it was sparking! Holy smokes, it was freaking awesome! You can easly hear my excitement in the video :)

After walking around all day and the rain, we decided to sit down at a bar and people watch and have some wine. We went to the bar where the pub crawl from the tour was starting, so we met some people from America who were also on our tour. We were then convinced to join the pub crawl and ended up going to a few different bars around Paris. It wasnt the best pub crawl, but we met some fun people! We then called it a night and headed home.

Paris was amazing, we couldnt wait for day number 2!!!

XOXO

Köln

2009-10-20T06:08:00.001-07:00

After Amsterdam, we made a quick stop in Cologne, Germany. We started getting used to the cold weather and rain with our few previous cities and that carried over to Cologne. We found a cheap place to stay near the train station. We didnt really know what to do in the city, but heard it was a good place. The main thing I wanted to do was see the Rhine river because I learned about it in my German classes and had to recite a German poem about it.

Since it was raining, we didnt really feel like walking all around the city, so we deicded to go to the movies :) Wir war ins Kino gegangen! That means we went to the movies in German!! Its one of those beginner phrases that you learn in school and never think you'll use.... well I just used it! Frau would be proud! We saw Julie and Julia - in English! We actually had to run because we were already late, and it was raining, but we managed. We both decided the movie inspired us to cook more!
After the movie, we stopped at a little German restaurant on the way home for dinner. We both got some yummy Goulash soup and some typical Cologne beer.

We ended up spending two hours at the restaurant, eating, drinking and laughing (something we are very good at!) It was actually a really great evening!

This video shows you just how much fun we can have at a simple dinner :)

On the way back we stopped at a grocery store and stocked up on Ritter Sport - our favorite German chocolate! And went to bed.

The next morning we woke up and walked around the city before checking out. We walked to the Rhine river (yay!) and the Musical Hall, the HUGE Dom Cathedral which you can see from everywhere in the city, the Hohenzollern bridge and a few other things.

Just to give you a glimpse of how we have fun.... this man was the ticket guy at the train station... try not laughing when looking at his sweet hair!

It was a very quick trip, but it was fun!

Our last German pretzels :) YUM!

Now on to Paris!

A&A

Amsterdam!

2009-10-20T05:16:00.000-07:00

Before heading down south, we made a quick stop in The Netherlands! Ally and I got to the train station to find that everything was closed - typical for a Sunday in Europe. After walking around we stopped in a Ben & Jerrys shop that had wifi and found a place to stay. We took the tram to our hostel and met two other fellow travelers - Jono and Emma. We decided to go have dinner with them and ended up comparing many camp stories because they too worked at a summer camp, but in New York. After dinner we walked around a bit and hung out in the Leidse Plein area of town.

The next day, we went on the free walking tour of Amsterdam. Amsterdam is such a pretty city with tons of bridges and canals. The houses are very unique and tall and squished together and some even leaning forward and sideways. We got to see many things like the redlight district - dont take pictures here or else the ladies would throw a cup of pee on you, and then break your camera! We also so many churches, the Jewish Quarter where Rembrant lived, the hash, marijuana and hemp museum, and the womens prison.

Half way through, we stopped for a break at a market/restaurant deal. It was pretty cold, so Ally and I walked across the street to get some coffee... meanwhile, our group left! Oops! Luckly, the second group was there, so we joined them for the second half. The last part of the tour showed us the famous coffee shop (Dampkring) from Oceans 12, some more churches - including hidden catholic churches, some Dutch art, the town hall and lastly the Anne Frank house.

We finished the tour and had some lunch at a local bagel shop :) yum! Then walked around the city a bit more, even though it was raining! We walked around a flee market, and a mall and eventually made our way back to the hostel. We bought some food at a grocery store and cooked it at the hostel for dinner.

The next day we got our things together and went to Koeln for one last day in Germany!

On the tour, we actually learned alot about their drug policy.

Some interesting facts:

1. Selling weed is illegal but not punishable

2. Coffee Shops are legal as long as they dont advertise weed and must sell food and drinks - excluding alcohol

Basically, The Netherlands is very tolerant country when dealing with marijuana and the red light district. They have a special Dutch word that they use (we cant remember what is it) in the laws that basically says they dont want to know about whats going on, as long as its not harming anyone. Which is interesting, because some may argue that marijuana and prostitution is harming people... so take that as you wish. :)

Laugh Out Loud!

2009-10-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

Some of you may be wondering about Ally and I... When we told people that we would be traveling for a few months together, most people responded with, "Arent you going to get sick of each other" or "by the end you will hate each other" or things of this sort. I am happy to report that after almost 4 months of traveling and being together 24/7, we just spent about 5 solid minutes laughing while trying to brush our teeth in preperation for bed time. 5 minutes.... just laughing. At nothing in particular, Ally had to shield her face from mine in hopes of not choking on toothpaste, or spitting it all out.

Oh the adventures of traveling :) And some reminders of the past...

5 years old at the Paur house :)

Trip to Julian, CA - High School

CAMP! 2009

Good times and lots of love,

A&A

Hamburg!

2009-10-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

After a quick stop in Berlin, we were soon on our way to the next town - Hamburg. We got there on Friday and had a little trouble finding a place to stay since the next day was a holiday - the reunification of Germany. We found a hostel a little outside of town and took the S-Bahn (city train). When we got off, the only instructions we had were “Right, then up the stairs” We didn’t really understand that, so we started walking right out of the train station and then down some stairs. We walked a good 30 minutes in a circle - with all our luggage - and finally found our hostel. Turns out, it was right above the train station, so all we really had to do was walk up the stairs instead of down, but hey, we got some exercise!

It has been cold in northern Germany so when we got to the hostel, it was nice to warm up and settle down. The hostel rooms were separated by gender, so Duncan had a bed upstairs and ours was in the basement. The rooms had 6 beds and were all full. After trying to take a quick nap we decided to head outside and find some dinner. A worker at the hostel told us about a popular area in town to go for dinner, so we tried that.

We walked another 30 minutes and found Bok, an Asian restaurant that was suggested. Apparently Hamburg was more known for their Asian food than typical German food. The three of us all shared some delicious meals including California rolls, vegetable tempura, chicken fried rice, and some beef and veggie medley. After dinner, we bundled up again and walked around more.

We stopped at a small café/bar that had wireless internet. We sat there for a few hours, drinking hot chocolate and hot tea and using our computer. Then we made our way home for the evening. We woke up the next morning for a nice free breakfast at our hostel with especially delicious hot chocolate, which was great considering it was freezing and raining outside!

We bundled up again and heading into town for our next free New Europe tour! We met outside of a Starbucks with about 20 other tourists. Our guide lead us around Hamburg telling us all kinds of interesting history about the city.

Did you know that Hamburg has more bridges and canals than Venice and Amsterdam combined?

Or that the city has been rebuilt several times since the great fire of 1842 and bombing after WW2? Or that The Beatles had their debut in Hamburg? Or that it has the sharpest corner in Europe?

Just a few fun things we learned! We love taking these tours because we learn so much about the city. Its kind of crazy how much history there is; the past 2000 years in Berlin, the past 700 years in Hamburg, then compare that to the 200 years of America? Ha!

Hamburg is a popular port city and its pretty quaint. We also got to see the future building of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra which is supposed to be completed in 2012 and comparable to the Sydney opera house. On our tour, we also met a girl from Bakersfield! She went to high school with my parents’ friends’ daughter. Small world! After the tour, we wantedt o check out 'miniature wonderland,' this place that has a small train (the size of what a kid would play with) that travels all around the world that Mr. Paur told us about- and the cities go from Hamburg to London to Vegas! It would have been really cool to see it, but the wait to far too long!! Instead, we went to an Italian restaurant for a snack then made our way back to our hostel.

It was freezing outside and we were tired from walking around all day, so we watched some episodes of Weeds on our computer and lounged around in a common room in the hostel. We also decided not to go out for dinner and ate a gross cafeteria meal at the hostel then played some cards, uploaded our pictures onto the computer and called it a night.

We woke up early the next morning to say goodbye to Duncan - he left for Copenhagen and onto Norway while we were heading west. We slept a little more then woke up for breakfast at our hostel. This whole breakfast included deal at our hostels are great!!! Then we packed our things and left Germany for Amsterdam!

Alles gut!
A&A

Ich bin ein Berliner!

2009-10-12T02:54:00.000-07:00

It was a bit sad to leave Munich and the wonderful hospitality we got from Konsta (and his brother) but it was time to move on. Duncan is traveling til November too, so we all decided to go to Berlin together! The train was nice, much easier to store our luggage (probably because we sent home about 50 pounds!!). Amanda and I watched Quantum of Solace and played cards. When we arrived, Amanda spoke with a travel agent and found a place for the 3 of us to stay. It was close to the station, but also close to downtown! The room was set up for 5 people, but we only had one roommate on the first night- an elderly lady who was extremely quiet when she read, but apparently likes sleeping with the light on. After settling in on Wednesday, we walked around the town, checking out all the sights.

Brandenberg Gate.

Duncan had his first kebab, and it was delicious!! Once the sun started to set, it got really cold. Amanda and I weren’t ready for the cold weather in Europe to begin, but we dealt with it anyway! We went to a coffee shop, Balzacs, and enjoyed some hot coffee and comfy seats. When we got back to the hostel, the 3 of us bundled up and watched a couple episdoes of Weeds- our new addiction. The next day, our full day in Berlin, we woke up in time for the free breakfast: cereal, toast, pb and jelly (Amanda was really happy they had peanut butter!), bread rolls, cheese, meat, coffee, hot cocoa powder (not hot sand!), and orange juice. I think it was the best free breakfast we’ve had on this trip!! I was excited for today because we were going on the free walking tour of Berlin : ) I’ve been on these free tours in a few other cities and they were one of my favorite things! Anyways, our tour guide, Mick, is from England but now lives in Berlin. He loves history, so we learned a ton on our tour! He kept the tour interesting and funny. We saw everything important and so much more

This is Checkpoint Charlie, one of the entrances from East Berlin to West Berlin.

It took a total of 5 hours to see it all. Mick even told us about the Opera house and how great it was (and cheap!) so we decided that the opera was going to be our night activity. We rested up for a short while, then threw on layers and layers of clothes (Amanda and I were freezing!) and went searching for a restaurant.

We probably should have left earlier because after enjoying our delicious meals and drinks- beer with a shot of raspberry sauce! (recommended by the one and only Rick Steves)- we only had about 5 minutes til the opera started. So after getting stuffed, we RAN to the opera house. We got in a few minutes late but made our way up to the balcony and watched Salome, our first German opera. Amanda understood about 60% of the opera, and it helped that you could read the lyrics. It was hard to follow at times, but the performers and music were amazing! Good fun, especially for only 3,50 euros! After the opera, we walked back to our hostel - in the freezing cold! We were exhausted from a long day of walking and went to bed.

We had to check out of the hostel by 10am, so we woke up early and had breakfast. Then we locked our luggage up at the hostel and walked into the city one last time. The Reichtstag building was open to the public and you can climb up and have a nice view of the entire city.

On the way over, we walked through the train station - at least we tried to walk through, but had to turn around half way through when we found out there was some mysterious suit case on one of the platforms down stairs. There were police and military men everywhere and sections were blocked off. Hopefully they would get it sorted before we had to leave Berlin!

We walked up the Reichstag - now known as the Bundestag - and enjoyed a free audio tour pointing out all the sights we saw the day before. I really like hearing about the things we are looking at because it makes it more interesting and I feel more knowledgeable!

After we were finished we got our luggage and made our way to the train station where thankfully the ‘mysterious case’ had gone away and waited for our train. Then on to Hamburg!

Auf Wiedersehen!
A&A + Duncan

Oktoberfest! And a little bit of sightseeing in Munich!

2009-10-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

We were so excited to make it to Germany (especially Amanda so she could use her language skills!) and see our friends from camp. After stepping off the train at Munich HBF, the first thing Amanda saw was Duncan’s gray long sleeved shirt. And there was Konsta standing next to him, dressed in lederhosen! With them were Meghan, Logan, and their friend Amy. After saying hello and hugging everyone, Logan tells us that we are going to put our luggage in lockers and head straight to Oktoberfest. Oh boy! After traveling the whole day, we weren’t expecting to go out right away but oh well, it’ll be fun!

Konsta and his friend guided us to the Wies’n, where Oktoberfest takes over for 2-3 weeks during September and October to put on this huge fest. It started 199 years ago for a Bavarian wedding and has turned into a huge fest that people from all over come to Munich to join in on the festivities. When Amanda and I walked in to the wies’n, it almost felt like Del Mar fair/ a state fair with lots of rides, food, and people.

It was amazing!! Not the picture I had created in my head of Oktoberfest. Konsta and his friend took us to a tent- a huge wooden building that doesn’t resemble what I imagine a tent looking like- and managed to get us all inside. There were no open seats since it was 7 or 8 at night, so we stood along the side and ordered our first beers. The bier steins are 1 liter in size and weigh a ton! You need strong hands to carry around one stein, let alone 9! The waiters/waitresses would carry tons of full steins to people without dropping any…and they had to make their way through the obstacle of people (many drunk ones) taking over all the free space in the tent. Unbelievable!! In fact, one of the waiters from this weekend showed me how to carry the steins, and it was hard for me to carry 5 empty ones!

Anyways, we stayed inside for a bit, enjoying the music and people watching and catching up, then went to the biergarten outside and had some more beer. We ended our night at another biergarten, where all of us were feeling the effect of those liters of beer. It was quite a start to our weekend at Oktoberfest! We had to go back to the station and grab all our luggage, then took the train and walked back to Konsta’s place. It was SO nice to stay with him and the others! He set up his couch (as big as a king size bed) and a mattress on the floor for all of us to sleep on. Such good hospitality : )

The next day was Friday, and we slept in! We bought a bunch of food at the store, and ate some breakfast (at lunchtime) before going back to Oktoberfest. Today, Amanda and I took it easy. We stayed at the same tent all day, sitting in the biergarten with Konsta’s brother (Kaarlo) and some of his friends. Konsta had some friends that met up with us as well. Amanda and I got tired of just sitting there, so we took breaks and ventured around the rest of the grounds- checking out the rides and booths. The best part of walking around was seeing all the people. Many of them were dressed up in dirndls (a dress the women wear) and lederhosen (the outfit men wear). Some people were sleeping while others were walking in a drunken stupor. But Oktoberfest isn’t just about the beer. There were lots of families, with little kids wearing dirndls and lederhosen too! When we got back, Valeria had joined us! She is Bavarian and from Munich, so Oktoberfest means more to her than it does to all the tourists that are there. Towards the end of the night, Amanda met a couple of German guys sitting behind us and learned how to play a dice game…which she lost and had to switch shoes with one of them. Duncan and I were hungry, so we went out and searched for some good food. Our choice was a ½ meter sausage!

That’s basically all we ate this weekend- bratwurst and pretzels. We washed it down with beer. Mmmmm. Perfect combination! That night when we got back to Konstas, Christoph and his friend (Cathy) were already there, waiting for us!

On Saturday, we wanted to get there in time too sit inside a tent, so Konsta had taxis pick us up at 8:30 am, thinking it would be early enough. It wasn’t! We got inside a tent, but there were no open seats. We finally decided to go outside in the biergarten so we could all sit together.

It was another fun day filled with beer, food, friends, and lots of singing too! Our friends Julian and Ville from camp also met up with us! After 3 steins, I was ready for a nap. Around 7ish, Amanda and I headed home. We took the train to the main station, only because we were craving Starbucks : ) It tasted soo good - a little taste of home! Then we took the train to Starnburg (where Konsta lives) and sort of got lost since we haven’t gone home alone yet, and it was dark. When we called Konsta to tell him we were lost, he said we were only 100 meters away from his house!! Whoops : ) Everyone else made home later that night, and we were all exhausted so waking up early again did not happen.

We made it to Oktoberfest on Sunday by the early afternoon, and sat outside again. Meghan, Logan, and Amy planned on meeting up with us later, so it was a smaller group today. We were hungry, so we devoured some chicken, and had lots of big pretzels!

In the afternoon, we moved inside the tent and sat with some of Konsta’s friends. We were right by the orchestra and got to see the atmosphere of being inside a tent- which is really fun! We sang lots of songs and stood on the benches with the rest of the crowd. Amanda, Duncan, Ville, and I went home around 7- it was a long and tiring weekend! We said goodbye to Logan since he was leaving that night, but never got a chance to say bye to Meghan.

The next day, Christoph, Ville, and Julian left too. That left only Konsta, his brother Kaarlo, Amanda, Duncan, Amy, and I. We spent Monday doing absolutely nothing. We bought some more food at the grocery store, and lounged around their place watching movies and getting hooked on the TV series Weeds. Tuesday morning is when Amy left, then during the day Konsta, Amanda, Duncan, and I went to Munich, but this time to see the city rather than Oktoberfest! First, we sent home a package that weighed 50 pounds of stuff we didn’t need to be lugging around on our travels. It felt soooooo good to get rid of that much stuff!

Munich is a beautiful place- we walked around downtown then through the English gardens. We stopped a watched some guys surf in the river…strange!!

Konsta took us to an Italian restaurant with the biggest pizzas and calzones- the pizza doesn’t even fit on the plate!! Then we went home and relaxed some more. After staying for almost a week, Amanda, Duncan, and I left the comfort of Munich and moved on to Berlin. Thanks to Konsta and Kaarlo for letting us crash at your place, it was wonderful!!

Tschüß!
A&A

check out all our sweet pics and videos at
http://picasaweb.google.com/amandaandally/OktoberfestInMunich#

Update!!

2009-10-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys!
We just made it to Amsterdam! We have been all around Germany since our blog from Venice, but didn't get the chance to post our blogs yet. We'll be here for a couple of days to explore the wonders of Amsterdam!! We promise we'll add more blogs from Oktoberfest, Berlin, and Hamburg soon :)

Lots of love,
A&A

Venezia

2009-09-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

When we left Florence, two girls told us about a hostel that was Plus Camping in Venice and it was cheap and great, so why not. We got off the train in Venice and ended up wandering around a bit before figuring out that we got off 2 stops too late, so an hour later, we got back on the train and took a bus to the hostel. By the time we got there, it was too late to head into the city, so we took it easy, ate some dinner and hung out. The hostel was more of a camp ground with trailers, tents, a pool, small supermarket, and restaurant. It was fun to be camping again - even though Ally and I just shared a small trailer. But it reminded us of many summers spent camping in southern California! Good times :) We love camping, but camping isnt really how we wanted to experience Europe. Nonetheless, we were camping about 30 min outside of Venice.

We went to bed with the expectations of sleeping in and then heading into the city. We should have checked the bus schedule before we missed the noon bus. We had to wait until 3pm to catch the next one. We hung out for a while longer then finally got into Venice around 4:30 - long story, but we made it.

We walked around for a while and it was amazing. There was so many little shops everywhere, filled with glass things and masks.

We had tons of fun walking into all the shops and walking around a city surrounded by water everywhere!

Eventually, we made it to the Ponte Rialto, San Marcos square, and the rest of the city.

After plenty of walking and taking pictures, we sat down for our last Italian dinner :( very bitter sweet. Then we walked around more, bought some souvenirs and our last Italian gelato before catching the last bus back to the camp grounds.

Venice was a beautiful city! We didnt get a chance to take a Gondola ride, maybe next time, but we still had fun!

We were sad to leave Italy, but so excited to get to Germany and see some friends from camp!

Hope all is well at home :)

A&A

16 Hour pit-stop in Florence!

2009-09-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

Our Roma adventure lasted an extra day, but we still wanted to stop in Firenze one last time before we said Ciao to Italia. We left Rome Monday afternoon and got to Florence in the evening. Just enough time to check into our sweet hostel and walk around town. Our hostel was precious - Dany House. It was basically a house that a family rented out to young travelers. There was a common room with a computer and dining room table where everyone hung out, 2 bed rooms with numerous bunk beds, one shared bathroom with the smallest shower I've ever seen, and a kitchen that we could all share. We threw all our stuff down, changed into a clean shirt and headed out into town! Since this was a return trip, we knew exactly what we wanted to do - dinner at I Ghibellini and then gelato at Geletria Neri :) Ally's favorites!

At dinner, we sat in between some interesting people. To my left was an older man by him self. He offered us some of his Chianti wine because we spoke English very well.... considering its basically the only language we speak, we would hope so. Then as he was leaving, he told us to tell Obama hi next time we see him.... riiiiight!

To our right sat a nice couple from Manchester, England about our parents' age. We sat and talked with them a while then made our way to the gelateria before it got too late. After our dessert, we headed back to the hostel. When we got there, a few girls were hanging out in the common room so we joined them for a bit while catching up on the internet and skyping with our parents. We had tons of fun with 2 girls from Chicago and two from Australia. By 2am, we were told we were being too noisy and went to bed. Ally and I slept in a room with 6 bunk beds - 12 beds! It was loud and warm, but cheap, so no big deal.

We woke up in the morning, had breakfast with everyone that was staying at our hostel, then made our way to the train station with our new Chicago friends.

Next stop... Venice! :)

Arrivaderci!

A&A

Roma - 2

2009-09-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

The next morning, Amanda and my feet hurt from all the walking we did the day/night before, so we started of slow by using the internet across the street from our place to check up with our parents, and track the package with our eurail passes. Since it was Friday, the package would have to be delivered today or else we’d have to wait until Monday - which would mess up our plan of leaving on Sunday. We grabbed some pizza (a daily necessity along with gelato when in Italy) and ate at our apartment. Then we began our second full day in Roma! 1st stop- Trevi Fountain!! We threw our coins in, making wishes that will hopefully come true (we’ll let you know when they do!).

2nd stop- Spanish Steps! Well, actually the amex office to check on our package. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t there. We got on the internet for the second time that day and emailed/chatted with our moms about the passes and how to contact DHL. Amanda’s mom was online talking to us while texting my mom who was on the phone with DHL trying to find a way to get them to deliver on Saturday. It was some great communication between all of us! After a while, there was no new news so Amanda and I decided to get some gelato and enjoy it while sitting on the Spanish Steps- yum : )

It was already close to sunset, so we walked around, finding new places in Rome we haven’t seen like the Piazza del Popolo, then went back to the Trevi Fountain to see it at night. It’s amazing during the day, but even better at night! While on the internet earlier, we googled the Trevi Fountain and found out that if you throw in 2 coins from your right hand over your left shoulder, it’ll bring you romance in the future (although I’m sure you don’t have to throw coins in the Trevi to have romance in the future). We took our coins and threw them in!! (We’ll let you know when the romance happens).

For dinner we had- I bet you could guess- pizza!! Amanda actually had a calzone, which is almost pizza.
The next day, Saturday, was going to be our last day in Rome as long as DHL was kind enough to deliver our passes to the amex office before they closed at noon. We woke up early (7:30!!) and started our day by checking for any news from our parents about the package. Since there was nothing, we decided to go to the Vatican City in the morning and make our way to the Spanish Steps/amex office just before it closes.

We only waited in line for a short while to get into St. Peter’s Basilica. After making it through the metal detectors (with Amanda’s swiss army knife!) we met a lady who told us she was giving a complimentary tour. While waiting for more people to join, she told us some facts about the Basilica and Vatican City. Since we didn’t have much time before we had to get to the amex office and we didn’t want to rush through St. Peter’s Basilica, we went inside without her and admired the church. It amazes me that they could make and design a structure like this so long ago. We have so much more technology and science in the 21st century but don’t make anything as astonishing as what people made thousands of years ago.

We also walked through where the popes have been buried. Although our feet were killing us and Rome has exhausted us over the past few days, we walked across the city to the Spanish Steps- an area we have come to now quite well- crossed our fingers, went to the amex office to check if our passes have been delivered. No luck. We sat on the steps, waiting till just before the office closed, and people watched for a bit. Amanda caught a lady using a magnifying glass to look at her cell phone. When the office closed, they still hadn’t received our passes : ( Stuck in Rome for another day, it could be worse!

The rest of our day was spent taking a very long nap, getting pizza for dinner (of course) and watching a movie on our computer while eating some delicious gelato.
Sunday was now our last full day in Rome. Too bad almost everything is closed on Sundays. We went to the store the night before and bought bread, eggs, and what we thought was butter. Amanda made us French toast! I tried to find an open supermarket to buy some butter, but Sunday is not a good day to go shopping. We meant to make it to the Sistine Chapel on Saturday, but didn’t have enough time so we thought we would go today. Unfortunately, the Chapel is closed on Sunday. How is that I have been to Rome twice and missed out on the Sistine Chapel both times?? We ventured around the city for a little bit, but spent most of the day putting away our laundry which was finally dry after a few days, packing up our stuff, reminiscing on old times while looking through Amanda’s photos, and watching another movie while it rained outside. Tonight was our nice dinner, which meant wine! Amanda ordered lasagna while I ordered pizza and we split them, along with a bottle of Chianti red wine. For dessert we went back to the same gelateria as the day before and Amanda decided that the mint chip and triple chocolate that she ordered was some of the best gelato she has had besides the grapefruit she had in Florence.
On our official last day in Rome, we made more french toast, eggs, and regular toast for breakfast. It was hard to make a decent American breakfast with only a hot plate, but we made it work! Then we dropped our baggage off with Paula and headed off to the amex office. When we checked at 11am, nothing was there for us. We sat on the Spanish Steps for an hour, people watching, then checked in again at 12pm and- tada!!- our package had arrived!! We opened it up and read the letters from our families (yay!) then got our baggage and left for the train station! Now we’re on our way to Firenze for a night, where we plan on enjoying some yummy pizza and gelato! Pretty soon we’ll be out of Italy and done with the food, so we have to enjoy it while we still can!
Thanks moms for all your help with the passes, we love you!
Ciao Ciao for now,
A&A

When in Rome...

2009-09-27T01:02:00.000-07:00

After our 3 day voyage from Greece, we finally made it to Rome!! On the train from Bari to Rome, it was hard to find a place to put our luggage since our backpacks didn’t fit in the space above our heads. Luckily there was room between the seats, but we really need to do something about the massive amount of baggage we have. It’s not good when people on ferries and in hostels are telling you that you have lots of luggage.
Anyways, we grabbed all of our stuff and headed out the doors of Roma Termini, the train station. We searched for people holding up signs for hostels and accommodation but couldn’t find anyone. Finally, a man noticed us and asked if we needed a place to stay. While he was sorting out a place for us, a lady who spoke German came to us and asked a bunch of questions. Amanda had a perfect conversation with her in German while I had absolutely no idea what any word coming out of her mouth meant. We’ll get by so easily in Germany thanks to Amanda and her language skills! I should be able to say the same about Italy, but I can’t (even though I lived in Florence for 4 months!) The travel agent, Magdi, told us of a place that was only 20 euro/person a night for our own private room and had wifi, breakfast, and was in a great location. Thank you Magdi! It sounded perfect, so we took it and hopped on the bus towards our place. We couldn’t both take the elevator up at the same time because the elevator couldn’t fit us plus our luggage. Amanda went first, followed by me. When the man took us to our room, it was huge! It also had 4 extra beds. Well, apparently Magdi lied to us about our accommodation. The room was not private. That would have been fine if there was a safe place to store our luggage while we weren’t in the room, but there wasn’t. There were no other guests sharing our room on the first night, but we decided to only stay the first night and find a better place for the rest of our stay. Around 10:30, we finally ventured around Rome and found a nice place to eat our first meal!! Pizza and coca cola. It was absolutely delicious. Italy really does have the best pizza, there is no comparison. And of course, gelato was our dessert!
The next day, we woke up and tried searching for other hostels/hotels to stay at. A lady at gipsy travel pointed us in the direction of a bed&breakfast, so we looked there but it was 120 euro a night!! However, there was a man sitting there, Willy, and he took us to another bed&breakfast that was much cheaper. The owner, Paula, is the sweetest lady! She was very helpful and even gave us some helpful tips about Rome. Willy took us to our little apartment- our own apartment with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and terrace! We were pretty content with our new living situation : ) Since we had all this room, it was the perfect place to get some laundry done! Amanda washed in the kitchen sink while I rinsed in the bathroom sink. We hung everything up on broomsticks that we situated between chairs. Sometime in the morning, between doing laundry and getting ready for the day, the toilet clogged. It wouldn’t flush. We left it clogged, hoping that when we came back it would flush.
Our first full day in Roma was spent checking out most of the big sights!! We started at the Colosseum.

Last time I was here, I didn’t go on any guided tour, but this time we decided to do it! We thought it would be nice to know the history and facts while walking around the Colossuem and Palatine hill/ Roman Forum. Well- the tour guide for the Colosseum wasn’t that great, although he did make us laugh at times and really liked the phrase “do you get it?” He would say things like, “this is where the lions were kept, do you get it? And there were shafts that took them up, do you get it?” At the end of that tour, he switched us over to a lady from Canada who took us around Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Palatine hill is where all the Kings and Emperors lived while they ruled Rome! She told us stories about when Rome was first founded and how the Roman Forum acted as a downtown does for us.

I didn’t know much about anything she told us, even though I saw all of this last year! It’s nice to know what all the ancient ruins were back when they weren’t ancient. By the time the tour was done and we strolled through the Roman Forum, it was time to eat! We walked around looking for a place to eat while visiting the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. In the piazza by the steps is the American Express office, where our moms sent us our eurail passes. We checked to see if they arrived, but they didn’t yet. So we headed home to get ready for the Spanish Steps pub crawl!

Our first night out since leaving camp! We have heard a lot about the Spanish Steps pub crawl and knew that it would be something we have to do while in Rome! We met up with all the others in front of the Spanish Steps then made our way to the first bar- where we received our free tshirt, endless beer, and pizza. Amanda saw a guy who she immediately thought was a Texas fraternity boy because of his polo and sperrys. Ends up that he’s from Baltimore and goes to school at Gettysburg- but he is in a fraternity! We spent the rest of the night hanging out with him and his friends, who are all studying in England for the semester. We had a conversation about the ‘euro diet’ to which they said consists of about 1 meal a day and protein bars. That’s pretty much what we are doing! Okay- its different in Italy because the culture is all about food- but we have definitely cut back on food and eat zone bars during our travels! Don’t judge us, its one of the only ways to save money that has to last us for a couple more months! It was funny to hear other people talk about this so called ‘euro diet.’ By the end of the night, we somehow crawled to the other side of the river and had to make our way back home. Good thing we had a map of Rome with us! Along the way, we stopped and got some food (it was hard to find a place open that late!)
　
Ciao from Italia :)

A&A

New Pictures!!

2009-09-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

Hey Yall!
We are starting to upload more photos to our Picasa website so you can see them! The one that we used for camp is almost full... so now we are uploading them under a different account!
So far we only have our Greece pics up! So check them out!
We will keep you posted when we add pics! :-D
<3 Enjoy!
A&A

http://picasaweb.google.com/amandaandally

3 day Voyage to Rome!

2009-09-22T00:47:00.000-07:00

We wanted to find the cheapest way to get from Santorini to Rome. We could fly, but that’s too expensive, so after some research done by Kathy (Ally’s mom) we figured it out. We had to take a 9 hour ferry from Santorini to Athens, then a bus across Athens to Patra, then a 14 hour ferry from Patra to Bari, Italy, then a train from Bari to Rome. Sounds simple enough right…. HA! Our 3 day journey turned into much more of an adventure. The first ferry to Athens was a breeze! We got on the ferry at 3pm on Monday (which was quite large and reminded us of a cruise ship) and found a place to sit next to 2 Canadians who we chatted with most of the journey. We made it to Athens by midnight. We planned on sleeping at the bus station in Athens then taking the first bus over to Patra where we needed to catch the ferry to Bari.

It was raining (of course) but we soon found a taxi to take us over to the bus station. While driving around, he soon found out that it was our first time in Athens and we really had no intention of visiting the city. He told us for the same price, he would drive us around the city and show us the important parts. We figured less time sleeping at the bus station so why not. He also told us he felt bad just leaving 2 young girls at the bus station - unless we had a gun…. I said I had my swiss army knife. That would have to do! So we drove around the city and we got to see the 2004 Olympic venue, government buildings, a university, the tomb of the unknown soldier, an Olympic arena, Acropolis and the brand new Acropolis museum.

By 2am we showed up at the bus station to find it all locked up…. Awesome! Our taxi driver wouldn’t let us stay there and insisted he find us a cheap hotel to stay for a few hours before leaving. Our taxi driver was amazing, he was so nice to us! The first place was a hotel where you can pay hourly rates for a room - also where people ‘go to make sex’. thankfully it was booked! So he took us to another hotel (each time we stopped somewhere, he had us sit and wait in the car while he went in and talked to the front desk). He found us a room at the Ionis Hotel for a cheap price and it included breakfast! We finally got up to our room and in bed by 3am. It was actually quite a treat because it was a legit hotel with 2 double beds and a full bathroom! We woke up in the morning for the free breakfast and loaded up on fresh bread, some cereal and drinks. I knew it was going to be an interesting day when I started it out by putting sand in my coffee. Well you see, I thought it was cocoa powder, so I was really excited to put it in some coffee (because I hate coffee, unless there is chocolate in it), then some guy stared at my and said, “um, that’s hot sand from the dessert” apparently its some ancient way to make an espresso by putting water in the sand and waiting for it to boil. Awesome. I decided it would be better to settle with hot tea instead. Besides that, we also managed to smuggle out some fresh bread for later! Score! We went back to sleep for a while, since it was a long night and all, then checked out by noon. We made our way back to the bus station - still lugging around all our luggage and breaking our bodies - and got on the bus! Three hours later we were in Patra. In Patra we booked our ferry tickets from Patra to Bari which was supposed to leave at 5:30pm Tuesday and get to Italy by 9:30am Wednesday. The ship ended up leaving at 7pm and it was pretty empty. We found a place to sit and made ourselves comfortable for the long journey ahead. On the ship, we read, watched tv, played cards, and eventually fell asleep on some benches (much more comfortable than the Milan airport!). On the ship, we managed to survive on our stolen bread from the previous breakfast and some other snacks that we got in Santorin at a grocery store. We finally made it to Bari, Italy a little before noon, so it was a 17 hour ferry ride, holy smokes, and there was 1 more leg left of our journey to Rome. We took a taxi to the train station and then a 4 hour train to ROME! Finally, we made it by 6pm Wednesday evening!!!!!!! What an adventure!

Santorini, Greece!

2009-09-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

After our short stay in Ios, we were excited to get to Santorini! Everyone told us that this is the place to go in Greece, like out of the movies! We took a ferry from Ios to Santorini. When we got off the boat, we walked into a nearby accommodation place where some lady helped us find a nice place to stay. We were met by a van who picked us up and took us across the island to the Holiday Beach Resort. We are getting spoiled by Greece! For only 30 Euro a night (15 each) we had our own little room with our own bathroom, a fridge, tv and balcony. It was great!

After getting settled in, we decided to make our way over to Fira - the central town on the island. Our hotel was in Perissa, near the black beach, across the island from Fira, but only a short bus trip away.

The rest of the day, we wandered around the town, watched the sun before it set behind some clouds, bought a couple oil paintings, and ate a light dinner. We also stopped at a small bead shop and made some sweet key chains with our greek letters on them. I know we arent in college anymore, but when else would we be able to make something out of greek letters… in Greece!

After the afternoon and evening in Fira, we made our way back to our hotel. There we could sit at the pool/bar area of the hotel and use their internet. So we checked up on a few things and got to skype with our parents : ) Traveling around, we have come to realization that at home we take the internet for granted. But it was nice to catch up a bit. The next day was a perfect beach day! We walked down the road to the black beach where we spent most of the afternoon lounging on beach chairs and we split a delish fruit smoothie! It was a perfect day for the beach - it reminded us of being home! We got to read, nap and swim in the Mediterranean for the first time! After a warning from my brother (Robbie) we soon knew what it was like to swim in such salty waters! The water was so clear, we could see everything, and it was very deep. We tried to swim down to touch the bottom, but we couldn’t do it! It was the weirdest feeling, we were trying to swim down, but not going anywhere! After we were nice and tan we headed back to the hotel, then on to Oia to watch the sun set!

We took a bus to Oia (a town that is ideal for sunsets) and made it just in time to meet the other thousands of tourists crowed around and watched the sun set again behind clouds. Oia was very picturesque and lovely, so it was a great quick trip.

After the sun went down we walked around Oia looking for a place to eat dinner. We thought it would be a good idea to have 1 nice dinner in each country we visited, and Santorini was it for us! So we found a table at some Seagull Café and got dinner. We started out with some Tzatziki, which is like a yogurt dip with bread. All I wanted was a true Greek salad, and that’s what I got with chicken and it was sooo yummy! Ally got chicken soulvaki (skewer) with ‘mashed potatoes’ which turned out to be French fries haha. We also managed to share some amazing house rosé wine! Not a bad night. After that, we headed home and checked out the next morning. Now on to Rome!

Ios, Greece

2009-09-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

Alright, we are kind of posting out of order, but here are the rest of the posts to keep you up to date! :)

After Mykonos, we arrived in Ios. Our friends from camp told us of a hostel called Far Out and when we docked in port, there were a bunch of people holding up hostel signs. One of them was Far Out, so we decided to stay there. It was more of a campground, but they had little huts to stay in.

We had one only a couple minutes away from the bathroom and a few minutes from the bus stop. After putting down our luggage and looking around the small hut, we went out to get some food just down the street from the hostel. Then we took a bus into town to figure out the night life. Unfortunately, we were a little early. We walked around window shopping for a while then sat down in the main square and enjoyed cocktails.

It was only 10:30pm and no one would be out for another hour and a half. We were sort of exhausted from traveling so we called it a night and figured the next day would be good. We planned on hanging out at the beach all day, then going in to town at night, We woke up to the sound of rain. Instead of the beach, we hung out in our small hut during the day- watching movies and reading and picking up some snack at the mini mart.

Eventually, the rain started to leak through the roof. Woo!! It was great. We called it an early night and woke up the next morning ready to Santorini!!

:) A&A

Stuck in Rome...it could be worse!

2009-09-20T03:49:00.000-07:00

Well...our eurail passes didn't get to Rome in time for us to journey on as planned. We are stuck here until Monday, but Rome isn't a bad place to be stuck! We've visited just about all the sights to see here, but now we have some time to relax on a rainy Sunday in Europe! Rome is a pretty exhausting (but amazing!!) place, so its nice to have some down time.

Miss you all!
A&A

UPDATE!

2009-09-18T04:34:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys,
So... its official, we have been in Europe for over 3 months! Holy smokes, where has the time gone? 2 more months, then home sweet Poway!
We are currently in Rome right now :) We dont have a lot of time on the internet here, but we will give you a quick update. We have 2 more blogs from Greece that we need to post, but there is no Wifi so you will have to wait a little longer.
In the mean time, we made it safely to Rome and are 'doin as the Romans do' We are staying in a precious little apartment, all to our selves! And we managed to do some laundry yesterday in the sinks and it is all hanging out to dry... still drying 24 hours later!
We have 2 more days here, then pit stop for 2 nights in Florence :) then 2 nights in Venice and then off to Deutschland!!!
Hope all is well at home.
Sending our love from Italia,
A&A <3

Mykonos, Greece

2009-09-14T03:33:00.000-07:00

We've spent the last week in Greece and for the most part it was wonderful : ) Our first stop was the island of Mykonos.

When we arrived, we had nowhere to stay yet, so we booked a room with the travel agents at the airport. They set us up with a hotel in the center of the town and it was set up like a bed and breakfast. The owner, Kostas, was very kind and helpful during our stay. We had our own room and bathroom (with a shower that was just a shower head mounted on the wall of the bathroom) plus free breakfast!! After we got cleaned up from our long night of sleeping in the airport and traveling on the plane, we ventured out to town. The streets lead right up to the water, and it would come crashing over the sidewalks. It wasn't the best weather, but it was still beautiful!

After a bit of window shopping, we found a little snack bar/restaurant that everyone was eating at so we decided to have dinner there. Gyro pita sandwich for only 2.50 euro! Thats a cheap dinner : )

The next day was our full day in Mykonos. We spent it at the beach. The southern part of the Island has some really nice beaches, so we spent time in a few different locations. We started in Platis Gialos and sun bathed for a while (surrounded by topless women- thats Europe for you!) then took a boat to Paradise. It was great when Amanda bought the tickets, asking for two tickets to paradise!! I dont know how much of a paradise it was, but we liked it minus the completely naked man and woman that we saw... That evening we went to a little restaurant called blu blu and watched the sunset. You can't go to Greece without enjoying at least one nice sunset!!

That night we had a bit of a freak out because we thought we'd be stuck on the island for another couple of days. There is only 1 ferry to Ios, and it was already booked. Luckily the next morning we found an alternate route and had a nice few hours to visit another island, Paros.

<3>

A&A

Sleeping in the Milan Airport

2009-09-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

Last night we left Switzerland to move on with our adventures abroad. It was sad to say goodbye to Crans-Montana and ISCM and all the people, but we are really excited to be traveling now! We took the funiculaire (one last time) down the mountain to Sierre then hopped on the 8pm train to Milan. We just found out earlier in the day that our friend Lindsey Bracken was already in Milan for modeling, but there wasn’t enough time for us to meet up with her since we arrived around 10:30 pm. We do plan on meeting up with her later on!! When we got to Milano Centrale, everything looked familiar from when we were there a couple months ago :) An airport shuttle drove us passed the hotel we stayed at back in June and all the way to Milano Malpensa airport. By the time we settled down in the airport, it was well after midnight. We found some really comfy benches that were cold, bumpy, and pretty small.

Along with a few other people in the airport, we tried to make the best of it and sleep for the rest of the night. It was hard to sleep for longer than half an hour because you would have to roll around and re situate yourself to get comfortable.

Nonetheless, we did get some sleep and were ready to go this morning. When we woke up, we went to the departure part of the terminal and waited a couple more hours before we could check in. There were some chairs that were way better than the benches we slept on, so both of us fell asleep again and actually got a decent rest out of it! Now we are waiting to board our plane to Mykonos : ) Right now, we are bundled up in jackets and pants and sneakers, but hopefully the weather in Greece will be tank top and flip flop weather!!
Ciao ciao for now,
Ally and Amanda

Omega European Open!

2009-09-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer, Danny asked all the staff members if we wanted to work at a golf open the week after camp ends. Of course, Amanda and I said yes because we wanted to make some extra money for all our traveling! Unfortunately they didn’t have enough space for everyone who applied. One of the restaurants in town was in charge of the food during the open and they needed more helpers (some people couldn’t come because of the swine flu…). All of us who didn’t get the golf gig applied to work for them and got the job. Woo! Thursday morning we all headed off to work at the golf open. We didn’t really know where to meet the man who gave us the job but eventually we found each other. He took us inside the tent and asked if we all had serving experience. Then he looked at me (Ally) and Saoirse and said that we were going to be hat girls instead of servers. This man, Charlie, took the 2 of us outside and set us up with a table and hats. Another lady asked us what size jackets we needed then came back with really nice black omega rain jackets (that have orange vests you can zip off inside), omega polos, and lanyards. We stood at the table all day passing out free red omega hats to everyone who walked by. It was quite boring, but some of the people were very entertaining. They would ask us questions and talk to us in French but we had no idea what they were saying. I would just smile and say I have no idea what you are saying to me. They would usually just smile back and keep talking. Sometimes they would ask where I’m from and when I said California they would ask why I am in Switzerland. On the first day, one of the other staff members walked by and asked if we wanted cappuccinos…of course we did! All of the attendees of the open received a voucher for one free espresso, so on the third day when Saoirse and I were wishing that the guy would bring us another drink, she decided to just ask for some vouchers. They gave her 8! We each kept 2 (one for that day and one for the 4th and final day) and shared the rest with other staff members. The days were pretty long (9am to 4pm) but we got free sandwiches and dinner at the end of the day!
Amanda’s job was actually serving. I didn’t get any cool uniform things like Ally, but each day, I would get a while polo shirt to wear while serving. At the golf tournament, there was a big tent set up that had little sections for the sponsors of the event. Each sponsor had a separate section for their guests. Each day guests would come for a lunch buffet. It was my job to serve the drinks and clear the plates. Each day, I worked for the same sponsor, Zurich, which is a Swiss insurance company. They would have between 40 and 65 guests each day. Most everyone would start speaking to me in French, and I would respond with ‘I’m really sorry, I don’t speak French” and they would usually respond with some kind of question about where I am from, or what I am doing in Crans-Montana. It was a great conversation starter! I also worked with two other people, Laurence from France and a student from a local hospitality school (there was a different student each day). So the three of us would serve drinks together and clear the tables. It was a really easy job, but my feet got tired standing all day. The lunch buffet was open until 3pm, so I worked serving from 10:30 to about 4 with my sponsor. After most everyone left and we cleaned up, we got to go eat a meal of the left over buffet food (some days were better than others), but it was great that we got a free meal - especially because we also got a sandwich before we started! Gotta love free food! So after we were done eating, I would either go back to my area and help more (because guests could come back for drinks until 7pm) or I would help with the dishes. In the back, there were probably 15 people (from camp and just other workers) who would be drying dishes. It was not the most exciting job, but we were getting paid 22 Franks an hour, so why not! Drying did get boring, so I never stayed very late. I think the latest I stayed was 7:45 one night. So for 4 days, that’s what I did. I was lucky because every day I went back to the same sponsor, some people kept switching around, but I really got to know the Zurich reprsentative which paid off because on the last day he gave me a 70 Frank tip!!!! Everyone was jealous, but I thought it was amazing! I also got a 10 Frank tip that day from one of the guests - score! Because of the tips I got, I decided to call it a day. We got paid and then Jenny (a girl from camp) and I walked around the golf course a little bit, just enough to see Alexander Noren signing autographs - he was the golfer that just won the tournament. We also got to see the closing ceremony where Buzz Aldrin spoke! How cool, a fellow American : )
So we both walked away with over 600 Franks, pretty sweet for 4 days of work! And now onto the traveling…..
XOXO,
Ally and Amanda

Leukerbad

2009-09-09T00:58:00.000-07:00

Before golf started, Ally and I had a few days to just hang out. We had moved into the Junior Villa (at camp) with all the other staff that stayed. Living in the villa was so much fun. It made me feel like we were in college, because we were all living together and sharing a kitchen. My favorite time was meal time because everyone would be sitting in the kitchen together, cooking food and eating and just hanging out. It was also nice to have a few days off to rest and just hang out. On Wednesday, before we started working at golf, Ally and I decided to take a day trip. First we wanted to go to Interlaken, but it was too expensive, so we will save that for next summer. Instead, our friend Zach told us about a small town called Leukerbad, where they have hot springs. Duncan (from Canada), Saoirse (from Ireland), and Doug (from Washington) joined us. We took the Funiculaire down to Sierre and then a train to Leuk; from there we took a bus up the mountain to the small town of Leukerbad. The weather was kind of cold, so we were really excited to find the hot springs. There were two different places to choose from, and we chose the one with the water slides! At first, we thought there were going to be natural hot springs in the mountains, but it was more like a water park. There were several different pools with jets and things, and a few slides. All the pools were warm, so it was very relaxing. There was also a room with natural spring water; it was so hot, we couldn’t actually sit in it, but we soaked our legs for a little bit. After a while, our hands and feel were very pruney so we decided to call it a day. We walked around town and had a little lunch before heading back to camp. We didn’t take any pictures of the hot springs, but you can only imagine how amazing it was to be relaxing in a hot spring and staring up at the Alps : ) Oh Switzerland!
That’s it for now!
Amanda and Ally

BUNGY!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-09-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

For those of you that havent experienced our first crazy swiss adventure, you might want to take a look.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ajyoung526/BungyJumping#

Camp ended this past Saturday. The next day, Ally and I decided to go bungy jumping!

Our friend from camp, Georg (who is from Austria, and sounds exactly like our sweet governator) drove us across the valley to Niouc, a small town with what we thought was the worlds scariest bridge - built in 1922.

We wandered onto the bridge and got strapped in for our 190 meter (or 624 ft.) plunge. I went first and it took me quite a while to convince myself to actually jump - except I more like fell off the platform. Ally, the champ that she is, took very little convincing and dove off like a pro!

It was scary and thrilling at the same time. It was amazing though! We enjoyed ourselves and are still alive to tell the tale :)

Our moms disagree with the whole adventure aspect of our travels... but it was good fun!

Stay tuned for more of Amanda and Ally's crazy adventures abroad!
XOXO,

Amanda and Ally

ISCM 2009 - Unforgettable!

2009-09-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!!!
It is the first day of September, and camp is officially over! I cant believe 10 weeks at Summer Camp Montana have gone by. That means that we have been out in Europe for 2.5 months. It has been incredible thus far, but we are ready to turn the page and start some new adventures. Camp was amazing; being in Switzerland, meeting new people, and making friendships that will last a lifetime. What's not to love. Of course, there were some annoying campers, the seemingly endless hours of work and lets not forget the SWINE FLU.... but it all evens out.

Looking out over the valley from camp!

Now that its all over, let me give you a short recap of our adventures...

First session, Ally was a counselor of 8 senior girl campers and I was a night guard. Allys highlights included her amazing campers, river rafting, overnight hike, excursions to Zermatt, sliding down a glacier on trash bags, 4th of July staff party, and so much more. I personally enjoyed sleeping all day and soaking up the sun, but staying up all night was not so much fun. I did get to enjoy some nail painting parties with some of the campers and I watched a lot of movies and really enjoyed skyping with my family every night!!! This session was fun getting the swing of everything and falling into the routine of camp. It was kind of lame that Ally and I were on completely opposite schedules, but it worked out.

The Alps :)

Second session, I was a counselor of 8 younger senior girls and Ally was a night guard. My highlights included river rafting (by far my favorite activity), my entertaining campers, senior dinner (a nice dinner with all the senior counselors), going to Aqua Parc, being a role model to younger girls, excursions to Lausanne and the Olympic Museum, hanging out with all the other senior counselors, Swiss Day, the amazing hike up to the over night hut, and our staff wine tasting party. Ally loved all the friendship bracelets the campers made her, catching up on sleep, taking baths and reading books, and watching lots of movies and actually getting to talk to people via Skype. Second session was a busy session, and again Ally's and my schedule were crossed, but we made the best of it and looked forward to the last session.

Sunset from our balcony :)

Third session was an interesting session to say the least. Ally and I were finally going to be counselors together! She started out having 7 senior girl campers, and I was the senior floater (basically I took over for counselors on the days that they had off). The first week was a normal week, but the campers were different. This session there were many more campers that did not speak english very well, so the language barriers were difficult. Soon enough, the swine flu hit camp montana. Senior campers started dropping like flies. Campers were getting sick, some were leaving because they were scared of the flu, others were leaving because of school, and the senior section was shrinking. Before camp was actually over, we had over 30 senior campers gone out of the 120 campers we started out with. Because of this, all the groups started to merge. At the end of the first week, Ally was down to 5 campers with 2 leaving in a few days. The 8 senior girl groups merged into 6 and Ally and Heidi (our roommate from San Diego) were left without groups. I was still the floater and Ally and Heidi started to work in the infirmary to help out with all the sicko kids. During the second week, I started getting sick - swine flu had hit the counselors. I was put in quarantine with 10 other sick campers and counselors (including Heidi) for 3 days. I was never tested for the swine flu, but I def had some kind of flu. We learned that the swine flu is really no different from a normal flu - fever, body aches, worn out, and a cough. When Heidi and I were fever free, we went back to work, but not for the senior section, for the infirmary. Basically we catered to the sick kids every needs - bringing them movies, meals, and medicine all day long. We were sad to not be working with the campers anymore, but we were making a little extra money and we had fun getting to know more campers that we wouldn’t usually meet. Before we knew it, it was departure day; what was left of the campers and some of the staff members made their way home. After camp cleared out, Ally and I moved out of our apartment and into the junior villa with the other counselors staying to work for the Omega European golf tournament which is held here in Crans-Montana (the town that the camp is in).

Below camp at the Lake!

So that was the past 10 weeks, filled with camper drama, staff parties, excursions, and endless bonding with all our new friends!! The rest of this week will be filled with working as servers at golf, making a little extra money to be used on the rest of our travels. Last night Ally and I booked our flight from Milan to Mykonos Greece - our first leg of our travels :) The rest of our journeys will file in along the way.
Now that we will be traveling soon and going to different places, we will try to post more adventure stories so stay tuned :)

Ally and I on a hike around camp!!

Good luck with school to all of you who are starting again...
We love you and miss you all!
Lots of Love and Hugs,
Amanda and Ally

New job at camp!

2009-08-22T03:19:00.000-07:00

Well...Amanda and I are no longer senior counselors. As of Sunday last week, too many kids have been getting sick here at camp (SWINE FLU!). Also, there is a smaller amount of kids that come to ISCM 3rd session for many reasons (school, ramadan, etc). My group started out with 7 girls. One was homesick and left after 3 days. Another one was moved down to pioneers because she wasn't ready to be with the older kids. 2 more got homesick and left a few days ago. That left me with 3 campers. We merged my group with another senior group and that freed me up to work in the infirmary and help take care of the sick kids. The same thing happened with Heidi. Amanda was still working as a senior floater (when counselors have their day off, she takes over the group). Unfortunately she got sick too and had a high temperature. She was out of commission for a couple days and stayed isolated with the campers who were sick. The same thing happened to Heidi. Now they are both feeling better and Amanda is working in the infirmary with me.

Heidi is back and forth between the seniors and the infirmary. Our job is to pretty much wait on the sick kids hand and foot. We take them food, ask if they need anything, clean up, take away the food, bring them movies, etc. We also help out by checking temperatures and anything else they need us to do in the infirmary. It's not the most fun job but hopefully the kids are enjoying all the work we do for them! That's all for now, have a lovely day!

Ally

Amanda's Second Session at Camp

2009-08-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends!
We are almost finished with the first week of our last session of camp. Ally and I are on movie duty right now - basically we are sitting in a room with some campers watching a movie. I thought this would be a good time to give you a little recap of my past 3 weeks.
I started out the session with 8, 13 or 14 year old girls. I had 4 campers from London, one from Saudi, one half Saudi - half Austrian, one from Venezuela and one from NYC. 6 of the girls were returning campers and 3 were new.

Throughout the three weeks of the session, we took part in many activities all around camp. We did fencing, sailing, climbing, trampoline, tennis, volleyball, swimming, fitness, music, drama, circus, magic, basketball, soccer, karate and so many more. All activities are lead by specialists and are 50 minutes long and we had 5 activities per day. Two days were also set aside for our overnight hike - which I already posted about!

We also had four excursions throughout the session. The first one was to Aqua Parc and Montreux and the second one was to the Olympic museum and Lausanne.

Then we had excursions to go river rafting (which I think was my favorite activity all session) and hiking up to a glacier. The excursions were so much fun! We got to get away from camp and hang out with other groups. I don’t have any pictures from the river rafting trip because we couldn’t have our cameras but it was so much fun. We basically had 3 groups of campers in three different boats and we paddled down a freezing river and jumped off, got pushed off, and pushed each other off into the freezing water…. So fun!

Each night, there are evening activities lead by the counselors. Evening activities include a fashion show, stunt night, casino night, walking into town for fireworks on Swiss Day, and of course, the ever so popular diskos.

Its hard to explain everything that we did, but that is a basic recap of my past 3 weeks. My campers were tough at times, but also a joy. 3 weeks with 14 year old girls can be hard work, but I was sad to see them go at the end. After having my own group for 3 week, I am excited to now be a floater (basically a sub) and work with all the different groups of senior girls this session.

Enjoy the pictures : )

Lots of Love,
Amanda

Excursion to Lausanne!

2009-08-08T23:57:00.000-07:00

For the second excursion during the second session, the seniors went to Lausanne! Amanda and I were especially excited for this trip because there is a Starbucks in this town :)

Just like the last excursion, I joined along with Amanda and the rest of the senior groups, but this time I got off work at 5am so I had a couple more hours to sleep!

The first stop we made was the Olympic Museum. It was amazing! I mean, it really is THE museum of the olympics! This is a picture of me standing under the olympic record height for high jump. GEEZ! How can someone jump that high?? They had all the torches from the games, clothing worn by athletes, etc. There was also a section called Heroes and it was somewhat themed like a comic book. Here is Amanda running in a race! Hahaha :)Both Amanda and I would love to go back, it was such an awesome museum!!

After our allotted time at the museum, we sat by the lake and ate lunch. The food we get on every excursion is the same: tuna, roast beef, or cheese sandwich, salted chips, an apple, iced tea juice box, and a mars candy bar.

The buses drove us into town and we had a few hours to spend in Lausanne. Of course, the first thing we did was go to Starbucks!! Woo :) Then the counselors walked around for a bit and went shopping. We didn't go to H&M! That's a first...

One of the counselors, Christoph, is from Lausanne so we had our own tour guide for the day! It was a fun excursion, but probably the last one Amanda and I will go on together :(

Have a lovely day :)

Ally

Peculiar Thought of the Week!

2009-08-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

So as each session comes to an end, each counsellor collects goods from their campers. As a part of the tradition, today all my girls filled up my backpack with miscellaneous items such as shampoo, conditioner, sun cream, lotion, etc. that they were planning on throwing away instead of taking home after camp. Ally and Heidi and Erika did this last session as well, so at the moment we have bags in our bathroom filled with toiletry items. Most things are half full but we always have enough supplies. Living with 4 girls – I have come to find out that we go through shampoo and conditioner very quickly. We have put away all our own essentials and now rely on supplies from the campers. In 3 weeks we have managed to go through three different kinds of shampoo and conditioner and started our 4th today.
This thought got me thinking….. You know when you think about something random and then it channels other thoughts and eventually you are thinking about something completely random but somehow it all manages to weave together? Well that’s what happened to me in the shower today. I started thinking about shampoo and ended thinking about being a soccer mom who loves Costco – let me further explain.
So I started this thought process when I ran out of shampoo and got another bottle out of our bag of goodies from our campers. Then I started thinking about how quickly we go through this stuff – living with 4 girls. Then that made me think about how I want to have 4 kids, and I wonder when I have kids, if I will be needed to replace their shampoo and conditioner as often as I am here at camp. Then that made me think about the Acosta family and how quickly they go through things at their house with 4 children as well. That made me think about buying in bulk – therefore the Costco comes in because I will most definitely need to buy things in bulk. So I have come to the conclusion that (when I have a family of my own) I will be a Volvo driving soccer mom who’s favourite store is Costco to keep up with my family. So there you have it, my peculiar thought of the week – all because of shampoo!! : )
You know you love me and my random thoughts,
Amanda

Second Session Pictures!

2009-08-03T02:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was able to upload some of my pictures from this session, so check them out if youre interested!!! There are pictures from my overnight hike, glacier excursion, aqua park excursion, geneva excursion, staff nights out and pictures from camp activities.
Enjoy :)
Amanda

http://picasaweb.google.com/ajyoung526

Flu Season...?

2009-08-03T02:27:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I have written a post! I cant believe how fast camp is flying by. This is the last week of the session, then we have new campers coming on Sunday (when Ally and I will both be senior counsellors together - yay!). This session has been fun and very very busy. I love going to all the different activities with my girls and the excursions as well. My head counsellor told me that I have the hardest and youngest group of senior girls, lovely right? Its been fun getting to know them and being around them but I am officially wiped out. Yesterday I woke up with the worst stomach ache and threw up a few times throughout the day (kinda makes me miss my mommy!) Good thing I have my best friend here with me :) She took care of me! She is amazing. Some kind of bug/flu is going around because a bunch of counsellors are not feeling well. It probably doesn’t help that I don’t get enough sleep and am busy all the time. But I was able to rest yesterday, so hopefully ill be on the road to recovery soon. Last night was also our Senior Counsellor dinner. We had amazing food with a tuna tartar appetizer, followed by a fruit and spinach salad and filet minion and a baked potato (ally was in heaven). The dessert was tiramisu. All of the senior counsellors went around telling their favorite camp memories thus far and after every story, we all cheers’ed with wine. We finished the evening off with an Alp Tea flip cup tournament. It was a great evening. I just wish I was feeling better so I could have enjoyed it more, oh well. My girls are at an activity right now, and I just finished writing up all my camper reports so I better go hang out with them.
Hope all is well back home and hope everyone is enjoying their summers!!
Lots of Love, Amanda

Relaxing Day at the Apartment

2009-08-01T13:33:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I decided that I was going to hang out the apartment and lounge around all day since I had to be up til 7am on today. I woke up when Amanda, Heidi, and Erika were getting ready for the day and couldn't fall back asleep, so I started my day off by laying in bed watching Friends! Nobody knows how much I actually love this show. It has a special place in my heart :) When I grow up (which is now...) I want to have a group of friends like that and an apartment like Monica's where everyone is always welcome! I would just love that. Plus, the show is hilarious and always put me in a good mood-or an even better mood than I was already in!

Anyways, moving on from that! I ended up napping later in the morning and followed it with a hot bath while reading some more of Eat Pray Love. Then I sat out on the balcony, catching some rays and z's! I keep reading this book, but only a few pages at a time. It's a great book, but I feel like it'll take me the whole summer to read it! I started it before I left, then set it aside while I read a couple other books at the beginning of the trip, and now I'm back to it. I'll let you know when I finally finish it. But I would recommend reading it!

It was an extremely lazy day for me, but it kept me awake all night! It was followed with another lazy day of sleeping. I fell asleep this morning around 8:30 and slept all afternoon! While I was sleeping, Amanda was at the glacier enjoying the sun and snow :)

Happy Swiss day/1st day of August! (I'm sure we'll have a blog for Swiss day soon),
Ally

Aquapark and Montreux Excursion!

2009-08-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, Amanda and half of the other senior counselors took their kids on an excursion to aquapark and Montreux. Even though I worked until 7am on Tuesday, I woke up at 9am (after 1.5 hours of sleep) to join them! The bus ride was over an hour, so I slept for a while before we arrived at the water park. Pretty much all of the counselors were sleeping the whole ride there!

Aquapark is this semi-large indoor water park along the coast of lake Geneva. Malorie, Amanda, and I headed straight for the lake and sunbathed for a good hour on the grass. Then Amanda and I went back inside for half and hour to go on some of the slides. It was so much fun! I"m not gonna lie, I was scared to go on the rides- only because I didn't want to lose my suit. Luckily that didn't really happen...

After the short amout of time we had at aquapark we ate our lunches and got back on the buses that took us to Montreux. Again, counselors fell asleep. Something about the noisy kids and buzzing bus makes it so easy to pass out! Hahaha. We only had about an hour in Montreux, which was just enough time to visit H&M (of course...it's the only store I have been to about 5 times already. Its always the first stop on our excursions!) I tried on a red dress-with pockets!!-but wasn't sure if I wanted to spend money on it. Amanda and I decided that if she tried it on and liked it too, we would both buy it! Well, we came back to camp with a brand new red dress :) We walked along the waterfront and took some fun pictures :) Just like in Geneva!

In Montreux they have these awnings that stick out in the middle of the sidewalk and hang down about 5 feet from the ground. If you aren't watching where you walk, you might just run into one. One of the girl campers wasn't watching where she was going and ran her head straight into one. (I almost did it too). We were afraid she had a concussion so her counselor kept her awake on the ride home. When the camper started feeling queasy, Amanda sat next to her and held her hair back when she wasn't doing so well. That's how awesome Amanda is!!

Other than the injury, it was a great excursion and I wish we went to aquapark more than just once this summer!

love-love-love

Ally

Geneva Excursion!

2009-07-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

I forgot to write a blog on my excursion to Geneva! A couple weeks ago, during the first session, we took our kids to the Red Cross museum and the lovely city of Geneva. Amanda came with us as well! In fact, there was a good number of extra staff members that joined us on this excursion. The museum was a short visit, but just long enough for the kids to not get bored.

When we arrived in Geneva, the kids went their own way and I walked around with Amanda, Erika, and Steph. We shopped a bit, and window shopped for jewelery! Some of the necklaces and rings were soooo expensive. We stopped at a cafe and ordered milkshakes which turned out to be a huge let down! Their idea of a milkshake is a glass of cold flavored milk. It was like the time I ordered a shake in Nice and they gave me caramel flavored milk...gross? Erika and Amanda made another stop at a chocolate shop- Amanda wanted mint chocolate and Erika wanted peanut butter chocolate. They figured in Switzerland every kind of chocolate imaginable would be easily found...not true! We have found just about everything except peanut butter and chocolate. Luckily Amanda found hers, but Erika is still on the look out for her reeses style chocolate! When they were finished, they met up with me and a few other counselors down at the waterfront. We all took lots of pictures of the massive water fountain, it was fun :)

Overall, it was a great excursion. It's always nice to get away from camp even if for only a few hours!

lots of love,

Ally

Lausanne & Montreux

2009-07-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, my friend Konsta had his day off and told me that he wanted to go to Lausanne. Well, since I have every day off and usually am stuck at camp or in my room, I decided to go with him. We planned on leaving around 11ish, so I went to Santa (his house) around 11:15 only to find him still sleeping...He got ready pretty quickly then we took Christoph's car and headed off to Lausanne. It's a beautiful town on the coast of Lake Geneva. Our very first stop in Lausanne-STARBUCKS! Oh my gosh it tasted so good. I mean, Starbucks isn't my favorite thing back at home, but caramel frapuccinos just taste so good. When we were on the excursion in Geneva a couple weeks ago, one of Steph's girls bought a caramel frapp but didn't finish it. I didn't want it to go to waste so I helped her out with it. I couldn't help myself!

After Starbucks, Konsta was on a quest to find sunglasses so we searched everywhere. We finally found a street vendor who had 2 pairs that he liked. A few minutes later, Konsta found another vendor with glasses he liked. He ended up with 3 pairs in one day!! We walked down to the lake and enjoyed the view for a bit, then took the metro back to the center of town. We found a church and paid 2 franks to climb up the tower for the view of the whole town. It was definitely worth the money!! The spiral staircase wasn't very fun, but we are used to climbing up and down stairs at camp every day!

It was already 5ish, so we made our way back to the car then drove along the lake to Montreux. Another beatutiful town! It's small and quaint, reminding me of the french riviera. We walked around for a bit then decided that it was time to put some food in our stomachs (for the first time all day!) Konsta and I ate at a Chinese restaurant and again, I ordered chicken with cashews. Chinese food twice in the past couple weeks...so strange!

When we got back, the 2 of us were craving ice cream so we drove around Crans-Montana searching for a little ice cream parlor. There were none. In either town. And the stores were already closed. Sad :( We gave up and never got that ice cream.

That night was my night off, so I went to the 80's party that was thrown for Christy's 21st bday. It was down at camp cafe and I had such a good time! My favorite part was the music. All 80's all night. Everyone was dressed up in colorful outfits and wacky hairstyles. Unfortunately Amanda was at her overnight, so we didn't get to hang out. But she also had a good time hiking with her campers!

miss you all, Ally

I love the time difference between Switzerland and home :)

2009-07-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so being a nightguard is boring-true. BUT it's also really really great because when I'm working at midnight, it's only 3 in the afternoon in California. That means I can talk to people on skype! Last night I skyped with Sara (roommate in Orange) and since she was at the townhome, Cindy, Chris Tom, and Jon were there!! After talking with them, I skyped with Jean (Amanda's mom) for a while! I've also been able to see my mom, dad, and Sammy. I'm just waiting for Ryan and Matt to miss me enough to go on skype...

Basically what I'm saying is these next 2 weeks are the perfect time to skype with me (and Amanda too!) because after this session, neither of us will be working at night. We like to hear what's going on in your lives :) We miss seeing your beautiful faces and hearing those lovely voices!

xx (as they do in Europe)
Ally

Amanda's Day Off!

2009-07-27T05:52:00.001-07:00

Last Thursday was Amanda's first day off, along with our roommate Erika. We were going to bungee jump off of a bridge in the mountains, but decided that we weren't quite ready for that and will wait until the 3rd session. Instead, we went to our friend Christoph's apartment for brunch! He is also a senior counselor who had the day off and his family owns a flat up in Montana. We all slept in (which is what I do everyday as a nightguard, but as a counselor it is one of the best things about your day off) then met up with Christoph over at Santa, the house he lives in for camp. He, along with Adam and the 3 of us girls, drove us up to his place and cooked a delicious brunch! Really it was more like lunch since we ate around 2ish. We also played cards and just relaxed for the afternoon. The boys drove into town at the bottom of the mountain but we just wanted to rest some more. There are movies at camp that we can borrow, so Amanda and I took the movie 'Some Like it Hot' because Danny (a head counselor and big man here at camp) said its a pretty funny movie AND it's filmed at Hotel Del Coronado! We pushed our beds together and the 3 of us watched the movie on Erika's laptop. Well...we all ended up falling asleep within the first half hour. I woke up in time to watch the last half, and it really is a funny movie. I think it's only the 3rd or 4th old black and white movie I've seen.

Anyways! After we all woke up, Thai food sounded like a good idea for dinner. Unfortunately it was pouring rain and Le Thai is one of the furthest restaurants in town. We settled for Chinese food. Sounds funny, huh? Chinese food in Switzerland. It was really good! We ordered chicken with cashews and chicken with noodles-we like chicken. For dessert we all ordered sorbet :)
All in all, it was a nice day! Maybe during her next day off (which is in a few days) we'll go see a movie! Harry Potter??

Love from one side of the world to the other,
Ally and Amanda

I stood on a horse!!

2009-07-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty good day. I was woken up around 10:30 by the cleaning ladies who come every Tuesday morning. I tried to have a polite conversation with them, but its hard when I don't know any french and they don't know any english. I think we talked about clouds and the weather. I sat out on the balcony while they gave us new sheets, vaccuumed, and dumped the trash (lucky us, huh?). When they were finished I made myself a granola and yogurt mix for breakfast and played around on the computer.

Today I decided to actually go to camp for lunch. It wasn't the best idea because we had fishsticks -blech- so I just had salad and lots of bread. The weather was nice, so I sat out by the pool and went swimming for a bit with Amanda. Then when her group was horsebackriding, I joined them! Unfortunately I forgot to bring close-toed shoes so I couldn't go in the forest with them. Pierre, the riding instructor, told me I could go on a horse that had a different saddle on it...I don't remember what it was called that he had me do but Pierre stood in the center and had the horse connected to a leash, walking around him in circles. We started with a walk, then a trot, then he had me climb onto my knees on the horses back! I thought that was scary until Pierre said, "Okay now climb onto your feet." Ummmm...no? But he told me it's not hard so I went for it and ended up standing on top of a horse! Man, I wish I had a picture of it. I have no balance or sense of coordination, but I stood on horse! Woohoo :)

Now I'm just hanging out in the hallway of the girls floor. They are at a club tonight so I am all by my lonesome til 10:30 or so. I think tonight I'll watch some more episodes of Burn Notice and read my book, Eat Pray Love. Yesterday I finished the Italy part of the book (Eat) and I just started the India part (Pray).

Ciaoo!
Ally

First 24 hours as a nightguard...

2009-07-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

This is my second night as a nightguard and I'm already bored!! It's really nice to sleep in, don't get me wrong, but these 3 weeks are the complete opposite of what my first 3 were like. I was active every day and stayed busy from 7-11. Now I only work from 8:30 until 2 or 5 or 7am and other than that, I have free time.

Today, after working til 5am, I woke up around 10. I got out of bed and had a glass of water. Then I realized that I had nothing to do, so I went back to my bed and slept for a few more hours. Since lunch at camp is at 1:15, I just missed it. So instead of eating, I decided to take a bath. I can't even remember the last time I had a bath. Probably when I was in elementary school! I took my book in with me and enjoyed a nice hour of reading in the tub :) By the time I was done it was only 3ish, so I watched Hitch on my ipod and painted my nails. I'm terrible at painting nails, so it took me the whole movie to get all my toes and fingers done. Amanda and Heidi came home for a bit, so I chatted with them for a few minutes then headed to town. I thought it would be a good idea to buy some food for the next time I miss lunch (which will quite possibly be today).

Right now its 1:30am and I'm watching the tv show Harper's Island. It's probably a bad idea to watch a scary show when I'm in a big building where almost everyone else is sleeping...I'm just freaking myself out now!! Last night I talked to Sara Zotovich for a while (yay!), updated the blog, and watched a movie called Boys and Girls. When 5 oclock am finally rolled around I was ready climb into bed and pass out. It was weird walking home and listening to the birds chirp while the sky turns from black to blue...

Tonight I talked to my mom for a little while on skype!! I also talked to Clay! Lucky him, right now he's snorkeling in Hawaii. But who am I to be jealous--I'm living in Switzerland for the summer. Oh man, after this scary tv show I think I'll watch something a little happier, like Friends. Or maybe I'll read my book? Or write some postcards?

Oh no. I'm watching the tv show on mega video and it just stopped. It says I have to wait 54 minutes until I can finish the show!! And it was just getting good. Oh well, I still have 3 and a half hours until my shift is over.

I work on the garden floor, which is the very bottom. It's a nice location because I am only a flight of stairs away from the snack room. Every night we get cappuccinos and there are plates filled with cheese, meat, bread, and fruit that we can munch on during the night. I stick with the bread/cheese combo and take home fruit for the next day.

Okay I need to get up and stretch my legs.

(for some reason the computer isn't letting me make the heart I put at the end of my blogs *UGHHH*) LOVE-- Ally

Am I in Texas…?

2009-07-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was hands down the best day even for me in Switzerland. After finally falling asleep at 8:30am, I woke up at 12:30 to one of the prettiest Swiss days : ) The sun was out, the sky was blue and the pool seemed to be calling my name. I decided to give up my sleep and made my way down to the pool where I was able to soak up the hot sun for a few hours. After trying to even out some sweet tan lines from a few days before, I decided to accompany Heidi into town. She needed to get a birthday present for a friend, and I had nothing better to do, so into town we went. Crans is a beautiful town and I absolutely love all the random flower beds lining the streets. Heidi wanted to get a bow tie for her friend’s birthday gift so we walked into a small shop. The store clerk knew right away we were Americans and proceeded to tell us he only spoke Italian, French, and German… no English! We were in luck, in my broken German, I managed to help Heidi pick out the right tie, get a sweet deal (5 Franks off!!) and talk a little about my work in Switzerland to the nice clerk man! Score, my German skills paid off!! After that, we walked around and I got a popsicle from a small grocery store, and let me just tell you, some things are just not meant for chocolate. My fruity buzz - light year popsicle was dipped in chocolate on the tip. I thought that was a rather odd combination, but once I managed to get all the chocolate off, the popsicle was delicious!! We continued to walk around town and eventually made it back to our apartment where I showered and got ready for the nights activities. The junior campers (ages 8-11) invited all the specialist counselors (night guards included) to their special stunt night. We ate dinner with the juniors which was super cute because I am used to eating and being around all the senior campers. After dinner we were escorted into to the club room which was decorated like an underwater adventure zone. Pretty darn cute! We sat at small tables which had chips and hot sauce and guacamole. Then we had little junior servers who brought us all glasses of wine. Think about that, Little girls, with life vests on, serving counselors endless glasses of wine…. Pretty entertaining. As we drank our wine and ate the chips, we watched each junior group put on a little skit - some song and dances, a fashion show, and the ever so popular “if I weren’t a camper…” song. It was precious! Made me miss my little Star Point darlings! After the show, it was the time to get to work, where I hung out with Ally’s campers for a good part of the evening.
A pretty sweet day right? I sure thought so!! But then I was surprised to wake up to a cold and cloudy day. This is when I was reminded of my dearly beloved Texas, and its ability to change weather in an instant. Right now I am looking out of my balcony and can see the fog and clouds right in front of my face. I can not see the mountains across the way, nor can I see the pool at camp. Thunder and rain passed through a little while ago and now all is calm, quiet and cold at 5:30pm on Friday - the last day of camp. It is a sad day for Ally (as it is her last night with her campers) and a glorious day for me (my last night as a night guard!) Hooray! So now we must get ready for tonight.
Can’t believe the first session of camp is nearly over. This may very well be one of my lasts posts for a while, because Ally will be the one with all the free time! But I am sure she will keep you updated!!!
Hope all is well at home!
Lots of Love,
Amanda

I havent uploaded my photos yet, but Ill post some later!

Working with teenage girls is quite an experience...

2009-07-16T03:48:00.001-07:00

Hey all!!
I have been working at camp for almost 3 weeks now with a group of 8 girls from around the world. I can't believe they are leaving on Saturday...and even though they were annoying at times and didn't always like to follow the rules--I am going to miss them so much! I didn't realize how much of an impact 15-17 year old girls could have on my life.

I had my ups and downs with them but I would say it was the best group to have for my first time working at camp. All the future campers I meet have a lot to live up to.

I learned a lot from these girls. Alya from Saudi Arabia wasn't feeling well on our overnight hike so she walked with me in the back. To keep her mind off of her nausia I asked her about home. I didn't know that they don't have movie theatres! Or that the weekend is on Thursday and Friday! I feel so uncultured.

I have done so much with these girls! Horsebackriding, archery, swimming, circus, fencing, tennis, excursions to Geneva and Zermatt (where the Matterhorn is), river rafting, the glacier, and an overnight hike.

I think my favorite excursion was Zermatt. It is the cutest little town compared to Geneva, which is like any big city in America. The best part about Zermatt was waiting to turn the corner and --ta daaa!-- see the famous Matterhorn. I really don't know why it's popular, but I like it because of Disneyland (thank you Amanda for putting up a picture of both the real one and the disney one). Right when we got to town, the campers went off on their own and us counselors stuck together. The first thing we did was find the Matterhorn. Then we walked around the cemetary where people who died climbing/descending the mtns are buried. It's crazy how young some of the people were. Our next stop after Zermatt was Scion, where all the shopping takes place. I'm proud of myself--I didn't buy anything!!

During the last week of the session, we went river rafting!! We had to wear wetsuits, windbreakers, and boots. I thought it was little much with the wetsuit until one of the other counselors, Simon, jumped into our boat and pushed me into the water. It was 8 degrees celsius. FREEZING! But after a few seconds your body turns numb and the pain sort of goes away. Since the river wasn't a very difficult one (they classified the rapids as -1) we made our own fun by playing games and pushing each other in. We even got the river guide to go in no matter how hard he fought against us! After the rafting, there was a delicious bbq waiting for us. It was the perfect ending to our morning.

Another fun but cold trip that we went on was to the glacier. My group along with 4 others took a gondola up to the glacier where we spent most of the day relaxing. First we took a short hike to the top where there was a beautiful view of the glacier. Then one counselor, Jenny, stayed behind and hung out at the restaurant with kids who didn't want to go to the snow while the others grabbed trash bags and headed over to a nice spot for sledding. Some kids were courageous enough to go sledding on their bellies! It made them look like penguins. I wasn't quite as courageous but somehow halfway through my first ride down, I lost the trashbag and slid the rest of the way backwards and on my stomach. Needless to say I was freezing cold and my hands felt like they were going to break off- but it was so fun! Before we left the snow, the other counselors and I tried sledding down all together. It sort of worked, but I got a nice bruise from going over a bump in the snow. For the next couple hours, all the campers hung out and relaxed- and so did the counselors. It was a good day for us because we didn't have to take the kids from activity to activity and motivate them to do things they didn't want to do. We just got to enjoy the day. Unfortunately I forgot to reapply sunscreen and got back to camp with a really red face. I know my face gets red easily- but I don't know if it's been this red before!! I learned my lesson.

Overall, I had the best time during this 1st session. I'm sad to see it end :(

A new session starts on Sunday which means a whole new group of campers. This time I'll be a nightguard so I will be switching with Amanda...wooo working at night. I'm sure by the time I get used to being nocturnal these next 3 weeks will be over and I'll be back on a normal schedule...

Miss you all, I can't believe we have been in Europe for about 5 weeks now!

♥Ally

Love from Switzerland!

2009-07-15T20:31:00.001-07:00

Hey Guys!!!

Each summer, the whole staff at camp take a huge group photo during orientation week. They then make tons of post cards for all of us to send out to our beloved friends and family! They are free and we get to send them for free.... so if you want a post card from camp, leave us your address :)

XOXO,
Amanda and Ally

Oh Mr. Sun!!!

2009-07-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

Hello dear friends! Its officially Wednesday morning for me here at camp, but it's still Tuesday for yall back home; which means Ally and I have been gone for 4 weeks (or a whole month)! Crazy how time flies!!!
Switzerland has been amazing, don’t get me wrong, but the weather has been killing me! The other night I went to work with sweatpants and my northface on!!! This is summer right?!? Since we have been here, the weather has been fair, but nothing like a summer should be (considering I am used to Texas heat and all...)! Its been cold and cloudy and even rainy at times [thank goodness for our rain jackets and REI!]. Yesterday and today I gave up quality sleep time to lounge by the pool practically all day! It was finally nice and sunny outside! I did manage to get some pretty sweet tan lines, but it was totally worth it! Summer has finally come to Crans-Montana Switzerland!
YAY!!!!!

Hugs and Kisses,
Amanda

Zermatt Excursion!

2009-07-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

Last week, the senior campers went on an excursion to Zermatt, Switzerland. This is the same city that I went to a few weeks ago to visit my cousin Kyle. This time I decided to tag along with Ally and her campers. We took the bus with around 100 people to Tasch and then took a train into Zermatt.

Zermatt was beautiful! Such a quaint little town with no cars! We walked around the town and the best part was stopping to take pictures of the Matterhorn! We are so used to seeing the Matterhorn at Disneyland… and now to see it in person, just plain crazy!

***Can you tell the difference? Props to Disney :)

As the kids explored the small city and do what kids do, we hung out with the other counselors and did our own thing. Camp here is crazy - even though we brought campers who were between 14 and 17 years old, I still don’t think they would be aloud to explore a city on their own while the counselors went to a little café to have drinks (compared to American camps).

We also walked into a small chocolate shop... as soon as I walked in the door, I was engulfed by the smell of chocolate - i wish there was a way to describe it! It was amazing! Gotta love Switzerland!!! :)

After Zermatt, we made a quick stop at Sion - another small town between camp and Zermatt. Here the campers went shopping and the counselors did too. It was short but sweet. After shopping for a few hours and walking around this new city, we were back on the bus and headed back to camp!!
Sorry its been a while since our last post…. I’ll try to update more : )
LOVE,
Amanda

If you want to see more pictures of our trip to Zermatt - check out our pictures on Picasa!

http://picasaweb.google.com/ajyoung526/ZermattExcursion#

Ally's Day Off!

2009-07-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was Ally’s first day off! We all get two days off each session, for a total of 6 days during the whole summer. Most people use it as a day of rest or a time to go into town or even travel around Switzerland. Ally and I decided to make a trip down to Sierre - the town below camp.

Street market in Sierre

Pretty vineyards between Sierre and camp.

We found a grocery store which reminded us of home. Most grocery stores here are small, but this one in Sierre was big and had practically everything you could think of; it was very comparable to a super target. There was also a small restaurant inside that reminded me of Central Market!! Being in Switzerland, it only makes sense that this store had a whole isle of chocolate! I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many different kinds of chocolate! It was crazy.

After that store, we continued to walk around Sierre, the town it self is pretty small and quaint, but it was fun to walk around. We also did a little shopping at the H&M which is always fun! We then made our way back up to Crans-Montana where we had lunch at an Italian restaurant called Michelangelo’s where we shared a delicious margarita pizza! YUM! It was nice to have lunch that wasn’t camp food! Even though we are pretty spoiled because camp food is really good compared to the camp food that we are used to in the states. After lunch we had time to go home and watch a movie and take naps! Tuesday nights are buffet nights for the seniors, so we dressed ‘smartly’ (which in Switzerland means to dress up/nicely) and went to camp for dinner. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many different kinds of food. There was so much food and it was all so yummy. There were tables of cheeses and meats, appetizer type foods, steaks, pastas, salads and a table filled with a million desserts!!! Tuesday dinners are definitely something to be jealous of, because only the seniors get it, so all other counselors and specialists miss out. After dinner, I had to start my night shift so Ally hung out with me for a little and we got to Skype with our families! It was a great day!
XOXO,
Amanda

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

At camp, the 4th of July is not that big of a deal, because you know, we’re in Switzerland and everything… but for all of us from USA, it was time to celebrate! Since I am a night guard, I do not get to go out with everyone at night, but tonight is my night off! Good planning right!?! We started out the day decked out in our red, white, and blue.

Once all the campers were in bed, it was time to celebrate! I would compare this night’s events to a frat party… lots of noise, lots of people, and lots of drinking games. God Bless the USA! I was kind of sad that we didn’t get to participate in American traditions like hanging out at the beach, or the lake house and BBQ and watch fire works, but I guess this is second best! We were also a little jealous that our families spent the holiday together at the Paur house with BBQ and fire works.
Good thing the next day was Sunday because that meant we got to sleep in and then wake up to enjoy Sunday Brunch!!! YUMMM

XOXO,
Amanda

Canada Day

2009-07-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

July 1st is Canada’s independence day, and what better way to celebrate than throw a huge party! It was pretty easy to dress up because their colors are red and white…so close to America!! My girl Catt (this is Ally) had a Canada hat so I borrowed it for the evening festivities. I feel like I’m in a movie about college life. All the Canadians showed their spirit by singing songs loud and proud. Happy Canada day! :)

♥Ally

Photos!

2009-07-06T02:47:00.000-07:00

Hey Yall,
I uploaded our pictures onto Picasa so if you would like to check them out, go for it :)
http://picasaweb.google.com/ajyoung526
XOXO,
Amanda

Staff Party!

2009-07-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, before the campers came (on Sunday), camp threw us a party to celebrate!! After a week of orientation, we were ready to have a good time! It was funny because we were so used to everyone looking like they were hung over, tired, dirty or didn’t care, but then we all got to dress up for the staff party!

**San Diego girls + Roomies!!!

Alcohol is definitely a different story in Europe, compared to back in the states. During evening events at camp, the camp directors gave us drink tickets so we can have free drinks at the bar at the camp. For the staff party, we were given 3 drink tickets which we could use for any drink (beer or wine). I just thought that was kind of crazy, because I feel like that would never happen back in the states. But who am I to complain…

We had a great time hanging out with everyone without thinking about working. It was so much fun with tons of dancing and hanging out. It was a great way to start camp off with a bang!!!

Welcome to International Summer Camp Montana!

Hiking - Rain, Hail, or Shine!

2009-07-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy lately, but still wanted to update you guys on some fun things that we have done so far! During orientation week, the counselors went on a hike to the over night hut. The over night hut is a small place up in the alps that the kids hike up to one day and stay the night then hike back to camp the next day. Usually three groups go at one time. All the counselors hiked up there so we know the trail to follow when we take our own groups up there.

We took a bus to the beginning of the hike. We hiked a few minutes and stopped to have sack lunches that we brought with us. It was quite an experience because we had to roast sausages - like we put them on a stick we found and held it over the fire. It was pretty fun. They also served smoked Raclette (a type of stinky Swiss cheese). Ally tried that and said it was delicious!

We also had wine and lots of fresh fruit. As lunch was finishing, it started to rain. And then it hailed… we continued on our hike getting drenched by the rain and hail, but it was still fun and a good work out. The sights were beautiful! At this point, it was still hard to believe that we were going for a hike in the Swiss Alps…. How crazy! I took tons of pictures :)

We also saw cows with huge cowbells - it was hilarious. Seeing the cows on the side of the trails reminded me a little of Texas! But a little different. We also saw some goats - also with bells. The bells are so loud, you can hear the animals from so far away.

When we got to the over night hut, we got a drink and hung out and rested for a little while, then we hiked back down to a small restaurant where a bus picked us up and took us back to camp. At the restaurant, we got drinks (Ally and I chose hot chocolate to warm up while others had beer or wine), and played cards while waiting for the bus. The whole day was pretty fun getting to know other counselors better and just hang out while enjoying Switzerland!

We figured out that camp is located about 5000 ft. above sea level. The over night hut is a little over 8000 ft. - just to put that in perspective.
Hiking is fun :)

LOVE,

Amanda

10 Things to Smile About:

2009-06-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

I have been in Switzerland just over a week, so I will share some thoughts -

Things I love about Switzerland -

The Alps/scenery
All my new friends
Accents
Scottish friends with accents! BONUS!
So many PE teachers working at camp
Chocolate
Walking everywhere
Waking up and standing on my balcony - looking at the mountains
Being with my best friend :)
So many memories to be made.......

Things I dont love so much -

Flies!!!
Stinky Cheese!
No Target's
Sleeping during the morning/day
Hiking in the rain/hail
Being far away from home/ the states
Taking care of sick kids
Not being able to understand half the things people are saying - language barriers!!
Realizing that it wont last forever.....

Well hope you enjoyed that little tidbit :) I now have 1 hour left, then off to bed, just in time to wake Ally up!

Hope yall are enjoying your summers just as much as I am!!!!!!!!!

Lots of Love,
Amanda

Mini Family Reunion!

2009-06-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

Sunday (the first day of camp) I was able to go visit my cousin, Kyle, in Zermatt, Switzerland. He is traveling around Europe as a graduation trip with some high school friends. Zermatt is about 2 hours from me by train.

Since today/tonight is my first night as a night guard, I had the whole day off so I used that to go visit Kyle. Zermatt is so pretty and green! I love it! And there are no cars, so cool!!!

I met up with Kyle after he and a friend went for a hike and then we went to lunch and shared some fondue (my first ever!). I am not a big cheese fan, but it was pretty good! A good experience considering we are in Switzerland :)

Aside from my quick trip to Zermatt, I started my night guard shift today, from 8:30pm to 7am. It is now 6am - one more hour to go!!! There are 7 night guards, and we each take a separate floor to stay on during the night. My floor is the senior girls floor; so I have to deal with the girls staying up chatting, or my favorite, trying to sneak out of their room (considering they live on the garden floor - ground level - and they all have sliding glass doors that open onto the terrace). Tonight I caught 3 different rooms (out of 11) trying to sneak out and I had to take one cell phone away since they are supposed to be locked in a safe during the night.

I started writing this post last night and then got interrupted by some sick campers and some pioneer boys who woke up before 6am! Are they crazy?! Well anyway, I am almost done with my second night as night guard and I am enjoying a delish cappuccino (from the supposedly $40,000 espresso machine) and a fresh croissant (because the baker is baking away in the kitchen!) while sitting at a desk, waiting for everyone to start showing up for the days' activities.

Tonight was better than last night, no girls tried to sneak out on my floor, but I did have to take one cell phone away again. Ally and Erika (my roomies) came to visit me around midnight and get a little cappuccino action for themselves! Score!!! It is already light outside and started getting light around 5am. The sun will not come into view until around 6am though - and it stays late past 10pm! Crazy how that works, but I love it!

Besides that, my day has been kind of boring; when I woke up in the afternoon I was able to walk around camp and hang out with other counselors until it started raining... so we had to take it inside! During my night I was able to read some of a book I just started, watch a movie, Skype with my mom, hang out with Ally and Erika, get my internet stuff caught up on (email, FB, etc.), and still have time to finish all of my and Ally's laundry - I even ironed my dress! Be proud mom :)

Well, I have one more hour left! Better make sure everyone is still sleeping!

Lots of Love,
Amanda

Welcome, campers!

2009-06-28T00:16:00.001-07:00

It's Sunday the 28th, so Amanda and I have been at camp for 7 days now! We had an exhausting but fun filled week getting to know over 100 new people who we'll become very close with in the next 9 weeks. They are from all around the world! A few days ago we played a game of dodgeball - North and South America vs. the World. Guess who won?? Of course it was the Americas!!
Today the kids are arriving. All day the counselors sit around waiting for their kids to get here. In the staff lounge there is a tv and the best channel to watch is music because every language can enjoy it. Over the past few days they have pretty much only been playing Michael Jackson so now I have seen just about every music video and I'm in the mood to learn how to dance like him.
I'm so anxious to meet the 8 teenage girls that I'll be spending the next 3 weeks with. I've heard many horror stories, but also many stories about becoming really close to the kids. This past week we have been getting up at 7am and starting the day with breakfast at 7:45am. With the seniors I don't have to be at camp til 8:20 so I have a little more time in the morning to sleep :)
Amanda is a nightguard so she starts off tonight watching the senior girls floor to make sure they don't sneak out and meet up with the boys. It'll be weird because when she is getting off work at 7am, I'll probably be waking up to start my day of work! She is in Zermatt today visiting with her cousin, Kyle.
This session we get to do so much with the senior (ages 14-17) campers. In a few days I am taking them on an overnight hike to a little cabin/hut. In the next couple weeks we will be going on day excursions to Zermatt and Bern. There is a river where we go rafting, a glacier where we spend the day sledding, and a ropes course called 'fun forest.' Some nights we take the kids into town and go to discos. Everything sounds sooo much fun! But I know I'll be running on empty with hardly any sleep...
Hope you all are having a great summer!!
♥Ally

Send Us Mail :)

2009-06-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Here is our address at camp incase you feel like sending us some love :)

International Summer Camp Montana
La Moubra
CH-3963 Crans-Montana 1
Switzerland

XOXO - A&A

And So It Begins.........

2009-06-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

We made it to camp!!! OH MY GOSH Switzerland is amazing!!! We took the train from Milan to Sierre, Switzerland. Then we took the funiculaire up the mountain to Crans-Montana which is where camp is! The town that camp is in is also a ski resort town so all our apartments are set up like that.

**Crans-Montana**

Switzerland is breathtakingly beautiful. The air is so crisp! The first few days were cold which we did not enjoy but it is now warm and we both have sun burns! We live in San Giorgio in a two bedroom apartment with a total of 4 girls - our balcony looks straight towards the Alps across the valley.

** This is the view from our balcony - it also looks down at camp which you can see**

Ally and I share a room and Erika and Heidi (two girls from Encinitas) share the other room. We also share a closet and 1 bathroom. There is also a fully furnished kitchen - but we will never really use it since we get all meals at camp. So far we have been doing orientation - learning about rules and our jobs and getting to know everyone. We are having so much fun meeting so many new friends from so many different countries and hearing so many different languages. We are also kind of suckers for all the accents - its so fun! There are about 22 people from the states (including 6 Californians and even 1 Texan!!!) and 21 from Canada, the rest are from all over. It has been kind of a rush trying to cram everything in! The camp itself is very nice and pretty big - there are steps everywhere! We have been playing games, going to meetings, doing a ropes course, hiking, going into town, and of course partying!!! It is so much fun going out because everyone gets along and everyone goes out together. We basically took over one of the two bars in town last night! We are also served free drinks at the camp cafe during evening activities - how crazy is that!! We start every morning at 7:45 so we have not been getting very much sleep, but it's only just beginning. I think our favorite thing so far is just getting to know everyone and making new friends. The campers come on Sunday, so we are looking forward to that! I (Amanda) will be a night guard for the first session (three weeks). So basically I will be sitting in one hallway from 8:30 to either 2am, 5am or 7am (depending on the schedule) making sure the girls are staying in their room. Of course they wont - so Ill be watching for them to sneak out and try and go to the boys rooms and so on. Ally is going to be a senior girls counselor for the first session - she will be in charge of 8 girls (ages 14-17) taking them around to the different activities. The activities are so cool, mostly sports but also things like arts and crafts, karate, circus, etc. Today we walked into town and had our very first Swiss Chocolate :) YUM!
I will be on skype when I start doing night guard duties which will be during the afternoon/evening for everyone at home :)
Well we are off to quiz night!
XOXO - Amanda and Ally

**our first night out - and Ally's 22nd Birthday :)

Milano!

2009-06-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!! So, first of all I want to say THANK YOU MOM (this is Ally) for the Hilton hotel in Milan. We looove it. The beds are super comfy and there is a great view and air conditioning and a bathroom to ourselves. Thanks :)
So, we went to Acqua al 2 for dinner our last night in Florence and it was delicious! Now Amanda and I have been to both locations!! The next day we went to the San Lorenzo Market to pick up some souvineers before we checked out of the hotel. OH! And we were finally awake in time to enjoy the breakfast at the hotel. It was pretty good with some cereal, bread, and nutella!! Yum. It was Amanda's first time tasting nutella and she loved it! Who would have thought there would be chocolate for breakfast :) After the short trek to the train station which actually took us a while because of all our luggage (really its not bad for 6 months, but it isn't fun to carry!!) we got on the train and settled in our seats for a couple hours. Amanda read and enjoyed the scenery while I just read because I really wanted to finish my book.
Milan is way bigger than Florence! It's beautiful though. Lots of big buildings and big streets. It is more metropolitan than Florence. There is also lots of vegetation. We weren't expecting it to be so green in a city! We checked in to our hotel and watched a movie in our spacious room with air conditioning (it's really hot here and the fan in Florence did not feel as good as air conditioning). Then we decided to go shopping and eat dinner. Lots of the stores were closed, but it was nice to window shop. The time here is way different than we are used to! The shops open and close at different times, they close during siesta in the afternoon, and they eat way later than Americans do! We didn't sit down for dinner last night until 9:30! And we went to a restaurant called Brickoven. It was a very American place but with Italian food and American food (like huge hamburgers!). We tried a new drink called Panaché which is beer and sprite mixed together. It was good-sweeter than we are used to when it comes to beer.
Today we went sight seeing in the center of Milan! The concierge told us to take the subway, but we thought walking would be fine! It only took about half an hour to arrive in the fashion district. They had everything from Armani to Prada to Foot Locker!

Amanda took pictures of the stores so we will add them to the blog when we can! We walked over to the Duomo- which is HUGE. It's gothic outside, and has tons of stained glass inside. It was all so beautiful! We'll add pictures of that too.

From there we walked to the Castello (castle) and on the other side of it is a park that reminded us of central park. We strolled all through it, taking pictures of the scenery and watching people play games/soak up the sun. We walked back through the fashion district and the weather went from sunny to rainy in a matter of minutes. There was thunder, but the freak storm passed quickly.
After that we headed back to the hotel and cleaned up before going out again. Then we went to a supermarket located at the train station -weird- and *YAY!!!* Amanda pointed out my favorite chocolate that we have been looking for!! It just tastes so good :)
Well, it's almost 9:30 so we should probably sign off the internet and go get some dinner!! Tomorrow we are leaving for camp!!! Switzerland, here we come!!!
Lots of love,
Ally and Amanda

Ciao Italia

2009-06-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys!!
Ally and I are sitting in a cafe in Florence using the internet for the first time since San Diego. We made it safely after two days of traveling. Our flight from DC to Zurich got delayed three hours but we had a 9 hour layover in Zurich so it didnt offset our trip. At the Zurich airport I was able to use some of my awesome German skills! Super fun. Only in Switzerland would we get swiss chocolate on the air plane :) It def. beats the pretzels or peanuts in America!

We arrived in Florence Wednesday evening. Instead of dinner, we decided to settle for Gelato :)

So far we have been walking around alot and seeing the city. We went to the Boboli gardens in the Pitti Palace where the family who ruled Florence once lived.

It is a lot hotter than Ally remembered - since she was here a year ago. Our hotel is small and quaint and up 5 flights of stairs... not fun to carry all our luggage up! The food is DELICIOUS!!! We had the best pizza and pasta last night at Ally's favorite restaurant. We also shared a caraf of their house wine!!! yummmmm.

We have met some crazy Italians - but don't worry, we havent been TAKEN! ha!
Tonight we are going to try and go to Aqua al 2 for dinner! If you guys miss us, you can always pretend youre there and go to the one in San Diego :) Tomorrow we will leave fabulous Florence for Milan. We are extremely excited to sleep in a comfy bed in our American Hilton - in Milan! Thanks mama Paur!!! After Milan we are off to camp!!! YAY!
We miss you all!!
Lots of Love,
Amanda and Ally

See Ya Later, America!

2009-06-16T01:11:00.000-07:00

Ahhh! So it's 1:15am and I plan on waking up in 2 and a half hours to shower and get ready...then we leave for the airport at 4:45am!! We really could have used one more day, but probably would have done the same thing and procrastinated!!

Luckily the bags are packed and we are ready to go :)

Alrighty, I'm off to take a nap! Good thing we have lots of time to sleep on the plane (even though I can never get myself to sleep longer than half and hour).
♥Ally

Europe Here We Come!!

2009-06-16T00:16:00.000-07:00

Alright, its past midnight! That means that today is the day that we leave America! Our flight leaves San Diego this morning(the 16th), then we will be stopping in Washington DC, then again in Zurich, then we will arrive in Florence on the 17th! [p.s. Happy Birthday Marin - on the 17th! Love you and miss you!!!]
Cheers to safe travels :)
We will update you when we can!
XOXO - Amanda

Our Last Weekend in CA

2009-06-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

Well it's 9:30 on a Saturday night and I'm exhausted! In the past two days I've managed to help keep REI in business with tons of Euro purchases, and I now have 5 pairs of new shoes for the trip! Holy smokes between cleaning up from Texas, moving all my stuff around and packing I am worn out!! Last night Ally and I met 4 new friends from San Diego and Washington who will be returning to camp for their second summer to work! Yay for meeting new people!!!

For those of you who don't really know what is going on let me enlighten you...
Ally Paur and Amanda Young have been best friends since our Kindergarten days in Poway (San Diego). Although we were separated by a few states the past four years in college, we are still best friends! Fancy that! Ally and I decided that we were not ready to enter the real world of working or grad school once we graduated so we decided to go global and apply to work at an international summer camp in the Swiss Alps! A teacher friend of my mom has two daughters who worked at the camp last year and told us about it. After some research and heavy thinking, Ally and I filled out our applications and got hired! We will be camp counselors doing a number of different things - we will fill you in when we know - in the Crans-Montana region of Switzerland!

Well, that's the gist of it! I'm off to do more packing! Switzerland here we come :)

XOXO- Amanda

Countdown

2009-06-06T22:46:00.000-07:00

10 days til we are off to Europe!! First stop- Zurich (we have a layover there for 9 hours). Second stop- Florence, where I lived for 4 months! Time to share this lovely city with Amanda. Third stop- Milan, an exciting place to stay before our time living and working in Switzerland! We can't wait to begin our travels :)
♥Ally