Hello Readers,

I have been back in Georgia for about a week now, and am settling back into village life pretty rapidly. The culture shock returned when I did, but with my grasp on the language and idiosyncrasies of the country, I was able to adjust much more quickly than the first time.

Because my Eurotrip was a month long, I cannot give the detailed play-by-play that I can give about my weekend trips in Georgia, so I am going to post a quick recap of my trip and then get back to what this blog is really about in my next post, which is Sakartvelo!

Barcelona:

Spain, the seaside, Sangria, and severe financial issues

The journey started and ended in Barcelona, a city full of interesting architecture, pushy souvenir salesmen, and tapas. My journey did not start smoothly, to say the least. When Amy and I arrived at the airport it was midnight. Neither of us had any Euros to our name, so I decided to pull money out of the first ATM I saw. We were literally in Europe for ten minutes when the bank machine swallowed my debit card without producing any money. I first reacted by falling onto the floor and crying; this went on for a fair amount of time. A nice Spanish girl called the number on the ATM machine for me, but they pretty much told me to cancel my card and that there was nothing they could do. I called Chase, who after encouraging me to update my mailing address informed me that they could not send a new card to me until 30 days after updating a mailing address. Eventually, I managed to get 40 euros from a different ATM with my Georgian debit card, and Amy and I made it to our hostel, where I called my parents on Skype and cried some more. Mom ended up getting me a new debit card in her name, which she mailed to my friend Tina in Austria, where I would eventually end up. Until then, I was being supported by Amy, who I thanked about 5,000 times!

Me and my sugar mama in the Gothic District

Once we got over that drama, I was able to really enjoy Barcelona, which had kind of a negative connotation in my family after Jenna survived a particularly traumatic event there. It’s a good city for poor travelers, with about 20 hostels under 10 euros a night, an impressive Bazaar for grocery shopping, and a lot of really cool buildings that you can look at from the outside, for free. The city is famous for places like Park Guell and the Sagrada Familia, both designed by resident architect Gaudi, which were especially cool at night, when they light up and you can’t see the cranes and scaffolding surrounding their perpetual refurbishing.

One of Gaudi’s most iconic buildings. He was a pretty quirky guy.

I was really exhausted by the time we hopped on our 22 hour ferry to Cvitivecchia, Italy, the closest coastal city to Rome. I was happy to have literally nowhere to go during that time. The view was nice too!

Goodbye Spain, hello Italy!

Rome:

Christmas capitol of the world, perhaps?

When deciding where we would spend Christmas, Drew suggested Rome. The city would provide plenty of historical sites to fill our time, and a visit to the Vatican on Christmas day would offer us a rare sight: the Pope! Rome was the first time I really felt like it was Christmas time. Barcelona was too warm, and Georgians celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January, so they had no decorations by the time I left. The high point was definitely Christmas in St. Peter’s Square, surrounded by thousands of people, being blessed by the Pope.

I do wish I could have seen the Popemobile, though

The hardest thing about Rome was probably how expensive everything was. The B&B we stayed at the first night and promptly left the next morning left us on the street buzzing for over an hour, before sleepily letting us in and arguing that we came too late. Too bad their website said “24 hour reception.” I felt like we were overpaying for our next “Bed and Breakfast,” who gave vouchers to a nearby cafe as the “breakfast” which was closed the entire time we were there. On top of that, they provided no guest kitchen for us to fend for ourselves. Each meal seemed like an assault on my (or in this case Amy’s) wallet. I splurged only on a tour of the Colosseum and Roman Forum, but I chose not to buy any souvenirs to help make up some of the costs.

I kept wanting to watch “Gladiator”…. and okay, also “The Lizzie McGuire Movie”

Luckily, Rome is a beautiful city, and many of it’s greatest attractions (The Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, etc.) are free, if not a bit overcrowded. My fondest memory is the amazing, if fleeting sunset we saw as we crossed the river looking back on St. Peter’s Basilica. The timing was just right to get the sky, reflecting on the water, with a silhouette of the church.

I mean… wow

Slovenia:

Sunrise over Trieste, Italy from just over the border in Slovenia

So this first anecdote actually takes place in Italy, in the border town of Trieste, but as it was part of the journey to Slovenia I lumped it in here. Amy and I departed from Drew in Rome, and continued on towards Slovenia. We took the cheapest train to Trieste, knowing there would be connections from there to Ljubljana. However, when we got to Trieste it was midnight and there were no trains going anywhere, nor was anything in the station open, including the bathrooms. With six hours until the opening of the station, we wandered outside in search of a hostel or internet cafe. We found nothing and the weight of our backpacks inspired us to go back to the train station and try to sleep. The next 5.5 hours were some of the worst of my life. The train station was full of homeless people, stretched out on egg crate foam pads with flannel blankets over them. Amy and I were wearing several layers and “sleeping” on either the cold tile floor or the cold metal bench. I couldn’t sleep for fear that my valuables would be stolen, and I was shivering like my chihuahua during a blizzard. The homeless people literally had it better than we did. Also, I really needed to pee and the bathrooms were closed, and it was far too cold to consider squatting in the alley and thus partially disrobing. We got the hell out of there immediately at 6 am and finally made our way to Ljubljana, where we promptly slept away most of our first day.

We did make it to the holiday festival that night, and saw some of the most amazing Christmas lights I have ever seen

From Ljubljana we took a day trip to a place I have been itching to visit ever since I first saw a picture of it on The Lonely Planet: Lake Bled. Lake Bled is a fairly small lake nestled in the alps and features a cliffside castle, an island with a church on it, and some of the most beautiful mountains you could ever imagine. The scenery totally lived up to my expectations and I took about 1000 pictures. As you walk the perimeter of the lake, a new view comes into your vision every few feet or so, and it’s hard not to just be in awe of it.

It might be a Chelan thing, but I am kind of a sucker for lakes and mountains

We spent one more day in Ljubljana, a fairly small city with a strange obsession for graffiti and horrifying sculptures. Right next to our hostel, a former prison, there was an outdoor music club that stretched on for several blocks, and it was covered pavement to roof with artistic graffiti and tons of statues and sculptures and weird mannequins. We spent our last day just slowly walking through the complex, an art gallery of sorts, taking in all of the crazy imagery.

I told you they were horrifying

Graz:

Less about sightseeing and more about partying, NYE in Austria

Graz was the start of a new game for our Eurotrip. I finally got my debit card, which meant that I would start working off my some 500 euro debt to Amy by playing the sugar mama while she had bank issues of her own (being flagged for fraud because she was in a foreign country.) Instead of hosteling and wearing smelly clothes, we were able to stay with my sister’s best friend Tina and use her washing machine. Also, Graz was quite small, so our instincts to run around trying to “see everything” were replaced with the luxury of going to the clubs until 4 am and then staying in our pajamas the next day. It’s always good to see a friend from home when you’re abroad, and Tina was an excellent host and provided for a memorable New Year’s.

That’s her in the shopping cart, and her friend Kaitlyn next to me.

Don’t worry, we saw all of the four sights in Graz too, which includes 2 castles (Schlossburg and Eggenburg) , a weird architectural sea creature looking thing (the Kuntzhaus), and a big yellow church (Maria Trost). But at almost the halfway mark of our trip, the slower pace of Graz was a welcome treat. Tina knew where all of the good food was and her apartment sits right on the main square downtown, so we could easily access everything without having to wake up at the crack of dawn or run ourselves ragged.

Amy approaches an oddly perched peacock at the Eggenburg Castle

I have previously traveled to Vienna, and I have always found Austria to be a very pleasant country. The people are nice, the language sounds funny, and despite being a euro country, it’s fairly affordable. I was actually able to eat out, even at the gimmicky bridge cafe resting on the river and the famous Sacher Cafe with it’s even more famous cake. I shopped at H&M and Zara. Maybe it was the return of my debit card, but for the first time on the trip I didn’t feel like I was ripping up euros by the hundred, and that was a nice change.

Walking into the gimmicky bridge cafe

Prague:

We convinced Tina to come to Prague with us for 24 hours!

As you may or may not know, I spent my semester abroad in Prague, so it holds a very special place in my heart. When we were already in Austria and Prague was so close, I knew I could convince Amy to go there, and Tina even joined us for the first night! Prague is a special place, because its definitely European without the poshness that goes along with being European. Still holding onto their currency, the crown, the Czech Republic is quite affordable and the city is so walkable that you can easily explore it aimlessly. I love traveling aimlessly, but as the expert I got to play tour guide this time.

Charles’ Bridge and Prague Castle at dawn

Our overnight train came in nice and early and our hostel wasn’t ready for us, so we got the unique experience of seeing Prague in the early morning hours. This worked out well because Tina only had one day, so we really got to maximize our wandering. We saw the lesser quarter, the bridge, and Old Town, took a nap, then saw New Town and the Dancing House. I fed them Smazeny Syr and we covered a lot of ground. Then we decided to do a pub crawl to cap off our partying ways with Tina. The pub crawl ended at Karlovy Lazne, a famous club in Prague that has 5 stories with 5 distinct atmospheres and music styles. It was a great night, and a late night!

A blurry photo in our pub crawl shirts, that seems fitting!

The next day Amy and I dropped Tina off at the train station. We continued our sightseeing, visiting some of my favorite spots, walking through the castle, paying homage to my old dorm and my school, and going to my favorite English speaking cafe (The Globe) for Happy Hour and trivia night with some of our friends from Georgia who were coincidentally in Prague at the same time. It was really great to share some of our weirder Georgia experiences with people who understood us, rather than trying to explain this country to hostelers who think we live in Atlanta. Also, we lost horribly at trivia but I did win a bonus round and a copy of Dirty Dancing because I knew the names of the actors in Breaking Bad. So, hooray Breaking Bad!

Mitch, Amy, Heather, Brett and I at trivia, repping Sakartvelo!

Paris:

This was one of about 200 pictures I took featuring the Eiffel Tower

Paris was our final destination, besides the two days we spent in Barcelona en route to Tbilisi, doing nothing but buying gifts for our host families and eating the last of our variety of cheeses before returning to Georgia. I was trying not to let my exhaustion show, but I was nursing a cold and we had been backpacking for 25 days at this point, so I was a bit tired. Our first day was spent in the Montmartre District, near our hostel and the Sacre Ceour. I was elated to see a “Monsieur Chat” graffiti, as Paris was the birthplace of M. Chat. I was less elated about the amount of stairs we climbed to get to the Sacre Ceour, perched high above the city. That’s not to say it wasn’t worth the climb!

I’m trying not to look like I’m panting…

The next day we took a tour of the Eiffel district, which started in Concorde Square and ended, you guessed it, at the Eiffel Tower. The tour was really well done, the tour guide was easy on the eyes, and the weather was decent for mid January. However, there was a bit of a downside: we chose to do the tour on the day of a massive protest against gay marriage. Not only was it difficult to walk without either moving against a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people, or looking like you’re one of them (I’m not), but a lot of our views were obstructed by the many giant buses that brought people from the provinces for the protest. It was also just disheartening to see so many people on the wrong side of history. I don’t want to get political here, but suffice it to say I was not cheering along with them.

Here is the amassed crowd from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower

On our final day we explored the other main sights: Notre Dame, The Louvre, The Arc de Triomphe. I definitely thought Paris was beautiful, but I failed to grasp the obsession that seems to come from Paris. I mean books, movies, and TV shows would have you believe that it’s the greatest city of all time and that nobody can resist its charms, but I found the waiters rude and pretentious, the hostels overpriced and the food to be average for a European city. Maybe I am missing something, or maybe Prague is just a tough act to follow.

Although I do have a desire to re-read “The Da Vinci Code”

Back in Georgia:

So, I made it back to my village and honestly, it really does feel like I came home. I mean, two of the highlights of my vacation were trivia with the fellow English teachers and recognizing Georgian on the metro in Paris, so obviously this country has a place in my heart. I had an amazing trip, but it feels good to be back.

-Kacie Riann

P.S. Sorry this is so long! If you made it this far, I applaud you!