praha

PRAGUE, czech republic

sleeping in a park

1500 czech koruna ($75 usd)

"world famous astrological clock"

charles bridge

prague was a dreamland.

and i felt like i needed to pinch myself several times just to see if i would wake up.

the first morning in prague will never be forgotten.

we arrived by train at 4am. & we felt like we had stepped into another world.

the language was the most foreign we had heard yet and the money felt like monopoly money.

i took 600 czech korunas out of an atm and was a little freaked out about how much money i had actually taken out... turns out it was only about 24 euros (30 dollars).

but since we had arrived so early we had to find our hostel in the dark & once we arrived they told us we couldn't check in til the afternoon. whaaaat? where were we going to go so early in this strange, new city?

we went back to the subway station and settled in one of the hallways. we felt so dirty in there. and we were exhausted and wanted to sleep but there was no way we could get comfortable.

so then we went outside again & found the nearest park. we settled on the cold grass under a tree.

we layered on our warmest clothes, used our handy airplane blankets (thank you delta) and tried to snuggle up to get warm & hopefully catch a few zzzz's. only alicia actually slept though (that girl can sleep anywhere). savannah & i just laughed at how the people walking past the park on their way to work kept looking at us like the bums we were.

our first experience as hobos? check.

after that our experience of prague got much, much better.

the city was breath-taking. literally every nook & cranny was so pretty.

i wish our pictures actually captured the beauty of it.

we really didn't know much about prague but after having so many people tell us we had to stop there while backpacking europe; we took their word for it and this city stands out in my mind every time i look back on our adventures. i will definitely be going back there someday.

wien

also known as VIENNA

i will own a two-person scooter like this one day!

"stop in the name of love"

honoring salvador dali

a legit weinerschnitzel

vienna was green & pretty.

there was a artsy & musical vibe going on there.

we felt it all around us.

possibly because vienna is where mozart & beethoven achieved fame & composed many of their best-known works.

& although "the sound of music" was filmed in a different part of Austria, we kept finding ourselves singing "the hills are alive with the sound of muuuuusic..." in our best opera voices.

we even tried our very first weinerschnitzel (and no.. its not a fast food chili dog).

and let's not forget that hostel RUTHENSTEINER was the best hostel of our entire trip. i could have stayed there much longer. 

now onto the second part of our adventures...

i call it the "where we lost the tans we so carefully worked on for three months on an island in spain" part.

venezia

dinner at our studio apartment

fish market

baguettes for lunch

as i blogged before... venice was enchanting.

you don't need photoshop with scenery this pretty.

for our stay in venice we found a cheap studio apartment.

that meant we could cook our own meals & do laundry. yay!

the guy who rented it out to us, fabio, told us we just had to get lost in venice in order to really see it.

so we did just that.

we went down any little street or alley way our heart desired and found ourselves in the most beautiful, secluded places.

(that sounds dangerous... we didn't do that at night)

and we truly fell in love with venice.

we took a 2 euro gondola ride across the main channel.

& had our afternoon siesta on some benches in a park.

we accidentally ordered an anchovy pizza (yeah, we obviously don't know italian very well)

so we gave it to a blind, homeless man we saw earlier that day.

we sat it in his lap & tried to explain it was food.

he just grabbed the box eagerly, held it close and smiled a smile that broke our hearts.

venice will never be forgotten.