good ol' toledo

home, safe, and slept after being awake a good 42 hours. still feeling strange and out my my element when i suppose i should feel in my element. back to work tomorrow and everything will be as it always is.

until next time.

here we go

leaving frederiques house for the airport now. will be home in less than 24 hours.

walked a ton today and sweated like crazy. it was one of the best days ive had. we explored many areas of paris and i really wanted to go walk next to the water again, so we did, and it made me very happy. i even remembered some things from last year and it was pretty cool to be able to have paris feel familiar and have memories here.

farewell from paris, i will be home soon!

love always,
adrienne

strasbourg and paris

just wanted to say that we had a good time in strasbourg and im glad we added it into our trip. the first day there we just wandered around for a long while. it was nice because its quite smaller that where we are used to being. it felt like a cozy little city. yes, still a city yet it didnt feel like one. we found a few fun stores and wandered into them and got some good tea and coffee. there are lots of canals there too so we were constantly around water again. of course we wandered around the old town a bit, something almost every city in europe seems to have. its just like a part of the city where the older-style buildings have been preserved and it just looks quite quaint. it felt really good in that part of strasbourg too, i really enjoyed being there. if felt homey. the second day we had there was the day of the music festival that takes places throughout all of france. it started slow and got busy fast. there were tons of bands playing all over the whole little city. each of the bigger sets were only 30 minutes and there were probably ten sets per "stage." and there were many stages. plus all the people randomly set up everywhere. we saw young kids playing too. we hung out around one band playing classic rock songs. its funny to hear sweet home alabama with a french accent, haha. but it was really fun. actually, that bands music was spot on, the singing was the only slightly odd part, other than that it was well done. it was fun to just happen to be there while that was going on, and knowing that the entire country was filled with people doing the same thing. it was good to share something thats such a celebration and special to that county. i know we have music festivals at home, but it was just interesting to me that it was country-wide. the people we couchsurfed with there were really nice and we actually had our own room because one roommate had finished school and went home. we were very welcome there and it just felt good to have some space.

here in paris we are staying with frederique and shes a nice woman as well. we have own own room and shower, we are quite spoiled! couchsurfing we typically expect to really just be on the couch but this has been nice. we slept late today and werent in anyones way. we have a key in and out and just come and go as we please. yesterday we wandered some parts of paris weve never been and i felt like i was ina different city. weve never stayed in or been around this end of the city so its fun and new even though weve been in paris twice before now. we are forever discovering new things. we went to the pompidou museum and actually just spent time in the bookstore and boutique. its a pretty amazing building. its really fun and almost feels like cosi or something, haha. for the most part weve just been happy wandering around new parts of paris (new to us) and eating japanese food. haha, i know, its probably a sin to eat japanese food while in paris but it was so darn good! hahaha. shh, dont tell!

okay, well i must sleep now, its midnight. this is our last nite here. tomorrow we head to the airport at midnight (catching the last metro train) and our flight leaves at 6am. weve got one short flight to frankfurt and then an 8-9 hour flight to detroit so we will sleep on there. ill try and write tomorrow before we head to the airport.

much love,
adri

back at the beginning

weve made it back to paris. about to sleep. will write more soon. :-)

sava

our last day in santorini i got a very good feeling about the people living there. we were eating in a small restaurant - if you could call it that. we had eaten there twice before. there are only ten tables, half outside half inside. the same man - sava - takes your order and cooks your meal for you. the place is called savas and its more like being in someones house. sava is an old man. the only others we saw were an old woman, a middle aged woman, and a young girl of maybe 13. our last day the girl helped bring out food and take orders. it seemed like that would almost be part of your chores if you lived there. i mean, rather than thinking of it as putting a kid to work in any way, it was just what you did. she came back with her friends, helped a little, and then im sure took off again. everyone on the island knew one another it seemed. people were always waving and honking at passersby on the streets. once a small boy brought some sort of note to sava and ran off again. it was just a cute little community. i was trying to imagine what it would be like to grow up there and it made me smile. it seemed very homey - the whole island. the amount of tourists would make me crazy, but other than that, it seemed it would be interesting to grow up there. there would always groups of kids on bikes riding around and hanging out. anyway, savas was a nice place. when we went to leave and wait to be picked up (the people who owned where we were staying said they would pick us up at savas and take us to the airport - i think they have a deal or something because they knew wed eat there) sava made us sit back down. he didnt want us to wait out front, he told us just to stay there. then when the guy picking us up almost missed us sava clapped a few times loudly and the guy stopped. it was an all-over good experience. :-)

24 hours

weve been moving for the last 24 hours and awake for pretty much the last 36. its been exhausting but not as bad as id imagined. not going to write too much now although i have lots to say about or last day in greece. nothing too exciting happened but i just observed the people a lot and got a good feeling from it all. we just reached strasbourg (you can see it in the map ive got up there). we are staying with a couchsurfer named henri-christian and his roommate youssef. there is another girl surfing their couch who is from california and apparently a couple canadians are coming through tomorrow. apparently their couch is quite popular! anyway, they seem like great people and im glad to be here. our eurail pass didnt cover all our trips and so we spent a handful on train tics today but having a free place to sleep makes up for it. its a small college town in the alsace and lorraine region. anyway, ima get off here and will write a bit more soon.

love you all!

adri

sunshine

hello again!

well, we are nearing the end of our time here in santorini. the second day that we went to the beach it was wonderful and gorgeous. the water is clear. seriously, i get in and look and down and can see to the bottom. i can see all the little fishies and the rocks. its pretty crazy. we paid a little bit of money to use the chair/umbrella sets they have all over out there. kamari is the big beach and that is where we went the first three days. the food here has been pretty dang yummy here - mostly shish kabab stuff. weve also been eating greek salads every day. i like everything but the feta! anyway, yesterday we waited forever for a certain bus and it never came so we ended up at a beach near kamari but on the other side of this big mountain. the black beach there was actually sand which was nice, but it felt bad because we wasted so much time waiting for that dang bus! well, today we got a moto. no, an atv, not a moto. and we drove ourselves everywhere. we went around the whole island. we went to the northern part that apparently you can see a great sunset at nite but we didnt stay for it. and then we went through the main town, fira, and then we went down to the southern part and went to the red beach there. it was pretty amazing. not anything like any other beach ive seen. it was just kind of cut out of this red mountain. we had to work to get to it - a very small hike, but it was pretty cool. much more secluded than any of the others. no stores of shops or anything - all there is room for is the beach. it was pretty awesome to just drive the atv around and be on our own - so much more convenient and fun than those unreliable buses. plus we could stop when we wanted and we got some amazing views. seriously, it was just crazy. its funny, but the atv only really lets us go 25 mph. seems a little faster than that sometimes when you are on the edge of a mountain on a small road and out in the open air. its pretty dang sweet. anyhow, the first full day we spent at kamari we swam out to come conveniently places rocks - it was a big pile really. then we came back and read a big and then went back out. it was just a good day. we also ate at a place down there and watched the sweden/spain football (soccer!) game.

...if i could do it again id budget in a lot more time in these islands. it would be a different kind of trip to have any kind of focus here rather than how the majority has been... but its nice, just so relaxing. and having our own room and and bathroom in a place feels so free! haha.

tomorrow nite we will fly 45 minutes to athens. then we are staying the nite in the airport and our next flight is at 2 in the afternoon the next day and takes us back to zurich. then a couple trains to strasbourg. its going to be a long 24 hours. ahh!