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I’m writing this post from Monaco, sitting outside on a patio that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea, as seen here:

But, let’s start with Barcelona. We spent 3 days in the city, mainly just walking around and seeing what there was to see.

Nicole and I are taking a train back to Barcelona tomorrow to meet my friend Holly.

France! Southern France. I love it here.

It’s been good to see the family, and it will be sad to see them leave tomorrow….I don’t know if I will be seeing them before the holidays or not! :(

Most likely they’ll drop us off at the train station in Nice, and we’ll buy a Eurail pass to get us around Europe for the next three months. Holly will be here starting Tuesday morning for three weeks, I’m so excited to see her! Our plans with her are pretty up in the air, but I know we’ll start in Barcelona and end in Athens. We’ll see, should be fun!!!!

Ireland…was a blur! It went by too quickly. We packed a lot in to one week. Terribly sick rain pubs guinness brewery fish n chips maps getting lost hours in the car bryan my crazy family green wedding photos party party party cliffs castles fun blur blur blur. I hope that sums it up.

Three months (at least) in Europe, we’ll be back Ireland!!

Well I’m writing this from our friend Bryan’s house in Ireland! We met him while traveling around New Zealand. I’ve been out of commission for the last few days…I think I managed to get pretty severely dehydrated and it kind of knocked me out. Starting to feel like I’m recovering today.

We spent one short week in Nepal! Nepal is definitely on my list of places that I could visit again and spend more time in. The people were nice, the scenery was beautiful, and there was plenty to do and see. We spent the first two days in Nagarkot, just east of Kathmandu, in the mountains. Then we went on a 3 day trek through the Kathmandu Valley, from Nagarkot to Chisapani and then back down to Kathmandu. Fortunately, our guide, Bik, was really cool. After the trek we spent two days in Thamel, an area in Kathmandu. I was surprised at how modern and nice most of the places were, especially compared to India. Lots of good restaurants and bars and shopping. I usually like getting away from the cities while traveling, but I definitely liked Thamel.

Sadly, this is the only view we ever got of the Himalayas, from the plane. It was too foggy the whole time we were there :(

Our hotel in the mountains.

Bik.

At the Monkey Temple. The monkeys were scary here.

Kathmandu

So, maybe we’ll get to stop back by in September or October when visibility is better…we keep stretching the trip out at this point, I don’t want to go home! I miss my family and friends a lot, but I can’t picture myself being back in one place anymore…

Tonight we’ll be headed to the south of Ireland with Bryan for his friend’s wedding, and in two days my family gets here, so excited!

Oh, and we slept at the airport in India the other night, between two potted plants.

It’s been a blur of a few days.

Wow, what can I say about India…I’m glad that I can say I’ve experienced it, I’m glad I survived it, I’m glad I can put it behind me.

I can’t decide how candid I should be in writing about my India experience. I don’t know who all reads this, and I don’t want to offend anyone…but I also want to be as real here as possible. I think that people like me build up places like India in our head…something that looks like these photos; colorful, exotic, ancient, exciting, mystical….there is a lot of expectation, and maybe those things exist somewhere here. But without fail, five minutes after leaving the hotel room I feel like I may turn into a crazy person. The begging, touting, hassling, photo taking, stares…are relentless. Almost everyone demands your attention and money, and are appalled when you don’t want to give it. It’s hard to enjoy being out anywhere because you feel like you can’t breathe (which is only compounded by the heat and the smell) with everyone grasping at you. It completely wears you down. Maybe we didn’t go to the right places…or maybe it’s because being a white female with curly blonde hair screams “walk all over me.” There were moments like this in Indonesia, but it’s so much more vicious and desperate and constant here. And it’s very hard for me to witness what is, in my opinion, a very backwards and misogynistic way of treating women. I know this can’t be what all of India is like, but it was more than enough for me. You know these kinds of places exist, you expect it walking into it, but being in the midst of it is something else. It’s too much. It’s not enjoyable. I hate to sound like a judgmental American, but contrasting and comparing is unavoidable. Religion and poverty are bad enough on their own, together they are just downright scary. I feel pretty lucky to have the life I have. Also, I loved the camels.

Tonight we take an overnight train to the Nepal boarder and I want to spend the week staring at the mountains.

Well our week in Singapore is coming to a close! We’ve had a really good time here, Singapore is a really neat city, so clean and safe, everyone is nice, and there is plenty to do. Plus, we got to stay with our awesome new friends Monica and Kip and their cat Alphonso in their really nice apartment all week, and they showed us around and took really great care of us. Forever indebted! We fly to New Delhi tomorrow (changed our flight from Mumbai at the last minute, decided we should stick to north India instead of trekking all over), and we’ll be sad to say goodbye.

We have…..gone to Chinatown and a Buddhist temple, eaten Chicken Rice (recommended by Anthony Bourdain) at Maxwell Hawkers, had Singapore Slings (with Mezcal on the side) at Raffels with our friends we met in Indonesia, gone shopping, visited the Botanical Gardens, hung out at the beach at Sentosa, smoked hookahs on Arab Street, and slept in. It’s been very nice.

Kip and Monica

Alphie

Peyi Pey and Paul

The Singapore Flyer

We got sucked into this place when we walked by and heard a cover of Peter Bjorn and John being played :)

Also, Singapore has some of the nicest taxi drivers anywhere. This is a very liveable city, and at the very least is worth a visit.

Well we fly from Jakarta to Singapore today! We get to stay with our awesome friend Monica while we are there for the week, which will be an amazing break from constantly being on trains, buses, taxis, and airplanes to get from city to city. Also hoping we will get to rest some before 3 weeks in India, where I’m guessing we won’t be taking it too easy.

I spent the last couple of days here sick and not able to do much, so my last adventure was to the Prambanan Temples.

There wasn’t that much to do here so we kind of had a mini photoshoot.

Indonesia has been interesting! A mix of positive and negative for us. It’s cool to experience a place so different and there is a lot of beautiful places to see. We missed the social outlet that we’ve had in the last few countries though. It’s been a lot harder to meet and make friends here. People think we’re weird for some reason :)

See ya Indonesia, it’s been terribly vivid!

Woke up at 3am this morning to see the sunrise at Mt Bromo, it was beautiful! We took a jeep up with a couple from our hostel to see the volcano, very good Indonesia experience. So tired now.

Actually, I am not really sure where I’ve been the last few days. Not sure that I ever caught the name of any of the cities. We woke up a few days ago in Ubud, hired a taxi to drive us to the very west end of Bali (to Gilimanuk, where the ferry takes you to Java), and found a random hotel to stay in (Nicole picked it based on the “Live Karaoke every night” sign). We did indeed Karaoke (which I would never do back home). For some reason the only English song available was Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” so we sang that, twice. Danced with some locals, then went home to what turned out to be our rat and bed bug infested room. This was my first experience with bed bugs (have some awesome bites all over my legs). I’m certainly not a rat fan, but to say Nicole dislikes them would be a huge understatement. Fortunately the rats preferred the upstairs (we were downstairs), so they weren’t living in our mattresses like in the German guy’s bed upstairs. West Bali/east Java isn’t a tourist destination (we only saw 2 German guys the whole time we were there), so no one speaks any English, and we of course can’t speak Indonesian. This always makes for interesting interactions.

The next day, we took the ferry to Java…an experience in and of itself. Not sure how many people just stared at us and took cell phone photos of us, but it was a lot. This is also where my bags and I got covered in dirt and grease, which I can’t get completely off. When we got to Java we weren’t too sure where to go next (what else is new though), and some nice Muslim family picked up on this. They insisted on helping us out, even though they couldn’t speak any English. The plan was to take a train to Probolinggo to see Mt. Bromo. Long story short, we wound up getting in their car, going to the train station, saw that the train wasn’t leaving for hours, went to the bus station, there was no bus schedule and no way of knowing where the buses even went, so we just hung out with the family. We stopped so they could pray ( a 5 times a day activity), stopped at an internet cafe to use Google Translator so we could communicate (he said “please do not be afraid of me because I am Muslim and because of terrorists!”), stopped for lunch and ate a few whole fish, then went to their house to meet the rest of the family. They were all so nice and sweet, and wound up taking us to a hotel near by when we decided we didn’t want to take a 10pm train to Probolinggo. Hotel…not so nice. The next morning we woke up an hour early because we forgot to change the time on our phones (at 5:30am) and got a motorcycle ride to the train station. After the guy tried to charge us way too much for a ticket, we made it on as it was pulling away. The next 6 hours were spent on an incredibly dirty and hot train. All kinds of interesting characters on it….people were selling weird snacks, shaving kits, and…birds. In cages. With really long beaks. If I’d had smaller bills on me I would have bought a bird, played with it for a bit, then set it free.

I’ve definitely never felt so dirty for so long (sometimes the shower is just a bucket of water next to the toilet). We made the decision to take a break and checked into a 5 star resort in Surabaya, where I am writing from now. We’re internetting, ordering room service, and are about to check out the pool. We even get to do laundry! Hope they know how to take care of bed bugs, I’m tried of carrying the garbage bag of my sleep gear/bug collection around.

Building some character out here!

They met us at the front desk of the hotel (Hotel Majapahit) with champagne flutes of some delicious fruit juice…normally I keep a pretty positive demeanor and don’t mind “roughing it,” but after that I grabbed Nicole by the shirt (no doubt creating a cloud of dust) and said “I can’t go back out there…we’ll pay whatever they ask for the room!” Pretty sure we’ll be camped out here for a few days.

Well we spent four hours at a spa today! If I didn’t feel like a spoiled brat already I do now. Four hours for $45 and the best spa experience ever. It’s been almost a week in Indonesia now…we are currently in Ubud, hanging out in our hotel with our friend July that works here (who’s current favorite song is Katie Perry’s “Fireworks”….he was also born on the 4th of July), drinking something called Arak; it’s awful.

Just hanging out in a bathtub full of flowers!

We spent three days on Gili Meno, one of the 3 small islands off the coast of Lombok. It was interesting getting here. Someone we met in Australia said it was nice, so we showed up at the airport in Denpasar, bought a round trip ticket to Lombok for $50, caught a taxi from the airport to the harbor, took a “slow boat” to Gili Meno…we arrived after dark, and the boat dropped us off on the beach without a word and left. We grabbed one of the first hotels we came across, and I think it was probably one of the best (and still cheap) ones there. And in case you were wondering, that’s pretty much the extent of our “planning” on this trip.

Unfortunately Nicole and I were both a little sick with colds (still getting over it) most of the time there, but we got to relax on the beach.

Our friends at the hotel on Gili Meno.

Also, monkeys!

Back to Bali, and more monkeys.

In our friend July’s village.

Rice plantation.

Elephant caves.

July!

Tried Kopi Luwak!

Holy water.

Bike tour! Which I highly recommend if you are ever here. Being part of the organized chaos that is Bali traffic is a neat experience.

Well that’s all for now on my Bali report…tomorrow we head to west Bali, and will eventually take the ferry to Java. No major plans yet, but I’m sure that it will all work out just fine.

(Hi mom!)

Well that’s it for Australia! We had a great time, it was definitely different than expected…we didn’t get to make it into the outback this trip unfortunately, but we had lots of fun and met some amazing people. We went scuba diving before we left (Nicole did at least, I just got sick the entire time), and went on one of Uncle Brian’s Tours into the jungle, which was a good way to end the trip.

The harbor in Cairns

Me, sick.

And we end with a passed out Craig.

Australia was beautiful, but I will definitely have to make a trip back because I didn’t get to do everything! Next time :)