7 Countries Down - 1 To Go...

Another Retro Friendly Update here...So after the Portugal Wedding we
headed to Porto, Portugal to drink some Port. We've had steak in
Salsbury, UK, we've had Pisco Sours in Pisco, Peru - we must keep
the trend alive!

So we did. But I don't like Port. I thought it was supposed to be
like wine - I tried the white and the red - and neither tastes like
wine to me. This tastes more like a strong alcohol - and that's not
something I handle well. Jeff liked it, though, so we had to try it.
Porto was a cute little town with only 2 downfalls: 1. It is very
hilly and although I am a big fan of downhill, I do NOT love anything
that makes me walk uphill. 2. We were both just getting colds of some
sort (not swine flu) from having too much fun for 2 weeks straight.

Lucky for me they have what is called a Foonicular. I've never heard
of it (or maybe I have and my brain dumped the info long ago before I
started hating uphill and realized this would be a good bit of info to
have...). A Foonicular is basically a godsend for lazy people. It's
a cart on tracks that takes you up and down hills. SO worth it. So
we just had to try the Foonicular - and since we had to go up hill to
get back to our hotel it was really a win win situation. So Porto was
cute for 2 nights and then we were off again, this time via Ryanair
(the airline so cheap that they will soon charge for you to use their
bathrooms in the air) to Paris, France.

Now Paris was just ok. I know it's supposed to be the most beautiful
and romantic and all that, but it was just ok. We saw some catacombs
- which are really gross if you think about it - we payed money to
walk through caves with thousands of dead peoples bones piled neatly
all around us. But also interesting - and of course we visited Notre
Dame and a museum and the Eiffle Tower. Then comes the reaaaaally fun
part of France! We went to Tours! This is the town closest to
Vouvray - where my favoritest wine comes from!! We got to rent bikes
(and of course it rained) and go around to different vineyards and
drink Vouvray (in Vouvray - the trend continues). It was awesome and
fun (biking on flat land is doable even for me) and we bought 3
bottles of yummy wine. We dropped Rocko's business cards in case we
could get something more interesting but the tastings were already
free. I was THIS close to having Jeff speak only in French to the
vineyards and tell them he was Rocko and to call anytime...mua ha ha -
that would have been hysterical. But we didn't. Promise.

Portugal Weddings Rock!

This is going to be a Friendly Update in Retro. We barely had time to
think on this trip, let alone sit down and write friendly updates -
wah - so I'm going to do it all in now!

This wedding pulled out all the stops. First, Sarah Wild and Ruth had
a civil ceremony in London - where they live. Jeff and I flew over
after visiting the tall, tall Dutch and attended the ceremony and the
awesome mini reception after at a bar/restaurant. Lots of champagne
and other drinks - a good time had by all but mostly by our friend
Mara. She had a waaaaay good time. :)

Sarah Wild's surprise wedding gift to Ruth was to order a double
decker bus to pick us all up the following morning and take us to the
airport (about 12 of us) with champagne and bagels and our own music
selection. That was a bumpy but fantastic ride! We had a slight
snafoo at the airport when Jeff and I realized we booked our tickets
for the wrong date but a 10 minute run two terminals over led to
purchasing more useful tickets and getting to Portugal on time. D'oh.
But we made it. Thank goodness.

We got to stay in not one but TWO, count them on your left hand, TWO
castles! First we stayed at the "other" castle about 20 minutes from
the one the wedding was going to be held at. This one was a bit more
rustic but beautiful and had a dungeon (which we couldn't go in - sad
for me). Showers were a little tricky in that the hose went wild and
sprayed the entire bathroom - and I hear I'm not the only one that had
this problem.

Then we moved to the main castle (or Pousada as the Portugese call
them). This was more modern and our wedding had the run of the entire
place. It was kind of like a dorm where people just walked from room
to room, left their doors open and generally had a great time. The
wedding was out on the deck portion of the Pousada (see new pics on
Photobucket of the wedding) - and lucky for our side of the bridal
party - we got to stand in the shade! Ha! The poor girls in blue had
to stand in and look towards the sun. I don't know how they did it.
Our good friend, Maan, from Kenyon performed the ceremony and did an
amazing job. Then we had drinks and appetizers and then moved onto
the main meal in a nice dining hall. The place cards were fantastic -
they used a picture of you to mark your name and seat. Most were you
with one or both of the brides, or some were just super old and funny
pics of you. I loved seeing a random old picture of me and Sarah -
and I liked that she had one of her and Jeff from last year for him.

Dinner was followed by a dancing reception with great music and an ice
luge. That's right - a dolphin shaped ice luge. I had to bail around
1 am (because I do that and I got a beer spilled down my dress by a
magician). But the party went on until 5 am. I don't know how people
do that and still get up for breakfast in the morning. All in all it
was a blast and then Jeff and I headed to Porto. More retro updating
on that in a bit...

The Tall Tall Dutch

Oh did we have fun in Holland. Rotterdam is a beautiful city with
super fun people - at least 2 anyway. We visited our friends who we
had met in Honduras earlier this year and they showed us their
hometown of Rotterdam. It was fantastic. We went to a comedy show
where the first girl on stage was a comedian from Evanston, IL -
strange coincidence.

Then we rode some bikes through a park to the museum in the middle - a
museum which has more Van Gogh paintings than even the Van Gogh museum
in Amsterdam. It was an awesome ride even if my butt hurt later and
we got rained on a lot.

Jeff was excited to eat Rice Tafel - some sort of thing you do when in
Holland per Jeff's family but it really turned out to be chinese food.
It was good, though.

We also ate the traditional food of the Dutch called bitter balls.
They were deep fried balls something yummy with some spicey mustard on
the side. YUM.

Lastly on the yummy food list was the last night we were there when
our friends cooked us a meal of mashed potatoes with endive and gravy
with sausage and bacon on the side. Goodness it was hearty but oh was
it good.

No, Rocko, I am not yet 400 pounds. But I'm getting hungry again just
writing about all this food. Next we were off to London and Portugal
for the two wedding ceremonies of my best friend Sarah Wild. But that
deserves it's own friendly update...

Here we go again!

We have already had a whirlwind of a European tour! So far we have
been here a week and covered 3 countries. So I've had a lot of time
to catch up on sleeping on the many train rides we've taken and I can
say finally, I am over the jetlag (it wasn't pretty).

We started in Nuremburg, Germany where Jeff's distant cousins live.
We stayed with Kurt and Birgitte who were super nice and have a
beautiful apartment full of art. They were super generous and fed us
a LOT. Which I loved, but a girl can only consume so much. I
absolutely love me some German food! Brats and schnitzel and steaks
and potatoes! I heart here. Once, and not the last time, Birgitte
forgot I don't speak ANY German and just kept talking to me and Jeff
also forgot so I just nodded and smiled. He seems to forget a lot
that I have no idea what people are saying.

We also visited Jeff's grandma's cousin Paula - who loves snickers
bars. We had coffee and dessert at her house and I have to tell you,
I have no interest in having a garden but I love everyone's gardens
here. Her house and garden were beautiful. We also picked up Jeff's
Chicago cousin, Joann, and brought her along for the next two
countries.

Then we went off to Vienna, Austria to visit Jeff's friends Rene and
Frank. I loved it there! Vienna is a neat city but more importantly
Rene and Frank live in the best house EVER and it's about 100 feet
from a vineyard-restaurant (one of 16 in their neighborhood). Schmidt
is my new (and only) most favoritest Austrian wine producer. I'm also
contracting Frank to decorate and landscape my house if I ever have
one. He has done the most amazing job on their house and yard - and
we had the best time. Like Nuremburg, we toured Vienna and got a feel
for what a cool city it is. Plus here we got to eat lots of ice
cream. mmmmmm. We went to the summer palace of the old royalty and
saw a show on how apple strudel is made! Struuuudel! They even gave
us a little piece to eat. Again, Jeff forgot I don't know German and
kept looking at me during the German part of the show and laughing -
like I understand their jokes. Nope.

After that we visited Jeff's old TA from college, Jasmin, in Bern,
Switzerland. Although not a super happening town, Jasmin still gave
us a great tour and she can cook some good potatoes. We saw why Bern
got it's name (from an old king who killed a bear), shopped around but
bought nothing (waaaay too pricey for Joann and I), and brought along
some yummy Schmidt wine to share.

Now we're relaxing in Hanover with Jeff's old friend Mark. Mark has a
son named Tom who is hysterical. He keeps talking to me in German so
I just speak right back in English and nothing gets done - but we
still have a good time. Jeff is now able to identify the look I give
him that says, 'now is when you translate for me...'. Tomorrow we're
off to Holland to visit our favorite, and most tall Dutch friends -
and the whirlwind continues. More to come - more frequently too,
hopefully.

Chi-Town

I forgot to let everyone know that we're home in Chicago! We've been
here for 3 weeks and have 3 to go before our next adventure to Europe.
It's been a whirlwind so far - seeing friends, family, moving into
our sublet, going to weddings, shopping (this has not happened
enough), etc.

We went to Peoria for Jeff's cousin's wedding and it was great. There
I also found my wedding coordinator - another of Jeff's cousins -
Jimmy. Together Jeff, Jimmy and I will make my wedding rock. It will
be sometime in 2010 - other than that I have no idea about any of it.
Except maybe I'll get Chipoodles to cater. YUM. Yummiest wedding
EVER. Jeff, Jimmy and I had a good time at this wedding reception and
hit the dance floor quite a few times - Jeff and Jimmy especially.

After the wedding we went to St. Louis to visit Jeff's brother and his
family and my brother came through town with his babies so it was a
meeting of the babies. Jeff's brother has 4 kids all the same age as
my brother's 4 kids so it was fun to have them meet and hang out.
Then we caravaned with my brother and his family to KC to visit some
more of my relatives. Here's a picture of all the cousins that were
there. We all got together to celebrate my cousin Danny's birthday -
he turned 18. I'm glad we got to hang out with him - I haven't seen
him in a long time and he's a great guy.

Now we're back in Chicago and being uber social per usual. We need to
crack down and start looking for jobs but being that we're super lazy
we may put that off a bit. Just a bit longer...

Back to Lima

I didn´t think it´d happen but we´re actually excited to be back in
Lima! I´m digging the sea level, the fog, the warmth - and the food!
Our hostel is super clean and new, too - so that helps. We´ve got
just a few more days before we´re back in Chicago and although I´m sad
to stop our South American adventures, I´m pretty pumped to get home
and see everyone...and eat Chipoodles.

We´ll be in Chicago for a month and then we´re off to Europe for a
month so more blo----friendly updates and pictures in July.

For now we´re taking Lima at a sloooooow pace - catching up on
reading, relaxing and doing as little as possible each day. I´m just
getting over a cold and it´s a nice excuse to be ridiculously lazy.
We just posted our pics of Colca Canyon and Arequipa - including our
double decker bus tour of the city.

Colca Canyon was supposed to be a bit more amazing - but it turns out
it´s just a sickeningly early journey to see some big birds from kinda
far away with a billion other people. A bit too pricey for what it
is. However, on the way we got to hold and pet some big eagles and
MAN OH MAN was that awesome. Just beautiful. Also Jeff got to pet
what may be the cutest baby Alpaca on the planet.

We didn´t exactly want to take a night bus back here to Lima but ended
up being forced into it since that´s all the options any bus lines
had. And just when we met some bruised and limping gals who got in a
night bus crash. Fantastic - really instilled confidence in me the
whole time. We made it in one piece, though and Lima´s been good to
us so far. Off to a book exchange and maybe we´ll catch a movie
(preferably in English) - it´s Tuesday! The cheapest day at the
movies! (that´s right - the prices vary depending on the day -
strange, eh?)

See you Chicago people on Friday!

Llama Drama

So we go spit on by a llama. And I had just asked a girl the other
day who works with textiles and has seen a ton of llamas and alpacas
and I asked - aren´t they like camels and they spit a lot? No, no,
she says, not unless you´re cutting off their fur or really pissing
them off - they are generally very calm.

Well just our luck, on our city tour of Arequipa yesterday we came
across a mini zoo of llamas and alpacas at an ¨outlet¨ of wool
sweaters and clothes (don´t get excited like I did, it wasn´t the
discount outlet store I was hoping for but it was a nice store).
Anyway, our tour group had a few younger brits in it who thought
banging on the fence of a nice, serene looking llama thing with big
doe eyes would make him pose better for pics. He was SO serene when I
was taking pics, then I turn around to look at other things, jeff
walks by and it all happens at once! I hear a hissing and a spitting
noise and I have chewed up grass on me (thank goodness for
sunglasses). I start cowering and Jeff starts laughing - him being
the tallest one with sunglasses and a hat I guess made him the next
target because he got spit on like 3 times and if I wasn´t so shocked
at what was happening I would have gotten better action shots - but I
just stood there. Hysterical - and kinda gross.

The tour was pretty neat since we got to sit on the top of a double decker. We saw some beautiful landscapes, some guinea pigs (poor things were probably dinner, but they make cute noises when alive), a tour I refused to climb up because just the stairs to get to it were tiring (I really may be dying I´m acting so old these days), some mangy dogs on roofs (hahahha), AND we got to stay on the tour for 2 extra hours because they messed up our tickets. We tried to get off the bus and they said get back on and so we did and THEN they figured our their mistake. Too late - more tour for us. Ha! Except it was freezing at night on the top of the double decker. Oh well - it´s like 2 for 1!

Let´s see - so that´s us in Arequipa. Tomorrow we´re going to see the
condors in Colca Canyon - those would be the largest birds in the
world! Fantastic! Too bad our camera sucks, but it´ll do. There´s a
two day option where they take you down to the bottom of the canyon to
sleep with no electricity or heat, and then they make you walk back
out of the canyon...no thank. We opted for the 1 day tour of just
seeing the big birds. After Machu Picchu and having a nasty cold
right now and me not wanting to pay to hire a donkey to carry me out
of the canyon (which is an awesome option - but I´m afraid it´d stink)
- we decided that one day of just bussing back and forth is enough.

Before Arequipa we were in Lake Titicaca! It was hysterical. We
stayed in Puno, which is the Peruvian town on the shores of Lake
Titicaca and we visited the floating reed islands on the lake called
Islas Uros. They are strange to stand on but huge and neat and I
can´t believe people made them and live there - and for a long time
too. We also visited a small town of Chuchuito down the road from
Puno which had a fertility garden - very inappropriate and hysterical
little garden we payed 5 soles to get into. Other than that and
getting colds (Titicaca was the highest altitude we´ve been so far),
we really didn´t do much since we were so under the weather.

Two more days here and then off to Lima again! We´ll be home before
you know it!