beach surfing the islands of croatia

sorry for the lack of update recently, i've just been having a crazy time and the longer i waited, the more daunting the updating became.  although i'm just now ending my time in copenhagen, i'm going to break up my blog post a bit so it's not crazy long.  this first one will be dedicated to my surreal time in croatia.

after spending a beautiful couple of days in the historical costal town in split, croatia, i took the ferry over to the island of Hvar.  i was sitting in a seat surrounded by a bunch of open seats when a group of travellers approached me and asked if they could sit.  one asked me if i was travelling alone and when i said yes, insisted that i spend my time in hvar with them.

turns out, these people had just met each other 5 minutes earlier at the ferry dock for a "beach surfing" trip in hvar.  they had all coordinated this trip through the website www.couchsurfing.com/.  in it's simplest form, couch surfing is a website for travellers who need a place to stay while travelling or just want someone to hang out with in the city they're travelling to.  sounds sketchy, but there's a really good verification system to insure safety.

anyway, there was 11 of us from 6 different countries: america, sweden, spain, turkey, australia and croatia.  so i decide to kick it with these folks and just meet the most interesting people.  two of the girls were americans playing pro-soccer (or football as i've learned to call it during eurocup2008) for the swedish women's football team, one guy was from san fransisco and the head of sustainablity for a string of music venues, one was a 40 year  old woman from austrailia who had finally decided to follow her dream of travelling the world, as well as several other kids my age travelling post-university.

i had an incredible time talking to everyone about their upbringing and their lives in different countries.  it's unbelievable that while we all come from such diverse backgrounds, we all still have that seed inside our hearts ready to burst and grow with every experience and travel we can grasp.  we had an incredible 2 days in hvar running around the island, hiking in every nook and cranny we could find and swimming as often as we could.  

we spent the solstice together on the beach and applied pagan war paint with cheek stain and eyeliner.  they were a great group of people and i'm fully planning on utilizing the couch surfing website and will hopefully be able to be as an incredible host in denver as Jelena was to us in croatia.  high fives to my fellow worldy vagabonds.  hvala!

this is beautiful split:





my daily cone :)



natalie (the american swedish soccer player) and our amazing croatian host, jelena



this was our oasis of a campsite found among nothing but jagged rocky "beaches"



the view of the ocean from our campsite



sunset on the night of the solstice



the town of starigrad on hvar island where we watched the spain-italy football match



my awesome tanline from the ferry ride.  yowwwch


after my unbelievable international experience in split/hvar i took a train back up to the capital of crotia, zagreb where i met up with my lovely new friend Iva.  I got into contact with Iva via my danish pal Bruski :)  Iva graciously offered me a free bed to sleep in for the night and while i was a bit nervous about staying with someone i had never met before, Iva ended up being the most wonderful little ball of enthusiasm ever!  she was such a fun person to talk to and giggle with.  this little lady had so much enthusiasm about life and passion about everything she loved.  i was greeted by her smiley mom who made me an incredible traditional croatian dinner paired with unbelievable wine.  Iva's family was so amazing and so welcoming, it was nice to have a home cooked meal and just be around a family.  high fives to Iva and her family for the warm welcome :)

well that's it for croatia, next up copenhagen...maybe if i have another couple of beers i'll rock a joint blog with heather and bruski :)  yeaaah we'll probably make that happen.

ps. no idea why my pictures are huge/cut-off, but they took so long to upload i don't really feel like fixing it.

cheers!
micaela

tack, danke, köszönöm, hvala

the first thing i look up whenever i get to a new country is how to say "thank you". i've found that no matter how much of a bumbling idiot i may appear to be a simple "thank you" in the native tongue and a toothy grin is always warmly received. croatia is the first country where i've been truly on my own and it's been a very interesting experience. i feel a combination of absolutely terrified and absolutely exhilarated at the same time. it's a strange feeling of loneliness and also empowerment.

i had a beautiful time in budapest with chris :) he was SUCH a good host and we had a blast laughing and catching up.


budapest is a gorgeous city, i saw maybe one building the entire time that looked somewhat modern. everything else looked like something out of the 19th century, if not earlier.


after some rainy days in hamburg and budapest, the croatian sunshine was soooo nice.





and of course, i had my daily ice cream.


until next time homefries!
micaela

ein becks bitte

i learned a lot of useful phrases on my trip in germany. i found the title of this here entry to be of particular use. also, waffle eis, usually was enough to get me an ice cream cone. europeans sure do love their ice cream, which is just fine with me. i had the best ice cream of my life in hamburg...watch out tillamook. ive found that my favorite thing to say in germen is kellinghusenstaße. iprobably murdered the spelling of that but its the bahn stop for lockes apartment. i had such a beautiful time in hamburg withmy pals jason and locke. high fives to locke for being such an amazing host and to jaon for being amazing in general. i love you guys and had an incredible time. germany was fantastic and ill elaborate when im not at an awful airport internet kiosk. word up to the raasch side of the family, especially grandma raasch. i have a newfound appreciation for the 3/8ths ofme that is german :) much love to those who have been tagging along with me o thisjourney. next up budapest. andimout.

not gnarly...totally awesome

this blogger thing isn't very user friendly.  i like to think that i'm pretty computer savy, however i cannot for the life of me get rid of this hyperlink blue line under my text.  i also can't move my pictures into the order i want them to.  so i'm going to post my pictures of the trip thusfar in a completely random order.

locke, jason and i went canoeing (that looks weird...canoing?) down a canal in hamburg.

HA!

this was my first night in hamburg, you can practically see my heart exploding with happiness

my trusty means of travel

my last night in stockholm, doing what i do best...ice cream.

this picture is for the sole purpose of showing you the stockholm sky...at 10pm

something was going on in stockholm one day that was basically 20-somethings in the beds of big trucks, blasting music and showering themselves and anyone they drove by on beer. all day long, if i heard the slightest bass bump of europop i would run for cover from the exploding beer bath i was about to receive.

the royal palace in stockholm.  i have plans to marry prince carl of stockholm.  he's a total babe.

i thought it was so funny that the symbol for "no eating" was an ice cream cone with a cross through it.  they seriously get down on ice cream in europe.  i love it.

my first day in seattle...oh i mean stockholm.  good thing after 4 1/2 years in the pacific northwest i'm completely immune to rain.

hey mom.  this is where i stayed in hamburg.  love ya.

bye jason!  heartbreaking :(

the walls of people sleeping in the london stansted airport my first night.

my little camp in the london-stansted airport.  cozy.

the streets of old town stockholm/gamla stan.

somehow my dirty backpack doesn't quite look right in the shwanky hotel room.

poutine!!!  i mean, frites with curry ketchup and mayonaisse.  looks a lot like poutine though huh?

look! i'm a world traveller :)

that's it for now, those took so long to upload i don't really have much energy to say anything else.

word.

micaela

good thing the jetlag didn't get me...

or did it?


so who thinks it's safe to take a quick catnap on the terminal seats 4 hours before her flight to stockholm takes off? this girl.





and who wakes up 4 hours later on that same bench as her flight is taking off? this girl :(





lesson #82 that micaela has learned from screwing up, figure out europhone alarm clock!





i could not believe my stupidity. could. not. believe it. who knew i'd be a blubbering mess in an airport terminal two times in one month (screw you detroit!)





in the end i made it safely to stockholm, after realizing i never budgeted airport transport into my budget. ryanair is a crazy cheap airline, however, they fly to airports just outside of the cities i'm going to, therefore i have to buy train/bus tickets into the city costing me about and extra $40/trip.





but it was well worth it. high fives to bruski for hooking me up with a BEAUTIFUL shwanky hotel in stockholm. it was so amazing to take a shower after being in the same tshirt and sweatpants for 48 hours. then wandering the streets of stockholm as the sun was setting (around 11pm haha) was the perfect way to wind down after a hectic couple of travel days. the next day i decided to check out Gamla Stan which is "old town" stockholm. Gamla Stan was absolutely everything you'd imagine a european city to be. narrow cobblestone roads, breathtaking architecture and espresso shops on every corner. the beautiful thing i'm finding about europe is that, yes, it's expensive to be here, however you don't need to spend money to enjoy the city! walking down the street is like a museaum/art gallery of it's own.




ok so i didn't take that picture, but i can't upload any photos yet therefore you can experience stockholm via google images for now :)

That is an arial shot of Gamla Stan. in't it cute?

i then went to the royal palace and paid a student admission (booya sweden) to walk around inside the royal apartments and the royal chapel. it absolutely blows my mind the intricacy and ornateness of these buildings. the time and artistic talent that goes into creating such masterpieces just blows my mind. the cielings were all painted extravagently, the metalwork, the stonework, the woodwork was all so unbelievable! it's such a lost art. these days it's all about efficiancy when it comes to building or creating, but in those days it was about beauty and passion! you can just feel it.

anywho, i'm off to hamburg tomorrow (well technically luebeck which most likely means a $40 train ticket to hamburg) and i get to see my lovely locke and jason! hopefully i can upload some pictures when i get to locke's apartment.

booty bumps and wet willies,
micaela

Airport Hobo

So i made it, mostly in one piece. I arrived in London at Heathrow airport last night around 8pm and after going through customs, navigating my way through the tube, missing the last train to Stansted airport, taking an alternate route to catch another train, i finally made it to Stansted around midnight with only a couple of tears shed. This was the plan, spend the night in the airport pinchin pennies. i was a bit nervous about whether or not they would allow vagabonds such as myself to make bed on the terminal floor, but much to my suprise (and pleasure) there were, no kidding, TONS of 20-somethings sprawled all along the walls with their backpacks.

it made me a bit misty feeling not so alone in this foreign country. i took some pictures, but can't upload on this computer. so, i made my myself a little camp in front of ''Accesorize'', a 'Claire's' type store which oddly opens at 5am. more and more i'm realizing how glad i am that i decided to take this journey alone. especially when i find myself in these mini-stressful and uncomfortable situations, it's nice to just have the freedom of doing whatever i want to do to make myself as comfortable as possible.

my 3 hour nap on the floor has given me this rejuvinated sense of joie de vive (maybe my yogi tea helped too). i am bursting at the seams with excitement and energy when just about 5 hours earlier, the slightest wrong look from someone would have turned me into a blubbering fool. i'm so excited to see my loves in germany on thursday! i cannot even imagine how my heart will be able to handle so much happiness.

alright, blast our failing economy and weak dollar making this internet session so expensive!

talk soon.

next stop: stockholm

Here we goooo...

alright kiddos.

i decided to create this little blog basically so i won't have to answer the "how was your trip in europe? give me details!" question a hundred billion times.

well, my bag is packed (a little full) and i'm headed to the airport to go to new york in about an hour. i'll do my best to keep it updated with every city i go to but knowing me i'll most likely be off climbing a tree somewhere than in an internet cafe :)


i was in a class once and the professor asked us if we knew the difference between a pilgrimage and travel. basically a pilgrimage is all about the journey while travel is all about the destination. so off i go on my european pilgrimage, i'm so excited and so terrified at the same time. i know it's going to be a blast and i can't wait to tell you all about it!

too all of my friends joining me on this journey, i can't wait to see you all and squeeze your faces and smack your bums!

:)
micaela