One City, Two Worlds

Next up was Paris, the city I was most looking forward to visiting.  I had been there two years ago with my grandmother, and I had fallen in love with it.  Of course, with her, I was on a tour that catered to established adults and had us staying in four and five star hotels and eating in really nice restaurants.  Frankie and I on the other hand would be staying in a one-star hotel and would be able to afford to eat at a restaurant exactly zero times the entire time we were here.  While I thought I was getting a real idea of what Paris was like the last time I was here, I was really only seeing one part of it.  Frankie and I saw a whole new side of the city this time around, and it was eye opening to say the least.

Everything is so expensive in Paris and it is the most densely populated city in Europe, making the separation between the mid to upper class and the lower class more dramatic than in any city we had seen.  When I was here two years ago, we stayed in one of the nicest arrondissements, right beside the Eiffel Tower.  Our hotel and every restaurant we ate it was immaculate, the people very high class, and we only ran into a few beggars when we were in the most popular tourist sites.  (A word about these people really quick: there are groups of people, mostly women and children, who go around to people at the most popular tourist sites with a clipboard, trying to get them to “donate” money – don’t fall for it.  They had almost gotten my grandmother and I to give them money last time I was here when two undercover policemen came over and arrested them, telling us that these people prey on tourists illegally.  There are a lot of people who really are in need in this city, so if you decide to give money to any of them, make sure it’s to people who aren’t trying to fool you into giving it.)

Frankie and I on the other hand stayed on the opposite side of the city, right next to the most “dangerous” neighborhood to be in – not that any neighborhood is really all that dangerous; Paris is actually one of the safest cities in Europe.  But the area we stayed in was definitely lower end.  Instead of the upper class bourgeoisie my grandmother and I had been surrounded by, everywhere we looked were homeless people and beggars.  Instead of high-end cafes on every corner, there were questionable fruit stands and fast food restaurants.  We would be having a very different experience then I had had last time I was here.

And it was.  But there’s a reason people say Paris is the most romantic city in the world.  Even with all the filth we saw – and be prepared, if you do it the way we did it, there will be a lot of filth – Paris is still unbelievably beautiful, and if you’re going Europe, you can’t miss it.

We stayed in Hôtel des Olympiades, and for the first time in weeks, we had a room to ourselves.  We shared a bathroom with the rest of the floor, but it was nice to have our own space.  The hotel was a little under an hour walk away from the Eiffel Tower, and while that would have seemed like nothing on our first few days, by this point in our trip we were exhausted.  After making the walk there and back the first day, we decided to buy a book of metro tickets.  We ended up buying two books of ten tickets and this lasted us the six days we were there.  We didn’t have unlimited rides on the subway like we did in London, so we had to be a little more careful about deciding when to use a swipe and when to make the walk.

We wanted to see as much of the city as we could on our first night, so we decided to make the long walk and to check the dinner prices in each restaurant and café we passed.  Aaaand that was when we realized that we could not afford this city.  At least, not the way we had pictured it.  When I was here with my grandma two years ago, some of my favorite hours we spent sitting outside a café, eating sandwiches and drinking as much café as we wanted to, taking our time and watching the crowds.  We had to come to terms with the fact that that scene would take place maybe once the entire week we were here.  Even the places far from the center of the city were out of our budget.  Small appetizers were 10 Euros each, and we knew the money wouldn’t be worth a small plate of food that wouldn’t come close to filling us.  We ended up getting less-than-satisfactory and over-priced Stromboli at a pizza place when we grew too hungry to look any more.  We would have to come up with a better plan for the rest of our meals.

We spent the evening getting our first glimpses of the city of lights, and trust me, no matter how many times you see it, the view will never get old.  They’ve got the lighting down in this city.  Unfortunately, by the time we got to the main part of the city we were so exhausted from a day of traveling that we basically turned right back around for the hotel.  The walk to this part of the city had taken more than double than it was supposed to since we had spent so much time figuring out where to eat.

The next day we got an early start and took the subway into the 4^th arrondissement to see Notre Dame.  It was a gorgeous day, and after we took a tour of the cathedral we wandered along the Seine, looking at the art and vintage books sold by vendors.  We made our way to the Pont des Artes, where lovers buy padlocks to lock on the fence before throwing the key into the Seine so that the lock can never be removed and their love will never die.  I had put a lock for Frankie and I on the fence when I was here two years ago, and I had a general idea of where I had locked it, so we tried to find it.  I had put it in an area of the fence that was mostly empty so that one day I could try to find it again, but two years later the spot had filled in, and after looking for almost an hour, we gave up, deciding that it was enough to know that the lock was there somewhere and would be there forever.

For lunch, we decided to not even try to find a café we could afford.  We bought two loaves of fresh bread at a pâtisserie for one Euro each and soft brie and salami from a supermarket (look for Franprix, Carrefour, Intermarché, and Monoprix, although Monoprix can be a little pricey) and headed for the Eiffel Tower.  We spent the afternoon and evening eating our sandwiches and playing cards and talking right under the tower.  This ended up  being the place where we spent most of our days and nights while we were in Paris, and these are the moments I’ll always remember.  We may not have been able to afford all of the things we had planned on doing, but this was even better.

Sorry for the long hiatus, everybody! 2014 has had a pretty shaky start for me, but big things are happening this year! It’s the year I graduate from college and enter the real world, and more importantly, the year I go to COSTA RICA! So stay tuned for posts about that trip coming this summer!

And in the meantime, back to Europe!

I Amsterdam

The first half of our time in Amsterdam was really nice, but maybe not what you would think of when you hear about two students going to Amsterdam.  When we moved into our new hostel, we experienced the culture of the city a little more first-hand.

First off, if you’re looking to get the most out of your trip to Amsterdam culturally and historically, or if you’re just looking to learn more about this city that is so different from what we, at least, are used to, I would recommend taking a walking tour early in your trip.  We went on the last day, and while this was interesting because a lot of the questions we had been asking ourselves throughout the week we were answered (like, how many of the locals do you think actually smoke weed? or, what are the prostitution laws? or, damn, there are a lot of bikes and bridges here, how many are there?), it would have been nice having some more information about the city and knowing places to come back to later.  There is a walking tour that leaves from Dam Square at 11:15 and 1:15 every day that takes you through the oldest parts of the city, the Red Light District, and a lot of other highlights of the city, ending at the Anne Frank House.  The tour is free, but remember to tip your guide!

Our new hostel was above a bar, just like our second one in London.  It’s called Youth Hostel Meetingpoint and it’s pretty much right in the Red Light District.  This hostel was much nicer than the one in Sarphatipark; it was kind of similar to Fresh @ the Crown.  It may have been because of the people we met here, but I’d say this was one of our favorite hostel experiences.  Bonus: a white cat lives in the bar and hangs out all day every day in the lobby, so on our way in and out we always stopped to pet him for a few minutes.

Cats are everywhere in Europe, especially in Amsterdam.  In fact, one of the things we found online that we made sure we did was to visit the Poesenboot, a cat shelter that’s on a boat.  More than thirty cats basically have free reign of this boat, both inside and out.  Most of them are up for adoption, but about ten of them have been there so long that the boat has become their home, and that’s where they’ll stay.  We paid them a visit one afternoon and fell in love.

If you’re not into cats, there are plenty of other things to do during the day.  Though it’s out of the way a bit, Museumplein, a beautiful square surrounded on all sides by (you guessed it) museums, is definitely worth a stop.  We went to the Van Gogh museum – one of the very few things we spent any money on – and it was nice, but “Starry Night” and “Café Terrace at Night” aren’t even there (we probably should have known Starry Night was at home in New York).  The Stedelijk Museum and the Rijksmuseum are also here.  But the real appeal of Museumplein, for us at least, is the fountain with the famous “I Amsterdam” sculpture and a lot of other, uhm, interesting pieces of art inside the fountain.  Gorgeous mosaic balls line the path from the beautiful green college campus-esque quad to the fountain.  If it’s warm enough, pick up some food at the small market inside the square and have a picnic on the grass and people watch.

Vondelpark is another great place for a picnic or to relax.  This park is huge, and so beautiful.  We took a long walk and a short nap here one sunny afternoon.  It’s supposed to be a huge hotspot for concerts and music festivals, but none were going on while we were there.  Festival season probably starts later in the summer, and we were there for the first days of June, but you can find out all the dates for 2014 here.

If you’re looking for something more active than lounging in the grass, near the Red Light District is a huge shopping area.  There are tons and tons of name brand stores here – you could easily blow through all your travel money in one afternoon. And of course, as mentioned before, not far away are the more traditional markets that sell the gorgeous tulips Amsterdam is famous for, the to-die-for cheese shops where you can sample to your heart’s content, and, of course, head shops where you can fill all your marijuana and magic mushroom needs.

If you’re looking for a quick bite to eat between stores, I highly recommend Wok to Walk, a take out or sit in Chinese restaurant that makes quick and delicious dishes.  You can customize any order so you have control over what you’re eating and how much you’re spending.  It can be really cheap, and we went there a few times and enjoyed it a lot.  Be warned though: if you’re going to be out on the town for the day, bring plenty of pocket change – you have to pay for all public restroom in Amsterdam.  In most of the cities we went to, you had to pay some places but could usually find somewhere that would let you pee for free, but don’t bother looking, you won’t find a free public toilet.  Unless, of course, you’re a male and don’t mind peeing in the street in one of these (kind of disgusting, in my opinion) public urinal things:

This isn’t a huge city, but it can be easy to get lost with all the canals and side streets.  Especially if you’re like me and have zero sense of direction.  But one of the many great things about this city is that everyone we encountered was so kind.  On more than one occasion, a local saw us struggling with our map and stopped what they were doing to come over and offer us help.  Frankie and I joked that if a New Yorker saw someone looking lost and confused, they’d be more likely to point and laugh at them than to offer any help.

But okay.  You didn’t go to Amsterdam for the nice people or the shopping or the Chinese takeout.  At least a part of you came to see the Red Light District, in all its glory.

If you’re not familiar, the Red Light District is a small section of the city devoted to all things sex.  Women wearing nearly nothing stand in windows surrounded by red lights and try to persuade men walking by to come in and buy some sex.  Unsurprisingly, it’s mainly tourists that do this.  Hardly any locals even go to this part of town.  We learned on our walking tour that the women pay for a certain number of hours in the window.  Anyone can stand in a window if there’s an open spot, and they’re not reporting back to a pimp or anything.  We also learned that the Netherlands recognizes prostitution as a profession and the women are taxed on the money they make.

If you’re not interested in taking part in this bit of culture, you might find something else in the Red Light District to interest you.  There are sex shops everywhere as well as theaters where you can watch people having sex for as little as 2 Euros!  What a bargain.  Frankie and I had a good laugh about what the job qualifications were for the man that stood outside one of the theaters shouting, “Live porno show inside!” to everyone walking by.

But in all seriousness, you’re in Amsterdam – if you want to watch live porn or pay for sex with a red light girl, you should just do it (although we hear the rates are preeetty steep to go all the way).  Then you can say you did it, and you’ll never say “what if.”   We didn’t, and we’ll have to live with that decision for the rest of our lives…

There are lots of bars in this part of town if you’re looking to go out.  We didn’t go to any because we knew a bar would be an expensive night out, but we did pick up a few of these at Albert Heijn to make walking the streets a little more interesting.  Plus, we had never seen anything like it.  Captain and Coke in a can?  We kind of HAD to try it, right?

Despite all of what we saw in Amsterdam – both the beautiful and the shocking – what I will remember about this city forever is the people we met here.  More so than in any other city we went to, the people we met in Amsterdam were willing to get to know people outside their groups.  Everyone who walked into our hostel introduced themselves and struck up a conversation, which had never happened in any of the other hostels we stayed in.  Until now, we had actually kind of been disappointed in the number of people we had met so far because we heard that hostels were such a great way to meet other traveling young people.  It is probably the nature of this city – Amsterdam is really more of a city for friends, not for lovers – that other students were so easy to talk to and get to know.  Our interactions weren’t just introductions and then awkward acknowledgments of each other at night and in the mornings, we had hours long conversations with a few of the people we met, and spent our entire last day with them.  I definitely encourage anyone traveling to really make an effort to meet as many people from as many different places as you can.  Frankie and I can be a little introverted (me definitely more than him), and it was easy for us to get into our own little bubble and not venture out of it.  It was because these people approached us that we started talking to them, and the times we spent with them are some of my favorite memories of our entire trip.

Bottom line about Amsterdam: don’t be scared off if you’re not a big partier or are freaked out by all the sex stuff.  This is a seriously cool city.  From the peacefulness of Vondelpark, to the night life of the Red Light District, and everything between, Amsterdam has something for everyone, and it’s a place that I love more and more the longer I think about it.

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Culture Shock

After a five hour layover in Manchester, we got to Amsterdam at around 6 PM.  We took a bus that goes right from the airport to the city for about 4 Euros.  When we got there, it was pouring.  Harder than it ever had in London.  The bus dropped us off near Dam Square, which is close to the center of the city, but our hostel was on the opposite side of town.  After a full day of traveling, we didn’t have the mental capacity to figure out how to use the trams, so we decided to walk.

While London was really exciting and new, it’s structure was not all that different from cities we had been to in the states.  Amsterdam is a totally different story.  It’s built on the water, so there are canals running through it with over 1,100 bridges throughout the city.  Cars can go on most of the streets, so this makes it different from Venice, but a lot of people choose not to drive.  Most people use bikes.  There are more bikes than people in this city, which is really cool, but it was a little scary to be a pedestrian, especially on our first night there when we were tired and disoriented.  Bikes rule the roads, and from our first half hour there we were convinced that at some point while we were there one of us would get hit by one (we never did).  On the walking tour we took on our last day, the guide told us a local saying goes “Hear the bell, run like hell.”  We wanted to rent bikes while we were there to really immerse ourselves in the culture, but we chickened out, afraid that with all the other riders knowing the roads so much better and being so much more confident than we were, we would only end up causing an accident.

I was honestly a little nervous when we first got to Amsterdam.  I don’t smoke weed, so I had sort of blocked it out of my mind how big that culture is in this city.  There are “coffeeshops” everywhere and most travelers our age come here just to visit them.  I was a little freaked out by this, worrying that we had committed to staying six nights in a city where all there was to do was smoke.  I was afraid I wouldn’t like being here.

I was so wrong though.  This city is different from anywhere Frankie and I had ever been, but there are tons of awesome things to do here.

Our first hostel was in Sarphatipark, in the less tourist-y part of town.  Smaller than either of the others we had stayed in, Hostel Sarphati only holds eight people per room, and the rooms are TINY.  The beds are smaller than in any other hostel we stayed in and they’re practically all on top of each other.  There is one bathroom in each room, shared between all eight of the people, and it has poor ventilation so everything gets damp and smells moldy.  On the other hand, it’s in a quieter part of town, has a gorgeous park right outside, and the staff was really helpful and friendly.

Our first full day, we wanted to explore the city rather than do anything in particular.  We didn’t know all that much about Amsterdam, and since we had five more full days, we wanted to sort of take inventory of what it had to offer.  We had breakfast in a tiny shop near our hostel.  Where we stayed was kind of far away from the action of the city, and this has its benefits and its drawbacks, but a definite plus was that food was a bit cheaper.  We got breakfast sandwiches for between two and three Euros, then set out to explore.

Our first stop was an outdoor market on our way to the city center, which was nice, but hard to compare to the amazing markets we’d seen in London.  We walked all through the city, wandering over the canals, sampling cheese at the shops on every corner and admiring the tulip stands.  We found a store chain kind of like Target called HEMA where they sell soft serve vanilla ice cream cones for 50 cents.  We probably walked the entire city twice, which was great because we learned a lot about it and made plans for the rest of our time, but we were really tired by the time the sun FINALLY went down at 11:30 PM, and had to head back to the hostel before we could really enjoy the night life.

The next day was sunny and the ground was finally dry after the rain from the night we got there, so we decided to have a picnic in the park next to our hostel.  There are supermarkets called Albert Heijn all over the place, and they sell food at prices so much lower than anywhere in the states.  Don’t ever buy water in Europe from anywhere but a supermarket.  You’re going to need to drink a LOT of water, especially if you’re on the go as much as we are and it’s hot, but at a restaurant where we got Dutch pancakes we paid three Euros for a small bottle, when a giant bottle at Albert Heijn is 45 cents.

After our picnic, we brought the rest of our wine to Dam Square at the city center and sat on a fountain people watching and getting a little tipsy.  You’re allowed to drink in public in most places in Europe, but I don’t think what we did is technically legal.  We saw cops go up to a few people and make them get rid of their beers, so if you do this, be discrete.  While we were sitting, we started talking to a couple of Canadian men on a business trip sitting next to us, also discretely drinking, and they ended up inviting us to their hotel’s breakfast buffet the following day.  We had to sneak in and out, but we got a 30 Euro meal for free – probably the best and biggest meal we had eaten in a long time.

Our first few days here were great, but it wasn’t until we switched hostels and we were more in the middle of things that we really got to know what Amsterdam was all about.

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London Calling

So our first day in Europe was kind of a bust. I don’t know what kind of super-human creatures we thought we were, assuming jet-lag wouldn’t affect us and that we’d be ready to spring into sight-seeing action bright and early the day after getting there.  After we were a bit more rested, Frankie and I set out to get to know London.

Our second full day was a Saturday, so we headed for the famous, two-mile long Portobello Market.  The streets were packed with both Londoners and tourists, with vendors selling everything from clothes to pastries to antiques to prints.  It took us a good few hours to make our way through all of it. We didn’t buy anything, but we had a great time looking.

When I was looking up things to do when we were in the Shannon Airport for forever, I saw that the London Wonderground would be going for almost the whole time we were there.  This was a carnival style event set up on the Southbank with lots of food and performers and shows going on all week.  We decided to go see Limbo, a cirque du soleil-type show.  It said online that it started at 3:00, so after the market we went straight there, only to find out that it wouldn’t actually start until 7:30. This turned out to be a happy mistake, though, because it meant that we had over four hours to spend on the Southbank, an area that became one of our absolute favorite places in London. The Southbank is right on the River Thames and is below the London Eye with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament just across the river. Southbank Centre holds a lot of concerts and events all year round, so be sure to check the schedule online if you’re making a trip.

It was much warmer than the day before, so we were content to join the rest of the crowd that had flocked to the London Wonderground, eating candy floss and basking in the sun when it decided to make an appearance from behind the ever-present clouds.

That night, we saw Limbo, which was amazing – and at 17 pounds each, probably the most expensive thing we did our whole trip.  Traveling on such a tight budget, we knew that we would not be paying for our entertainment often.  Instead, we sat in the grass and watched people, dogs, pigeons, street performers, kids – anything.  We made up stories for kids and dialogue for the pigeons fighting over scraps of food.  We learned to be content without stimulating ourselves every minute, and we ended up enjoying these seemingly insignificant moments the most.

The next morning we checked out of Smart Russell Square and set off to find our next hostel.  We had a hard time getting to it because there were no tube stops near it, and that was the only way we had been getting around so far.  We ended up walking two hours across London to Lavender Hill, only to realize that there was an above ground train stop right down the road, and our Oyster Cards worked for pretty much any form of public transportation after all.  At least that was our warmest, sunniest day yet.

After dropping off our luggage in our new room, we decided that we would spend the rest of the gorgeous day in Hyde Park.  The rain and clouds that had seemed endless on our first day in London made the sunny moments even more special, and, sitting in the park, both Frankie and I said that we could see ourselves living in this amazing city.

That night we settled into our new hostel, Fresh @ the Crown.  We were nervous about changing locations since we had gotten used to our last hostel, but this one turned out to be much nicer.  There were private showers, so we didn’t have to see anyone naked, and there was a bar downstairs that served drinks and pizza to residents 24 hours a day for cheap.  We made friends with a few girls in our room and with the bartender and had a long conversation with a very drunk Irishman.

We spent our remaining three days doing everything you can do for free, or as close to free as possible.  We went to Camden Market, a younger Portobello Market that winds around and in on itself like a maze and contains hundreds of hidden treasures.  We visited Shakespeare’s Globe and saw London Bridge.  We sat on a monument in Trafalgar Square and watched drunken football fans make fools of themselves.  We saw Piccadilly Circus (London’s Times Square) and Oxford Street (London’s SoHo) and went in shops and galleries.  We went into Harrods which made us feel really, REALLY poor.  We had tea at tea time in a little cafe.  We went back to the Southbank almost every night to watch the street performers and look at the lit up skyline.  London has an endless number of things to do, and while some of them can be pretty pricey, there are tons of really amazing things to do and see for little to no cost.

On our last day, another rainy day, we decided to go to Greenwich, an area that friends of mine that had just gotten back from studying abroad in London had loved.  Greenwich is almost an hour tube ride away from the heart of London, but it’s a cute town with a market and shops and The Lost Hour, a pub where they have food and drink specials every day and we were able to get two full meals for only 8 pounds!

It was hard leaving London. We had had such an unforgettable experience, and a part of us never wanted to leave.  But our trip was just beginning, so with mixed emotions, we got on a plane to Amsterdam.

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Getting There

Since we were preparing for our trip at the same time Frankie was getting ready to apply for grad school and we were both dealing with the craziness of the second half of the spring semester, we didn’t have as much time to devote to planning as we wanted.  Figuring out where we were staying and how we were getting around had taken up all our free time, and when May 22^nd rolled around, we hadn’t done a whole lot of researching what we would actually do once we had gotten there.  So we got on a plane without really knowing how we’d be spending our days.

We got to Shannon, Ireland at 8:30 in the morning and as soon as we were off the plane were given a sample of the cheapest and most plentiful entertainment we would experience in every city we went to – street performers.  Most of them are super talented and only cost whatever you decide to give them, if anything, and are a great way to pass the time while getting a dose of culture at the same time.  At the baggage claim, an Irish folk band complete with a step dancer had set up to welcome us to their country. Watch it here!

We spent the next ten hours in the airport.  We found some comfy chairs in the lounge upstairs and set up shop.  While Frankie napped, I spent most of that time on my phone researching what we would do in London, our first stop.  We brought my iPhone and turned off cellular data so I wouldn’t get roaming charges.  Most airports have Wi-Fi, so each time we landed in a new city we always stayed an extra few minutes to regroup and figure out where we were going.  This time, we had more than a few minutes, so we had plenty of ideas by the time we got on our Ryanair flight to Gatwick at 6.

The London Gatwick Airport is almost an hour outside of the city, so before we left we had did some research on getting into the city.  Easybus offers one way van rides into the city for about ten people every half hour or so for only 2 pounds (3 dollars).

We stayed in Smart Russell Square Hostel for our first three nights.  It cost about $18 a night and the room we stayed in slept about 15 people.  There are triple bunk beds in this hostel, which was something my roommates and I joked about trying as freshmen, but I had never actually seen before.  Each bed has curtains around it, so you get a bit more privacy here than in other hostels, which was nice for our first experience in one.  Even with this added measure, it was not easy getting used to sleeping in a room with so many strangers.  People came in at all hours, turning on lights and talking out loud.  But eventually we learned to deal with this.  In the morning, we used locker room-style showers, which we weren’t thrilled about, but later learned that these types of showers aren’t the norm.  We never encountered them in any other hostel.  From 7:30-9:30 AM, Smart Russell Square offers free breakfast, which includes a bowl of cereal or a few pieces of toast.  You can buy coffee or tea for a pound.

There isn’t much to do in Russell Square itself, but there is a tube stop right down the street from the hostel.  The first thing Frankie and I did when we arrived was to buy Oyster Cards valid for one week.  These cost about 30 pounds each and gave us unlimited use of the tube within zones 1 and 2 of London.  As a tourist or traveler, you probably won’t need to go anywhere outside of zone 2.

Across the street from our hostel was a Pret a Manger, a sandwich shop chain that is hugely popular in London; we saw them everywhere.  There are a few in New York City, too.  We ate a lot of meals there in our first few days when we grew too tired to look for cheaper food elsewhere.  The prices seemed pretty good to us – this was our first city and we didn’t really know how to deal with buying food yet.  We also weren’t very good at mentally converting pounds to dollars in our heads yet, so while 4 pounds for a small sandwich in a city sounds good at first, this really means it costs six dollars and you’re probably going to need more to fill you up.  Not such a great deal after all.  A student we met that lives outside London later told us that the only people she knows that eat at Pret are well-off, and still only get it as a treat now and then.  But it tasted good and it was easier than wandering the streets looking at every menu in every pub we came across, especially when we were as tired as we were the first few days.

Our first day was colder and wetter than we had expected, though in hindsight, this shouldn’t have been a surprise.  The weather was totally typical of London.  The dreary weather reflected the way we felt – we were extremely jet-lagged and exhausted from not getting much sleep the night before.  We tried to make the most of the day by heading to Trafalgar Square early in the morning.  All national museums are free in the UK, so we ducked into the National Gallery to escape the rain.  It was so warm and peaceful in the museum, and shortly after we got inside, we sat on a bench a fell asleep.

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Packing

I thought the time between deciding to go on the trip and getting on the plane would take forever, but it flew by.  Before we knew it, it was time to pack.

Packing enough to last six weeks that will fit in a backpack or suitcase 55cm x 40cm x 20cm or less (Ryanair’s size requirements) is not easy.  Especially if you’re like me and want to bring everything you own.  Here are some tips for getting the most out of your 10 kilos.

• Wear your bulkiest clothes on travel days, and wear as many articles of clothing as possible.  On travel days I sometimes wore both my jackets, two shirts, leggings, jeans, and a maxi skirt.  We even stuffed clothes under our jackets and in our pockets and were able to bring more than would fit in our suitcases.  Budget airlines are strict but they can’t ask you to empty your pockets.  I brought a small cross-body purse and had to wear this under my jacket as well because, even though you’re wearing it, this counts as a bag for these small airlines and you’re only allowed one.
• Roll your clothes instead of folding them, you’ll be able to fit more.
• If you’re going in the summer, bring 2 pairs of shoes – one pair of sandals and one pair of real shoes.  I made the mistake of bringing sandals and a pair of ballet flats as my only other footwear.  We walked as much as 8 miles a day sometimes, and on these days my feet were killing me.  I also didn’t keep the weather in London, Ireland, and Amsterdam in mind.  In mid to late May and early June, and even late June in Ireland, these cities are still cold.  And rainy, especially London.  I wore socks with my flats on the cold and rainy days in London, but they quickly soaked through and my feet were even colder.  Real shoes take up a bit more room, but if you’re spending a significant amount of time in countries that aren’t exactly known for being sunny and warm, it’s worth it to bring real shoes and warm socks.  Also, if you’re staying in hostels, bring flip flops.  Just like in a dorm building, these showers are used by hundreds of people and you just don’t know how well they’re cleaning them.
• You should probably just accept the fact now that you’re going to have to wear dirty clothes sometimes.  I’m pretty particular about hygiene so I know this might be hard.  But if you go for a longer trip, you won’t be able to fit enough clothes to wear something clean every day and doing laundry isn’t always practical either.  We did use a laundromat once in Amsterdam, but it cost almost 12 Euros and our clothes still weren’t dry when we left.  And the only pair of jeans I brought ripped.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford that just to wear clean clothes every day.  Wear deodorant and make use of the hostel showers and I’m sure, especially in the heat of the summer, you won’t be the stinkiest person you encounter.  If you want to do laundry more often and don’t mind putting in some effort, you can always hand wash your things in the sink, just make sure you have enough time to let them dry before putting them back in your suitcase, or everything will be wet and smell like mildew.  I brought a travel size bottle of Febreze to spray on my stuff if it ever started smelling like this, and I got some tiny air fresheners in Amsterdam to keep in our suitcases. Be sure to bring a plastic bag that you can put dirty underwear and socks that you definitely won’t wear twice and anything that really starts to smell in to keep it from making the rest of your stuff smell.
• If you’re bringing a hairdryer, make sure you have one that you can switch the power voltage on.  In the United States, 120 Volts run from the outlet to the appliance, but in most European countries, the standard is 220-230 Volts.  (Please excuse my horrible explanation of this if you know more about it than I do.)  I had no idea this was a thing until my travel hairdryer, set at 120 Volts for the US, turned red and started smoking and kept shutting off.  If the hairdryer or whatever appliance you want to bring that you already have doesn’t have the option to switch, make sure you buy one that does.  You can always return it when you get home.  I found  one at Bed Bath and Beyond that was much smaller and lighter than normal ones.
• You’re allowed to bring as many 100 mL sized liquids that can fit in a quart-sized Ziplock.  Toothpaste, deodorant, make up, chapstick – all of these count as liquids.  Some airlines check and make you throw out anything that’s too big, some don’t.  It’s definitely better to be safe than sorry.  Take the bag out before you get to security to make things faster.
• Instead of buying multiple (expensive) locks for every compartment of Frankie’s backpack and my suitcase, we bought a big bag of zip ties that we could cut off with a Swiss army knife.  We actually didn’t feel the need to use them often, only on travel days when we were moving in big crowds.  Maybe it was because we looked poor, but we didn’t have any issues with pickpocketers.  We left our bags with only our clothes in the hostels and Frankie kept our passports and money in one of these bad boys, so there was almost no way anyone could take any of our valuables.
• Remember to leave a little empty space for anything you want to buy!

Related articles

• Smart ways to pack your suitcase (consumerreports.org)
• How To Pack Shoes For Travel (ctfootcare.blogspot.com)
• Tips for a perfect suitcase! (travelsoffers.wordpress.com)

Sleeping Around

The three things we knew we would be spending the most money on were transportation, lodgings, and food.  We couldn’t exactly plan our meals three months in advance, but we could figure out exactly where we were staying.  We knew we would be sleeping in hostels, but we were a little apprehensive about what were getting ourselves into (Hostel, anyone?).

We had nothing to worry about though.  For the most part, hostels were a pleasant surprise.  Sites like HostelWord and Hostels.com are great resources because you can use them to sort all the hostels in a city by price, like an airline website, and also by location and how highly they are rated.  This rating is an average of their rating in categories that range from cleanliness to security to friendliness of staff.  Be aware, you might see a highly rated hostel for a great price, but realize at a second look that it’s ten kilometers outside the city.  You don’t want to save money on a cheap place to stay only to pay double what you’re saving in transportation to get into the city every day.  Don’t discount the idea of staying in more than one hostel in a single city, either.  Most hostels’ prices go up on the weekends, but you might be able to find one where the prices stay the same throughout the week, making it more expensive to stay there on weeknights, but cheaper than other places on the weekend.  For cities that we were staying in for a longer period than others, we stayed half the time in one hostel and half the time in another.  We never stayed more than three nights in any given hostel.  This gave us a chance to experience a different part of the city, and we weren’t risking having to stay in a bad hostel for too long.  Sometimes the hostel we moved onto was better, and sometimes worse.  Personally, we chose a good price over a high rating.  We weren’t traveling to get a good night’s sleep every night or for comfortable living arrangements.  We just needed a safe place to sleep and to leave our stuff during the day.  At every hostel we stayed in, we never felt as though we weren’t safe, and in fact often found that they were much nicer than the ratings online suggested.

Before you commit to hostels, there are some things you should know.

You’re sleeping in the same room with a lot of people.  I think the biggest room we slept in housed 26 people.  With that many people, things are going to get loud.  Sometimes people are going to come in at 4 AM, drunk off their asses and make a lot of noise.  Someone in every room WILL be a snorer.  Early birds might get up at 6 to start their day when you planned on sleeping until 9 (or later).  If you’re anything like me and can’t deal with noise when you sleep, bring earplugs.  Same goes for an eye mask if light bothers you.  Drunk people are not always the most courteous.  Come to think of it, people in general aren’t always all that courteous.  We had sober people come into the room in the middle of the night and turn on the light and start having a conversation out loud because they just didn’t care.  It’s just something you have to deal with in hostels.  The overall experience makes it all worth it, but bringing earplugs and a mask to keep the light out could help you get your rest.

For the most part, you will have no privacy.  The first hostel we stayed in had locker room-style showers, and we saw a lot of naked people.  Frankie and I opted out of bringing towels, not wanting to carry around a big wet towel in our backpacks that would make everything smell like mildew.  So we either had to walk in and out of the shower area totally naked, or hang our clothes right outside the door and pull them onto our wet bodies in the damp, steamy shower stall.

While most of the hostels we stayed in were surprisingly clean, we did have some issues with bugs twice.  Once, in Venice, there were actual centipedes LIVING in our beds.  It was our last night there and too late to get a bus to the airport, but we talked to management and were allowed  to sleep on the couches in the common room.  The second time, in Nice, one girl said she saw “la cucaracha,” but we didn’t see it, and it’s much easier to pretend something doesn’t exist if you don’t see it.  We had accepted before we left that as much as neither of us like bugs, we might encounter them.  And we did, and we survived.

Before you veto hostels, there are some things you should know.

It’s a great way to meet people.  You’ll probably have better luck meeting a lot of people if you’re traveling alone because people in pairs or groups tend to not get approached as easily, but if you put yourself out there, you could make friends you never forget.  This happened for us in Amsterdam.  We met some of the most interesting and kind people we’ve ever talked to, and ended up spending our last few days and nights with them, and it’s something we’ll remember forever.

They’re great resources to learn about the city.  Almost all hostels have maps and informational brochures at the front desk that can help you find things to do, and the people at reception are usually more than happy to give you tips and suggestions.  One of our hostels in Amsterdam had its own free walking tour service that left every day and held specified paid tours at night, and this was a great way to learn about the city and pass the time.

The most obvious – you’re saving a ton of money.  Frankie and I averaged about 20 Euros a night, and we went at the peak season.  Save money in this area so you have more to spend on entertainment and food (or, like us, so you can bring as much home as possible!)

Hostels have their downsides, but I would never choose to travel any other way as a person in my 20s.  If Frankie and I ever take another trip like this one, I can tell you with 100% assurance that we would stay in hostels again, even if we had more money to spend than we did this time.  If you ask me, they’re an essential part of traveling as a student or young adult.

Related articles

• Three Musicians, Five Hostels, Seven Days (yha.org.uk)
• The culture of Hostel VS Hotels (jolam08.wordpress.com)
• Five reasons to stay in a hostel (yha.org.uk)
• Hostels (studyabroadgal.wordpress.com)

Ticket to Ride

The first thing Frankie and I needed to do was decide where exactly we were going to go.  It was hard to come up with a list because I basically wanted to go everywhere – still do – but that’s unfortunately just not possible in one trip.  For us, at least.  We decided that since this was our first trip, we would see some of the biggest must-see cities – London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, and Nice.  Frankie has family in Malta, so we added that as a potential stop.  Next thing to figure out: how to get to each place.

I had heard of other people using the Eurail Pass, so we started there.  We quickly found that there are a lot of limitations on the pass, at least for the kind of traveling Frankie and I wanted to do.  You can buy regional and select passes for between 1 and 5 countries, or a global pass that includes 24 countries, and pay for a certain number of uses – from any 5 days within 2 months up to every day in a three month period.  The prices can rise pretty quickly, but this looked like a decent option…until we saw that the UK and France, which were both on our can’t-miss list, are both not included in the regional passes, and England isn’t included in any of the passes, not even the global.  We considered getting regional passes for just two countries and finding other ways to get to the rest, like planes.

Planes!  We had no idea that planes could be so affordable! They have these awesome budget airlines (Ryanair, EasyJet, Jet2) in Europe that can get you from one country to another for as little as under 30 Euros.  Sites like SkyScanner can help you find the best rates.  You might have to make connections that seem unnecessary and you don’t always have your pick of times, but there are airports in most major cities and most of our flights took about an hour (not including waiting in line for security and what not, of course).  The only real problem you might have, which wasn’t really an issue for us, is they have very strict rules for the size and weight of your baggage.  You can only bring one small carry-on bag for free, anything else costs extra.  And they check.  Several times.  If you reserve your extra bag online, it only costs about 10 Euros, but get caught at the gate with a bag that doesn’t fit in their little “If It Fits” box, then you could end up paying a 60-70 Euro fine.  But they all have the guidelines on their website, so measure before you leave and you’ll be fine.

It was a little unsettling to think about the fact that we would be taking so many planes in such a short amount of time (14 in five weeks!).  And we thought that these budget, “no-frills” airlines would have tiny, unsafe-feeling planes.  But they’re not.  In fact, I felt safer on these planes than I did on the flight over the Atlantic, where we had hit a lot of turbulence.

As for the trans-Atlantic flight, we got a pretty great deal on those tickets, too.  Don’t decide you want to go to London and only look at flights to London – you’ll end up paying WAY more than you need to.  Same goes for most of the other big cities.  Before you solidify your itinerary, plug in each city you want to go to on a few different sites – Kayak, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc, and even a few smaller cities that don’t necessarily want to go to, but are close by.  You can always connect to your destination with a budget airline.  We flew into Ireland instead of mainland Europe and ended up paying half of what other travelers we met paid!  On our way there, we didn’t even leave the airport, just got on a 30 Euro Ryanair flight to London later that day.  Our round-trip tickets from New York City to Shannon, Ireland were $740, while a girl we met paid $1,400 round-trip to Lyon, France.  Even if you think you’ve found a good rate, check all of the airlines’ sites at different times of the day and on different days of the week – they fluctuate more than you’d think.  We bought our tickets on a Tuesday at 3:00 PM because this seemed to be the best time, but you should still check at all different times.

If you don’t mind traveling in the winter, you’ll get even better deals.  Most sites have off-season sales, and even the Eurail offers discounted prices for this time of year.

We chose to travel by plane because it’s cheaper than trains and relatively quick, but we also talked to a lot of other traveling students who traveled by bus.  Some were able to get tickets from one country to another for 4 Euros!  But they also ended up wasting an entire day on a bus while we were able to get from one country to another by 10 AM and spend the rest of the day exploring the new city.  For that reason, I think it was worth the extra 15-20 Euros we paid.

The best tip for saving money I can give is to buy ALL of your tickets as early as possible.  We had all of our transportation details planned out two months before we left, and we spent $1,300 total, including our trans-Atlantic flights and transportation to and from the airports.  This might take some of the spontaneity out of traveling – how romantic is the idea of just flying over there and figuring it out as you go?  But that is guaranteed to make you lose out on a TON of money.  But hey, if you have the cash to spare, go ahead, be spontaneous.

Related articles

• The Ultimate Europe Trip for $232 (flightfox.com)
• If You Ever Want to Use Eurail…Read This First (jaclynwanderstheworld.wordpress.com)
• Train vs Plane (gofarther.me)
• Which is the cheapest budget airline? (theguardian.com)

Wanderlust

Ten months ago, my boyfriend and I made the biggest, scariest and by far best decision we had ever made together.  We were going to Europe.

It was my junior year of college and Frankie’s senior year.  I had been talking about studying abroad for the spring semester of my last year.  I knew Frankie wasn’t thrilled about the idea of me leaving the country for four months, but he wasn’t about to stand in the way of my need to see another part of the world.  So he came to me with a proposition.  Instead of studying abroad in London by myself for a semester, how would I feel about  backpacking all over Europe together for a month or two?  …how would I feel?  It’s only what I’ve been practically begging him to do with me for about two years!  I had decided to study abroad because I didn’t think I would ever be able to convince him to do this with me and I thought this would be my only chance to travel as a student.  Frankie had never considered it before because he didn’t think there was a chance in hell we could afford it.  Hearing me talk about studying abroad had led him to realize what I had decided a long time ago – the experience would be worth so much more than whatever money we would end up spending.

Money was still a huge concern, though.  As soon as Frankie suggested this, we got right on the computer and started researching.  From what most people were saying, the earlier you start planning, the better.  We wanted to go right after Frankie’s graduation, so we had about four months to learn as much as we could.  We learned so much in that time and while we were traveling, and now I want to share that information with other students and anyone who wants to travel, but doesn’t want to spend a fortune.

Related articles

• Studying Abroad (katiestraughn.wordpress.com)
• Tips for students studying abroad (cjheller.wordpress.com)
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• Money Problems and Homesickness Abroad (taylortrahan.wordpress.com)
• Budgeting for Study Abroad: Advice (ruabroad.wordpress.com)