Only 2 weeks left?!

Hey! So it's December 1st and it's finally starting to hit me that I'll be heading home soon! As sad as I am about that, I still have 2 weeks left in Portugal and Spain which isn't anything to be sad about. haha In addition, I really am looking forward to heading home despite having an amazing time over here in Europe. I can't WAIT to see my amazing and beautiful girlfriend Jenny, Xmas is going to be awesome this year at my house in Spokane (Jenny and both of my brother's family and kids will be there), and I'm actually getting excited (and nervous) about starting my job at Cisco on January 2nd. It's going to be a rough first month at work. haha

Regarding my travels the last, idk, 3 weeks, I've been having an awesome time seeing new cities and meeting new people, and have even grown even closer with my girlfriend. Sorry i haven't been able to blog more frequently, but it's tough to find time when on the road and staying with friends. I'll be staying at (and have been) hostels for most of the rest of the trip as I've finally exhausted most of my friend resources in Europe. haha I still have friends in Bilbao Spain, Lyon France, Toulouse France, Geneva Switzerland, and Lake Constance that I would like to see, but I don't think it's gonna happen on this trip. Sorry!

I'd like to get around to blogging (really, this is more like a personal journal for me to have later, but I'm letting friends/family see what I've been up to as well) for the last 3 weeks, but I might not get to that for a while so I wanted to write a brief update for those who are curious.

I was in Budapest, Hungary for 6 nights with my friend David and had an amazing/freezing time at the Budapest Fridge Festival. David and his friend Danny showed me all around the city, I went to 2 different caves which were sweet, I went to an extravagant hot spring/"Bath" and saw lots of old creepy dudes (I got a massage there too which was sweet), there was a mini house warming party at the apartment with lots of beer, guitar playing, and singing, I tried some traditional Hungarian food (very hearty and delicious) and I was able to get a pretty good grasp on the city and the people. Hungarian girls are by far the prettiest girls of any country I've been to btw.

Vienna was my next stop and I stayed with my good friend Miriam for 4 nights in her dorm (on a nice air mattress). Despite being freezing cold as well, Miriam showed me all around and I had a great time. Vienna, and Austria in general, was just beautiful and I want to come back here more than any other city/country I've been to (except maybe Portugal now...). While I was in Vienna, I did a day trip to Linz to check out a crazy science museum, Miriam and I went to a number of Xmas markets, I toured the Schonbrun Castle, explored around a lot but not too much because it was so cold, and had a number of delicious meals and soups with Miriam. Saying goodbye was sad, and Miriam even escorted me to the train station in Casablanca fashion. Haha

My next stop was Italy, which involved a night train from Vienna to Venice. Night trains suck btw. It’s cool to wake up in a new city, but man, “sleeping” on them sucks. Venice was pretty cool, and I had a fun time walking around all the canals and meeting crazy Australian in my hostel. I made a day trip the following day to hopefully explore these amazing caves in sloevnia, but there weren’t any buses that would get me there in time for the last cave tour, so I just explored the Italian town of Trieste all day which was still super cool as it’s a beautiful coastal town.

After Venice, I packed my gear, took a train to Florence, explored Florence for 4 hours (cool town btw), then made my way down Italy to Naples (or Napoli) for Thanksgiving to visit my friend Shane Anderson, who I knew back in High School, and is now in the US NAVY stationed in Naples. I had an American Thanksgiving with Shane and his wide which was sweet. The next couple days we went to Pompeii, hiked Mount Vesuvius, had some amazing pizza, did flaming Lamborghini shots, went shopping on black Friday on the military support site, and I got to see where he works at the NATO base in Napoli.

Rome was my next awesome destination, and it really was pretty amazing. The Trevi fountain, Coliseum, Vatican City, and Sistine Chapel all lived up to their fame. Italy as a whole kinda feels dangerous, they drive crazy, and the Italians always seem like they’re angry or complaining about something. Haha I had an argument with a guy and was yelling back at him with an over the top Italian accent which was fun. Hmm… what else. I almost got stranded in Rome when my phone died and was trying to get back to Naples to stay the night with Shane. And I got to sleep in the airport in Rome before taking a RyanAir flight at 6:30am to Porto, Portugal.

I’m in Porto, Portugal right now and am heading to Lisbon in a few hours. Porto is my new favorite city, and I had an incredibly random/awesome time within the first 30 minutes of being there. I used my free voucher for a City Sightseeing tour immediately when I got there (I was getting tired of looking for free internet to find my hostel and decided to just hop on with my pack) and hung out with a cool Brazilian guy and a fat obnoxious old man from LA that afternoon. We went wine tasting for free on the tour, had some traditional Portuguese food, and got to explore the beach area and city center for a while. I switched hostels to hang out with the Brazilian guy, and that night we met up with a friend of his from school who lives in Porto, and lived up the nightlife before I finally crashed. Not from the alcohol (only had 2 drinks), but from sheer exhaustion. I had gotten maybe 6 hours of sleep the last 2 night combined and it finally caught up with me at the bar. The bar scene/nightlife in Porto is the craziest I’ve ever seen btw. There were SOOOOOOOO many young people packed on the streets and in the bars it was crazy.

Well, I gotta run. I’m off to Lisbon in an hour or so and gotta do a few things before leaving, including getting some lunch. I finally got a chance to upload my pics from the last month on facebook, so take a look there for some cool pics of things I’ve been up to. I’ll get around to the Italy pics when I get a chance. I hope everyone reading this is doing well. Until next time!

- Kyle