Homeward Bound

Final updates will be written in Illinois.
I am such a happy, lucky girl.

Last Trip

Heading out on our last trip tomorrow to Norway for two days and Croatia for three. I fly back a week from tomorrow!

Originally, we were going to stay in Oslo (the capital) both days in Norway, but when we realized that there is a town called Vangsnes, Norway (and I'm traveling with Chad Vangness) we got kind of excited.

And then I saw this video, which is the train we would be taking to get out towards Vangnes:

And I was sold... We're going to the fjords. We booked a place to stay in Flam (the town names are so eloquent, aren't they?) and we're going to get our outdoors adventure on.
The ultimate goal in the next two days: Getting Vangness to Vangsnes.

Roam, if you want to, in Rome

My 4 Days in Rome:

St. Peter's Basilica, Food, Vatican, Food, Vatican Museum, Food, Colosseum, Food, Roman Forum, Food, Ruins, Food, Friends, Food. Oh, and wine.

Also loved visiting Gwen and Maggie :) who were amazing hosts.

Edinburgh, Round II

I went to Edinburgh, Scotland with my family when they came to visit because the flights were very cheap to go from 6 am to 6 pm and make a 12-hour day trip out of it (so why not?) except for the fact that it was super cold and groggy (apparently last year it rained 290something days of the 365) and, in 20/20 hindsight we probably did most of the sight-seeing wrong as we didn't really look into Edinburgh at all ahead of time.

Also, my camera happened to meet some water in one of those automatic sinks... it wasn't pretty, so my screen was out for the day, and all of my pictures were beautiful, artistic shots like this one:

(never take your camera screen for granted).

The second time, however, we booked a trip to visit Edinburgh on the way to Rome, and we did a better job at being tourists. (We went on a 3 hour walking tour, so if anyone has specific questions about the history of Edinburgh, I might be able to help you out).

PS, Edinburgh is super creepy and most of the tourist attractions are based off of its history of witch hunts, murders, etc. and the architecture in the town kind of goes along with the spooky theme very well if you ask me...

PPS, Edinburgh is also where J.K. Rowling went to university & where she began to write a lot of the Harry Potter series.

FTW.

Edinburgh also is obsessed with the story of the Greyfriar's dog "Bobby" which you can read about by clicking here. (Wikipedia is a reliable source, I swear).

And their national dish is super-gross Haggis, which is a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. Nom nom nom?

Barcelona (California Style)

Going out of order here a bit but that's just because

1. I love Spain

2. I just made this video so I'm putting it up regardless

Sorry if you checked this earlier, I mixed a bunch of songs together and one of them violated copyright regulations so the video didn't work. Bummer. But this one should be fine!

Couple things to note:

We stalked the architect Gaudi while we were there, so any curvy building you see is probably designed by that man. And there's about a million pictures of the Sagrada Familia, which is under construction and probably will be for eternity as far as anyone knows.

I also stalked all the food I ate, as you can see in the video. Tapas, gelato, and paella all hold a special place in my heart.

Hiatus

The "study" part of "study abroad" has consumed my past week, but I'm FINALLY (relatively) free! Just turned in 3 major projects today and classes end this week.

With finals looming, I'll be updating while & when I can.

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:)