It is an Adventure, indeed...

*Note* I wrote this on the drive to Cinque Terra; we're in Rome now though. Sorry this blog is a little outdated, I'll write again before leaving for Venice in a few days!

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. I’m currently on the road in between Lucerne, Switzerland and Cinque Terra, Italy. You should definitely check out both areas, they’re amazing! I know I’m horrible at keeping everyone updated, but I’ve been having trouble finding time to get on the internet in our hostels; either we’re getting back so late that it’d be rude to sit in our room with the computer on while everyone else sleeps, or they’ll only have it available for a certain amount of time, etc.

After Amsterdam, James and I headed for Bruges, Belgium. It was a really quaint little town with lots of weird shops that I really enjoyed. We climbed the bell tower to get a better view of the city, but we have an awful habit of being in bell towers when the bells start to ring. I’m pretty sure I’ll be deaf before I make it back to the states.

We did the “Belgian” things—got a Belgian waffle (delicious!), went to a chocolate museum. We mostly just walked around though because the town was small and just really beautiful. James’ dad told us we would enjoy it more than Brussels, and though I didn’t see Brussels, I’d have to agree with him. I’ve really enjoyed all of the smaller towns we’ve visited more than the major cities.

We left Belgium in a slight rush because I’d developed some sort reaction/rash on my arms and scalp that was highly irritated by the sun. I was trying really hard to be a trooper and just not complain about it or talk about it. But that last day in Belgium it was just unbearable. James pretty much demanded (nicely, haha) that I see a doctor. I emailed my dad about the situation (I’d kept it on the down low for fear that he’d overreact) and he told me that if it was “flesh-eating” to come home. Then he proceeded to tell me about a boy fighting for his life back home from a fungal infection he got in a public pool. So now that I was thoroughly terrified, I decided to go to a French hospital.

So French hospitals are a little strange. And more than a little dirty. Everyone in America is all about “free healthcare”…that is a stupid thing to wish for people! Basically James knew just enough French to talk to a guy who knew just enough English to explain what was happening to me. I was a little surprised when they needed my “overnight” information—I was absolutely not staying in that place overnight. But after waiting a long time we headed to a room where I was immediately handed a pill and water without any sort of explanation. Heck no I wasn’t taking that—I made James ask what it was. It was just like allergy medicine, but still I can’t believe they just expected me to pop whatever pill they put in my hand.

Anyway, after refusing to agree that I just had sunburn (I had red patches of what felt like acid all over my arms), we went to a second waiting room for a while. There were people laying in rolling hospital beds just out in the middle of this room, looking completely helpless. Two elderly women sat in beds in a back corner and were still there when we left. That’s what free healthcare looks like—quit asking for it!
When the doctor called me in, we walked through a few rooms of random black lights before getting to his office—strange. We tried to communicate the prescription I was currently on, and he decided that it was probably causing my reaction. I’d considered the possibility originally, but I’ve been on this medication off and on for years; I used to go to the tanning bed while I was on it and never had any sort of UV reactions, but apparently it can occur randomly. I’d discontinued the medicine the day before anyway just in case and in the next few days I started to feel a lot better.

I felt really horrible that we wasted a day in Paris and 50 euro on an experience like that. But James was really gracious about the situation and it was really nice to have some peace of mind that I didn’t pick up some crazy fungus in a hostel somewhere. The rest of our time spent in Paris was really enjoyable—we did a little bit of shopping and saw the Notre Dame, the famous bridges, and of course the Eiffel Tower.

I thought the Notre Dame was pretty, but I’ve definitely seen much more elegant cathedrals on my trip. I was kind of disturbed that when we walked in to tour the sanctuary, mass was being held. I don’t think it’s appropriate to allow tourists to walk in and take pictures and talk while there is a service being held. I’ve noticed a lot of churches have been allowing this; and they sell all sorts of things inside their sanctuaries and I just think it’s really sick. I can’t decide which is worse: the American church that everyone belongs to just because it’s the right thing to do or the European church that is focused too much on making money off tourists.

We thought it’d be more fun to go to the Eiffel tower at night; but we kind of lost track of time and ended up having to rush to make it there on a our last night. We made it just after 11:30pm and were one of the very last groups to go up. The top level was already closed, but we were still able to go to the second, which was perfectly fine with me. I was scared we wouldn’t get to go up at all that late, so I was very grateful. Paris at night is absolutely beautiful and I got some really amazing photos because I took my tripod up with me. I think the only thing I disliked about the tower was the elevator—I’m claustrophobic when I’m cramped in with a lot of people, but it was worth it for the view.

We hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so after taking some more pictures outside the tower, we walked around for about an hour in the middle of the night in Paris—not sketchy at all, haha. We luckily didn’t get mugged and eventually found a restaurant. We didn’t leave there until almost 3am and then were somehow able to successfully get a cab to take us back to our hostel on the other side of town. I wish I could say that was our scariest night in France—but it doesn’t hold a candle to the next night.

We were leaving for Interlaken, Switzerland the next day… or at least we thought we were. We left Paris a little later than we meant to, in the late afternoon. I’m not sure how or why this happened but we didn’t end up looking for a gas until the gas light was on at 11:30pm. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Europe is a lot different than the States. Things aren’t open at 11:30. Things are barely open at 10. But anyway, we use my GPS to find probably 5 or 6 different gas stations, each between 10 and 25 kilometers apart on pretty much no gas. We are driving on completely ridiculous back roads in mountains in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty creepy. But when we finally started to come to the realization that no gas stations were going to be open and our car was fussing at us in German to get gas—we were going to have to stop somewhere. The GPS luckily has an option to find nearby lodging, so we went by a few places in the random town we’d ended up in, but they looked pretty abandoned and shady. Finally though, we found one called Hotel de Paris that looked pretty decent. It was really late by this point but James got out and rang the intercom and luckily someone woke up and answered us. We got a room and were able to at least not sleep in the car that night. Honestly I was pretty creeped out by this hotel, but I kept telling myself that if we survived that Prague hostel that this would be a piece of cake.

The next morning we discovered we were in a town named Poligny. I actually liked it a lot, we found an absolutely beautiful church that I’m pretty sure was part of a monastery. No one spoke any English so James’ French came in handy a lot. He’s pretty modest about it, but he’s very good at French. I don’t know what we would have done in a lot of situations without it—probably eaten a lot of really weird food.

We finally got some gas and headed for Switzerland. The drive was beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. I was really sad because James’ side of the car had a much better view usually and I couldn’t take pictures of that side. He stopped the car a lot so that I wouldn’t miss a lot of opportunities, but there was this one perfect scene of one of those streaky sunsets over a little French town in a valley between some mountains—I missed that picture, and I’m heartbroken that I can’t share it with you.

Switzerland though… NOTHING is more beautiful than Switzerland! The mountains, the water, the towns, every inch is just gorgeous. I think we stopped every 5 minutes to take pictures. We’ve decided we’re getting a house here and inviting all of our friends to come live with us. We’re just going to get like a 25 bedroom house on the top of some crazy slope and hang out. Snowboarding in the winter, the lake in the summer—perfect. You’re all invited.

We kind of let our time in Switzerland be our “rest” time during our trip. We knew we’d be exhausted by this point, and Italy is going to be pretty strenuous because there’s a lot we want to see. We didn’t really plan a lot to do so we just took some naps, hung out, poked around in random stores and walked around Interlaken, Bern, and Lucerne. This place is crazy expensive though so we didn’t really buy anything. Hopefully with Italy will come cheaper food.

This blog is ridiculously long, it’s hard to cram 10 days of our trip into one blog; I’ve left out a TON… like celebrating Canada Day in Interlaken, the 4th of July in Bern, the time capsule we’ve been collecting to bury somewhere… the list goes on, but hopefully when we get back we’ll be able to tell you all in fuller detail of how much fun we’ve had.

I’ve been away from home for almost two months now and I’m starting to really miss South Carolina and all that it entails, like my family, friends, puppies, and free refills. Be praying for safe travels in our last country! Just Cinque Terra, Rome, Assisi, and Venice before we head back to Munich for our flights home!