We’re Moving

Hi all.  Lots of things have happened since I last wrote here.  But probably the biggest, is that this blog is moving.  I have decided to transfer this blog to a different site.  I appreciate all that WordPress has done, but for me to continue with this blog I need a bit more customization abilities, because I get bored of looking at the same things all the time.  The domain, ifyougiveablondeabackpack.com remains, but it will no longer be through WordPress.  Apologies if that inconveniences anyone, but I promise, there are good things to come.  So, do me a favor, and go to the new site, and subscribe to email notifications from there, because if you don’t you will never get updates when I post, and what kind of life would that be? So head over take a look around, and then tell all your friends it’s awesome.

Wales

Tyler and I have decided that when I have the opportunity to have a couple days off in a row we are going to head out and explore a bit of the UK.  So The other week when I had a couple free days we decided to head out to Northern Wales.  We rented a car from Enterprise (thanks, Ryan) and just sorta drove out there.  From where we are Wales is only about 45 min away so nothing too bad, so we decided to save on accommodation and just drive back home each night.

Driving to Wales

London Bridge is NOT* falling down

I’m probably the first person to make that joke right? (Except for you know, everyone else who has been there, including Tyler, who sang it the entire way towards it on the train tube. Or my mom who said “hopefully it’s not falling down” when I told her we were staying near there.) But other than that…

Cheers Mates!

Holy cow.  First off, its been forever since I have wrote anything here, and if I am being even more honest, its probably been about forever minus a day since I have even thought about this blog.  But I am back. Maybe.  We will see how it goes.  I keep saying that I will get better at it, but then something comes up, I forget, or quite frankly I just don’t feel like it.

Madrid

Sorry but today is another post catch up day. I swear I will get better at this. It just probably won’t be until I am no longer traveling. My bad. 

We got to Madrid in the the late afternoon on Monday. We started right away in Madrid with some tapas. And holy cow they were delicious. A very popular one is croquettes. They are like little fried things that are filled with goodness, to be honest I’m not exactly sure. I couldn’t understand in Spanish how the guy was explaining them, and he couldn’t explain it in English. So we were a bit stuck but they were tasty so I didn’t care. And being in Spain we had to try the sangria, which did not disappoint.  

Barca Barca Baaaarrcaaa

We arrived in Spain on Friday afternoon and headed off to find the airbnb. Unfortunately, it was a bit tough to find. So we stopped to ask for directions. I got to put my Spanish to the test and passed(with like a 70%-hey Cs get degrees, right dad). Once we finally got the the apartment, no one was there to let us in. It’s moments like these that not having a way to get ahold of anyone becomes tough. And the Spanish siestas that closed down all the nearby stores, made finding wifi nearly impossible. Luckily the guy showed up shortly after to let us in.

The Inbetween Days

Very exciting news! We are heading to Barcelona! After taking Spanish for what felt like a million years I was pumped to be able to test it out. But when we were planning the trip we didn’t think we would have enough time to make it to Spain. I came to terms with having to wait for it. 
But we ended up having more time at the end than we thought so commuted. We decided that we would go through and stop in southern France. We opted for Marseille. Not quite as nice as Cannes or Monaco, which meant a bit easier on our wallets. We got there late at night, and just headed right for our hotel. It was a long day of travel to get there so we were all pretty wiped. 

Dont be That Guy

Newschawanstein was probably the worst tourist trap I have seen yet. You had to wait in a super long line to get tickets. Then once you buy the tickets you have to go up to the castle and wait to be called to get your tour, which could take up to 5 hours. And quite honestly a castle is a castle. Technically, this one is the castle that the Disney castle is based off and all the fairy tales happen there or something, I am not exactly sure. I didn’t take the tour. But it doesn’t look like the Disney castle, a picture that was drawn on a sign of it does, but in real life it doesn’t.

Munich

**Just a bit of a disclaimer: I am on solid wifi for the first time in awhile, so I am going to be posting all the posts I haven’t been able to yet. Apologies for the takeover of your email accounts.**

After Salzburg we headed to Munich. After a little bit of a struggle to find our airbnb and a bit of a language barrier we were able to get there and put our stuff down. Unfortunately the nearby grocery store had closed already so we were a bit SOL for the night. 
The first day in Munich we wandered the city a bit, took a tour of the stadium that bayern Munich plays in, which was awesome. We weren’t able to go on the field, but we got to walk down the players tunnel while they played the champions league song, so almost as bad ass. After, we went to the English Garden. It’s a big park in the city center with a nice little lake. Next to the lake there is a nice Beirgarden. While we were there we met a couple Germans who were on vacation in Munich. We hung out for the night and wandered the city a bit more. 
 

I guess 2013 wasnt a bad year for Bayern

  

Cause who smiles in pitures

 
The next day we woke up and decided to explore the other side of the city. We went to Nymphenburg palace and park. By the time we got there the museum was closed but the park was beautiful,with fountains and flowers and a tiny canal. Apparently the weather gods decided we needed to stay and observe a bit more because a huge storm came in and it started to downpour with thunder and lightning right above us. We spent the next hour under a bridge way of the building trying to take a picture right at the moment of a lightening strike. We were unsuccessful. The rain didn’t really show any signs of stopping so we decided to run through the park back to the station. The run actually felt really good, but we got a bit drenched.  

   

In front of the palace

  

The view from our hideout

 
The problem was though that apparently grocery stores aren’t open on Sundays in Munich, so we started a desperate search for food, luckily this quest was more successful than our lightning pictures (for those who know me, you know, a hungry Erin, is a hangry Erin. And a hangry Erin means no one is happy). 

 

One of our ammy failed attempts at capturing lightning

 
Monday was a big day. We went to Olympia park and the BMW show room. I didn’t buy anything though-I couldn’t even afford a water bottle there. But more importantly Liverpool played arsenal. Tyler and I are Liverpool fans and bob is an arsenal fan. So bets were placed but the game ended 0-0, but we were able to watch it at an Irish pub with a bunch of other fans which was fun. 

  

olympia park

 

3 wheel BMW

  

just dreaming of the fun i could have with this

 
Currently we are on the train headed to the fairy tale castle or something like that. I don’t really know exactly what it is, but apparently Tyler and Bob had a class that had a poster of it throughout high school so we are going to explore it a bit. 

 

Radlers at the Hofbrauhaus

  

Church with creepy characters that dance on the hour

  

Please no paparazzi

 

Doe a deer

We took an overnight train from Krakow to Vienna and ended up with our own sleeper cabin that came with crescents and water. And more importantly air conditioning. I actually really like night trains. It’s nice and convenient to just wake up and be somewhere but the train themselves are sorta fun. 

From Vienna we went straight to Salzburg, and again got our own little room. For those who don’t know Salzburg is where The Sound of Music was filmed. Unfortunately for me, neither Tyler nor bob has seen it (try to contain your disappointment mom). My only hope at the songs was with Helaman and he already left. So instead of duets I just sang solos. I am almost positive that if Tyler or Bob have to hear “the hills are alive” one more time, one of them might break into tears(or finally break down and start singing with me-they act annoyed but we all know they love it). 

The first day we arrived we went to the salt mines just over the border in Germany. The tour was actually pretty cool and you get to go down these slides that were actually surprisingly really fun. The process to actually extract the salt is pretty intense and quite lengthy. But I will save the explanation for the tour guides. Go see it for yourself. The slide alone is worth it. I don’t have any pictures of there because a cause it’s dark and I didn’t shell out 12€ for the ones they took.  

After the mines we headed to the airbnb we were staying at but decided to stop and get some food first. I feel pretty confident in saying it was possibly the best schnitzel I have ever had. The beer wasn’t bad either. But I must admit, I am becoming a fan of the Radler drink. It’s a beer with lemonade/sprite combo and it’s quite delicious. I think my mom has gotten me some from work before but the real German ones are spot on. 

We stayed in a town called Bad Reichenburg, it seemed like a cool little place, we didn’t get to do too much exploring, but it’s hard to not love a place in the middle of the alps with beautiful views from every corner. The fact that it wasn’t super touristy made it even better. 
 

Tyler is getting artsy now

  

Train into Bad Reichenburg

 
Our next day in Salzburg we wandered the town(and went to all the Sound of Music sights hehehe). It was incredible. 

 

the horse fountain from Sound of Music

  

sad that too many people are ruining my sound of music moment-also the sun was in my eyes

 They have a love lock bridge so Tyler and I locked a tiny extra lock we had on the bridge and tossed away the key. So I guess until I can find some bolt cutters I am stuck with him. We just used a tiny lock we had but all the souvenir shops sold locks that came with three keys, one to toss in the rice and one for each person to keep. We decided that has to be the best way to break up with someone. Go unlock your lock off the love bridge and go drop it off at their house quick and to the point. Feel free to use it if you’re unhappy in your relationships-I haven’t copyrighted it yet. 

 

view of the fortress fr the lock bridge

 
    
The rest of Salzburg was amazing. We walked up to the fortress at the top of the mountain and got a nice view of the whole city. It definitely on the list of places to go back to. Maybe this time with someone who appreciates The sound of Music. Mom? Helaman, you and Mady down?

Looking down on Salzburg

View of Salzburg from top of fortress