I am finally here in The Hague! 5 months, 12 days of travel. 8 countries. Thousands of trains, a few cars, one boat and 6 planes. What feels like thousands of hostels, and for sure thousands of names, happy hour chats and introductions. But travel couldnt be so unbelievably life changing if it werent 1) for the people you write home to and 2) for the people you write home about. This is a thank you to the friends and family from home who kept me sane and took th...

Back to Parma, back to reality, Siro, Virgil and I drove back from Manfredonia last night (correction-Siro and Virgil drove while I sat in the back, read and fell asleep to the rhythym of two best friends fighting each other over directions to a methane gas station in Italian, only to laugh about it later). Remember how I told you that all of Italy goes on holiday at the same time? During the holiday you think "What a great idea", "Why dont we do this?" "How won...

It's my last week in Italy and there is no better way to spend it than on the coast. Virgil and I came back from the mountains on Friday, it was so much fun. We hiked, swam in the river and just enjoyed the view. The town was about 30 minutes from the Austrian border so almost everyone spoke German and the food was also German. We had wiener schnitzel, sausages, potatoes overload and excellent beer. It was perfect weather, we even had to wear sweatshirts at nig...

It is hott. Really hott. So we are off to the Alps. This week has been really nice, Virgil has been working and I had to take some pre tests required by school, so it was the perfect time to get those done. I barely left the apartment during the day because it was too unbearable, but, at night, we would meet his friends Siro and Simo for drinks by the river where there was a breeze. I slept a lot, organized a lot and just recovered from 4 1/2 months of travel. ...

Hello from Parma, Italy! I arrived here on Wednesday and it has been crazy ever since, but, first, I will finish the Karen from Britain story. I went to the train station and she never showed up. Gonna be honest- I was relieved, totally. So I went to the train to head to Bologna which took about 1 hr. I arrived in Bologna, which is away from the coast, and it was soooo hott. It has been getting into the mid 90s everyday here which is just insane. Anyway, I wal...