"This was the herb market"

...because in the past, vegetables were called herbs.


Here is France, primarily in photos.


Excursion 1:


We took a historic train ride through Montpellier.  This sign was posted at the front of the train:

Figure 6.1 - Please don't bring your fries or Olympic torches on this train.

The train wasn't really a train, but it had this at the front:

Figure 6.2:  LOLZ

We learned so much.  Like there are literally Arc de Triomphes/Triomfs all over the place.  Nice, Europe.


Excursion 2: Caverns AKA EPIC TRAVEL FAIL VOLUME 1


The Clamouse caverns were supposed to be "very easy" to get to without a car.  So we took a bus.  Hilariously, five minutes into the journey, the bus driver got off.  He just LEFT.  We'll never know where he went.  

Figure 6.3:  Where...are you going?

Our reactions:

Figure 6.4.1: Sadness

Figure 6.4.2: R U sirius?

We got off one stop past the caverns (idiotes).  When we went to the tourist info desk, the man there said "Not far, just down the road on your right."  Four kilometers later on the highway, we made it.  

Figure 6.5: We were actually walking on the highway.

The caves themselves were sweet.  During the tour, the guide turned off all the lights and put on a light show complete with opera singers in the background.

Figure 6.6:  Watch out Pink Floyd, Clamouse is coming for you. 

Excursion 3: Volleyball, Take 1


We literally stumbled onto a beach masters volleyball tournament in the city square.  Much more to come on this front later.


Excursion 4:


We decided to splurge and go on a wine tasting tour.  We thought we were signing up for a fancy, official wine tour.  We were...wrong.  But we still loved it.  A man in a saab with a baby seat in the back came and picked us up from our hotel at 10:30.  SURPRISE!!! SOLO TOUR!  Oh, and only one winery.  #Random


Our guide was the best....he was so funny and French. (Never thought I'd say that sentence) Obviously we took a picture of him and the wines.

Figure 6.7 - We didn't even get to try all of these.

Figure 6.8 - We're all so awkward.

Excursion 5:  Beach volleyball, for real.


We decided to go into town and watch the end of the tournament.  First, on the opposite side of the square, we found a stage with people performing to horror film music.

Figure 6.9 - What are you DOING?

Then, as we took our seats, this little guy walked up to watch the game.

Figure 6.10 - Jake Wischnia, is that you?

We ended up sitting with these hooligans from Brazil.  The video says it all.

Naturally, as always, they wanted to be our best friends.  They accomplished this by descretely putting beers next to us.  Eventually we took them.

Figure 6.11 - Whatchya lookin at, guy in white tank top??!

Beach masters, by the numbers:

Kisses on the cheek - 6/person

Professions of love - 3

Times chanting "Alice" and "Uhhmanda" - 3

Creepy Frenchman talking to us -1

Free beers consumed - 7

Brazil victories - 2 

Times asked to dance - 4

Times asked to skip Switzerland and live with them in their Montpillier home - 3

Ah Brazil, you are hilarious.

Trip Revelations:

1. We literally had a world war that spanned three countries.

Figure 6.12 - One of two double wars.  Alice was victorious in the end. (For now...)

2.  French think...oddly... of Americans and our restaurants.  This was their take on our deserts:

Figure 6.13: It's American because there are two on the plate.

Figure 6.14: Could you BE any more stereotypically "Western"?

3. Countries where you have to pay fifty cents to use the bathroom = bad news bears for Alice.  The worst news bears in fact.  Probably a grizzly bear actually.

4.  French railways ARE murder mysteries.  These two noises were played right after each other all throughout the country.  Turn down your volume, we wouldn't want to startle you.

5.  The French dont think they can speak English.  They can.

6. Europeans think things aren't far away.  They are.

7.  Finaly, Europe loves real sugar.

Figure 6.15: The French are honest people

Au revoir France. Suhp Switzerland?

Alice still hates mapas, but we love tapas

...if somebody orders them for us.


This post coming at you live via a French keyboard, which is hilariously different than an Q,ericqn (LOL THAT SHOULD SAY AMERICAN) one, so bear with us if there are misplaced letters. Now, take a moment to picture a bear walking down the street with us.


Ah, Barthelona. Que bueno. Let us begin.


We arrived in Sitges in the evening after waiting for an hour to buy long distance train tickets to our next destination. Efficient job, Spain. We stayed with a family friend, Lieve, in her sick beach side apartment 20 minutes outside the city. After a walk around town, she had this waiting for us:

Figure 5-1: Jealous?

Then we had delicious ice cream. Jealous again?


The next morning, we woke up to croissants and lattes. Lieve, we love you. We headed into the city and walked to Park de Guel. So pretty! All of the views and crazy tile artwork. At the end of the park, there was a woman dressed as a tiled dragon that you could take pics with. Sweet.

Figure 5-2: Sneaky picture from behind.

While waiting for some foods, we tried to make model-esque/cheek bone accentuqted pictures. Here is Alice's:

Figure 5-3: Grat job.

After foods, ze ventured down to the Sagrada Familia.  INSANE CHURCH.  So many things going on in there.  You did a great job, Gaudi.   To end the day, we thought we would walk a few minutes to see some historic casa.  Obviously we got lost.  It took us two hours to find, and boy was it lackluster.  Note to selves:  you suck at maps.  Probably why we hate them...


We got dinner back in Sitges, and while we were eating ice cream (LOL JEALOUS AGAIN?) we noticed a crazy 12ish year old staring at us.  With her arms crossed.  Blatantly.  She had no shame, good for her.  On our walk back to Lieve's, we saw a lady walking a tiny dog, which then tripped over a leaf.  HA.  See Alice's depiction below:

Figure 5-4:  U SIRIUS DOG??!!

The next day, Lieve drove us into the city and showed us Montjuic (mountain for Jews apparently...HEYO!) and the Olympic structures.  There was also the most intense cemetary that spanned an entire mountain.  For future reference, gypsies decorate graves with ~one billion pink flowers.  Knowledge = power.

Lieve then took us to her favorite tapas place.  Oh my GOD.  So delicious.  WE LOVE BREAD AND CHEESE AND MINI HAMBURGERS!!! After tapas, we walked to the Cathedral but could not go in since we were too provocatively dressed.  Thwarted by shorts and t-shirts again!  The day finished with the Arc de Triomf (spelling?!) and the Picasso museum.  We did a great job.

On our last day in Barthelona, we decided to dress appropriately and went inside the Cathedral. Discovery: Alice loves Saints.  We walked down La Rambla and the Rambla del Mar, where we found a new best friend.  We named him Buoy Boy...KNOW WHY??

Figure 5-5: All you will ever know is the sky, and maybe a bird.

We had lunch at Lieve's fancy tennis club, and saw some interesting things on the drive home.  Let us preface this with the fact that while walking down La Rambla, we saw some peeps playing games.  When two policemen approached, they all scattered.  However, on the side of the highway we saw empty plastic chairs.  When we asked Lieve what they were, she casually replied "prostitutes."  Games = illegal, prosititues = not.  See Amanda's rendition below:

Figure 5-6: Hilarious job, Spain.

We left Barcelona the next day, but not before purchasing all the liquids in "giant" sizes (see Madrid post).  To kill time in the train station we played our usual game of war, and our first cards were proportional to our drink sizes (Amanda's is on the left).

Figure 5-7: PHUN ZITH PROPORTIONS 

On the train, we ran into America's parachuting team, and "Bruce Willis"

Figure 5-8: And y u go 2 France?

Trip Revelations (shortened since typing on this keyboard is the MOST annoying)

1. Personal space isn't a concept over here.  Seriously, get out of our grills.

2. Children run rampant.  Even in restaurants.  Hitting a stranger in the head with your ball while she is eating is A OKAY!!!!

3. Everything in Spain happens too late for us.  So tired.

4. Translations can be hilarious.

Figure 5-9:  Wait, which house?

Adios Spain.  Bonjour France (eurgh).

~àliçé µ ànàndà

(Alice:  It looks like there are bugs crawling on our names.)  lolcatz

Last thing.  French keyboards have this cool lil guy: §§ #win

Don´t Catch The Baby

Or the bag of trash! (Explanation to come later).

We just finished our whirlwind tour of Madrid.  It consisted of three days: Tired Day, Tour Day, Second Tired Day.  Let us review.

Tired Day:

We arrived in Madrid off of a redeye.  We were tired.  Unfortunately, we couldn´t check into our hostel for three more hours, making napping impossible.  We began to wander the streets of Madrid, and in doing so came up with two necessary abbreviations.  The first, ¨PM”, stands for power move.  PEOPLE ON THE SIDEWALK DO NOT WALK AT HUMAN PACES.  Slowest.  The second, “GS”, stands for Green Shirt.  This is our favorite type of traveler. They rarely go out, they do touristy things, they take pictures, and they match their outfits. We ran into a group of GS´s in the Madrid Airport, and since they were wearing green shirts…etc.

In our half asleep daze, we managed to find all the most important things in Madrid. Wow, how did we do that?  We stumbled into the Basilica of San Franscisco (yo suhp), and literally happened upon a tour.  Given in Spanish.  Did we mention we were tired?

The tour was given by the best guy ever.  We don’t know what his name or occupation was, but we later dubbed him Father Roberto.  We loved him so much…the most comforting man.  At the end of the tour, we found the baby we are obsessed with.  IT COPIES FACES!!! Even complicated ones!!! It is the smartest child, we are both still impressed.  Alice´s rendition of the encounter is shown below in Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1: Most Impressive Baby

We ended the day by eating in the ridiculously overpriced Plaza Mayor, where Alice spotted a kid she TA´d for.  We will never know for sure, but he was wearing a Phillies t-shirt and talked with an American accent.  We´ll count it as a win.

Tour Day:

We were determined to be more productive on our second day.  Our hostel offered a walking tour of Madrid, and since it was gratis, we did it.  It was on this tour that we found our Irish krew (Cormac, Connor, Bart, Joe, Sean, Dan) and our Atlanta/Englishman Jon.  Fun fact about Madrid:  Egypt gifted it a temple way back in the day, and then later made them pay for it. 

Figure 4-2:  EGYPT WTF?!¿?!

After the tour, we went to the Royal Palace of Madrid.  It was hear we discovered that Amanda wants to be a queen.  Like, really.  So badly.  On our way back to the hostel, we walked through a square with a random red box in it.  As we walked by, a man with a painted face and lizard hands jumped out and screamed.  Naturally, Amanda flipped out.  All of the yelling.  See Figure 4-3, again rendered by Alice.



Figure 4-3: It´s upside down. 



We did all the walking that day, and decided to lie down for a bit in the afternoon.  Four hours later, we woke up from our first unexpected nap of the trip.  We grabbed dinner, and went on our bar crawl.  Insanity.  Everyone wanted to be our friend.  Our Irish and English pals made it their personal mission to make sure we were safe (cheers, mates), we had 1 liter cups of Sangria, there was a 19 year old from LOS ALTOS THERE WHO GOES TO MIT (those of you from Los Altos know how RIDICULOUS that is), there was a girl from Penn there, and we played all the games.  It ended at a seven story club, which we arrived at AT 3AM.  Night = success.

Second Tired Day

What?? We were tired?????? No way.

We managed to get to the Prado museum with bffl Jon, and then successfully purchased tickets for Barthelona.  When we made it back to the hostel, the second four hour unexpected nap occurred.  YYY DO WE DOOO THESE THINGS??????  After a failed dinner adventure (advertisements lie), we were ready to head to our next city.

Trip Revelations:

1. Everything is so tiny.  The meal we got for lunch on Second Tired Day would usually be something we ate while we decided what we wanted to eat for real.  Liquids are no different.  The normal size of coke or water is literally one sip.  Even the people are the tiniest.  Europe…get bigger.  Just super size it.  That has never gone wrong.
2. EVERYTHING IS HAM.  All the sandwiches are ham.  All the toppings on pizza are ham.  Want some turkey?  Here´s some ham.  We really aren´t joking.



Figure 4-4: LOL

3. Gypsies. Throwback to the title of the post.  We were warned by Janie never to catch a baby that someone throws at you. They will steal your stuff. This is a problem for Alice, since she´s obsessed with babies and would absolutely catch it. Amanda would let it drop. On our bar crawl, one threw a bag of trash at us while we were walking. Luckily we had our band of merry men to protect us, BUT NEVER CATCH THE TRASH OR THE BABY.  Also, gypsies try to sell you lighters and bracelets while you eat dinner.  So weird.
4. Finally, the clothes.  Zebra woman was first spotted on Second Tired Day.  Imagine our surprise when we saw her again at the train station the next day.  In the same outfit.  Notice the similarities to sasquatch in her mannerisms. 

Figure 4-5: LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Que le vayamos bien.

-Alice and Mandark

OH WAIT!!!! That’s not all.  Look at these fellers we found at the Barcelona station.

Figure 4-6: Outfits make our lives so much better

And that was Madrid.  On to Barcelona.

We love Aer Lingus*

*This post has been edited to appease Dhruv. The things I do..

We really do.

Our joint journey started at Gate D21 in Dulles airport. We found each other, and awkwardly took an instant pic to celebrate matching iPod touches and sweatpants. See Figure 3-1 below.

Figure 3-1: Awkward Excitement

It was there while waiting in line that we discovered our first new species of the trip. We call her "Freakishly Small Child," pictured below (so freakishly small, CAN YOU EVEN SEE HER?¿?¿?¿?¿)

Figure 3-2: She´s just so small. Fairy princess?

Aer Lingus also provides travelers with a complimentary seat magazine, similar to SkyMall (so easy to do, so much you can choose....really just the fun way to buy). In this magazine, we found our trip mascot. Unfortunately, most places do not allow you to bring him inside. Europe hates dogs.

Figure 3-3: Sniffy basset hound, y so sad?!?! It´s not so bad.

Each seat came with its own television. Boom. This allowed Alice to watch her Disney channel original series and romantic comedies, and Amanda to watch her warrior and super hero movies. Note to reader: "The Eagle" with Chaning Tatum (spelling? order?) sucks. As does "The Green Hornet."  Bad job Hollywood. Our only complaint with Aer Lingus is their persistence with selling you snacks. Every ten minutes a 5 minute long announcement regarding the availability of snacks or a movie interruption (pictured below) popped up on our screen. We dont. Want. Snacks. STOP TRYING TO MAKE US SNACK. GOD.

Figure 3-4:  "Seat messages" ruin lives.

This concludes our thoughts regarding international flying. Expect a full length Madrid post soon.  Here are some teasers:

1.  We met our favorite people of the trip already. One is a priest, one is a baby. There´s a joke in there somewhere.

2.  We have already upgraded our hostel room.

3.  And finally, the first meal we ate in Spain had a menu with this section:

Figure 3-5:  Anybody for some Valenciana? No? You sure?

Until next time, we´re keeping it real. And about to go on a bar crawl.  

-Alice and Amanda

Jet Setters…jet your engines : MostAmazingTripEver Eve is upon us.

Good news.  Tomorrow we will be one step closer to finding ourselves (although to be honest, we’ll probably get lost somewhere).

Some things of note:

1.    Alice invented the pack rack.

She explains:

Alice: and i thought of an invention for before you put stuff in your suitcase

                               you put your folded clothes on it so you know what you've "packed"

            and then you just transfer at the end

me: PACK RACK

            rat pack

                        Alice: pack rat

                        is actually the play on words there

            Word play is difficult for some, apparently.

2.    I just packed a collapsible hat.

Pictures of this will come when worn in foreign countries.  But trust me, you should start getting excited now.

3.    The French…………………suck.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU ON THE PHONE AND I FIND YOU RUDE AND CONDESCENDING. 

4.    All of your friends are in Europe, but never where you are when you are.

Birdman, Lindsey, Ciara….you’re missed.

5.    The “take me in your suitcase” joke has surprisingly died out.  Which is for the best, since:

Figure 2-1: Sizing limitations of common luggage

6.    Unfortunately, that joke has been replaced by kidnapping and hostel torture jokes. 

THANKS ERIC AND WILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bonus round 7: Brett got a job. Brett isn’t going to take it. Brett’s a big big dumb.

Cheers, America.  Let’s see what the land of the not free and home of the not brave has to offer.

The Inagural Post

Welcome, reader.  You are here because either (a) you care about what Alice and I do with our lives, (b) you were hesitant about caring, and we asked you Y DO U HATE US????, (c) you were searching for batteries (yo our bad).  Whatever brings you to this magical place, you’re lucky to be here.

This blag will detail our adventures through Europe.  We have been planning and preparing for it for quite some time, and are now putting the finishing touches on our hostels, trains, and boats.  We will begin our momentous journey in Madrid on June 7^th, and will travel to Barcelona, Montpellier (France…ugh), Interlaken, Rome, Athens (shout out to one Alex Cringle here…can’t wait to see yo face!), and finally Santorini.  Gawgeous, dahling.  For a graphic representation of our whereabouts, see Figure 1 below (Penn taught us to always label Figures)

Figure 1-1: Eu-Route (God we're clever)

We wont lie to you, we are slightly terrified.   Travelling for a month?!  With no cell phone?!??!?  WHAT IS A SUBWAY?  YOU WANT ME TO GO ON THE BUS????  YOU WANT US TO SHARE A ROOM WITH OTHER HUMANS???? R U SIRIUS?  To sum up our feelings, see Figure 2 below.

Figure 1-2: URGH

As we frantically pack, we are finding ourselves trying to account for every possible scenario that would make us feel even slightly uncomfortable (Extra locks? Check.  Jar of peanut butter? Check.  Box of granola bars? Check.  Towel? Check.  Top sheet? Check. )   Basically, this is going to be an interesting endeavor, to say the least.  No comfort zones, and, most importantly, no lap tops.

So, intrepid reader, be sure to check back here every once in a while and catch up with us.  We’ll be taking plenty of photogs, and, internet permitting, be posting some hilarious stories. 

Everyone wants to be our friend: international edition. 

Amanda and Alice OUT.