First Day in Bruges!

Well, it was sad to leave Nice, but now we are in Belgium! It was quite a shock getting off the train. We were still dressed for Nice weather in our shorts and quickly realized that instead of the warm, sunny weather we had grown accustomed to, we were in for three cold and rainy days. We had made a "to-do" list of everything we wanted to do while we are in Bruges and it ended up looking more like a menu: fries, chocolate, beer, waffles, chocolate... So, we set out on our first morning to just walk around the town and get a taste of the famous local cuisine. The town is just what I imagined it would be. It is small, cute, there are only cobble-stone roads, the buildings are cute, the canals are cute. It is just really nice to get out of a dirty city and breath some fresh air while walking around. After walking around for a while we took a beer break shortly followed by a fries break. Then we decided to make our way to a brewery in Bruges, while making a couple chocolate breaks on the way. We took a short tour of it learning their beer process and then got to have a nice, big glass of it at the end. To our expert beer palates, we tasted hints of banana and pineapple. It was really good. The brewery was the Brewery Halve Maan and the beer was Brugse Zot Ale that recently won some award in California. After finishing our beers, we slowly made our way back to the hostel, taking more chocolate breaks of course, to take a nap. Now we are awake and ready for dinner, there is a local place known for their mussels and fries so we might just have to check that out...

We miss everyone and will be home in less than a week!

Pictures of nice

This is us before our scuba. The scuba was fun!!!

This is us leaving Nice for Bruges. We were both sad but we know we will return again!

this is Cap d'ail, a beautiful stone beach. Kali and I exchanged hot stone massages here!

On Cap d'ail beach soaking up the last of the rays. We got a little lost getting there but this is a really cool secluded beach with a great view. There are supposed to be caves you can swim to but Kali and I swam out really far on the coast and never saw caves.... :(

This is us on our favorite beach!!!! Mom you were right I do like the luxurious life and so does Kali, we were meant for eachother and perhaps not for backpacking, but that is a different topic. The chairs here are comfy and there is a beach guy to get you drinks, which we couldn't afford but if we did need him he was totally there for us! Also, this beach is sand (kinda) and not huge rocks, so it is much better on our poor ruined feet! The water here is crystal clear and this beach is not too full like other ones were. By the way it's named St. Jean Cap Ferrat. 

what a view, minus the guy in front of us. 

the beach NO ROCKS!

Nice 2

Hey you guys 

I think everyone has stopped reading this or something because of the lack of comments but I thought I would enlighten those wanting some light about what Kali and I have been up to. 

Well today we went scuba diving if anyone is interested in knowing!!! It was really fun! The instructors were holding our hands or our backs constantly and we didn't go too far down because we didn't really learn the equipment, but how cool is it to just be down there. We both have decided that we want to get certified now, so we never have to do a dive with someone on top of us again. The day before we literally spent the whole day on the beach just laying out and now we are both very burnt, Kali is more than me but both of us are pretty bad off. For our extra day we are planning to just go back to the beach that we went to that day. It is so perfect here, we want to find a way to stay forever and have everyone get to us (haven't got a clue as to how yet...)

We have extended our stay here in sunny Nice for one extra day and are going to Bruges on the 8th. We will be staying in the Lybeer hostel (feel free to look that up). This will be our last hostel of the journey since we will be staying with my Uncle Roy in London which is much welcomed by now. I must say that the hostels we have stayed at have all been EXTREMELY nice. I have no complaints at all about any of them. 

Backpacking has been such an adventure, so much fun and a real bonding experience for Kali and I. I am so glad that nothing has made us hate each other and we have only enhanced our friendship. We have heard stories of bestfriends starting to hate each other during the trip but we have had the opposite. Both of us are ready to have our own room again and not see each other 24/7 but that is only natural after 7 weeks! We also miss our families/loved ones very much and are ready to see everyone again. 

Here's to the rest of our trip and to coming home safely on the 15th!!!

Love you all (or those that are still reading this)

Savannah and Kali

We are in Nice!

We just wanted to let everyone know that we made it into Nice last night. It was definitely a challenge getting here. We left our Barcelona hostel early in the morning to catch our train, and while we were at the train station, Savannah threw her back out when trying to pick up her massive backpack. So, for the rest of the day, Savannah had really horrible back pain and I had to carry both of our backpacks. Mine on my back and hers on my stomach. But, after traveling all day, we made it to our hostel and it is amazing. It is the Villa Saint Exupery, you can look it up. When we were booking our hostel room we chose the 11 bed dorm because it was cheapest and the double rooms were going to be over 100 euros a person, but when we checked in we were so excited to find out that we had been upgraded to a double room and we still get to pay our 27 euros a night!! So, last night we took it easy resting in our room and Savannah could finally lay down. It is such a nice hostel, they offer different trips like surfing, wake boarding, sailing, canyoning, and more for people staying there and they have a bar with 1 euro drinks and the best breakfast we have had so far in a hostel. Today we will try to find a sand beach nearby since Nice is all rocks and we can just chill out, which is exactly what we want to do!

Happy 4th of July!!! We miss everyone and look forward to seeing everyone in 11 days!!

Pictures of our Barcelona stay

Montserrat, This was a part of the monastery. You can see the wall and a rail up there but after that point there isn't a rail or a well worn path to the top of the rocks you can see behind it, which is where we decided to hike up to.

This is the part you just saw in the picture above after we climbed to it. A lot of people have camped here and you can tell because of smoke on the rocks. Wouldn't it be great to camp somewhere like this?

Trying to make a fire in a cave; We didn't succeed but here you can see where the smoke has blackened the rock 

I love this picture, I made Kali and them go up faster for for it, I love crumbling structures!

Throwing money into a well, sweet 

Savannah and I taking in the gorgeous view!

More Montserrat; what a view right! while we were up there the wind was whipping around us and it felt so amazing after the struggle to get up there

A little chapel at the beginning of our trek to find the monestery

Another great view

Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. We stopped here on our bike tour! As you can see we all had a good time

A giant mammoth at some park we stopped at on our bike tour, this is a very popular picture to take here. I think I had the easiest time getting up there since my legs are so long. 

The beautiful Barcelona beach!

Gaudi's cathedral that is still under construction and will be for like 40 more years

We stopped for food and sangria at a place on the beach while we were on the tour. Food wasn't that good but I liked the sangria

This picture is from the night Spain went wild! Spain won the Euro cup while we were in Barcelona. The game was really fun to watch and everyone just went crazy after it was over.

We went to this really awesome fruit market and bought smoothies and cherries that were really good

We had a huge Paella plate and 6 of us had plates as full as Kali's here

I like paella too!

This is the Dow Jones Bar we loved it here. This was our second night in Barcelona (night after the game), the bar was slow because everyone was dead from the night before but that is perfect for us since all the prices of the beers and shots go up and down based on the demand for the drinks! So we spent the night looking at the screen trying to see was cheap drink we would have next. Great time!