Two Girls and a Eurail Pass

Slovenia -yawn (Warning!  This one is a short one and you may find it as boring as we found Lake Bled) After seeing google images of Lake Bled back in 2015 and making it my background for all tech devices (if you've never googled it, do it now), I'd made it my mission to somehow see the beautiful lake with the castle island for myself and I couldn't have been more thrilled when Tarrah allowed me to add it into our trip itinerary. (Popular google image of Lake Bled) After a quick one-hour train from Villach where we watched some American-bred modern vegan gypsies scare the living bejesus out of everyone on the train, we finally arrived in the long awaited land of Lesce Bled (aka Lake Bled, aka where the landscape from Frozen was created from). We arrived mid-afternoon on Sunday and  had originally planned to stay 2 days, but knew almost immediately upon arrival that 1 would suffice. We took a quick bus from the station to the main part of town and trekked over t...

There could not have been a greater juxtaposition between hot, crowded Venice and the beautiful rolling green hills and open air of Villach, Austria. With Lake Bled, Slovenia in our future sites, we had picked the Austrian border town of Villach (pronounced "villa") to chop up the long train journey and get a little Austria into the trip. Not being a particularly big tourist destination, there weren't a lot of hostels available on hostelworld.com (my go to place for all our accommodations outside of Croatia), but I was able to find a private room available at the "Blue Mountain Hotel and Hostel" which sounded like it was pretty close to the main part of town.  (Ha!) We arrived to a desolate train station in Villach at 7pm Saturday night.  Though situated in a beautiful bed of lush green mountains, the area of town surrounding the train station looked akin to Martin Luther King Jr Blvd and I think Tarrah and I both began to wonder if we should just hop bac...

After a heartfelt goodbye to Dubrovnik, Tarrah and I continued on towards the last leg of our adventures with a plane ride to Venice where we would have a few hours before catching the train to Austria. (Tarrah and I both wanted to see Venice, but had heard it was expensive, crowded, and smelled so we decided it was best to use as a layover rather than destination). After a fairly quick and easy flight, we found ourselves in the Venice airport.  With only a few hours to spend in the infamous sinking city, we decided the best plan of action would be to get to the Venice train station via bus and store our bags there, purchase our tickets for later, walk around, and return to catch our train to Austria. I have had some bad experiences with the Italian bus system before because in Italy, unlike every other city, you confusingly can't buy your bus tickets on the actual bus.  (I know this because when Natalie and I got on an Italian bus last time in 2014 we weren't allowed ...

Of all the places I have been so far in my life, nothing has taken my breath away like the incredible city of Dubrovnik. When my mom was in her 20's she traveled Europe and beyond for over two and a half years going everywhere from the Netherlands to Croatia to Egypt.  Towards the beginning of her trip she purchased crystal from Dubrovnik (it was called Yugoslavia then of course) and carried it in her back back with her from place to place for nearly two years.  She still has them. I never have been able to understand why she would want to carry around a bunch of heavy glass with her throughout her travels (I can barely handle trekking around with my clothes on my back) or why she would hold onto them still after all these years when she could just sell them (she seriously never uses them and they're probably worth something), but after seeing and experiencing Dubrovnik myself I think I finally get it and there's no way in hell I'm letting her sell those things.  ...

After catching 2 hours of sleep due to our disco dolly Amsterdam antics. we hurriedly clamored down from our attic hostel room and down 5 flights of stairs to the lobby to check out.  While waiting for our bus 197 outside the Rijksmuseum we battled the throngs of tourists to hurriedly snap a few pictures with the IAmsterdam sign before grabbing our seats on the 197 which would get us to Schiphol with nearly an hour and a half to spare. Tarrah and I dropped our bags with Easy Jet, while Cori opted to save the 33 euro and carry hers on (a decision she would unfortunately later regret as we were forced to sprint through the entire airport to make our flight due to the lengthy security and passport process - I imagine there must be a lot of weirdos trying to smuggle things out of Amsterdam). After sprinting through 30+ gates to get to ours, we arrived breathless to be scolded by our two Dutch airline attendants. "You are very late", they said dryly in only the way the Dutch...

We arrived in Amsterdam fairly haggard from our night at Coppers, but quickly brightened at the site of our Canadian waiting for us outside the gate at Schiphol airport. After grabbing Tarrahs bag and mine (which was starting to feel like I had filled it with bricks and sand bags) we headed to the bus stop and hoped on the 197 towards the Rijksmuseum and the Flying Pig Uptown hostel where we would be staying the night.  After getting lost for 20 minutes due to our general ineptness (and the fact that they place their street signs at hip height so they're not exactly easy to find) we found our hostel and dropped our bags. (Cori and I with our Amsterdam map/lifeline)  The flying pig uptown was great (I even preferred it to the flying pig downtown which I had previously stayed on my last trip) and the area surrounding it was beautiful and serene as bicycles with gorgeous Dutch people behind their handle bars whizzed by. (I know there are beautiful people everywhere, especia...

After bidding farewell to wonderful Galway, Tarrah and I grabbed the rental car and hit the road south towards the Cliffs of Moher.  (Having seen the cliffs featured in nearly every Pinterest post on Ireland, we both wanted to have our Aha Gaelic moment with them). As we took to the open roads, we passed through beautiful open countryside, stopped to grab some Americanos (Europeans don't believe in drip coffee) and more brown scones, and genuinely began to feel like the luckiest ladies in the world - and then we drove by a castle. Never being the type of ladies who could pass up the chance to feel like Irish princesses, we stopped in and for just a moment, caught up in the beauty and general awesomeness of the moment, I think I forgot I had a care in the world.  (My moment of serenity, however, was quickly interrupted by a group of men on Harley's shouting wearing "Make America Great Again" hats, which I interpreted as the universe telling me it was time to move a...

After a few layovers and about 14 hours, Tarrah and I both arrived in Dublin from our respective flights and reunited in the baggage claim around 8:30am Dublin time.  After retrieving my over-packed backpack from the carousel, we headed straight to Enterprise where I had pre-reserved an automatic Ford Fiesta from Alamo that I would be driving for our 2 days in Ireland.  (In Europe, stick shifts are the norm so we had made sure to reserve an automatic vehicle weeks in advance.)  A the enterprise airport popup, we were greeted by a friendly and warm red-headed Irish woman who talked us into getting the basic insurance coverage and pre-paying for the fuel (decisions we were very happy for later) and upgraded us free of charge to a Ford Focus.  Next, we hopped on a shuttle which drove us across the street to where they keep the rental cars.  It was in this brief 5-minute stretch that I decided I should learn everything there is to know about driving in Ireland and...