It’s hard to believe i’ve been back for almost a month. I’ve never been so excited to write this blogpost but also never felt so overwhelmed with every story, picture, and video I want to share. If you’re reading this, we’re more than likely friends on Facebook or Instgram so you’re well aware that I was backpacking through Europe for three weeks in August with my wonderful friend, Caroline (and we still love each other!!!) It was the most incredible trip, exceeded my expectations and I came home feeling overwhelmingly grateful. I have realized that there won’t be many times in my life where I can pick up and leave for three weeks and although the obvious fact of the trip being hard on my bank account, I don’t regret it even a little bit and I would do it all over again (HA don’t have the funds for round two though.)
Packing everything in a backpack seemed like the most practical thing to do considering we would be traveling to numerous countries and some of our days would consist of ONLY traveling (die die die) Those were the worst, but don’t worry I’ll come back to complaining about that later. Each of our backpacks weighed in at 45lbs which may or may not seem like a lot to you, but… I’ll never touch that thing again. I know I’m kind of contradicting myself because I would totally do the trip again, and would still backpack as it was so necessary as opposed to dragging along a suitcase everywhere we went however, every time we would arrive at a new destination the first thing on our list was find somewhere to drop our backpacks ASAP.
We left Philly and flew into London at 6:30AM where our first stop was Big Ben! Since it was so early, we couldn’t check into our hotel until later that afternoon so with our adrenalin pumping we obviously felt like we could conquer anything (because “WE’RE IN LONDON!!!!”) So Caroline and I thought it would be a good idea to do all our site seeing with these turtle-like things on our backs (wrong choice.) Visiting Big Ben then walking to Borough Market for lunch (cutest little place, great food, didn’t take any great pics because we were already causing a scene and looked like obnoxious tourists)…. And 6 hours later we were so over it and decided to try to check into our hotel early (right choice.) London was the place we received the most laughs, pointing and silent whispers due to the fact that we still weren’t comfortable wearing our backpacks and didn’t nail down the art of "putting your backpack on in public places without drawing attention to yourself” quite yet. The first half of our trip, it was a team effort so shout out to my gurl Caroline for sticking with me, being my encourager, and always lending a helping hand through the tough times (seriously, try picking something up off the ground without tipping over backwards.)
We spent our second day visiting Buckingham Palace in the morning and the rest of the day in Hyde Park where we rented pedal boats, ate a pizza picnic lunch and hunted for the perfect trees to Eno for the rest of the afternoon. It felt like a dream and we almost felt guilty. The next day we visited the beautiful Covent Gardens where we met and walked around with our new, sweet UK friends Hannah and Joel :) Covent Gardens was full of amazing places to shop, eat and lots of entertainment (we witnessed a robbery while eating dinner outside. Dram-aaaa) On our last day in London, we spent an hour finding our way to Petersham Nurseries which we discovered online a couple months before our trip. It was definitely inconvenient to try and get to but so worth it. Caroline and I kept looking at each other saying “I just wish I could bring my mom here!” (lol shout out to Donna and Fiffer) Pictures will do better than I ever could at showing off the dreaminess of this place. All in all, we loved London and were so thankful for the amazing weather for the 3 days we were there.
From Petersham Nursuries, we headed to Heathrow Airport where we were *THIS* close to missing our flight to Croatia because we realized it was leaving out of Stanstead Airport which is located on the opposite side of London (who knew?!) Now I’m just going to assume you’re thinking “....How did you leave the country if you can’t even figure out what airport you’re flying out of?” It was an honest mistake that was never made again on our trip and we can definitely defend ourselves better in person. Long story short (if you want the long story, LMK) it was truly a complete miracle that included a speedy taxi driver (we love you, Roy), cutting in front of 50+ people at security, meeting amazing people that we are sure were angels that Jesus sent to us who pointed us in the right direction, sprinting barefoot through the airport to our gate and making it 5 minutes after our gate was supposed to close. Somehow we made it on the plane, sweaty and out of breath and kinda laughing kinda crying.
The next few days were spent in Croatia where our first visit was the one we were probably the most excited for… The beautiful Plitvice National Lakes Park. It is a headache to get to but I couldn’t be happier we did. It was breathtaking and unlike anything I have ever seen before. Once again, pictures will show it off better than I ever could (I’ll use this statement again and again, sorry) We decided to hike to the small waterfall in the morning then the “big” waterfall in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it started to downpour around 1:00PM so we decided to buy ponchos and hike 45 minutes to see this beauty everyone was talking about. Best decision. I am so glad Caroline is an adventurer and was down for walking through puddles and getting completely drenched because we figured we’re most likely never coming back here and knew we would regret our decision if we skipped out on seeing everything we came for. I think it was even more magical in the rain.
Funny thing about Croatia... they don't seem to care much about time. Our bus to pick us up was an hour late, broke down for 2 hours on a deserted street and we got to our bus station 3 hours late. Desperately hungry because our food that day consisted of Kind Bars for breakfast and dinner and a gross chicken sandwich in between, we went to a pizza shop in the bus station. It was there that we realized Caroline left her passport on the bus. Now if you want THIS full story, I will gladly tell you but so not into typing it right now. In an attempt to be dramatic, I will title this section “The Night of the Lost Passport - A Short Story”.
Our story starts at 11:15PM when arriving at the station. It included close to 3 hours trying to get in touch with the bus driver only to be told that they could not find Caroline's passport. We then hopped in the back of a police car with our new officer friends, spent 2 hours in the Zagreb police station (left), arrived at our hostel at 4AM where transportation was provided by the nice Croatian officers (who also carried our bags inside for us, pictured above) We took a taxi to the US Embassy the next morning where we were praying and praying she could get a temporary passport in the next two hours in order to make our flight to Dubrovnik that morning. It is a complete miracle because an hour later, Caroline gave me a thumbs up from inside the embassy and I think this was the happiest moment on our trip. We had heard that it normally takes, at the very least, 24 hours to process so when she was holding her passport an hour later, we just knew it was all Jesus!!
I loved coming back and hearing everyone who was covering us in prayer that entire time… We could not have gotten through those exhausting, stressful 12 hours without so many of you lifting us up and Jesus going before us. I don't remember a time where something so scary has been so out of my control. The Lord truly sent just the right people to Caroline and I, gave us peace and guidance, and completely blessed us in a seemingly impossible situation. YAY!
Next up was Dubrovnik! Our Airbnb driver picked us up from the airport (side note: Airbnb was great and we used it a couple times while we were in Europe. Most of the hosts offer to pick you up from the airport for a small fee, but we found it was a better option than trying to find our place on our own.) He brought us to the old city streets of Dubrovnik where festive, live music was being played and people were crowding the streets. We felt like we were being dropped off in the center of Times Square (but BETTER obviously and not smelly.) Our beautiful place for the night was located in the heart of Old Town Dubrovnik and was the dreamiest, most beautiful room. Unfortunately, it was only available the first night we were there and the next two nights we had a little reality check as we moved to a hostel down the street with no AC, shared bathroom and one outlet.
Highlights from Dubrovnik:
- 10:45AM Gelato.
- Endless, adorable dining options. All with outdoor seating!
- Paying $6 for our first bottle of water in Europe (was this actually a highlight idk)
- Getting up before the sun to explore the city streets while all the tourists were asleep.
- Our Cable Car ride up to dinner on our last night there. It overlooked the entire city and it was so incredibly beautiful. We sat on rocks and watched the sunset while we obviously had deep conversation.
-A great friend (Caroline) who made sure the first thing on our list every day was getting me coffee (because she saw me without it one morning in Dubrovnik and that was enough lol)
We left Dubrovnik to travel to Italy!
We were P U M P E D for Cinque Terre and it was just like you see in all the pics. We hiked from the town of Monterosso to Vernazza which took about an hour and a half. It was honestly harder than I thought it would be but obviously not THAT hard because we passed parents with a newborn baby along the way. The view and pizza we got in Vernazza was worth every step and more. Vernazza is the cutest, tiniest little town and we had the perfect afternoon of the greatest pizza and gelato of the whole trip (purposely referencing the pizza twice cause we ate it twice cause it was OUT OF THIS WORLD.) That night we took the train to Manarola where the views were just as breathtaking. Although it would have been fun to explore the other towns in Cinque Terre, I feel like we were there for the perfect amount of time and could not be happier we chose this as one of our destinations. We LOOOOOVE CINQUE TERRE!
AND in case pictures aren't enough, here's a video of the first four cities we visited!
Still with me? I seriously applaud you. Believe it or not, the rest of our trip was smooth sailing! So if you came here for the dramatic stories, there they are. However, if you also came for the pretty pictures + video…. Stay tuned :)
