Want to know about the famed NOVEMBER trip?

Well, you may have heard lots about it. You may have heard me mention it from time to time. And you may have wondered...what in the world is the "November trip"? Well well well my friends. This November trip is the biggest endeavor Kim and I have decided to try to take on. We are traveling with two other people: Juan from Spain and Sangkyu from South Korea to 5 countries in Western Europe in about 2 weeks. And we are very very VERY excited! So I decided that I would share our plans and little things we've been learning along the way. Maybe it would help some other travelers out in the world.

So I figured I would just go by each country and give you the break down of what resources we used for our plans in each. In general we found a couple sites to be useful for every place we have ever traveled in the world...ever. Like Hostels.com! (http://www.hostels.com/) This is a great site that I personally love to use whenever we go someplace that we have no friends to stay with, it has always recommended the best hostels for the cheapest prices wherever we go!
And what we decided to go with a train pass that would get us between those 5 countries a lot cheaper than flying would. But here comes the disappointing news for non-EU members... Kim, Sangkyu and I had to go for a Eurail pass (http://www.eurail.com/home) because we had the unfortunate fate of being born outside the European Union. So a pass for 5 countries valid for two months ended up costing $430, and that included insurance and shipping fees (which was what really killed us and pissed us off! 30 Euro to send it to us?! It better be delivered with hot naked men and I get a message after delivery for 30 effing Euro) So this is our pass that we chose, just in case you are super dedicated and wanted to know: http://www.eurail.com/eurail-passes/select-pass/5-countries
But our EU friend, Juan, got the good deal with the InterRail pass that is only for EU members (http://www.interrailnet.com/interrail-passes). For only about 185 Euro (about $260) he could travel to 30 different countries in EU for as long as it is valid, which is 10 days I think. So we paid about double what he did. It makes me so mad, almost enough to force America to join the European Union. Who decided to make this special exclusive EU rules? We could have been daring and risked it all by getting a InterRail pass anyway  and pulling the dumb-foreigners card if we got caught. But Kim and I just couldn't risk it...the last thing we wanted to do was worrying about getting kicked off a train every time we rode it or having to pay more money in the end. We thought to go the safe route. But for the adventurous and frugal travelers, we have heard you can successful travel InterRail as a non-EU member. Or super savvy and talented Turkish friend Ceyhun did it when he traveled across Europe.

Ok, so let's go day by day:

We are starting Thursday November 10th:
We take a bus to Vilnius and spend one night in Vilnius. We will be staying at Old Town Hostel (http://www.hostels.com/hosteldetails.php/HostelNumber.14803). We have all staid there before and have enjoyed it a lot. It has a great location, it is very clean and tons of helpful resources. The kitchen is also huge which is a plus.

Then the next morning we'll be off on our way to Bremen, Germany. We'll be flying RyanAir the whole way, so wish me luck because I've never flown RyanAir and I don't know what to expect. I keep hearing these RyanAir horror stories about how freaking difficult it is to fly Ryanair, so I'm a little intimidated and afraid, but I guess there's more to come on that later.

So from Bremen we then take a train to....BERLIN!! We are going to be meeting Boris (the boyfriend of my fabulous friend Franci) and their friends Alex and George. There we will be staying at the U Inn, which I'm a little worried is completely faraway from everything that we want to go see, but there is only so much we can do to try to fix that now, but I think it will all be fine in the end.

The things we want to see in Berlin:

• Berlin Wall
• East Side Gallery
• Checkpoint Charlie
• Brandenburg Gate
• Picture Gallery (Classical Painting Museum)
• Maybe the Hamburger Bahnhof (Museum for the present- contemporary Art museum)
• And I really really really really really REALLY want to go to Judishes Museum Berlin which is this cool abstract memorial museum for the Holocaust
• Curry 36, kebabs, beer and wursts are on our list of things we must go eat while in Berlin

Unfortunately, we only have one night and one day in Berlin. I think this list of things is more than enough for us to conquer in that amount of time (Don't worry Berlin! I'll be back soon I hope!) And after that we should be well on our way to Copenhagen in DENMARK!! We are taking a night train, so along the way we have two changes and layovers. Which means we might not actually be getting a lot of sleep... but life goes on I guess.

On November 13th, we arrive in Copenhagen. We will meet Mette, Kim's friend that she met in her international connections last year at UNC. Metter sounds super adorable and super excited to see us! We can't wait to meet her and give her big hugs. I'm not quite sure what we are going to see in Copenhagen (I know, shame on me, worst traveler ever) But I am sure it will be so worth it!! It's only one night in Copenhagen and we will be sleeping at a hostel called Sleep in Heaven...more to come one the conditions later.  :)

On November 14th we take a train to AMSTERDAM! We plan on staying two nights and 2 and a half days in the most liberal city in the world. We want to go see all the cool museums, maybe ride bikes around, and of course at least go see what everyone is talking about. I'm sure the boys will have more fun in that area than we will. We are staying two nights in Amsterdam....

....so on November 17th we take a morning train from Amsterdam to BRUSSELS! We had a quick change of plans and decided to spend the night in Brussels as well. Lucky for us, Belgium is probably the only place we might not have a language barrier! Apparently most people in Belgium speak English, lucky us!

Then we say au revoir to Brussels and take a night train to PARIS on November 18th. We are going to blissfully have 3 nights to explore the city of love from top to bottom. Also lucky for us, Kim has another friend from the international dorm at UNC who lives 20 minutes outside of Paris. Not only is he going to show us around all the time, he is going to let us stay with him at his parent's house! His name is Raphael and we are incredibly excited to see him!!!

Then, unfortunately, all the fun must come to an end. We have to fly back to Lithuania on November 20th to Kaunas. We will probably be totally exhausted and have to catch a bus back to Siauliai very early. But! We will probably be coming back from one of the best trips of our lives! Can't wait to tel you guys more about it...once I get back of course!!!  :)  :)  :)

Learning and growing

I say it a lot, and I mean it just as much, but I just cannot seem to describe to you the deeply spiritual and mental journey this experience has become. I expected it. I knew there would be days where I would feel alone or guilty or afraid. But the other things I have experienced are absolutely beyond words. I have never learned so much in such little time. I've discovered things about myself; my identity, my beliefs, my prejudices, my talents, my gifts. I've learned what it means to stand for something, and how important it is to cling to that identity within you. I used to fear categories and labels, but now I've just accepted the fate that no matter what, people will use them and I might as well make it clear what labels I want put over my head. I've learned what it means to listen. I've learned what it means to care. I've learned to be flexible and open-hearted, genuine and honest. And I think I've discovered what is important in this life is just love. And love has always been a serious subject and word for me; it's never been a light-weight word. especially when it comes to actions and life. But here it has been given richer and deeper meaning and application than I ever thought possible. It comes in the simplest kindness from strangers, it comes from making friends in the most beautiful ways, it comes from learning new things from people different than yourself. It goes beyond action or emotion, it is a type of love that you can only feel shake you to your bones. And here, there is this certain type of fearless that arrives as you deal with each new day. I can conquer anything. There is no person too scary or intimidating to become a friend. There is no language barrier too great to communicate. There is no food to
odd to try.

Sometimes, I get sad. I miss home. I miss feeling completely comfortable and knowledgeable. And of course I miss all the familiar and beautiful faces that exist back home. But then, somewhere along the line, someone picks me up and helps me realize that this whole world is my home. And all the people here are familiar faces that love me and all the places are just different looking homes for me to relax in.

So, that's just a teeny, tiny bit of my thoughts on the way that this trip has impacted me so far. It's so hard to put into words some change you can't quite describe, so it may take me a little bit to figure it all out.

But I wanted to refine some of my goals for the rest of this journey, just because I think it's important to do that sometimes.

1. I want to learn more history
2. I want to read more
3. I want to take better pictures
4. I want to learn more about other cultures
5. I want to love people better
6. I want to learn one new skill
7. I want to learn new languages
8. I want to discover more of the world
9. I want to be a better friend
10. I want to pray and reflect more
11. I want to think more

So I am going to upload pictures on blogger for a while I guess, just because Facebook has been the most IRRITATING thing on the planet lately with pictures. I have some of Kaunas and Grutos Parkas up!

What the heck am I doing with my life?

To Whom it May Concern,
I just wanted to take the time to apologize. This is an apology that reaches to every missed opportunity, broken promise, forgotten moment, hurried conversation, and mistake. There are no excuses, but for whatever reason there just never seems to be enough hours in the day for all the things that I want to do and want to think about. There is so much pressure that comes with being so far away and seeing so many things. I cannot express to you how much I am learning; everyday, I could write novels. I wish I could too, because they all would be so interesting. I mean, who can say really say that they held a church service in their dorm with a Dutch person in the morning and by the evening they were learning about Turkish dances and the Sacrifice Festival that is going on right now. And this was a normal day for me.

And I'm not trying to rub this travel experience in anyone's face. But I just have to let it be said I feel this unbearable guilt and weight as I go about this experience. This is a weight of all not knowing what I'm accidentally leaving behind or losing, not knowing what or who I am overlooking, or just not being perfect enough to handle it all.

Maybe I think too much.  Maybe it turns out that I am not the type of person cut out for traveling. Maybe I am too set in my ways, closed-mind, and intolerant to be the open-book-world-loving kind of traveler I envisioned myself to be in my head. But I feel like I am drowning sometimes here, and I guess this is a stress that goes beyond what I have ever experienced before in my life.

Everything is tugging at me all at once. I'm a student. I'm a traveler. I'm a historian. I'm a lover. I'm an anthropologist. I'm a photographer. I'm a friend. I'm a sister. I'm a daughter. I'm a Christian. I'm a perfectionist.  And I feel so guilty because I feel like I am not fulfilling these roles with all that I can. But sometimes it feels like to much and I am sinking. But what can I do? What would I change of this experience or of myself to make it better?

I think it all comes down to forgiving myself. I am a reflective person. I like to take the time I need to think about what I have learned, what I have taken from all my experiences, I like to think about how every piece of my day fits into the larger concept of my life. It's only when I get the chance to do this type of reflection that  I feel right about it all. And I feel ridiculous because a normal person would have already had this figured out; they would have known what they wanted to get from this whole experience, they would have had priorities straight and they would have just ran with it. But not me for some reason. I spend more time just trying to figure out my own stupid identity and goals as I experience this life. Sometimes I have no clue who I am at all here and I feel like I am just stupidly being pulled along by everyone else around me. And I am jealous of all those people who seem to have it figured out; they are strong, they are independent, and they are learning all that they want.

But for me, this is not enough. I expect more out of myself and this is why I have such a big problem with where my priorities have been lately, what I'm filling my time with, what I am learning and what I'm putting my most energy towards. But I just wanted to apologize now to anyone who might be reading this and myself for not fulfilling all that I think I should. But all I can do is let it all go, and just live my life moment by moment. And most of all forgive myself when I don't think I am being perfect.