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 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!!! :) :) :)
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