Backpacking Pics Are Up!

We took over 600 or so pictures, but we narrowed it down to around 130. Take a look and enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/skynyrd13/BackpackingTrip

We also have a phone (thanks Julie and Renessa!) through Vonage, so give us a call anytime. It uses a New Jersey area code so it shouldn't cost much at all to call us, and we get free outgoing calls to the U.S. so call us and we'll call you right back! The number is 973-337-2315.

Melissa starts school on Monday and hopefully I should hear if I have any interviews set up by the end of the week. Stay tuned!

Almost Done with Backpacking!

Sorry the blog hasn't been updated in, well, forever, but we arrived in rainy Interlaken a few hours ago. Since the last post we went from Begium to Frankfurt for a night, while en route to Prague. We stayed in Prague for 4 days and met some great people (mostly drunk, Irish guys) and saw most of what there is to see in Prague.

Our next stop was Vienna for 3 days where we met up with my friend Mike who had just arrived in Europe to start a teaching program in Budapest. To sum up the beginning of his travels, he didn't have his luggage because he didn't have the required luggage tags on his connecting flight so he had to buy boy's underwear from a Japanese lady's stand. Vienna was really clean and modern and we even got dressed up (partially) and saw a classical musical show.

Munich was next. We did a bike tour and saw the English Garden, apparently the biggest park in Europe. We also went to the Hofbrau Haus, a famous beer hall, and had some liter beers with two Italian men who spoke not a word of English. There was definitely a lot of charades going on, and a lot of cheersing ("prosting" in German).

Afterwards, we went to Zurich in Switzerland and stayed with Melissa's aunt for 4 days. It was a nice change of pace from staying in hostels and we were completely spoiled with meals and a planned itinerary of things to see and do. We went to a family reunion of Melissa's Swiss relatives one day, which was very interesting since everyone spoke Swiss German and only a few spoke English. We did a boat tour of Lake Zurich, went on a ghost tour of the city, and ate a lot.

Now we're in Interlaken for 3 days before heading to our last stop in Geneva to visit Melissa's friend Donna and her husband and baby. Hopefully the weather clears up so we can do some type of fun outdoor adventure trip. I think it's safe to say that this will be the last blog post before we get back to Dublin next Sunday evening. According to Eircom, there should be a package waiting for us when we get back so we can hook up the internet, so as soon as we can we will post hundreds of pictures to bore you with, and rehash little stories of our travels.

We're having a great time and can't believe we've been living out of a backpack for 3 weeks already. Please email us and let us know how you're all doing! Cheers!

Melissa and I are in Bruges, Belgium right now. We can't say enough about how great it is here and we'll be sorry to leave. We arrived on Friday and over the last two days we've seen most of the major sights - climbed a belfry of 366 steps, went to the Markt and Burg squares, went to a chocolate museum and ate a lot of it, had great Belgian ice cream and waffles, and commented about 20 times how cheap everything is compared to Dublin! We leave in a few hours for Frankfurt, where we'll spend about a day before we hop on another train for Prague.

Our first stop before Bruges was Amsterdam. We had both been there before, but we were still able to see so many things. We went to the Van Gogh museum, Anne Frank House, walked by or over about 50 canals, ate at some nice (and cheap!) ethnic cafes and also some late-night McDonald's (sorry!).

We've met some nice people so far from all over, and our hostels have been good. It's been a great start to our trip and we still have exactly 3 weeks left to go!

Cheers!