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For Travel Tuesday this week I decided to resume the mini series of journal entries/photo essays I published back in 2005 on Kiwibox.com from my first Europe trip travel journal. Back when I was a newbie 17-year-old blogger with no real English training or travel experience. Back when I went outside Puerto Rico and the U.S. for the first time! Hope you find the photo essay cute and humorous =P Below, part two!

[for PART ONE of this photo essay, click here]

Please note, I have not edited the grammar nor writing style: That’s the whole point of the post! Yeah? 😉 🙂

Oh and don’t forget: Click on any image to enlarge! 🙂

Posted on 06/20/05, 4:38 PM on Kiwibox.com

After around 4 hours, we are out of the castle! We took lunch first, then we had to *walk* to the castle for like what, 45 mins.!? And YES, a super-huge hill all the way. But, all that heavy walk (or hiking) was REALLY worth it! The castle was just *gorgeous*, and the views all over simply *breath-taking*. Oi! And I finally got the name right! Schloss *Neuschwanstein* 😀 Schloss is castle in German, btw. And Neuschwanstein means New Swan Stone. The king was obsessed with swans or something; they were *all over* the castles furniture, paintings, etc. I also bought some lil souvenirs, like postcards and patches (1 of Germany and another 1 of Austria), which I’ll now start collecting of every country I visit. Btw, thats all I could basically buy during the entire trip! All of my money went mostly in food (which was DAMN expensive) and the most rest to excursions/museums :/ it sucked, I wanted to buy soo many things, and sp a better thingy for my bff Clody! 🙁 oh wells.

Laurie and me in front of our hotel back in Rothenburg, the morning we were off to the castle

Neuschwanstein Castle! Oh and, did u know this the the actual castle in which is inspired Disneys?

Neuschwanstein castle, different angle

entering Neuschwanstein! =D

Just an example of the spectacular views from the castles windows

more spectacular views from the castles windows

Some other yellow castle that could be seen from down there

closeup of yellow castle

Taking supper now @ Ausburg. Oh and @ this Italian ristorante, I *finally* found someone nice! Germans were starting to piss me off, sp when they looked Laura oddly (ya know cause of her dark skin). Anymoo! It was a super-cute Italian waiter, *so* freakin nice and sweet. We would talk in Spanish and he would reply in Italian, and we could understand each other really well! Btw, we saw a dangerously-HOT German (about 19-2O-ish) there: DAMN! The funny thing is that he was with his *fiancée* having a family dinner for her rents approval, or so it seemed. And still, we checked him out BADLY. We are bad girls [:p] It was sooo funny, her rents looked us *quite* hostile, haha! :p about the food, it was awesome and quite yummy; the ristorante persé was *really* purdy as well. For dessert, we got ice-cream around the corner. I got a latte-something flavor: that was outstanding! I FINALLY tasted *real*, yummy coffee like back home: very rich and sweet, an super charged of flavor, just like an actual coffee should be, not all watery and flavorless like American or German coffee (no offense!). Then, we finally hit our hotel. Btw, the only thing I liked was a chair and curtain @ the end of the hallways of every floor; my room was just *extremely* small (I had to put my luggage in the closet cause there was no space to walk! So u can imagine), and the had a lot of stupid rules and we couldnt even go walk outside. I disliked it VERY much. Rothenburgs was WAY better, and it wasnt in the city! So yeah, I like Germanys countryside much better, or at least for now. Its 1O:3OPM so Im going to sleep now; we are off to Munich tomorrow.

June.12th.2OO5

Just took breakfast, now we are on our way to Munich. Btw, I just met an American hottie named Mike (lol), from Indiana. Oi, he IS good looking. Hes on another different EF tour, but staying another night just like we are so Ill prolly see him again tonight (we were looking at each other non-stop during the *whole* breakfast, until my group left. I then stayed, walked up to him and said where are u from? he told me then I answered back and he loved the fact Im from Puerto Rico :p then we asked each others room #s and that was it :p).
Soooo then the bus was off to Munich. Omg, that was SUPER! I felt like if I was in London! The whole buildings and stuff, everything was gorge. Now my view of countryside Germany and the city are pretty similar :p we went to some palace (where I froze my booty off; that must have been the coldest time while in Europe!) before going to the BMW museum and Dachu Nazi concentration camp. Couldnt see much because the movie the showed us was so graphic and Laurie felt sick it affected her too much, so I wanted to be a good friend and accompanied her outside until the tour was over. We walked through the gas chambers and everything. very very emotional…
Later on, we went shopping and to the Hard rock café and HB, were most of my classmates (and even TEACHERS!) nearly get drunk drinking strong German beer [:p] about me well, I had a yummy German sausage for lunch! *nods* oh and, finally, I bought a li something for myself: a pink Heartbreaker top @ Hard Rock which also has a big 71 in burgundy in the back and also says Munich. Then, when we arrived to the hotel @ like 9PM, I met Mike again and we went to the Eia (?) Tutti Frutti café around the corner and ate some ice-cream together and talked some more, then same thing back @ the hotels lobby. Guess what!? Hes a CHRISTIAN! I mean he is even in a *Christian* METAL band called Bloody Sunday, and he is the vocalist.

Me in front of the palace

another view of the German palace

by the palace balcony and garden. Oi, that garden and palace are sooo big its GORGE

MUNICH! Who took the pic cut off the nice big clock tho! =(

around Muncih

what's that? I dont remember...(Munich)

Mike and me, that day. Turned out like crap *shrugs* hes much hotter in person, btw

bye bye, Germany! Next stop Austria and ITALY!!!!! =D

Europe adventure to be continued on a different Travel Tuesday! …

Happy Travel Tuesday everyone! As I went through my travel memories vault today, I blew some dust off my 2005 travel journal: The first time I traveled outside of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Mom, knowing her daughter so well, gave me the gift of a lifetime: My very first trip to Europe! I was not savvy or knew much about how to travel the world on a budget back then, so I simply went on a 10-day graduation trip through EF Educational Tours, which was organized by my high school. We went though Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy–and I was an ecstatic 17 (soon-to-be-18) year old!

Not only was this trip challenging because I had never had an actual conversation in English with a native speaker in person, but also because I had never been outside of Puerto Rico for more than a week (even though I had already been to Disney as a child, NYC and Chicago through my local theatre company). Surprisingly though, I was not nervous or scared, but rather excited and could not wait to practice my conversational English skills! This innate, uninhibited drive I have always had reminds me each day that traveling and languages are such deep parts of me; that I must make a career out of them.

So! I’ve decided that for the next few weeks, I’ll be featuring some pages of this old travel journal on Travel Tuesday! It will be a mini series of journal entries/photo essays I published back in 2005 on Kiwibox.com. Back when I was a newbie 17-year-old blogger with no real English training or travel experience. Hope you find them cute and humorous! =P Below, part one! Please note, I have not edited the grammar nor writing style: That’s the whole point of the post! Yeah? 😉 =)

Oh and don’t forget: Click on any image to enlarge! =)

Posted on 06/20/05, 3:58 AM on Kiwibox.com

NOW! =D the TRIP! That’s all u are waiting for. So, the format might seem a bit weird, changing between present and past, but the thing is that Im typing all this directly from my EF *travel journal*, which means I was writing about everything *during* the trip, so I wouldnt miss a thing. I wont post everything @ once, since I warn ya its pretty lengthy, but Ill split it up in few days during this week, and the same with the pictures since I took a *LOT* (about 2OO aprox, without including the ones left taken with other cams when I ran out of memory). So, here are my European trip ramblings! Hope u find them descriptive enough, and enjoy the pictures below that! =D

Group picture before leaving to Europe from Puerto Rico airport (me on the far right, white polo)

June.9th.2OO5

So, on my connecting flight to Newark right now. I already laughed a lot by the silly doings of my classmates (yeah, the fun already started!). Right now I’ll see yet another mag, this time from the actual airline, which has some pics of Italy! *Quick note* – Continental Airlines meals + in-flight mags are much better and entertaining than American Airlines.

We are in Europe! Frankfurt from the air

June.10th.2OO5

Streets of Rothenburg!

In Frankfurt, we just saw the airport and highway. Note: I only got 7O-ish euros for 1OO American bucks; THAT *SUCKS*. From there to Rothenburg were *3 hours*. Me no likey the highways view for now; didnt feel in Germany, since all I saw were just TREES. And even more trees. Then, we went on tour through Rothenburg; yes, with all of our luggage still in the bus. So, this lil medieval town was very nice and cute, and some *cute* pics were taken. We went to a Kriminal Museum and then just around town looking and shopping. I bought most souvenirs (which were very few, since everything was DAMN expensive and so the food, so I had to save MADLY) and something called Snowflake balls in nut chocolate flavor, sprinkled with hazelnuts as well; that was YUMMY. After that we went to take supper @ a pasta restaurant; we had lasagna. It was different, but still good. Theeeen, around 9PM, we *finally* checked in @ our hotel (it was 3AM PRs time). By then, we had all been *31 hours* without a bath; dont worry, we still didnt stink, by miracle *lol*.

Cool building at a plaza in Rothenburg!

These kind of houses are the trademark of this medieval town I believe. Or at least one of them. (Note photo-bomber on the far left. Ha)

yummy snowflake balls, made of soft wafer strips, then covered with chocolate or other toppings. They were *everywhere*

I just found this big teddy bear too freakin cute! I think these kind of bears are another trademark of Rothenburg

Me (left) and Fefi (Stephanie) @ the entrance of the Kriminal Museum, in some cortacabezas. I look freaky. Really freaky.

Chastity belts. I found them interesting. They should be used nowadays. They are DESPERATELY needed for girls ages 12 and up. Todays world is just too tough.

Me in front and beside weird cages used in ol times. They are scary.

Me in front of our 1st hotel in Germany. It was around 9PM by then

Me trying to take a pic of myself in my room with my retarded camera, which always takes about 3 secs. to actually take a picture. Dont know why.

June.11th.2OO5

So, the guys in the back are now testing a German condom they bought @ one of the restrooms out of curiosity, which seems to be more thick in size than Americans. Oh! Yarielis just tested it with her nails and it still intact. Wow, those seem to be better than Durex, the girls over there just said. Anymoo, right now we are just arriving to the castle. As for what I see from here, its gorge! Right now Im trying to get a good pic of the Alps, which are pretty much seen from here.

Best pic I could take of the Alps alone, in the bus