a whirlwind

so my first thought when i try to write this post is "how did i get here?" it's a LONG story!

so back when we left england we took a train from london to dover, england (about 2 hours) to take a ferry to calais, france (1.5 hours). all this wasn't so bad - the ferry was actually more like a cruise ship so i was impressed but then, we'll just say the rain set in. we get to calais to try to make a train to cologne, germany in order to meet up with a friend for the night (a free place to stay), only to find out that there are no more train to cologne for the night (5 pm was too late to get there) AND there's no hostels in calais so we have to go to lille. we had no plans to go to lille and no way to get in touch with bastian to let him know the plans. our thoughts are that surely there is internet in lille if there are hostels right? WRONG! the first thing we do when we get to lille is look for a place to stay because by that point it was about 8 pm. the best rate we found was at a 1 star hotel (use your imagination!) but we take it because it fits the unexpected budget. then we set off to find internet and food. come to find out that they have never heard the word "internet" before and don't know what im saying because no one speaks english. out of frustration we decide to go for mcdonalds for dinner (and i even screwed up that order...goodness). by the end of the night we decided that france was our new F word. the next morning we catch a train to belgium to get the connector to cologne - finally we find internet and civilization where people don't think we're lunatics. from there cologne is our final destination. after a struggle with our travels we decided to spend an extra day in cologne and not make our way to munich or berlin because we're so sick of transportation.

our two days in cologne turned out to be pretty delightful. we had this hostel that we think used to be this guy's house and he was too lazy to get a real job so he turned it into a hostel - it was actually really nice though. we had some struggles getting in touch with bastian once we got to germany but finally on our second day we were able to meet up with him and get the grand tour. we got to go to a CHOCOLATE FACTORY! it was like willy wonka, so much fun with free samples of lindt chocolate. we also got to eat german food and drink german beer all chosen by bastian. he was a great guide and we ended up having a great time.

from cologne we've made our way to prague where the city is beautiful but the people are all a little sour that there are about 9 tourists to every 1 local. we have taken the tour of the prague castle and wandered around town yesterday but it was cut short due to a minor migrane on my part. after a quick nap i was back in business. we went out to a bar with a new hostel friend last night which was fun to see the night life - just a drink then we called it a night. today we started to do a walking tour of old town but for kelley it got cut short due to shoe malfunctions. i finished the tour and tried to give her the quick version through my pictures. tomorrow we're off to greece - well a 37 hour TRAIN RIDE and we'll make it to greece on wednesday. it's gonna be a doozie but we bought new books today so hopefully we'll make it. i think greece will be totally worth it!