euro trip: cruise : italian ports

sunday, june 3rd / florence, italy

we set our wake up call for 7am. we woke up at 10:30am. once realizing we had most definitely missed our tour, we fell back asleep and woke up at 1:30pm. clearly, we were exhausted. we were super bummed that our wake up call never came, but i think it was a bit of a blessing because we were EXHAUSTED. our tour was to the leaning tower of pisa, and as my dad so kindly put it to make us feel better, "it's still leaning." court & i grabbed lunch and then headed to the pool. i finally started reading the last book in the dragon trilogy and couldn't put it down. after a few hours in the sun, we showered and got ready for dinner. and somehow after all that sleeping, we still passed out early to rest up for rome!

monday, june 4th / rome, italy

wowzas. we packed a lot of stuff into our 1 day in rome. it was amazing. we started off the day at trevi fountain and threw a coin in & made a wish. next we visited the ruins of ancient rome. it was SO interesting to see and they're still finding more! the ruins tour ended at the coliseum - it was HUGE and spectacular. i couldn't believe we were actually there! after that, we headed to a restaurant for lunch where i proceeded to drink a ton of wine. after lunch we headed to the vatican city and i spent the next hour in complete awe. i mean, talk about beautiful. st. peter's was everything you could imagine and more. it was so amazing and the amount of history in that church is unreal. we headed back to the ship & i finally finished reading hornet's nest on the way back. what an amazing trilogy! after dinner, we hung out at the piano bar all night. it was my last night on the ship and we had a great time!

{trevi fountain}

{ruins}

{coliseum}

{coliseum}

{coliseum}

{st. peter's}

{vatican city}

{vaitcan city}

tuesday, june 5th / naples, italy / travel day

because of vacation days / work schedule, i wasn't able to stay the whole cruise. i got off after 5 nights, and my family stayed on for another 6 nights for the whole 11 day cruise. we got approval for me to leave the ship in naples. i didn't see much of naples besides the airport. my dad rode with me to make sure i got there safely which i really appreciated. my itinerary was napels to  paris to atlanta to charlotte. it was a LONG day and by the time i got back to charlotte, it was 11pm charlotte time meaning that i had been up for 24 hours. when i landed in atlanta, i cried a few tears because i was just so glad to be home! momma, katie and lola picked me up in charlotte and i was so glad to see my loved ones.

what a fantastic, once in a lifetime vacation. i am beyond blessed and beyond thankful!

euro trip: cruise: french ports

thursday, may 31st / barcelona, spain (well, kind of)

we woke up REALLY early on thursday and headed to paris de gualle to catch our flight to barcelona. after getting extremely lost due to the terrible signge (that was also in another language) and some luggage issues, we boarded the plane and took off to spain. once we landed, it was about 1pm and we headed to the ship via royal caribbean bus. we found our parents & grandparents shortly after getting on the cruise and i have never been so happy to see them in my whole life! after we set sail & had dinner and a few drinks, we headed to bed. traveling is exhausting!

friday, june 1st / provence/marseilles, france

before we got on the ship, court & i had picked out our excursions for each port. this day, we had picked out some cute tour that included lunch & shopping. once off the ship, we took a bus to aix, a small town about 30 minutes outside of marseilles. i LOVED this place. it was exactly what you imagine france to be like & the town was so charming. we toured with the group for about 3 hours and then got some free time to shop. our first stop was gelato - i had NUTELLA GELATO and it was seriously the best thing i have ever tasted. we shopped around and bought some gifts and then met the rest of the group back for lunch. they had a prie fixe meal for us and court and i got our own table (and own bottle of wine) in the adorable little restaurant. after lunch we headed back into marseille to la Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde - it is positioned on top of a mountain & has the most beautiful views. it took us a long time to get back to the ship due to all the traffic & we had just enough time to jump in the shower before dinner.

{aix, france}

{one of my fave shots}

{nutella gelato!}

{our table for lunch}

{basilique de notre dame}

{night 2}

my sweet grandparents came with us on the trip. these are my dad's parents and this august, they will have been married for 65 years. can you imagine?  so while we're at dinner, i asked my grandpa if he remembered what my mema wore on their wedding day. my 85 year old grandpa then replies, "i don't remember what she wore at our wedding but i remember what she was wearing when she came out of the bathroom to get in bed that night." i mean, talk about hilarious.

after dinner we headed to trivia and met two couples from florida who were both on their honeymoons. we hung out with them for the rest of the trip & really enjoyed getting to know them. we hung out for a few more hours and after a late night snack of fries & guacamole - we retreated for the evening.

saturday, june 2nd / nice, france

oh how i loved the french rivera. we had another early morning & full day tour. this port wasn't big enough for the ship - so we had to get on water taxis. once we got to the mainland - we headed to the town of grasse to the famous fragonard factory. after that we took the beautiful highway along the coast back down to cannes - the town where the international film festival takes place every year. we had some free time to shop before lunch, and there just happened to be this fabulous vintage market set up in the middle of town. court & i explored for a about an hour before meeting the group back for lunch. after lunch, we had one more stop in the cutest village - i can't remember what it's called! we explored, ate more gelato & did some shopping. it was so cute & one of my favorite parts of the trip.

{fragonard}

{cannes}

{market in cannes}

{nameless favorite village}

{nameless favorite village}

we got back on the ship just in time to throw our hair up in buns, put on our cocktail dresses and head to "formal night" dinner. i wore this fabulous dress that i got in london - can't wait to wear it again! it was a super fun night with our new friends & our family!

{d & i}

{the whole fam}

euro trip: stop 2 - paris!

tuesday, may 29th

we woke up really early and headed to the train station at st. pancreas. after an unpleasent cab ride and some weird "coffee," we boarded the eurostar to paris. i slept most of the way and woke up as we were reaching the station in paris. once we got off the train around 12pm, we waited in a really long line for a cab and finally made it to our hotel. we walked to cafe jenny and then set off on our tour de paris. we started at notre dame and didn't stop until we reached the eiffel tower about 7 miles later. we saw so much along the way and stopped right before the eiffel tower to have a drink and dessert at this little sidewalk cafe called le relais de la tour.

{notre dame}

{lock bridge)

{the louvre}

after finishing up at the cafe, we grabbed a bottle of wine and headed the the eiffel tower. i was in awe - it is HUGE and amazing. it even sparkles! i saw a group of peopel taking a picture & could tell they were americans so i asked if they wanted me to take a group shot. one of the girls ended up being a senior in the SPTE program at USC. i couldn't believe it! it was so nice to meet someone from "home," and also see some americans. she is doing her last internship with the olympics in london this summer - so neat. for the next 3 or 4 hours, we drank wine and hung out in the lawn at the eiffel tower. it was magical.

{the eiffel tower!!!}

{amazing}

{hilarious germans}

{love}

wednesday, may 30th

wednesday was our 2nd and last day in paris. after breakfast, we took at cab to the louvre. we never tried to ride the metro in paris - the language barrier made it difficult to read the maps and ask for directions, so we stuck with the cabs. the louvre was giant & beautiful. the mona lisa was.... small. but none the less, really cool to see it. we saw the opera house (phantom of the opera) and then hung out on the steps of the museum for awhile. we decided to head back to the hotel and i proceeded to take a 3 hour nap before meeting leigh and derrick for dinner. we got lost for about the 500th time on the way there, but had a great evening with them. their hotel was adorable and dinner at le wilson was yummy. we grabbed a few bottles of wine and hung out on the other side of the eiffel tower with leigh and derrick until about midnight. it was so fun!

{the louvre}

{the louvre}

{there she is}

{love, love, love}

some thoughts on paris:

• they hate americans. if you're planning to go, learn some french. always have directions and addresses of places you want to go in case the cab drivers don't speak english.
• there are a lot of people trying to steal your stuff. this was frustrating and made me feel unsafe most of the time i was there.
• wine is cheap. this rocks.
• the airport is huge and confusing. it think i would have still been confused even if i could speak french.
• the eiffel tower was by far my favorite part. it was beautiful - i am still dreaming of it.
• people really do eat baguettes all the time. i can't tell you the number of times i saw someone pull one out of their bag and just start eating it. it's hilarious.
• we decided that men carry bags (purses) in europe because most people are using public transportation. we throw whatever we need in our cars, most europeans in big cities don't have them.

euro trip: stop 1 - london!

saturday, may 26th

after a quick layover in atlanta's new 1.2 billion dollar international concourse, we were off to london! i literally slept the entire time and woke up as we touched down at heathrow. when we got there, it was about 1pm. we found our way to the heathrow express train and 15 minutes later, we were in london! we took a cab to the hotel and got checked in. our room was so cute - i've never seen single beds before in a hotel room! we stayed off the edgeware stop - the tube was only a block away so it worked out perfectly.

after emailing our parents (and katie & kristin) we grabbed lunch at the cutest little place called the larrix. we had sandwiches, amazing french fries and snakebites. we hurried back to our hotel, showered, and headed for our first tube ride to the apollo victoria to see wicked! it was even better the second time around - i loved it! we changed clothes back at the hotel and attempted to "go out." easier said than done. after a lot of shuffling around and frustration - we ended up just heading back to the hotel and called it a night.

sunday, may 27th

we slept until about 1pm on sunday which we probably needed. we grabbed some starbucks and a cab and headed to camden to do some market shopping. i got my camera out to take a picture of the cab (they're so cute there) and must have forgotten to put my camera back in my purse. i realized this about 2 minutes after the cab drove away and then i cried.  this explains why there are no pictures from day 1! realizing there was nothing i could do, we went on with our market shopping. it was a very eccentric part of london & super cool. i got a dress, a shirt and a necklace for myself as well as some fun gifts for a few other friends.

{camden market}

{camden market}

{camden market}

{camden}

after we hit all the markets and had lunch at this great spot called wagamama, we jumped on the tube to westminister. we walked along the river and found the national parliament building & big ben! next we walked to buckingham palace where they were setting up for the queen's diamond jubilee. it was quite a production! after getting lost in a sketchy part of london for quite some time, we asked someone on the tube for a dinner suggestion. he told us about opal, which is where we ended up. after dinner we were wandering around looking for ice cream (per the usual) and ran into henry & alex. henry & alex are cute british boy who thought it was funny i said y'all and invited us for drinks. we met up with another one of their friends and stayed out with them until 3:30am. it was such a fun night!

{court's fave lunch}

{london eye}

{selfie at the london eye}

{big ben}

{buckingham palace}

{buckingham palace}

{bongo courtney}

{henry & i }

monday, may 28th

after sunday's shenanigans, we needed some rest and slept late again. we went back to larrick for lunch and then got on the tube to go ride the london eye! we had "fast track" passes, so we got to skip the line. it was SO cool - they even had samsung tablets inside with info about london. next we went to st. paul's cathedral - it was beautiful. we stopped in a little shop and i finally got a pair of scalloped shorts along with an adorable dress. we went back to the hotel and showered and then headed back down to westminister to meet leigh & derrick. i was so happy to see them - it was so nice to see familiar faces. we had dinner at a yummy italian restaurant in leiceter square. we then spent a good bit trying to find somewhere to have a drink, and after 3 unsuccessful stops, we decided to call it a night. i'm pretty sure we got on the last tube ride home - we were the only ones on it!

{selfie on the bridge}

{outside the london eye}

{london eye}

{inside}

{inside}

{view from the eye}

{st. paul's cathedral}

some thoughts about london:

• cops drive bmw's. what?
• bars don't stay open late. like, they close around midnight, if not before. i don't get it.
• you pay extra for an item if you are going to "eat in." for example, if you buy a sandwich at starbucks, the price tag has two prices: one for "eat in" and  the other is the "to-go" price.
• this goes for all of europe, but they are way ahead of us when it comes to technology. like when you pay with a credit card at a restaurant, they have a portable/handheld machine they bring to run your card. pretty neat.
• also for all of europe, you don't tip. cab drivers, bartenders, servers, no one. it's the strangest thing. henry told me it's because their minimum wage is a lot higher than ours. henry also said the only time he tips is if it's like outstanding service. this was hard to get used to!
• there was a "the body shop" on like every corner.