hello from helsinki

well hello out there,

i made it to helsinki finally and i am here for about 4 days. i am going to cut my trip a little shorter and go back to dublin and visit my friends there before i go. i will be flying out of paris on the 28th of may. so the plan is 24th fly to amsterdam 25th go to utrect, 26th take a night train to paris. so arrive on the 27th and stay the night and then fly the next morning to dublin. i'm tired of travelling and i just want to see one of my fake families before i leave. so that is the plan. so far after berlin, i have been to copenhagen, it was pissing rain the entire time i was there so kind of like munich, but i got to see the largest hippie commune i have ever seen in my life in Christinia, one of the islands of copenhagen. then on to malmo and stockholm, i will warn you as well, if you ever plan a trip to sweden, just know it looks exactly like MN, exactly, except for stockholm, which is unto itself. then i took an overnight ferry to Tallinn Estonia, beautiful and not full of the cold war despair like prague. and now im in helsinki for 4 days. i have kept detailed notes in my journal but i just don't feel like writing right now. so ciao ciao.

xoxo,
christie

SO where did the name Berlin come from???

well just a quick note to say i have made it to Berlin, Germany, and i will be on my way to Copenhagen on the 16th of May. then farther north i go from there. when last you left me i was on my way to prague. wow what a wild city that is, beautiful sights and crazy people. Prague castle was absolutely amazing and exhausting. other sights of prague included the History of Communism Museum and the Alfonzon Mucha museum, the guy who basically invented art nouveau on his own! i have more exciting adventures that i will tell you about later.

i also made it to Dresden Germany where i stayed for one night, always wanted to go and now i have. beautiful city, i got up at like 7am and walked around the city before all the german tourists came out, as there are not very many english speakers there. the city was basically flattened during the war but they rebuilt the city beautifully. hopefully the photos will be amazing as the city is!

In the afternoon i took a train to Berlin, didn't do too much the first day, just went to the wall and an all veggie burger place. i went to the part of the wall called the east side gallery, and basically after the wall came down so to say, the city invited a bunch of artists to do murials on the wall. so today i went to the bauhaus gallery, as the school is out in the middle of nowhere so i will not get there, on this trip. I also went to a free sight seeing tour of the city. basically the most amazing tour i have been on i learned so much german history as well as to why berlin is called berlin. so basically berlin was originally settled by some slovaks and since berlin is built on a bog or marsh and the slovak word for this in bern and lin means city. you have the name bog city born out of this mangle of words. pretty cool. i also visited the old Reichstad building, it's called something else now but i forgot what but it is the HQ of their government. the building is amazing, it made me have so much pride in the german country and people-and i'm not even german. it basically made me want to write a letter to there state leader and say when can i sign up to come live in your country, because basically it is amazing!?! it made me wish i had that much pride in my own country but hey it's something to start thinking about when i return home. the people here are so kind they just don't know how to tell a joke. but i had a man today ask me where i needed to go as i was looking at the map and the street signs and then he told me the directions that has never happened b4 in any country i have been in! so good night and hope to go to shushenhausen or something like that tomorrow, which is a concentration camp. so that should be intense. so off to bed for me.

xoxo,
christie

Guten tag

well hello everyone,

just a quick message to let you all know i made it to germany today, i am in munich and it is raining so i will not be going to a beer garden tonight! and tomorrow night i take a train to prague, where i stay on a house boat for 3 days and then back to germany, dresden to be exact, i am making my way north slowly but surely.

so how roma panned out for the rest of my stay, well first of all i need to say i am typing on a german keyboard therefore the y and the z are switched so if you see a z where you think a y should be, it probably is! so on saturdaz i did some wandering by myself, and in the afternoon i met my friend cheope, who i met in dublin, who lives in roma and he showed me some of his favorite sites and his university. super nice, i have a photo of him that i took so you can all see what a sweet boy he is.

on sundaz i took the train to florence, super beautiful city, i saw a bunch of art shrugged and wandered to one of the largest and most beautiful catholic churches in all of europe. it is made of all different color marble, and the bell is amazing. then i headed for some scenic shots over the river and then after that some pizza with buffalo mozzorella.

and thats about it as i need to book a hostel for dresden. so hope all is well.

xoxo,
christie

Day 2 of 5 in Roma

well hello there in other parts of the world that aren't Roma.

I forgot to add that i went to the Treivi Fountain last night, lots of people and i didn't take any photos as how do you capture a fountain. Hope you are all doing well, looks like global warming is getting the better of all of us. In Verona Francesca told me that it hadn't rained in 52 days, which is like almost there entire winter without rain! and here in roma, well it decided to be craptastic and started raining 2 days ago in Verona and in Roma today, rain until about 2 in the afternoon. and who didn't bring a jacket or an umbrella for their 5 days in Roma??? you guessed it...i get the genius award. i was barttering in the street for an umbrella in the rain:) but since i had purchased an umbrella in ireland i knew about how much they costed, some guy tried to get me to pay £10 for an umbrella and i handed it back to him and said £4 and he slowly came down in price and we agreed on £4.50 so there you go. so i hoped on the underground today and went to the Vatican City. A word to the wise don't go if you don't want to stand in line for ages or never sit! did i mention that i stood in the rain to get into to St Peter's Basilica and the Cistine Chapel, i think i am just over the old masters because i was like yep studied this and don't really care so much that i am seeing it in person, i think because there were so many people, and it isn't even the height of tourist season yet! so there you go. but i must say the statues and that canopy thing that was made by bernini amazing. cistine chapel, too much hype, raphael is amazing but i think all the cattle ranching you go through to see it is stupid, also you can't back track once you are in. so tonight i am going to the spanish steps to probably have some wine and do some journaling. i love when i travel and i feel that i don't need to speak to anyone just enjoy what i see or do some contemplation about everything in general.

so here's the plan for the summer/end of europe travel business...i fly back to Boston on June 4th where my friend Derrick picks me up and we go to a few places on the east coast of the united states, maine or vermont or RI wherever, it should be a good time, too many castles and churches can sometimes spoil you! so miss you all and hope to see you upon my return which is sometime in June.

xoxo,
christie

if you have any requests for things from european countries put those in now!