Europe 2015

I finally found some time to sit down and write about my adventures and let me tell you, EUROPE WAS AMAZING!!! My first international flight, I am stoked, a bit nervous like I was forgetting something, but who cares, I'm headed to Europe..."The gate closed, you've missed your flight." Well crap, I thought I was going to Europe! The agent ended up rerouting me and some time later I made it to Jersey, where our flight was delayed by 4 hours. That's where I met Jenny. I found ou she was part of the cruise group we were with. It was so nice to have a friend to hang out with during the wait. Once we finally on the flight, I was excited to have my own personal TV that I didnt have to pay extra for. They also served us a meal, snacks, ice cream and came through often with water. I expected to sleep but I only dozed off for a few minutes at a time here and there. I thought for sure jet-lag would settle in. Luckily I had stuck with a plan, used my EO's drank only water, ate a healthy meal and HALLELUJAH...no jet lag for me! Ps, take a "day bag" with you that has toiletries, a set of clothes, as you will most likely want to change. You will probably smell after sitting in the same clothes for that long. TRUST ME ON THIS. Venice! Finally made it. Holy cow I underestimated the hot humid weather. Once off the plane we tunneled down some stairs into a large crowd waiting to go through customs. Surprisingly it took 5 minutes to get through as they look at you, stamp your passport and send you through. Our company, Young Living had shuttle service arranged for us, but some people took the water taxi which I believe. (I think 15 Euros if I remember right) is the cheapest method. Since we were headed straight for the boat, I did not bother to stop and get Euros in Venice. We then had to go through some minor security to get on the ship but finally made it on. The rooms were much smaller than I expected and the bathrooms were too, but I supposed you cant fit a hotel-sized room on a ship for that many people. Anyway, I didnt care, I had a balcony and I was there. Let the party begin! After we set sail for the night, I started to feel a UTI come on. Our next stop would be Croatia and I was not about to miss that. Usually I would have been prepared with my oils but I had forgotten the most important one and had no time to find replacements. I ended up going to the ship Doc and getting antibiotics the next morning..and started drinking a TON of water. The water on the ship is safe to drink thank Heavens, or I would have racked up a pretty penny on bottled while on board. Welcome to Dubrovnik! FINALLY! Oh I almost forgot to mention my traveling buddy Kellie! I was so lucky to have a friend that is super laid back like Kellie, for this trip. You see before I had gone, I had gotten a TON of great info from my sister and BIL about the trip. They had done one that was very similar and shared some awesome things with me. I made plans for each day and Kellie was more than happy to put her trust in me and follow my plan. So back to Dubrovnik. We paid $12 each to get a round trip ticket to the "city." This ended up working out really well for us. Dont even try to walk there, it will take you hours and its a lot of big hills. I didnt look into a scooter option here b/c I had a destination in mind and we ended up sticking to that plan. The bus worked great for us. Once we got dropped off, we headed straight for a guy trying to sell canoe excursions. I did listen to his pitch as I figured we may choose an excursions here and there (by the way, dont buy them on the boat, they are WAY more expensive) We decided against it as we had a destination in mind already. Ash and Jason told me about Buza Bar, which was a bar sitting on the edge of the city on a cliff where you could jump off into crystal clear water. I asked the guy for a map and had him point us in the direction of the bar. It only took 5 to 10 minutes to walk to the area he pointed us to so I was happy it was super duper close. We stopped in between at a little shop to exchange dollars for Kunas. I only exchanged $20 worth and it was just about perfect. We walked up a few steps and saw a tunnel that said "topless." Knowing that this was Europe and you can go topless on the beaches, I figured this must be the water spot. We walked through the tunnel to see perfect turquoise water and Buza Bar! It was one of the most beautiful sites I had ever seen. I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited that we found it! Now in pretty much all parts of Europe you should keep your stuff on you at all times unless you want to get pickpocket-ted. My sister warned me about this strongly and I am so glad I listened and used a cinch bag. On these cliffs you can just lay your bags down though b/c you are really close to them. I was so excited it took me a second to get the nerve to jump in. I had been looking forward to this exact moment and I was like a little kid in a candy store. (while writing this I have a full smile on my face lol) READY SET JUMP!!! The water was cold for just a 2nd but I acclimated within 10 seconds or so. The water was super salty by the way so close your eyes and mouth. The water was see-through and so perfect. There was a little rock we swap back to and soaked up some sun for couple minutes and then dove in over and over again. How perfect! It was here that we noticed the Underwoods, a couple with the YL cinch bags that we had. It was fun to meet them and we ended up hanging out on the ship a bunch. We also met some twins sisters that were backpacking around Europe together. It was so fun to just randomly say hi to people and ask about their travels and tell them about ours. This was one of my favorite parts of traveling. We stayed for hours at this place and enjoyed swimming. We did stop for lunch and got some pizza (mostly b/c I couldnt understand what anything on the menu was, and I wanted pizza) and bottled water. MAKE SURE YOU DRINK BOTTLED WATER EVERYWHERE, and dont get ice. I almost forgot to mention KINGS LANDING! It was so awesome to be at Kings Landing. Unless you are a GOT fan, you wont get that reference. On our way back to the ship we stopped at a few shops here and there and finally got gelato. It was simply AMAZING! Next day was a cruising "at sea" day and we had some awesome YL training. This day we were able to sit by the pool, rock climb, or do several other things on board. It was also our first formal night, where you dress up for dinner. I just wore a little summertime dress. There was such a variety of dress I was glad I didnt have to wear super formal. The food was the only thing I was very disappointed in on the trip. You could order as many things as you wanted and some nights I ordered 3 or 4 things just to be able to get a few bites. The food was just tasteless. I ended up losing several pounds on the trip from lack of eating. I was completely fine with that though because half the time I wasnt terribly hungry because the heat takes my appetite away. I did catch on to the kids menu by the 3rd night and started ordering off of that. They had much better food. I got a few laughs from the waiters but hey..I got some dang good chips and guacamole! Turkey! We landed in Kusadasi and to be honest, before I had researched this place I was less than thrilled. I thought that Turkey had nothing to offer but I was wrong. This was my favorite stop on the trip next to Croatia. (Its hard to beat cliff diving at Buza Bar but Turkey really only beat it by a hair maybe) Since doing research I figured it was best to get a scooter here. It took a bit of asking around and we finally were directed to a local guy. (PS take your DL with you or you will not be allowed to rent a scooter or ATV) It cost 25 Euros to rent the scooter and they take your Seapass or DL to make sure you return it. GET A MAP. I cant stress enough to know where your ship is docked and where you are going. There is pretty much no English on any of the signs but it obvious if you know where you are and where you are going in the other language, you can get around ok. We stopped random strangers (some will ignore you, just move onto the next one) and pointed to the spot we were headed. Most do not speak English either so you just point and they point and you eventually get there. We gave ourselves 2 or so hours to get back to the dock at each stop just in case we got lost, and if we had extra time, that is when we would shop or eat. Kellie was my navigator and did a fine job for me! PS the drivers are insane there so if you are not an experienced driver when it comes to ATVs or scooter, be super careful and always be on high alert. Drivers in other countries do not yield to anyone really, they drive fast and dont really have that many traffic rules, and the streets are very narrow all over Europe. After we got to the main highway we stopped to get gas. This took us a second to figure out. I think we ended up putting in like 5-15 Euros in gas I cant remember. You have to make sure you have Lira or Euro is Turkey. If you try to pay in USD they look at you like you are stupid. It was hard to communicate to the gas guy (who we didnt figure out who he was till we were there for a few minutes) so I pointed and said half tank. After that we were off! We were headed to Zues' Cave. This took us 45ish minutes to get out of town and go through Turkey. We finally got to the National Park. We stopped and talked to a nice guy who was riding his bike and he decided to go into the Cave with us. WE also met a lady named Astrid. She was backpacking alone through Europe. The cave was just about 200 feet off the road the road. Backstory to Zues' Cave, 'legend has it,' that Zues would hide in this cave to get away from the storming seas when Poseidon was ticked off. Kind of cool. Whats even cooler is the cave itself. It was sooo pretty. It was crystal clear so of course, we jumped in. We stayed for quite a while and Astrid was nice enough to take a few pictures for us. After we got out we decided to walk with Astrid into the National Park. This only cost a couple of dollars/Liras. We walked a mile or so and saw a turtle along the way. We went down to the beach here we saw another turtle and WILD BOARS! There were 3 adults and 6 babies if I remember right. One started coming after me while I tried to sneak up to have Kellie take a picture and at once point we had to crawl up on the tables to get away from the mama. It was so cool! After that we drove back to get lunch, stopping to get peaches at the orchards that lined the roads. We ate some sort of meat that was on pita bread, covered with yogurt and a red sauce. It tasted like spaghetti and was pretty good. We then got Turkish ice cream which was not that great. Ill stick to gelato! We then went shopping, which in my opinion was the best. They will try to sell you fake stuff for really expensive. I have no idea if it was fake or not but a guy tried to sell em a watch for $100 and I got it for $25. Every guy will try to stop you and tell you to look at something or call you beautiful or anything else..they just want you to buy their stuff or have sex with them. I know that latter part because Astrid told us when she was in town they asked her. Creeps! Santorini Greece! Hello Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants...or so I thought. It was not as white as I thought it would be. Here, the ship is out a ways and you are taken in by tender/small boat. I was excited to ride the donkeys until the group of Greek men tried to charged me double b/c I didnt have Euros yet, and started screaming at me. I had to demand my money back as we were just standing there waiting and getting yelled at in Greek until the guy gave me my money back. I was a bit scared of the donkeys as well since they were almost horse sized. Ill fully admit Im not a horse girl. We ended up riding the little white cable car things to the top which only cost us 5 Euros. We rented a 4 wheeler and it also only cost 25 Euros, which again was nice since Kellie and I split the cost. Everyone else that was paying for other transportation spend a lot more and only went to 1 location, where we were able to go anywhere we wanted. More people spoke English here and we grabbed a map and went to the black sand beach. It was pretty neat. After hanging out there we accidentally drove to the highest point in Greece which was pretty neat. A scary drive (if you take your eyes off the road for a 2nd you would pretty much go off the side and die) but awesome. We then drove up to Oia (eee uhh) which is the part of Greece you see in pictures and movies. Kellie and I were turning into Lobsters when we ran into Sara and Holly, 2 friends that were traveling together. They gave us sunscreen and all 4 of us went to some cliffs, jumped off and went swimming. They were super fun to hang out and chat with. We walked around but didnt do any shopping here. Katakolon & Olympia Greece! We got off the ship here and got a scooter to drive to Olympia, Home of the Olympics. We pulled up to a stop light and dirty homeless kids came up begging for money and tried to mug us. They started grabbing at us so I ran the red light. We made it to Olympia and saw what was left of the structures. Its kind of sad that they were not there anymore. Its mostly just a bunch of rocks laying around but still kind of cool. I think that the museum might have been better since they were able to preserve things there but Im not sure since we didnt end up going in. It cost us about $6 to get in to Olympia if I remember right. On the way back we stopped at a beach and I finally filled up on food. Of all things we had a club sandwich, fries, and a Guyro, between Jenny, Kellie and me. Jennys group has left so all 3 of us rode back on the scooter together. I ended up getting more gelato here which was amazing. Last day was cruising again. I wont talk about the way home as it did not go as planned. Ill just say this much, Canada has the worst airport in the world. It is extremely unorganized. What got me through that last leg of traveling home was the gelato I got in the airport and the Wolfgang Pucks Pizza I had to myself in Chicago. It was amazing. Total spent (if you include the $40 shoes I bought for the trip) $400! Whens the last time you heard of someone going on a 7 night Mediterranean Cruise for $400? So how did I get to go on this amazing trip? YOUNG LIVING! Each year there is a contest where you can earn a trip or a car or something else. Usually its a trip. This last trip, members could basically earn a cabin on the cruise, cabin and airfare, cabin, airfare and balcony room, etc etc. This is earned through sharing Essential Oils with others. I think its truly amazing. We are spreading health to others and getting rid of chemicals in our homes and getting to go on a paid trip for it too? Sign me up! Oh wait I already am hehe. Hope you enjoyed! PS I did not proof read this. Im too busy preparing for the next Young Living Trip! Toodles!