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We rode the bus to Dresden and spent 3 short hours in the town. It was absolutely gorgeous, even though it was small. We ate lunch outside at a café by the big church in town. The city is on the Elbe River so we walked along the river for a while taking in the views. I really loved it. We just wandered around checking out all of the buildings and gardens in the area. We found a really beautiful garden full of fountain in the center of a museum building and hung out there for a while before heading out.

We left for Prague, which took 3 more hours by bus. After settling into the hotel I went to dinner with Teresa and Marcie. We tried the local beer, and I got what should have been extremely weird, but was actually awesome tasting: chicken covered with cheese and peach slices. Anyways, I was impressed.

The next morning we woke up early and started off with a 5 hour walking tour. We got to see the Prague Castle, city center, a historic Jewish area, more awesome gardens, and their Glockenspiel. The architecture in the city is truly beautiful…each building is different and uniquely decorative.

After the tour ended a group of us headed down the hill and walked across the Charles Bridge. There was an Easter Market in the town center where we had brats for lunch. We shopped a little there and walked back to the hotel for showers and naps.

That night we went to a Black Light Theatre where we saw a “grown up” version of Alice in Wonderland. The effects and everything were very cool, but the whole thing was trippy and kind of, no - really creepy.

We spent 5 hours on the bus driving to Bratislava, Slovakia. When we got there we ate a quick, gourmet lunch at McDonalds, and went on yet another walking tour. We saw the town square, Slovak National Theatre, St. Martin’s Cathedral, a castle (can’t remember what one), and a palace (can’t remember that one either). The town was pretty but very small and there wasn’t much to do. We had an hour after the tour before we had to leave so we spent it shopping because everything was so cheap there.

We arrived in Berlin, Germany at 6ish in the evening. On the ride to the hotel we passed the Brandenburg Gate, a huge Scientology church (always fun), and the hotel MJ hung the baby out of (don’t remember what it was called).

That night Maria helped me try and figure out Western Union stuff since my debit card expired the day before…super awesome situation.

I went to dinner that night with Jen, Courtney, Damira, Eden, and Aliza. We ate at an Italian place that was really good, and then to a lounge called Solar. The bar was at the top of a 12 story building where you could see the entire city lit up. It was a very cool place.

The next day we woke up and took another bus/walking tour. The tour lasted 3 hours and covered tons. The city is beautiful, very clean, and the history is really interesting. We saw Potsdamer Platz, the huge TV tower, Reichstag, Alexanderplatz, Checkpoint Charlie, the Victory Column, and the remains of the Berlin Wall.

After the tour ended we kept on exploring and did some shopping. We spent time exploring Alexanderplatz and a small market there. That evening I had dinner with Angela at an authentic German place called “Der Ulte Fritz.” It was really good! I had some crazy fruit beer (which was green and I have no idea what kind of fruit). We went back to the TV Tower and rode the elevator to the top to see the city before heading in for the night.

Ok everyone, so I know I'm being super slow at this but I'm also super busy. I still have to upload my Europe trip pics to my computer, let alone write anything about the big trip. I have 2 more papers to write & 4 finals...once I get all of that under control I will get on top of this business. Promise

Hey everyone! I'm off to Europe for 2 1/2 weeks. I'll be visiting Budapest, Berlin, Dachau, Dresden, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, Vienna, Luxembourg, Bratislava, Strasbourg, Versailles, etc. It's gonna be crazy but I'm sure a great time. I'll talk to all you crazy kids when I get back to good ol' Cyprus!

Day 1

I got the usual 2 hours of sleep Thursday night before having to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to travel the next morning. Ruth, Allison, & I waited at the house for the service taxi to arrive and jumped in with the other girls.

Our flight left Larnaca at 9:30 and we arrived in Amman one hour later. I love short flights!

Once we got off, our group (me, jen, courtney, damira, eden) split from the other 5. We went through customs and got our visas before meeting with our driver for the trip, Khalil.

We rode over 2 ½ hours to get to Petra. We were stopped twice by police asking where we were from and where we were going.

Once in Petra we got into our hotel. It was beautiful! We had 2 rooms right next to each other with huge balconies overlooking the mountains. We all sat outside for a while admiring the view and just being amazed at where we were.

Khalil took us to a nice Turkish bath. It was my favorite place in the whole wide world! We had herbal tea, sat in a sauna for about forever, layed on a hot bed, got scrubbed, salt scrubbed, massaged, and spent some more quality time in the sauna. It was wonderful, especially for the 3 of us who just got back from Greece & Italy & were still sore and beat from that trip. I had a cold too, and it helped with the stuffyness.

For dinner we went to the Sandstone Restaurant. I got the most amazing fish ever! We also had really good wine and a meze of appetizers and dips. There was live music, which I really loved.

We went back to the hotel that night and watched a little tv before crashing.

Day 2

We drove to Petra at 8:30. Our tour of the ancient city lasted for 4 hours and was incredible, even though it rained off and on the whole time.

We rode horses down to the siq (imagine grand canyon gone mini-sized) and then continued on foot. My horse’s name was Russia. I have no idea what the horse boy’s name was, but he was crazy. He definitely gave me the reigns and sent me galloping off on this horse, even though he knew I didn’t know how to ride. He showed me the basics so I had it under control and it was actually a lot of fun.

The walk was amazing! The sun was shining for this pert of the trip and the colors in the rock walls were crazy. We got down to the Treasury and the rain started. We continued on though, and got to see a lot of old homes, burial places, markets,a nd even the town’s courthouse. The amazing part was that they were all just facades carved into the mountains with nothing but a hammer and chisel.

We had lunch at a place called The Basin. Again, it was really great. I had the best dessert ever – some coconut thingy – If only I understood Arabic I would know what it actually was.

Anyway, we walked back up to meet the horses. Mine was somewhere else (off on more important business I guess) so I had to ride another one with the first horse boy’s brother, Saddam (who laughed when he told me his name). The horses name was Christina! I thought that was pretty cool.

Once at the top, we stopped to buy a few postcards, met back up with Khalil, and went off on our way to the Dead Sea!

We drove along the King’s Highway, which supposedly cut half an hour from our driving time. All I know is it wasn’t a highway, it was a dirt path on top of a mountain with no guard rails, only one lane, and a lot of near death turns. It was definitely an experience.

Our hotel, the Dead Sea Spa, was also amazing. It was ocean front (sea front??) and absolutely beautiful. There were bright flowers everywhere, the rooms were big and nice, and there were 5 pools.

We immediately changed and went down to the beach because we only had an hour before sunset. The water was actually quite warm. The mud, although famous and whatnot, felt gross on my feet. There was no way I was caking my body in the nonsense. We went out a little ways and then the floating began! No matter what we did, we couldn’t get ourselves under the water. It was completely weird, but completely cool.

We went up to the pool and Jen & I went down the water slide a few times before heading in. I definitely needed a hot shower to wash off all of the oily, salty mineral weirdness off my body.

We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant that night because there was basically nowhere to go out in the Dead Sea area. We just hung around the rest of the night and went to bed fairly early.

Day 3

We set our alarms for early so we would have time to spend at the beach before moving on. Jen and I went straight to the beach while Courtney and Eden got breakfast first. We swam and layed out for a while before I went up to the lap pool for a few.

Damira and I hadn’t eaten yet and we realized breakfast had ended 20 minutes ago. We went up anyway and made the guys working prepare us a meal! They gave us coffee and juice, poured our cereal and milk for us, and brought us 2 plates full of cooked food. It was hysterical and ridiculous all at the same time.

We checked out and were on the road to Mount Nebo. We spent a little time there, touring the monastery and checking out the views – you could see the entire Holy Land (Jerusalem, Jericho, etc.) It was really cool to see all of these places.

From there we went to a school to see how the mosaics are made. We got to see the artists at work, which was neat because I love mosaics.

We stopped in the city of Madaba to see one of the mosaics – a map of the entire Holy Land on the floor of a Greek Orthodox church.

We stopped for a huge meze lunch and continued on to Amman City – which was crazy. It was huge and everything was made of sandstone so it was all white. A lot of the city was very dirty and it reminded me of Athens.

We went up to the highest point in the city to take it all in before walking around the Old City for a while. It was getting dark so we went to our hotel and settled in for about an hour.

We went out for coffee and dessert that night instead of dinner because we were all still stuffed from lunch. There was live music (I really like Arabic music). The restaurant was an old stone horse stable with lanterns hanging from the ceiling lighting it. It was a really beautiful place.

Day 4

We woke up at 9 to make sure we would actually make it to breakfast on time. We ate and got ready for our final day in Jordan.

After heading out we had an hour drive to Jerash, an ancient Roman city. By this point I was completely sick and tired from not sleeping and wanted nothing to do with more Roman columns. It was very beautiful though, and it was nice to see an entire Roman city still standing –vs- just a few buildings or columns.

We went to another meze restaurant for lunch…also awesome. I was very impressed with the Jordanian food on the trip, and almost didn’t want to go back to eating Cypriot food every day.

We got to the airport at 5ish, said our goodbyes to Khalil, dealt with customs and security nonsense, and boarded our plane back to Cyprus!