If you read my last post you probably think I’m having a terrible time in the cave. Besides late last night and this morning, it was a pretty bomb week. Also, the 2 girls just came back and informed me that they got paprika and oregano. This is music to my ears.

Anyways, I thought I would post some pictures from my first week here! I’ll put a little caption underneath if necessary. Enjoy!

My first day of work scraping old paint off cave walls

Exploring abandoned caves next door

Marie playing music with Felix on backup vocals

One of the dogs at the dog shelter that we visited on Wednesday. This was extremely sad and kind of terrifying, it might need its own post.

One of the dogs standing out of his cage to say “PLEASE SAVE ME FROM THIS HELL”

A picture of the room we’re redoing. The pink on the walls is the previous paint and all of the white spots are what we scraped...

I survived my first whole week living in a cave home. Despite the angry title and being cold all of the time, it was pretty awesome! The week ended on a more angsty note since we somehow ended up with 7 people in our cave at once. But let me back up a bit.

The first night I got to the cave I was greeted by two girls warming up dinner. “Whoa!” I thought. “These girls made me a rad dinner and I don’t even know them.” One was from Germany and the other was from Lithuania, both were close to my age. We ate the dinner and after some talking I realized the host, Hannah, actually made the dinner and they had just arrived shortly before me and were instructed to warm it up. K whatever. But my host made me a rad dinner and she doesn’t even know me!

At first I loved having the other girls around. Once I realized that Hannah only cooked the arrival meal and then never made us food again, us...

I’m currently reading the book The Martian by Andy Weir (hey again, book club!), better known for its recent release as a movie starring Matt Damon. I thought I would hate this book because it isn’t about high school drama or written by a famous comedian but I’ve actually been enjoying it quite a bit. Especially when I realized that I basically live on Mars right now too!!

I thought I would make a list of similarities between me and my boy Mark.

1. We’re in a unique, beautiful place

Ok lame, I know. But I never thought I would find myself in the middle of nowhere surrounded by cave homes and mountains (including the Sierra Nevada!) and I’m sure Mark never expected to find himself on Mars alone. He doesn’t talk much about how it looks…but it’s gotta be terrifyingly beautiful, right?

2. We’re eating like rabbits

Sure, I am eating WAY more than ¾ rations of freeze-dried meals and...

Grand Hostel Berlin

I stayed at Grand Hostel for 4 nights in Berlin. Another great experience, but quite different from flying pig.

Favorite Part: The room setup and overall design of the place. The building was beautiful with high ceilings and a lot of intricate details. The room I stayed in had 8 beds but they weren’t bunk beds, yay!! And we had a bathroom with a shower attached to our room which was honestly, the absolute best part of this hostel. The bedroom also made me feel like I was part of a Madeline episode so that brought me back.

Least Favorite Part: I don’t have many complaints about this Hostel. There wasn’t free breakfast which was a bummer after enjoying the Flying Pig breakfast so much, but they did have a discounted deal for all-you-can-eat at a cute cafe next door. The selection there was much better than the free breakfast, obviously. The rooms got a little loud...

I decided to write a short review about each hostel that I visit. So far I have had relatively good experiences so I hope this will help others traveling find a good place to stay.

I’ve found all of my hostels using Hostel World. I usually look at location first, and then pick one that is reasonably priced and has good ratings. Pretty simple.

I stayed at the Flying Pig Downtown in Amsterdam. Here are my thoughts!

Flying Pig Downtown Hostel in Amsterdam

Favorite Part: The relaxed atmosphere and location

Least Favorite Part: The rooms and bathroom setup. I didn’t mind it since it was my first hostel and I didn’t know any better…but now that I’ve been other places I realize that the layout was super odd. The rooms had pretty crappy bunk beds (it was the exact same bunk bed that my brother had at age 7) and no privacy. Let’s just say I got really good at changing my pants under my...

I cried for the first time on my trip on Wednesday. Although I had an incredibly stressful morning, little sleep and difficulties getting to the airport…I held in the tears then (this says something…I’ve definitely grown on this trip!!). I had just arrived in Belgium and I decided to have a coffee and enjoy some free wifi to relax a little before walking 30 minutes with 2 backpacks on to the hostel. Poor me, right? Well this is actually supposed to be funny. I cried today in the Starbucks while I WATCHED THE SUPERBOWL HALFTIME SHOW.

I’ve done some very American things over here such as eating Pringles for breakfast but you gotta admit that crying in a Starbucks while watching the Superbowl Halftime Show is probably the most American thing I could do. Little did I know, I would be shedding far more tears the following days as I explored the beautiful city of Gent, Belgium.

This is...

So yesterday I attended the most amazing museum, Computerspiele Museum, literally translating to Computer Game Museum. For someone who was raised on computer and video games, this was basically a dream come true. It was definitely worth getting lost and walking an absurd amount to find it. The pamphlet said it was “just 5 minutes away!!” from where my walking tour ended but apparently that meant if you take the train or somehow acquire a wing cap or something.

Anyways, all of the pain in my feet disappeared as I saw this:

I was even more delighted when I entered the museum and encountered a shrine of various computers and video game systems through the years.

I sought out the Amiga, which was the first major gaming system in our house and sent a pic to my dad and brother.

I also sent them some other reminiscent pictures. I have fond memories watching them play Doom and Monkey...

I really didn’t want to start a blog. Mostly because every middle-class white girl studying abroad feels entitled to share which color macaroon she had today and frankly, I don’t really give a shit. But alas, I’m here to tell you about every strain of weed I tried in Amsterdam and flavor of Clif bar I’ve eaten as a meal replacement because I didn’t want to spend anymore Euros.

So I’m on my way to my second destination and I’m happy to say I survived the first (very tiny) leg of my trip. I left Minneapolis on the night of the Snowpocalypse and luckily it didn’t negatively affect my travels…quite the opposite actually! Since so many people didn’t make it to the MSP airport due to storms, I got to fly in first class which was an awesome start to the trip. I had some crazy good food, took some ZZZquil and fell asleep to Pitch Perfect 2. I woke up to the plane “preparing for landing,” the...