Europe has a lot of smells.

So I'm finally blogging... I've been in Europe since June 12th and I've just not been able to make myself sit down and do it (although I've wanted to). Because of this procrastination problem, there is obviously a lot to be caught up on. Read what you want :) Here goes nothing:

The first part of my trip consisted of ten days in Paris staying at my sister's place in Sèvres (which is on the outskirts of the city). I had a super great time finally seeing all the things and people Melina had been telling me about for so long on Gchat. I basically got to live her life for a week, go to her step class, meet her friends, check out where she works and grab lunch together, etc. I also got to take every possible mode of transportation one trillion times a day. Well of course I like to exaggerate, but I'm not kidding, the public transportation is ridiculous and uber convenient. I put on my big girl pants and took the bus, metro, tram, and train all by myself in order to do some touristy Paris things alone while Meli was still at work during the week. But sometimes the weather was crappy (or maybe I just wanted to be back at the apartment to watch 3 world cup matches a day...guilty) and I would come back to Sèvres to chill with Romain (Meli's pro-wrestler boyfriend...get well soon mr. cripple) and maybe sneak in a walk to the little pastry shop in town for some mmm goodness.

HIGHLIGHTS: Trocadéro view of the Eiffel Tower (never gets old), crazy (literally) teenie boppers harassing jetlagged Gabi on the Champs Elysée, automatic trash can in the apartment that makes you jump everytime you walk by, weirdo business woman who wanted to share a two person table with me and meli in Suresnes, eating lunch with my old French exchange student Floriane, and of course World Cup feverrrrr.

Moving on...Next I flew to Vienna to visit Maria and attend her graduation (Hats off amazingly brilliant Diplomatische Akademie Wiener Master!) I got to see where she's been living for the past two years and see some of the sights of Wien, Austria. The whole family met up a day or two later and we celebrated the graduation and visited cool places although everyone had already been to Vienna except me.

HIGHLIGHTS: smelly smelly smells in the Uban (Vienna's metro system---most likely the smelliest place on earth), eating schnitzel, staying in a Hostel with the whole family and seeing my dad on his baby laptop in the lobby with all the teenage backpackers, giant ferris wheel view of the city, watching Donovan score an amazing last minute goal on a bigscreen on a beautiful blue sky sunshiney day in the grass, seeing the bluelipped crazies, labryinth of bushes (yes just like hp triwizard tourny!), and not understanding anything AT ALL in German (one of my least favorite languages to date... sorry schwoester, ich liebe dich anyways).

The next two days were spent in Budapest, Hungary with the family! Wooooo Hungarians that's all I'm sayin'. We took a train from Vienna and immediately began being really huge tourists upon arrival. I mean two days does not leave you time to try and blend in. The weather was not so nice either so that was kinda a bummer. We got an apartment type thing in the nice Jewish quarter (shoutout to miss whitney seltman what what!?!?!) and had a great time exploring the city on a Hop On, Hop Off double decker bus (ultimate tourist hotspot---you could choose from over 16 languages for the tour headset thang).

HIGHLIGHTS: Goulash soup (YUM), trumpet players outside our apartment at midnight on a Sunday night, learning about the separation of Buda and Pest (Buda is the old part of the city up on hills and Pest is the more modern, business type area on flat land across the bridges of the Danube River), watching Argentina win on a huge bigscreen and someone wiping out because of the excitement (you know who you are bahaha), getting to do some archery which i loveeee, walking into a giant summer concert in a plaza with thousands, and Hungarian men speaking in broken English calling us "lady".

After Buda the sisters took a train back to Vienna and Meli went back to Paris from there. Mom and Dad flew to Paris as well and then Dad went home to the US while Mom is staying with Meli for a few days. I stayed one more night with Maria and then flew to Madrid after a celebratory birthday breakfast for Ria :)

So now I'm in Madrid and the Au Pair/Nanny position has begun full force. But that must be left for another day because I must be getting to bed. The 7-year-old and 17-month-old I'm looking after are quite the energizer bunnies, to say the least.

Buenas noches lovelies.

-G