Here are some highlights from all the places I was lucky enough to travel to over Christmas break with my best friends Emily and Michelle!
We started with Amsterdam.
Gorgeous.
With the nicest people in the world. One time while carelessly crossing the street, we cut off a bike rider, whose response was waving and yelling "A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!"
I Amsterdam.
I haven't stopped thinking about this magical city since the day we left, and I know it will remain in my thoughts until I return someday.
Next, we hopped on the train to Bruges, Belgium where we would spend Christmas.
For Christmas Eve we treated ourselves to this incredible Belgian hotel, which we found out weeks later was listed as one of the 1,001 places you should visit before you die...
Emily and Michelle on Christmas Eve getting cozy in our hotel room after taking hot bubble baths.
We woke up Christmas morning to our stockings hung on the heater,
and a perfect Christmas breakfast awaiting us in the cellar downstairs next to the tree.
On the evening of Christmas we went ice-skating in Bruges' Central Market. I only fell once.
Belgian hot chocolate is intense!
Our next destination was Paris, where we got to meet up with one of our best friends from Seattle,
Karina!
Here we are at Notre Dame.
And the Eiffel Tower.
Oh, and then we ran into our buddy Will on the Champs Elysees :)
Because we were there for the New Year, the first three nights the entire city of Paris was booked. So, we found a couch to sleep on for free from the life-saving website couchsurfing.org. Here we are with our host, whose name is Pierre (of course), on New Year's Eve at a party hosted by one of his friends in an old vacant theater.
Nothing like a french apricot pastry and capuccino to start your day before jumping on a plane to Dublin!
Ireland was green and sunny, exactly what we needed after traveling for so many weeks in freezing temperatures. We spent a day at Trinity College relaxing in the grass and sunshine.
Michelle and I spent another day getting lost in the Guinness Storehouse. Here is us at the top in their Gravity Bar, where you can see the entire city sparkling below you through the glass walls.
As if my travels weren't already perfect enough, I had the pleasure of being welcomed back to Spain by the familiar faces of my mom and Russ, and spending a week with them in Sevilla and Cadiz.
My best friends and I got to do in one month what most people in the world aren't able to do their entire lives, and I try to remind myself everyday how lucky I am for that :)
With the nicest people in the world. One time while carelessly crossing the street, we cut off a bike rider, whose response was waving and yelling "A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!"
I Amsterdam.
For Christmas Eve we treated ourselves to this incredible Belgian hotel, which we found out weeks later was listed as one of the 1,001 places you should visit before you die...
Emily and Michelle on Christmas Eve getting cozy in our hotel room after taking hot bubble baths.
We woke up Christmas morning to our stockings hung on the heater,
and a perfect Christmas breakfast awaiting us in the cellar downstairs next to the tree.
Belgian hot chocolate is intense!
Karina!
Here we are at Notre Dame.
And the Eiffel Tower.
Oh, and then we ran into our buddy Will on the Champs Elysees :)
Because we were there for the New Year, the first three nights the entire city of Paris was booked. So, we found a couch to sleep on for free from the life-saving website couchsurfing.org. Here we are with our host, whose name is Pierre (of course), on New Year's Eve at a party hosted by one of his friends in an old vacant theater.
Nothing like a french apricot pastry and capuccino to start your day before jumping on a plane to Dublin!
Ireland was green and sunny, exactly what we needed after traveling for so many weeks in freezing temperatures. We spent a day at Trinity College relaxing in the grass and sunshine.
