3 more days!

Lynsey and I just got back from our 10 day traveling spree...and I'm truly exhausted (and she is too).

We leave for the US (with lots of luggage and memories) on June 1.

Hope to see all of you soon!

Happy Birthday Grandma Gross!

...back from Greece, now off to Italy!

I just arrived home from my trip to Greece...which included 4 days in Athens, 3 days on the island of Santorini, and 2 days on the island of Mykonos. The weather was gorgeous and Kyle was able to join me for the island-hopping portion of the trip. I'll get pictures up as soon as I arrive home in two weeks.

Lynsey arrives tomorrow and I'm getting really excited! Our first stop is Rome, then Naples/Pompei, then Prague, then Paris.

Pictures, pictures, pictures!

I've loaded all (okay, most) of my pictures to Photobucket. Here is a link to them. Enjoy!

Courtney's Photobucket

Click on "View as slideshow" in the left corner once you've gone to the album you want to look at.

Oh yeah, the password is: CourtneyNL
(and thank you to my technical genius for helping me with the html part of this)

Catching up

I just posted three trips I took in April and I still have one more. I just got back from Krakow, Poland--which was amazing, by the way. As soon as I get some pics from Charla, as she took some of me that I want, I will get a blog on that one. Queen's Day was yesterday and I'll have pics of that up soon, as well.

I booked my flight home--June 1. It's going to be terribly sad leaving the life I've known for the last 8 months, but I'm excited to see my family and friends in the states. I've definitely been blessed with this experience and would recommend it to everyone!!

Lynsey is coming to visit in a few weeks!!!! Whoohoo!!!! I think we're going to Paris, Rome, Naples, and Prague (and Amsterdam, of course). Plans are still in the works, but I'm excited she's getting the chance to see a little of Europe.

So, bare with me if the blog doesn't get updated for awhile...or before I get home. I'll get it up there as soon as I can!

Dublin, Ireland

Last weekend, Charla and I took a trip to meet the Irish. It was a last minute decision to split away from unofficial plans to go to Luxembourg and stay with a girl we met in training. Our flight was fairly cheap and luckily we found a great hostel to stay in.

Here is the Abbey Court Hotel on the River Liffey. I have to admit that it was a little noisy at night, but that's what you get for being in the middle of all the action. It was clean, comfy, and well worth the money. Our hostel-mates were a couple girls from Warsaw, Poland and we didn't hesitate to ask them everything they knew about Krakow (because we would be headed there the following weekend). They even met us for a pub crawl one night.

Since we arrived into Dublin late on the first night, we didn't see much of the city, but got to go out with true Irish guys (and one girl). When Kyle was in Israel for Intel, he met two other Intel guys that worked for Intel in Dublin and when he heard Charla and I were going, he contacted them to see if they were in town that weekend. To our luck, they were and they ended up meeting us after dinner and took us to some traditional pubs. We had a great time!

For our first introduction to the city, we decided on a walking tour and were very pleased with what we got. The tour-guide was a professor at Trinity College and had an amazing amount of history about Ireland (starting from the 12th century on) in his brain:

This is me in front of entrance of Trinity College (I was a bit chilled at the moment):

Christ Church Cathedral:

The Ha'penney bridge:

The Temple Bar in the Temple Bar Area:

Guinness Brewery and my 2nd official pint of the dark side--and probably my last (sorry Guiness lovers...its like drinking a whole meal):

These are the girls I mentioned earlier, our roommates at the hostel, and we are at our first pub on the pub crawl that night:

This pic was after the 5th bar + 1:

After a weekend of pint after pint, we made our way back home to Holland. I would have liked to have seen more country-side and less of the party town, but that's for next time!

Gorgeous clouds seen outside the plane window while flying into The Netherlands:

Vienna, Austria

Most of my posts of travels start out with a picture of the hostel, and this one is no different. Unfortunately, neither Charla or myself took one of the outside.

Oh well, in any case, this is the Wombats Hostel in Vienna. It was very nice. Our roommates were two single travelers and I can't remember where they were from: After dropping our stuff off at the hostel, I realized that the clothes I brought were not really for the weather we encounted. It was sooo sunny and about 80-85 degrees! I bought a couple tanks and was set. Our first stop was the Museum Quartier (a nice area with a bunch of museums, as you've probably already guessed). We didn't go in any of them; I think I'm museum'd out, if that's possible.
This area is called the Heldenplatz (according to labeling on Charla's pictures--I'm not very good at keeping track of what everything is called, but the pics are good...hehe). There were a ton of people laying on the lawn, sunbathing, sleeping, or playing a little American football.
On almost every street corner was a guy that was dressed as this guy is, and he was selling tickets to opera shows for the evening. We were sold on the first greeting and saw an opera/ballet/orchestra concert that evening:
We decided on a sightseeing bus tour, as they seem to work well for us, and did in Vienna, as well.

One stop was a visit to Schonnbrunn Palace. We took a tour; it was neat. ('nuff said)

Stephansdom and the famous St. Stephan's Cathedral--strange pattern on the outside for a church (to me anyway): Stadtpark and Mozart: