Yup, It's A Thing

One-way tickets. Minor forethought. And no inhibitions. These are our stories. Current Location: Cambridge, MA and Chicago, IL Cars: 18 Buses: 86 Trains: 97 Planes: 16 Vespas: 5 Tuk-Tuks: 39 Tuk-Trucks: 7 Boats: 10 Kayaks: 2 Bicycles: 5 Bike-Boats: 2 Elephants: 4 Crashes: 2 Thefts: 2 Shoot us an email! [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

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Adieu, Adieu, To You And You and YOU!

Since this blog is going on hiatus until our next trip, we thought we'd revisit the people and places that made this so memorable. We always seem to highlight the weirdos we meet along the way, but rarely do we highlight the exceptional ones.

In Tallinn, Rolf and Geidi saved us from homelessness and gave us a couch to sleep on and copious amounts of food and wine. We took full advantage by sleeping in the next morning until noon when Kelsey yelled "Guys! We are in somebody's house! Let's get out of here!"

Marju, our next host, was just as helpful. She brought us all around town to find bikes and also warned us about bike thieves. The joke was on us.

We cannot forget Viinistu where we fished in the Baltics, enjoyed their homemade sauna, ate the fish we caught, and then sang songs about it. There was never a shortage of food and tea from their backyard garden. We could not thank them enough!

In fact, we cannot thank any of our hosts enough. Kinga, who cooked for us and showed us around Krakow. Effie in Salzburg, who went above and beyond out of her way to make sure we saw the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. Though it was not important to her, she made sure we made it back in time. Lara, who read on our blog that we were in Dresden, insisted on hosting us for dinner and finding us accommodation in Dresden and in Amsterdam. Netty gave us our own cosy room, introduced us to Brighton, England, and helped us with the challenge of ordering pizza-a surprisingly difficult task in an English speaking country. Did we mention she was from Brunei and English was her second language? Elfi, who did not even know us, kindly opened her home to us for two nights in the center of Amsterdam overlooking the canals. All in all, the weird and wacky people made for great stories, but these incredible people made for a great trip.

The long awaited visit from Lexi was one of the more special events. It was so special that we wished she could have stayed longer. Actually, she did. She missed her flight, lost her wallet, and slept in the terminal before she finally returned to Dublin.

Speaking of missing things, we came close a couple times. In St. Petersburg, Kelsey and Scott lost all of hope of escaping Russia until Kaley threw herself in front of our bus as it left the bus terminal. Another close call came in Lithuania when Kaley and Scott thought it was essential to make a McDonald's run during a break on our 14 hour bus ride to Warsaw. The pit stop nearly gave Kelsey a heart attack when the bus began to make moves before the two returned.

Aside from close calls and awesome people, we were able to check places and events off our "historical bucket list," even if they were all under construction. First off, we got to see every identical Old Town in Eastern Europe. We devoured every World War II museum. Even better than the museums were the actual locations of these historical events such as the Nazi rallying grounds, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the courtroom of the Nuremberg Trials and the Berlin Wall. We even saw Sigmund Freud's famous couch. We also saw history in the making when we got to London to catch the men's marathon at the 2012 Olympics as well as the closing ceremonies at nearby Victoria Park.

In addition to history, we immersed ourselves in the local culture of each city. The famous St. Petersburg ballet, sharing our hostel dorm with eight Russian twelve-year-old girls, the Latvian ethnographic park, the Viennese orchestra, the Red Light District of Amsterdam, frolicking with sheep in the English countryside, and of course, sampling every kind of Dutch cheese in The Netherlands have been some of our highlights.

Then there were the non-cultural events that include trinket crawls, 22+ Doner Kebab stops, Kaley eating chicken for the first time in six years, The Dark Knight in Germany, movie nights with every available computer and countless pubs where we previewed as many Olympic 2012 events as possible.

After three months, thirteen countries and 268 individual modes of transportation, we now have three individual flights left: one to Boston, one to Chicago, and one to Connecticut (not before making one last kebab stop of course). We would like to thank the academy our loyal followers and avid readers who have read our stories and passed them along. The blog is not over and done with. It is merely taking a break while our bank accounts recover from China, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Burma, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Austria, Germany, Great Britain and The Netherlands.

See you soon! Zai jian! Lear heouy! Sawatdi! La gohn! Nauq twe dhe da paw! Do svidanja! Head aega! Sveiki! Do widzenia! Pfueatti! Auf Wiedersehen! Cheerio! Tot ziens!

Good Bye!

Scott, Kelsey and Kaley

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It's A Thing: Sheep Frolicking

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You asked for pictures: here they are! Introducing some of the beautiful animals we met along the way that provided the inspiration for our latest musical: Songs About Animals (more to follow).

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It's A Thing: Watching the Men's Olympic Marathon, London 2012

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It's A Thing: Making Yourself at Home Our hostel mates sure know how. The heap includes but not limited to: •Propane Canister •Bottle of Ketchup •Carton of Water •Loose Grapes •Jug of Chocolate Milk •Fold-Up Chairs •Cereal •Cookies (opened and crumbling) •Clothes, Clothes, CLOTHES!! Each time they walked in the door, they threw all their clothes that they were wearing into the heap and proceeded to lounge out in the nude while they're bunk mates were still present. Talk about no shame.

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It's A Thing: Underground Underwear Feeling droopy? Hanging loose? Maybe it feels extra nipply out. It sounds like you have forgotten an essential piece of undergarment. But not to fear, your daily commute has you covered. When stopping to get your morning coffee, don't forget to pick up your new undies and bras conveniently located in every underground walkway. Only available in select locations throughout Eastern Europe.

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It's A Thing: Too Many Museums

Springtime for Hitler and Germany. Winter for Poland and France. Summer for Kelsey, Scott and Kaley as they tour every single WWII museum throughout Eastern Europe. We found some discrepancies with these historical accounts. This puzzled all of us as we didn't know what to believe as truth. Let's start with Russia. As with everything in Russia, they are cold, bitter and a little self-righteous, which would seemingly explain their account of WWII. The war they claim they won. Sure, they made significant contributions, but our skepticism crept up when we came across a plaque that claimed they won the war in Japan singlehandedly after defeating the Japanese army in Manchuria. According to them, after this one decisive battle, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. Nope, no mention of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, or even the American presence at all. Instead, it was Stalin's armies in Siberia that defeated Japan and liberated China. But let's face it, as the Russian's view Stalin as one of the greatest military leaders of all time - no mention of his post-WWII political career. We found this telling, as Germany owns up to all its mistakes, while Russia seeks to sugarcoat the truth. In fact, Germany makes no excuses for its Nazi legacy; instead, they make every effort to rectify the wrongs and educate future generations. For example, their Jewish memorial for those persecuted in WWII lies right in the center of their capital: no tourist or public official can make their way through the city center without acknowledging it. But now back to Russia. What's more, when describing the fate of Poland, Russia claims Stalin was forced to enter an agreement with Hitler because the Americans and English would not commit to opposing Nazi Germany. But the Polish see things very differently. Poland's WWII museums claimed that Stalin entered into an agreement with Hitler in order to partition eastern Poland into the Soviet Union to place the Poles into slave camps (the same thing the Nazis did in western Poland). Furthermore, when the Soviets liberated western Poland, they moved the Polish from the concentration camps there to their own camps. Where was the United States, you might ask? Knitting sweaters, for all they care. The Polish seem to think we did nothing to help their cause, and maybe that's true. They believe that by 1945, America was already engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and did not recognize the Polish rebellion as a legitimate allied combatant. Thus, the Soviet Union was allowed to take over and establish a communist regime. Have we mentioned we have gone to every museum in Eastern Europe? You'll never encounter these accounts in an American WWII museum, but history is in the eye of the beholder, or in WWII's case, in the eyes of the powerful and the oppressed.

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It's A Thing: Bizarre Border Crossings Part 2 A traveler's greatest souvenir is his or her passport. Each stamp is its own precious little trinket; whereas, a visa is like a grand Christmas present. Crossing a new border is like Christmas morning, being able to open your passport to a shiny new stamp to compare to all the rest. So when leaving Russia for our grand European tour, we were especially excited for our plethora of stamps during our whirlwind tour of the Baltics and Western Europe. Much to our surprise, we've now gone through eight countries and have received a measly single stamp. It wasn't even a good one. Take Russia. We were surprised they didn't ask for our blood type to get out. Actually, we were surprised they let us out at all with such a scrutinizing exit. Our passports felt violated as they bent them, picked them, scratched at them, smelled them, and whatever else one can do to inspect a passport. With a grunt, we were checked out of the country, got back on the bus and drove a mere 30 meters before being ushered off the bus and through one last duty free vodka stop before crossing into Estonia. "Is Estonia really that bad if everyone needs this much alcohol?" Scott asked as the entire bus fumbled to fit their four vodka handles in their carry on luggage. We should have known that our passports wouldn't get much more action that day as our crossing into Estonia didn't even warrant a glance by border patrol. From then on out, no other countries bothered to check us. Lithuania sent some dogs on board who were useless, as they didn't even stop to smell a Big Mac (much to Kelsey's relief). Slovakia only looked at one out of every four passports, disappeared, then redistributed the passports to the wrong individuals - stampless, we might add. Austria's immigration was a shack. Poland didn't even have an immigration stand. To cap it off, our couch surfing host in Salzburg actually lived in Germany, and we crossed back and forth every day without even realizing we were going between two different countries. We finally received our stamps flying into London. Too bad it was the weakest and ugliest stamp possible. Fingers crossed our next destination will get our stamp of approval.

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It's A Thing: Wenlock Ben at London 2012

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Songs About Animals Pt. 2: Little Fishbone

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It's A Thing: Making Friends with The Royal Family

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It's A Thing: Beautiful Boys

Kaley is sick in bed. Scott and Kelsey are sprawled out watching the Olympics, debating on spending the ten extra Euros to keep our four-person room from getting a fourth roommate. Before we can make moves, in walks Martijin: the self-proclaimed "beautiful boy." The first words out of his mouth: "ooh it's stinky in here!" He started introducing himself to each of us, asking for our names and promptly responding with the fact that he would soon forget them. Scott pointed him to his top bunk (the only remaining bed in the room), but he looked displeased, especially because he had an interview at the Sheraton the next morning, and we only had a bus. Nonetheless, he started to make his bed, mumbling, "you have a bus, I have an interview, this is good. This is good." We exchanged glances, all in agreement that something was not right. Still, we wanted to be hospitable. So, when he mumbled "this is so annoying" under his breath, Scott asked if something was wrong. He responded in a weesly voice, "NOTHING I CAN'T HANDLE." He came down from the bed saying "I know you guys don't notice because you have been sitting in it all day, but it is really stinky in here. Like really bad. We need to open the window." The window was already open. Apparently that wasn't enough, so we offered up newly purchased Febreeze, which he applied liberally to every corner of the room. Immediately following, he went to use the restroom, leaving the door wide open. Scott got up to take away the Febreeze after its excessive application, slipping in the puddle that remained. "Stupid Americans," we heard from the bathroom. "What was that?" we asked. He mumbled something in response, something we could not hear over the stream of urine (remember the door was left open?). Emerging from the bathroom, he told us he was leaving for lunch. "There's nothing in my bag. No jewels, nothing valuable. You can look at it if you want. There's nothing good in there, just a suit and ten Euro shoes." (More on the shoes later.) When he came back five minutes later, Scott and Kelsey were on their way out with the laundry and Kaley was left to her own defenses. "So what's wrong? You're sick? What, like, HIV, hepatitis, that kind of thing?" Thinking he couldn't possibly be serious and too weak to actually describe her ailment, Kaley responded with a simple "yup." Too bad that wasn't the deterrent she was hoping for. Instead, he began to touch her feet, asking about the diseases' effects and how she handles public showers, touching he hair, and saying, "oh, I can fix this. I am very good at fixing this. Better that your friends are out so they won't know." Quickly realizing her mistake, she backtracked and frantically texted her friends to return. Meanwhile, Kelsey and Scott were taking their sweet time wandering the hostel's halls. Neither holding their phones, both joked, "Kaley's probably frantically texting us for help." they picked up the pace a bit. They took the elevator. Martijin threw gummy bears at Kaley and told her to go back to bed. Scott and Kelsey returned just in time to watch him leave. Several hours later, he returns. While we were resting, he retrieved the Febreeze and again sprayed the room, this time focusing on us. That's right, he sprayed our feet and legs with Febreeze. Kelsey and Scott were stunned into silence that they had literally been Febreezed. The next morning, we all woke to our roommate staring himself in the mirror saying, "look at that beautiful boy." He was German. Why he was saying this in English is beyond us. "Did you sleep well?" Scott asked. "Yes. Perfectly." he said. "Actually. Horrible." He readied for his interview with only forty minutes to spare. His brown, ten Euro shoes did not match his all black suit. From the bathroom, we heard a clatter and him curse and yell, "oh nein!" He forgot his belt. "I would really notice. This is the first thing I would notice. This is...this is not good. Do any of you have a belt that I could use?" "No," Scott lied. "You look better today," he said. "Better than yesterday." And with that, he left for his interview. And we left for our bus. It was good.

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Sorry we have been slacking on the posts lately. We've been too busy eating döner and dürum kebaps.

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If someone was to to be murdered, assaulted or be robbed here, where would that be? And is there a hostel there? (Vienna Salzburg Munich Nürnberg Central Europe Europe is NOT cheap)

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It's A Thing: Shower Shockers

Have you ever been shocked, flabbergasted, shocked or intrigued by your shower? We have, sometimes all at once. Though our latest shower experience was the most normal, imagine how clean you feel when the shower not only removes the grime but also the outer layer of your epidermis. The shower head had one setting: serrated and scalding. At least it did the job, unlike our Beijing shower experience, where you were lucky if you even got a steady trickle. But water pressure isn't the only factor in determining a good quality shower. In Krakow, our couch surfing host posed the option, "this shower is ancient; the other is dangerous." After a long, awkward pause with no clarification as to what "dangerous" meant, Kaley responded with "I'll check out the dangerous one." Needless to say, none of us showered that night. At least the previous night's shower was relatively normal, except for one key ingredient. A shower curtain dividing the shower from the full-bodied mirror was nonexistent. We had to make a decision: stand and endure the view or pop a squat. Two of us decided to sit while the other chose to stand. The one who stood also happened to be in clear view of the giant bathroom window, which naturally didn't have a shade either. Sometimes curtains conceal what you'd prefer not to see. In Tallinn, one of our more normal couch surfing experiences proved abnormal when we realized the shower was being occupied by a cat who was using it as a litter box. But the most bizarre of them all also proved to be the most fun. In Viinistu, our hosts took special care in explaining how to use their shower. How hard could it be to turn a couple of knobs, we thought. As has become typical on this trip, we thought wrong. There were no knobs, tub, shower head, even tile. But there was a well of scalding water, a faucet of frigid water, three big buckets and a stovetop pot to mix it all together. Here we're our instructions: 1. Remove the wooden top from the stone well 2. Use the stovetop pot to scoop the scalding water (Do not touch the water. It really is scalding. Kelsey had to learn this the hard way.) 3. Pour the water in your bucket of choice 4. Mix cold tap water with scalding water to your preferred temperature 5. Apply soap, lather, dump, rinse 6. Repeat as desired. Things that could go wrong: 1. Miss your target on first dump 2. Laugh as consequently miss on dump #2 3. Realize these windows don't have curtains either 4. Mosquitos crash your party and experience bites in places you never thought possible (Scott thinks, "wow, this new soap has some great exfoliating beads," only to realize they were, in fact, skeeterbeads aka dead mosquitos) Yup, showering is quite the interesting thing.

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Phase 1 of our transformation into the Von Trapp Family Singers