Hola from Barcelona!


Tomorrow we head off to Nice, then were off to Monacco, then to Italy, and apparently we won't have much WiFi at all anywhere we go. Its currently 2am here, and I have to be up at 730 for the 10 hour trip back to France but I realized I should update you all before we leave here as we probably won't be able to for a week or so!



Barcelona has treated us well. The night life here is absolutely insane as they free pour alcohol and clubs don't even open until midnight, and no one even shows up till 2am. People are super passionate about where they come from here and wear their flags so proudly, so everywhere you look there's culture and authenticity.





We explored a lot of the touresty things (like, how amazing is Sagrada Familia?! Pictured above) but we mostly tried to see the area like the locals, going to their food market, walking their outdoor shopping centers and best of all searching for the most authentic paella. Our amazing tour guide Rhett (better known as Rex) told us to not settle at a restaurant until they charge us around £30 for two people and tell us it'll be at least a 45 minute wait, and although most places charged £6 per plate we trecked on and finally (after what felt like forever of searching) found a place to settle in.



We found out the chef was someone's grandmother slaving away authentic cuisine in her puny kitchen in their 20 seater restaurant, and considering we took up half their capacity we felt horrid and had to wait over an hour for the poor lady to make 10 massive seafood paella dishes but oh my god was it ever worth the wait.
We also sat down as a whole (37 of us) and shared tapas and saw a Flamenco show, and drank way more sangria than I thought physically possible. I'm so sad to be leaving Spain tomorrow, but I know they'll be more amazing cultures to come.


Adios, Barcelona!
As a perk of going Contiki, you get to stay in exclusive "stopovers" full of other Contiki-goers. When I heard that we were staying in a chateaux I didn't really know what to expect, and when we pulled up my jaw quite literally dropped.





The building was surrounded by vineyards and farms and small dirt roads with chickens running free and nothing but the sound of birds. We had the most beautiful hike up what felt like a mountain and had a picnic of brie, baguettes, fruit and chips and relaxed all afternoon, and when night came we partied so hard we could barely wake up for the 9am breakfast call. It was two days of complete bliss and even though I'm currently poised in the corner of our adorable hostel in Barcelona, I miss looking out the window and seeing the breathtaking French scenery.







Tomorrow we have an entire day to explore Spain, and although I'm super excited, I'm also slightly exhausted and hoping I can get a good enough nights sleep to keep powering through! 
Bonjour mes amis!
Mike and I have officially started our contiki tour! We couldn't have landed a better group. The lot of us had been chatting on Facebook for months before the big meet up in London but I'm sure none of us expected to bond as quickly as we did.
And we made it to our first destination; France!




Our first day in Paris was spectacular. We decided to go up the Eiffel Tower at night and it was the most beautiful experience and I'm so glad we opted out of doing it during the day. You coud see for miles, and we all stood at the top for ages just chatting and taking endless pictures and soaking it all in. I mean, were in Paris surrounded by some of the best company out there; could life get any better?






Oh, it can. Today we walked all over (in the blazing heat may I add!) to see le Louvre, l'Arc du Triomphe, Avenue des Champs Elysées, le Tour Eiffel, Pont des Arts and more. We walked for hours on end exploring the culture and craze that is the city of love and not a single person was sitting at the dinner table tonight without a permanent smile on their face. I'm completely flabbergasted that today is only one week into our adventure. It feels like its been two months, but in reality that's how long we have left till we're home! Tomorrow were going to see Moulin Rouge (!!!) and have an authentic Parisian feast, and I could not be more excited. 





Here's to new friendships and awesome adventures!
(PS, due to the god awful WiFi at this hotel I had to durastically cut the quality of my pictures so they wouldn't take 10 years to upload.. I cried inside).
There's nothing quite like waking up and realizing you're not at home, you don't have to go to work and the sun is already shining.


We've been falling asleep early and getting up early, and it feels great! The hotel were at right now has an amazing continental breakfast so we've basically sprung out of bed every morning to start our day out right. This morning we walked the seawall to central Cascais and visited their public market and shopped all the local boutiques. We found an amazing seafood restaurant (the only one that wasn't €190 per person) and had a delicious lunch before walking along the beach back to the hotel. It was a beautiful day at 21° so after all the walking we dove straight into the hotel pool for an after lunch swim which was the perfect end to our day. It may only be 6pm now but we plan on staying in our room and finishing off our brie, crackers, wine and pastries from our favorite little cafe.





Our flight to London takes off tomorrow at 9am, and it will really suck to leave portugal behind. However the thought of being in Rome next week has really got me keen on hoping in another plane! I've loved how relaxing its been here, and I know these next few weeks are going to be super jam packed so I'm so happy we had this time to unwind! As soon as we start our tour there will be so much to write about, however Im afraid we might not always have WiFi to post it! I'll probably have to write a bunch of entries, save them as drafts and post them in masses as soon as I get WiFi. We'll see how it goes!

I hope you're all having a good weekend as well.
xx





Yesterday we found out you can never really escape Raincouver. Portugal welcomed us with rain and plenty of culture shock.
We only stayed in Lisbon for one day, but it was beautiful. Plenty of local restaurants, mismatched buildings and cobblestoned streets (which by the way are super slippery when wet). The view from our hotel was lovely (pictured above) however I was still feeling jet lagged and motion sick and sadly didn't take many pictures.



I haven't had the best of luck with the transition here. The first day I had motion sickness, the second I felt ultra jet lagged and today I have a migraine! And of course Mike is totally alright other than the obligatory exhaustion after over 24 hours in airports. However, it was kind of a blessing in disguise as we decided to stay in our hotel for the first day in Cascais and relax and its been splendid. And did I mention, the weather today is beautiful?



We found the nicest restaurant/bakery across the street from our hotel and had an amazing breakfast and picked up these delicious pastries (for €4.50!!!). There was also a supermarket beside it so we bought wine, brie cheese and fig crackers for lunch and enjoyed it all in bed with our patio door open and guilty pleasure worthy TLC shows on TV. Its 18° here and we're definitely about to take advantage of the beach being a 5 minute walk away! 

Hope you guys are having beautiful weather where you are too.
xx


We made it!
Well barely, but the only thing that really matters is that were on a train in Brussels on our way for some Belgium waffles! Its 830am here, which is taking some major getting used to.

Our Toronto flight was delayed by half an hour which forced us to book it through security to catch our flight to Brussels. We made it to the gates a minute past boarding time, but to our luck they hadn't even started boarding yet! We were still suffering from mini heart attacks up until take off but who cares! We made it to Belgium.





And look at how cute it is! We spent the morning in the most gorgeous cobblestoned square with gourmet coffees and waffles from the cutest cafe. The views were fantastic and being surrounded by the gold trimmed cathedrals made it the perfect start to our trip! It was breathtaking to sit on the patio and just take in the beauty of the city over breakfast. And of course we picked up artisan Belgian chocolate from the nicest shop owner I've ever met who tried to get us to speak our French and (very minor) Spanish with him.






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Now, the waiting game continues. Were back at the Brussels airport to fly into Portugal! In only a few hours well be at our hotel and can go out for a lovely night in Lisbon. Mike just bought himself a Belgian Pint of Stella Artois for 3 euros and is happy as can be while I try to fight off motion sickness.

I hope you're all having a good day as well!!

xx

Happy Easter everybody! I hope youve all been treated to mini eggs, turkey and plenty of family time.

Meanwhile in our household, its crunch time!

Mike and I have been running errands nonstop and our stomachs are in a constant knot of anxiety and excitement. We've both had our last shifts at work and now we just have one more family dinner and one more outing with a friend before the big flight out! We definitely can't believe it. It'll be scary to leave our picturesque city behind, but the journey were about to begin will probably be life changing. I definitely won't be able to sleep these next couple of nights! I mean, who could?

xx

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