I don't know if anyone is still checking out my blog, but if so, here are the pictures I promised from Holland.

Perfect Dutch Picture...

My German Roomates. They couldn't understand that I didn't like beer. It just didn't make scense to them.

Home Again

My flight home went off without a hitch. I'm home safe and sound. I spent one last night on the airport floor to save myself the expense of a room and early morning taxi. Being home isn’t as bad as I was dreading it to be. It’s great to see my mom and dad and grandma again, and nice to not have to pay for a place to sleep every night.

Because I changed my ticket to make my trip longer I only had three full days in Port Angeles before I move in at Seattle University. (One of which was spent mostly in Seattle seeing the Flaming Lips with my dad.) I’ve been too busy packing and visiting people to really miss traveling just yet. I’m guessing, however, it’ll only take about half a week into the school year before I’m desperate to be on the road again.

I’ve had some experience traveling now, and with that comes the experience of coming home, sometimes just as exciting as the trip itself…for a few days anyway. Upon getting back from other trips I’ve found that people tend to ask the same questions. I’ll be answering those typical questions below. Enjoy!

How was your trip? Great, amazing, fulfilling, fun, exiting, relaxing, educational, disorganized, enjoyable, addictive, adventurous, probably the best summer I’ve ever had.

What was your favorite place? Poland was my favorite country. My favorite city is a toss up between Krakow and Prague, and my favorite place to stay was Back Packer Guest House in Budapest.

Did you meet any cute boys? Yes. Lots.

What was the coolest thing you saw? The cathedral made of human bones in Kunta Hora, and Sziget music festival.

Most beautiful places? Zakopane area in southern Poland and the Adriatic coast.

Did anything really scary ever happen? Not really, I felt pretty safe the whole trip. I think people were watching out for me/felt sorry for me a little because I’m a young girl traveling by myself. Although whenever I fell asleep on a train I was always worried I wouldn’t wake up in time for the right stop.

How did you afford it? I’ve been working two jobs the last year and three at the beginning of the summer. I stayed on budget by camping whenever I could, buying food from grocery stores, and self-guided tours with the help of my guide book instead of paying for a guide.

What was the most difficult thing you had to do? Come home.

What did you miss the most? Sleeping with my cat on my pillow…except for nights I was camping, those nights I just missed a pillow. I missed breakfast cereal, the ability to communicate, easy access to a gym, and customer service people who at least pretend to like their job.

Now that you’re home, what do you miss from traveling? I miss inexpensive shopping, European drinking ages, old buildings, good public transport, beautiful European men. I miss being able to blow off embarassing situations with “They all know I’m a tourist and I’ll never see any of them again…” I miss sleeping in, relaxing in parks or on beaches, doing what ever I want and lack of routine and responsibility.

Lucy’s next big adventure? COLLEGE!


I have some nice pictures from Holland and homecoming that I want to share with everyone. It’ll have to wait until later though, because the computer I’m on at the moment won't upload them.

Also, I don’t plan on closing down this web-log any time soon. I think it’s been an easy and successful way to stay in touch with anyone who wants to follow my trip. As some of you know, Madeline, my sister, is living in Bolivia as an exchange student for this school year. If you’ve enjoyed following me on this trip and reading my blog, I’d be so happy for some help traveling! If you want to get me an early Christmas or birthday present then I’d really really, really appretiate any amount of money so I can afford to go see Maddy for Christmas break. I’ll post journal entries here as I’ve been doing for the last seven weeks. If it works out it’ll be a great trip and so nice to see my sister!

I had a really wonderful time. I’m so glad I could share my trip. Thanks for checking in, and make sure to give it another look in a few days for the last of my pictures. Thank you all for traveling with me!!
Love Lucy

Winding Down

My trip is winding down. All I've got left is today in Amsterdam, one more night on the airport floor, then a 20 hour airport hopping trip home...:( I know I should be motivating myself, getting pumped up to do well in school and setting goals and so on, but I can't. I don't want to go back to real life, routine and responsibility. Traveling has been so freeing, so satisfying.

To review:
The 5th was my last full day in Croatia. I took an overnight bus from Dubrovnik (in the south) to Rejka (in the north.) The whole ride was along the coast. Even though it was dark out, I could see the lights of the coastal villages reflecting off the water throughout the whole drive. It was hot, cramped, and windy, but the views made it beautiful and well worth it.

I flew from Rijek and was met at the Berlin airport by Sven. We drove back to charming little Ottern where I spent two very lazy days reading, relaxing, and enjoying a real bed and a real shower. On Saturday Silky and Soren took me into Weimar to get my dreads turned back into real hair. I had actually managed to brush through some of them so I had high hopes. It would have taken several very painful hours of yanking and pulling to get them out altogether so I just opted for a very short hair cut...still getting use to it.

On the 10th I took the train from Weimar to Rotterdam. This Dutch portion of my trip is very different than the rest of my trip so far. In part because it is in a very modern western country instead of Eastern Europe, also in part because I don't have a guidebook for Holland so I don't know all the details of what the tourist is meant to do. Also, and primarily, in part because I came here to visit friends, friends I met earlier in my trip. So although I've seen a few museums and famous sights most of my time here has been spent visiting and relaxing and dreading going home.

Yesterday I rented a bike to ride around Amsterdam. As I peddled over all the canals I remembered riding through Warsaw with Edwardo and Bernard. Feels like that happened so long ago. It made me realize how long seven weeks really is, how extensive my trip has been, all the places I've seen. I'm so glad I took this summer to travel around Europe and can't wait to start planning my next trip.

Thanks for traveling with me.

See you all soon!!

Images of Croatia

This is a picture I took in the Synagogue in Budapest. It's a small memorial to the Hungarian Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. Notice all the little rocks decorating the memorial. Traditionally people didn't find flowers appropriate so rocks and pebbles are used to show respect.

An Overdue Entry

This Journal entry is a bit overdue, but I recently noticed, I never got around to writing about my visit to Auschwitz. That was a day trip I did from Krakow, back in Poland, it seems like so long ago now. You might ask, “Why spend vacation time at a death camp?” I didn't want to go at first. I can hardly sit through holocaust movies and certainly not without going to sleep sobbing and distraught. I'm an emotional girl. The more I thought about it, however, the more it made since. Admission to the camp is free, it's not a money grubbing tourist trap that benefits from peoples’ suffering. Auschwitz is actually a museum. Survivors and family of survivors made it into a museum because they wanted people to go there and understand what they went through. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed disrespectful not to go.

So I did. I don't have any pictures to share; I didn't think it was appropriate to take my camera. In fact, it really got on my nerves to see other tourist taking pictures of themselves in front of the gas chambers or barbed wire fences, really not a get in the photo type of place.

You all know what it looks like anyway. If you haven't seen pictures in history books you've seen it in movies, Shindler’s List and The Pianist and so on. I won't go into detail about the displays, everyone knows what went on there, the endless mountains of belongings, rooms full of human hair, and hall after hall plastered floor to ceiling with mug shots of the prisoners. Before the Nazis realized the efficiency of tattooing everyone they took photos. These pictures are now on display along with the prisoner’s name, country of origin, arrival date in the camp, and death date. From the dates I saw I'd say those who weren't killed upon arrival lasted an average of three months.

I don't know if this is a selfish way to look at things, but I found myself putting my family and me in the situation. I imagined I was born in 1930. We're a happy Catholic family living in Poland. We're invaded in 1939, I'm in 4th grade, Jays in 5th, Maddy is a 2nd grader. We don't flee the country because we're a family with three small kids, it would have been very difficult. I think being Catholic, not Jewish, we could have held out a few years but eventually would have been brought to Auschwitz to be exterminated, I imagined in about 1942. Upon arrival to the camp we’d go through the separation process. Mom and Dad, both healthy and in their mid forties, would have been kept alive and used for slave labor. Maddy, only 10 might have been kept alive temporarily to be used for medical experiments. If she was very, very lucky her blond hair and blue eyes might have won her a place in a specialized Germinization school where she'd be brain washed and brought up with a good German family. (This is possible but highly unlikely.) Jay and I would have been killed upon arrival. This is a best-case scenario. Some days trains full of people would come in and the SS men couldn't be bothered to have a separation that day. Everyone would be shaved, stripped and gassed within hours of arriving to the camp. Personally, I think if I hadn't been gassed immediately I’d have tried to commit suicide as fast as possible. Why live through Hell while Salvation is waiting?

My other thought was, “What would the world be like if the Nazis had won the war?” There would be no Jews left, no one would know what Judaism was, and today no one would know about any of the killing and camps. There would be statues and monuments of Hitler everywhere and we would all be speaking German.

What bothered me the most about the camp wasn't the heaps of baby clothes or the room full of wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs, but the fact that genocide is still very real in today’s world. With museums like Auschwitz that people crowd to day in and day out year round, how can things like this still go on in so many poor places of the world. Maybe it's been made public because the U.S. eventually got involved and the U.S. likes to make its actions public. Hard to say. I wish there was something I could do to ensure it would never happen, but clearly it would take more then one person. Maybe big protests to say, “HEY U.N.!! GET WITH IT!!”

My visit to Auschwitz was a very moving, very sad day.

Split, Croatia

It's so strange to go from the noise and life of a hostel to the solitude of camping. Parts of my tent are still caked with mud from the Sziget Music Festival and there’s still the slightest scent of vomit lingering. It's nice here; I love my camp sight. I'm right on the beach. I enjoy going to the end of the dock and letting my feet hang into the water while I read or write in my journal. It's so exotic and relaxed.

It wasn't always like this. Miran, a local boy about my age told me stories about life during the war. “All these palm trees, the park...it's all been planted in the last 10 years. This road, it was just a dirt path in the war, we had no money.” He said the campsite I'm staying in now was a refugee camp full of homeless Bosnians. I look around at the turquoise bay and the mountains and wonder if before some palm trees were planted, could people here recognize the natural beauty of this place? Maybe the circumstances didn't lend themselves to it, but I think it's gorgeous here.

I can't figure out Croatian food. I don't think there is a special Croatian meal; it's all Italian food - pizzerias and gelato places, as well as European food and Middle Eastern food, east meets west, baklava and goulash on the same menu.

Split has been lovely: busy markets, Roman ruins, the beach. I'll be saying good-bye tonight and taking a boat to Krocula. My days in Croatia are numbered. I better get organized if I want to see more of the country and still catch my flight from Rijeka on time. I wish this trip didn't have to end!

Thanks for checking in, Lucy

Goodbye Budapest, onto Croatia...

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Dinner was followed by a toga party. This doesn't happen every night, only every 3rd or 4th night.

Measuring the rice with my homemade funnel. About 4 cups in a liter, right? And I think my water bottle was half a liter...it all worked

out in the end.

I gave him this haircut.

Relaxing on the deck which overlooks the backyard jungle.

Hostel Bathroom

Hostel kitchen

Jamie with his two-liter bottle. The wine tasted like vinegar, but we drank a lot of it anyway, cultural experience, right? On the way back someone thought it would be funny to blow out our lanterns. It took us ages to get out.

After wandering around the labyrinth for about an hour we finally found the fountain in the middle. It's a wine fountain. We stayed there for quite a while.

Going underground to the labyrinth. This was the only lighted part.

There was a traditional Jewish orchestra playing in the synagogue I visited. It surprised me how cathedral like the synagogue was.

The Roman baths were actually very good. I spent a full day soaking. You go from one pool to the next, each one hotter than the last, until you work your way up to the steam room. It's impossible to breath in the steam room; I couldn't stay in for more than a minute. After rushing out of the steam room you jump in the shocking cold pool. Very refreshing!

View of Parliament from the China Bridge. Budapest used to be two cities separated by the river. One was called Buda, the other, Pest. A few hundred years ago they merged into one super city, Budapest.

Friends from the hostel. We had a common interest in very large sunnys.

If only life could stay this way...

Charming Polish cottage














Polish man selling snacks on hiking trail