London, Italy, Berlin

I know…. I know…. This was my bad for letting my updates get so far behind but life gets busy and whatnot. Today I’m spending some time just writing things down and uploading photos to the photo album tab on the website. Sorry!

I left off in Scotland on my way to London so we’ll start there. I got into my hostel in London and slept. I was fatigued, felt gross, and needed to get myself together for a week of fun. On the first day, I went on a solo mission to find some decent thrift/vintage stores. Boy oh boy. Let me tell you guys. I SHOPPED. I went to this place called Brick Lane Vintage. A place of my dreams. It’s literally just a warehouse with different vendors in their own corners. I felt at peace. On the way to this magic kingdom, I got some coffee, walked around London Bridge, and just had a pretty sublime solo day. After my shopping adventure, I got a yummy meal at a food stand in Portobello Market. (If you are in the London area anytime soon, I am name-dropping so that everyone else can enjoy these).

After my tiny adventure, I went back to my hostel and sat on their rooftop doing some work. I looked over some time into my zoning into my laptop and noticed a girl with the same thrift store bag as me. Enter Liana. Now keep in mind that I have pretty intense anxiety and don’t know how to start a conversation with someone I don’t know. Clearly, this is something that I’m working on. It’s not solo traveling without some kind of breakthrough! This thrift store bag was, in my eyes, the perfect in. I intro with the classic “hi, I saw your bag, can you give me a haul?” FLOP. The bag was empty minus one empty water bottle. She was using it as her laundry bag and waiting for her clothes to get done. Ooops. Slightly embarrassing.

However horrible that ended up, I did continue to talk to her a bit more. She’s in her 20s, from NYC, and works at a Montessori school. Eventually, though, her clothes were done and we parted ways. We had each other’s numbers but sometimes you just don’t see people again in hostels. HOWEVER! The next day I was walking down the stairs to find something to do, somewhere to go. And there she is. A knight in shining armor! Liana! Also walking down the stairs! We say hello, and she introduces me to the guy she just met in her room. Enter Dan. Being the awesome people they are, they invited me to wherever they were going. Obviously, I joined and we spent the day messing around. I couldn’t honestly tell you where we went, but we hung out and made plans for the following days. I think it was the same day that I found my new all-time favorite coffee shop: Fuckoffee. It was amazing. I could get work done, the music was ALWAYS good, and they had pumpkin lattes (in July!!). Love. I went there 4 more times that week. I won’t get too ahead of myself, though.

Dan had plans to go to Windsor Castle the next day, so he invited us and we (obviously) attended. Super interesting, super fun, and super exhausting. I basically spent the next couple of days with those two. Definitely some sad goodbyes when we all left. A few other things we got to squeeze in together: a trip to the Modern Tate art museum (well… almost a trip. We accidentally sat in the grass too long and it closed before we got in), a few bar crawls, and a quiz night. We didn’t win, but one of the questions was pertaining to my favorite band and I felt like a winner in my heart for being the only person in the room to have the answer. Another notable moment was a weird Turkish man who made me sooooo uncomfortable for so many reasons that I had to change rooms. Why can’t people just be normal? It’s okay, though. C’est la vie. Overall, London was a good time and now I have some cool connections in the Big Apple! And if anyone is interested, Liana has a really good some on streaming platforms (“Katie’s Ballad” by Liana Frasca).

Up next was Italy. My flight was to Palermo, Sicily. I got in, found our Airbnb, and met up with my childhood best friend (Emily) who was studying across Sicily in Siracusa. This part of my trip was planned well before anything else. Needless to say, I was very excited to get there and see some familiar faces. She showed us a little bit around Palermo for a night before she had to head back to Siracusa to complete the last week of her program. Andrea, her cousin, is who I’ll be with for the rest of this Italian journey (as well as Germany and Amsterdam to come). Palermo was fun, we had a fun little Airbnb with superb air conditioning. Nothing was super crazy. I got a really yummy cannolo made by nuns in an old catholic church that's been running for hundreds (maybe thousands?) of years. After some days in Palermo, we head out for Siracusa to see Emily in her element. Met some friends, had a good time, went to the beach, jumped from rocks into very clear water, and so on. After a night and two days there, we went to Catania for a night to catch our flight to Rome! Now get this. Because I’m me and the universe loves to test me in horrible ways, we get to the airport hours early. I’m a good planner (sometimes) and wanted to be able to crank out some work before hopping on the flight. Nope! The universe has other plans! The airport had actually burnt down the day prior and we stood in the heat for 5-ish hours waiting to enter a literal circus tent to check our bags. Lol. Only me, right?

Finally, we made it to Rome. I started checking into our Airbnb, and I am stoked. This place was so so so so so so so adorable. It had me actually choked up. The nicest host, the cutest interior, and the best location. I will be going back to it now that Rome is officially on my list of top cities ever. Naturally, we went out to eat that first night and got some delicious pasta and kicked off a great week. We went to a bar, got espresso martinis, went to another bar, and somehow got into the VIP section with the Tennessee Mens Basketball team (??), and then went to a club and had some more drinks. I lost track after that. Obviously, we went home when the club closed, but it was quite the walk. We went passed so many landmarks but were too tired to notice any of them. I mean the Trevi Fountain and Pantheon aren’t that big that we would walk right by and not spare a glance. Or so you would think!

The next morning we got up to see the big stuff: Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, Pantheon, etc. Lots of walking but altogether a good time. Spent a couple of days just messing around and exploring the city. We got food next to the river a couple of times and enjoyed the sights. Such friendly people in Rome, too. On one of our last days, we went to the Colosseum and Roman Forum. That was a trip if I’ve ever had one. Really interesting stuff, guys. But what happened after that is a story that needs to be told in person rather than through a blog post. It just has a better kick that way. But imagine this: we hear music from the Roman Forum, we see the stadium, we book tickets, we have a hilarious night out, and see a concert I would have otherwise never given a crap about. The concert actually made some pretty impressive impacts on the government’s willingness to host concerts at the historic Circus Maximus in the future. So yanno I maybe just casually saw the last ever concert in that ancient venue. Noooo biggie!

The next couple of days were pretty slow. We spent some time hanging out, had our last meal with Emily, and said our goodbyes. Andrea and I packed up and went to Berlin.

We went to an art show: Dark Matter in Berlin. Went out to eat a few times and saw the Berlin Wall. This has mostly been my time to relax before heading to Amsterdam so nothing too crazy. I spent a lot of time working in Berlin so that I would be able to spend more time exploring Amsterdam. I think in the future I’ll have to go back and really explore more of the sights. Andrea had some distant family in the city, so they were kind enough to want to meet her and drove us around to some of the local spots. Their hospitality was top-tier! And their house was on a lake so I took a long stroll and enjoyed the fresh air before our bus to the Netherlands.

At the time I had written this, our bus was about to leave for the Netherlands so that’s where I had left off. I’ll get this one out and update you on some more of my trip. Maybe multiple posts in one day? Probably.

Music from this week:

• Bug Like an Angel - Mitski

• Katie’s Ballad - Liana Frasca

• 23 - Wallice

• Pressure to Party - Julia Jacklin

Liv