Safety update and trip bloopers!

In regard to recent international news and events, along with the Global Travel warning put in place yesterday, we wanted to send out a quick blog post to let everyone know we are safe in Austria and keeping abreast of the daily warnings and travel alerts.  We are planning to spend Thanksgiving weekend with our good friend Kevin in Germany and are meeting up with friends Martin and Gary here in Vienna, both traveling in from the US.  We are among many other global travelers and are lucky in that we are very flexible in our itinerary and can make changes if needed.  That being said we may be changing our plans for Turkey next week, but we'll let everyone know where we land!

Alright, that aside, we are almost a full month into the trip, and as you would probably guess, traveling through 9 countries in that span of time doesn't come without some bumps in the road.  We've each had our moments (I know what everyone is thinking, what did Korey do now?), so enjoy some of our finest moments that we conveniently left out of other blog posts...(in no particular order)

Ines' New FaceBook Friend.  Ines happily skipped down the roads of Copenhagen, enjoying her newly purchased shoes and finally feeling like she fit in with the fashion of Europe.  All was good until she needed to go to another store (pants this time...), and realized that she no longer had her credit card.  Panic of course ensued, and we had to venture back across town to the shoe store where the shoes were purchased.  We walked in expecting the worst, but not only did they have her card, but they said they had FaceBook friended her (using her name on the card) and had the card waiting for us.  A big phew!  And once we got back to an area with wifi Ines had a brand new FaceBook friend. 

 

Could have been the start of a beautiful friendship...

Off the Beaten Track of Budapest. Never did we expect to find ourselves kicked off of a train, minutes after having left the station.  Here we are, struggling to identify our seats (we believed the people that were in them had made a seat mistake).  Upon finding the ticket official, we were yelled at in what we think now was Romanian, and we really do mean yelled at, before she got on her CB radio and brought the entire train to a screeching halt.  Upon stopping, the train officials finger pointed us to get off the train and as Korey was asking how we get to the right train, she pointed to the direction we had come from and yelled at us again (Korey thinks she was saying that she didn't care how we got back).  We then found our way back on the next train to the depot and with a few more difficulties and a small fight later, found our right train with our empty seats waiting for us.  Had those folks not been in their correct seats (our mistake!), we would be writing this post from Bucharest, Romania instead of Vienna, Austria!

Korey seemed to like the neighborhood

How NOT to Dry Clothing.  What happened to my pants!  They shrunk!  Along with Ines' entire washing load of clothing!  Ines is on the record to say from this point out on the trip, she is not gaining weight but instead somebody, who Ines will not name, decided to shorten the wash dry time by taking the clothes out early from the washing machine (dripping wet) and put them into the dryer on super high heat overnight thinking that it would dry faster that way (and it was 2am).  Everything shrank.  To totally make things worse, only Ines' clothes were in the washing load.  Ines thinks this is Korey's way of getting out of doing laundry for the rest of the trip.  Korey thinks Ines will use this excuse for the rest of the trip to buy new clothes.  

Had to blur out Korey's unmentionables for our younger viewers

Pepperoni(chini).  Order confusion at restaurants is bound to happen with all the different languages we've encountered, but we mention this one because of the desperate need for food at the time and the terribleness of the mistake.  Ines, on her decision day (which is how we make decisions, we rotate every other day), ordered us what she thought was a white pizza with 4 cheeses and an addition of pepperoni.  We had just spent 4 hours at the Opera in Vienna that night (Korey stayed awake), but had neglected to eat beforehand and could not find anything nearby that was open.  It was now midnight and we were both starving.  All we wanted was a pepperoni pizza.  What we got was a blue cheese pizza with super hot peppers littered all over it.  Neither of us ate much, opted for sleep instead.

You'd be outraged too if you just wanted some pepperoni

A Dip in the Blue Lagoon for Samsung.  The Blue Lagoon was amazing.  Comfortable, relaxing, and a true once in a lifetime experience.  However, if you ask Korey's Samsung phone, it would probably wait, disconnect, try to charge, not charge, turn off, then randomly turn on, then tell you a different story.  We clearly needed pictures of us IN the lagoon, so Korey proudly brought out his waterproof Samsung 5s while Ines' iPhone and it's protective waterproof case we bought was back tucked away in a backpack somewhere.  After a few truly fantastic photos, Ines tried to move towards some rocks to strike an even sexier pose than before, only to trip on the sand beneath the water and fall into the water with Korey's phone, her champagne, and (gasp!) her hair too!  Actually, the champagne survived.  Korey forgot about the missing piece near the charger of his phone, and we had to wait 3 anxious days before it decided it could charge again.  It's still a little touch and go, but waiting until Asia to replace it.

Don't be fooled by the fun face, just seconds away there was lots of apologizing

Ines' Country Confusion.  Stockholm belongs to Sweden and Oslo belongs to Norway and Copenhagen belongs to Denmark.  How hard can it be?  Apparently very.  

Hello from Stockholm, Switzerland?!  I mean, Bergen, Sweden?!  I mean, Copenhagen, Norway?!  Korey had to carefully watch and edit Ines' postcards...

Despite the picture, direction confusion also plays a role in the country confusion

Korey Blames the Camera (multiple times).  Picture perfect is not a phrase in Korey's vocabulary or arsenal.  For every good picture, there are many rejected.  Here are a few gems to brighten your day!  For the record, Korey blames the camera for not working properly and working against him, even though it works just fine for Ines.

Korey thought it was a great way to show the train cabin we were in, apparently there is a hobbit foot in the shot

Not even sure if it's the camera cord or Korey's hand

All the talk is about Ines' shoes.  Why not include some of Korey's?  Action shot

After 20 tries to get Ines in the air on this one she yelled at Korey and gave up.  This was the best of the 20.  Gotta be the camera's fault

Ines Blames the Planner.  We have had an amazingly easy time navigating the multiple countries we have been privileged to visit, thanks entirely to Korey.  Ines has taken a back seat to planning, and with the exception of decision day, does not do much of the daily or weekly travel planning.  That said, those of you that know Korey know that his travel motto is GO! GO! GO! and JUST ONE MORE!.....and has led to Ines' general lack of sleep, Ines' pulled groin from walking so fast on cobblestone streets that her little feet fall between, and a sore throat with a cold causing her to need a half day to recover.  Korey is taking note of this, as of today, and only planning one less activity and only asking for one more, once every day.

What to do?  Korey says "all of it"!

Ines is falling asleep and we haven't even eaten dinner.  This order was clearly to go

When left alone, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!  Just a Wanna, just a Wanna.  The video speaks for itself.  We were left alone to our own devices in yet another museum-castle-royal-home.  Never mind the pure silver lions protecting the king and queen's thrones, or the detailed tapestries lining the walls.  Its Ines' personal ballroom.