Home Sweet Arizona

Hola friends and family!

I know it has been way to long since I have posted. I want to thank my mom for keeping you guys somewhat updated. I apologize for not doing it myself but as she said I didn't have access to a computer while I was traveling in Scotland and Ireland and then I just didn't have time when my family came to travel with me. So now that I have been home for almost a week I actually have time! Woohoo! Finally, right?

So here is what has been going on.....

Since I have last posted I have packed up my life in Spain and took off to Paris via airplane. (I was originally going to do a train but surprisingly a flight was cheaper and thankfully faster.) I spent a few days in Paris (more details about each event to come in future blogs). From Paris I flew Ryanair to Edinburgh, Scotland. Spent three nights there, headed to Dublin and spent another three nights there. That whole time I was by myself traveling, which was a very different experience for me. I have never really travelled for an extended time by myself and it turns out I actually like it. There are definitely positives and negatives to traveling with people and traveling by yourself. Overall I think I enjoy being with people more. So from Dublin I took a train up to Belfast where I stayed with my Dad's side of the family. I thoroughly enjoyed staying with them and getting to know a little bit more about that side of my family. I continued on after three days there and headed back to Scotland, but this time to see family in Glasgow. That was my mom's side of the family. I also really enjoyed getting to see them and spending more time in Scotland.

After my travels alone I headed back to Paris and met my parents, Heather, and Hannah!!!! I was so excited to finally get to see them. Straight away we headed off to Normandy, France then to Brugge, Belgium, then Amsterdam, Netherlands and finally Paris again. The entire trip was tons of fun and it was an excellent ending to my five month European excursion.

On our way home we flew from Paris to Philadelphia and philly to AZ. Of course though we did the true Warren thing and tried to get bumped on both legs of the trip, but we only got bumped going from Philly to Phoenix. Although it postponed me getting home it was only by a few hours and it was worth it cause we each got $425 in flight vouchers with US Airways and they can be used for international flights too!!! Awesome isn't it. I definitely advise anyone to volunteer to get bumped any time they fly. You can miss a few hours of your vacation to gain another free vacation.

Anyways it has been so nice to be home. I haven't really stopped going though. I have made up for lost time with all of my friends and I even made a short trip up to our cabin. This has definitely been a great start to my summer vacation, I can't wait for the rest of it. It won't be able to be all fun though because I have to start working again and saving money and paying my parents back for all that I spent in Europe.

Next big thing of my list for traveling is ROCHESTER!!!! I booked up with one of my free Airtran tickets for July 9th -16th. It will be weird not going for the 4th of July cause it seems like I am there every year for the 4th. Oh well looks like I will have to make some fun plans with my friends!

Don't worry I am going to continue blogging about my spring break, my last few weeks in Spain, and my travels in May, and my summer as it progresses. Hope you will all continue reading.

Emily Exploring Britain

Well, Emily has been to Dublin, made her way to Belfast to see the Warren side of the family and is now in Glasgow, Scotland visiting the Clark side of the family. We haven't had a whole lot of communication from Emily but we know she's been having a great time.

Dublin found her in another hostel, which she's been pretty lucky with as far as clean and safe. This was her last time for hostels in the U.K. As always she did a free walking tour of Dublin first and then she did a bus tour of some kind (don't have too many specifics). Not sure if she did the Guiness tour or not.

After being in Dublin for a couple of days it was time to head to Belfast on the train. Meeting the Garlands (Grandma Warren's first cousin) at the train station they dropped her off at City Hall to look around. She made her way back to their house for dinner in the evening. She met 2nd cousins she hadn't seen in a very long time, which was fun getting reacquainted with them. On Thursday she set off on the bus again to head to Armagh where Grandpa Garland grew up and where there were more cousins to meet. She spent the day drinking coffee and tea, which is truly served every couple of hours there. Everyone stops to have tea and biscuits!! Emily has certainly learned a lot about the Irish side of the family in just a few days. I'm sure we'll hear lots of stories once she gets home.

Friday was time to head to Glasgow. Sid and Jean dropped her off at the airport and fortunately she was not delayed by any volcanic ash eruptions. We haven't heard from her except a call telling us she made it safe and sound. This last segment of her trip will be until the 29th when she flies back to Paris to meet us!!! Can't wait to see her and I know she's anxious to see us.

More to come, but hopefully it's Emily writing and not me.

Have a great weekend everyone, Audrey

Where in the World is Emily?

Oops!!! Audrey here, I've taken over Emily's blog temporarily. She will not have her computer with her for the next three weeks.

Emily forgot to tell you all that she has left Alicante and won't be able to update her blog for a couple of weeks (unless I convey some of her comings and goings). She left Alicante last Friday and flew to Paris to leave her luggage with a friend so she could lighten her load and travel with only her backpack. After being in Paris for 3 days off she flew to Edinburgh, where she is currently, having the time of her life I might add.

She will stay in Edinburgh until Thursday and off she flies to Dublin. She has fallen in love with Scotland (what's not to love, but I'm a little prejudiced). She had "the best" dinner the first night in Edinburgh, she went to a pub and had Steak Pie. One of my favorites actually, but maybe not as good as my mother makes.

Not sure how long she'll be in Dublin until she heads to Belfast to visit the Irish side of the family. On the 21st she'll then head off again across the Irish Sea to Glasgow to visit the Clark side of the family. Wow are you tired yet!!! Emily will stay in Glasgow until the 29th when she will then fly back to Paris to meet Mom, Dad, Heather, and Hannah who are flying in on the 30th.

Well do we all agree this last 5 months are most definitely a trip to remember for Emily?

Check back for some more updates and commentary in the next week or so. Emily is trying to do Facebook updates as she is able and a picture or two.

Day 6: Rome

Oh boy this is going to be a long post. I realized as I was uploading pictures that we did SO much stuff this day. I mean it a TON of stuff. So get yourselves ready for lots of pictures. And I apologize for this post taking so long. For some reason blogspot wasn't letting me upload pictures and I couldn't just do a post with out all of the pictures. It just wouldn't have been right.

I totally forgot to mention a few things when I told you about our hostel in Rome. When we got there the people had our reservation completely screwed up. They told us that each person owed way more than what we had written down and we figured out it was because they only had it written down that our reservation was for 6 not 8. At first I was nervous that I didn't make the reservation for the right number of people, but I thought about it and I knew for a fact that I did it for eight people. So we had to go through and find the confirmation email and such and they realized they had written down the wrong number of people. Those workers were just a little stupid and kind of weird. As we were trying to figure everything out two of them were all over each other, right in front of us! It was very strange and slightly uncomfortable. (Although it isn't too shocking for Europe, no one cares about PDA). So anyways because they thought we only had 6 two of us had to be put into a different room and had to move around every night. Sarah and I ended up being the ones to move around. It wasn't bad, but it was slightly annoying when it was their fault not ours. The first night it was really random, there was another kid from ASU in the room with us. What are the chances of that?! It seriously surprises me sometimes how small the world can be. Then the next day we found out that one of the workers at the hostel went to ASU too! Shocking isn't it?! I guess it helps that ASU is such a big school, but still...

Our first full day in Rome was completely full of fun stuff. We got up early and had breakfast and got ready. The breakfast at the hostel was pretty nice. It costs 2 euro for cereal, toast, hard boiled eggs, coffee, juice, milk, and cookies. Pretty good amount of stuff for just 2 euro. The only thing that stunk was that we had to do our own dishes. Isn't that weird?

We wanted to get going early so that we could get to the Roman Forum so we could get tickets before there were huge lines and crowds of people. It was awesome that we did that cause the line literally took like 5 minutes and when we were leaving the line looked like it would have taken about an hour to get through. Also the nice thing about our tickets was that it was for the Roman Forum and the Colosseum! Two birds, one short line :) Another benefit to getting there really early was that there weren't that many people so you could actually walk not having to weave through people. By the time we left there were a lot of people. We also purchased the audio guide for the Roman Forum and it was pretty good. The guy on the audio guide wasn't all that interesting but I did learn some cool facts. I honestly just like looking around and taking pictures though.
The girls listening to the audio guide. Britta and Sarah didn't like it, they thought they guy's voice was boring.



Look at how lucky we got again with the blue skies!!! Seriously sold blue sky.


There were so many ruins it was so cool. Just to think that we were walking where people lived and worked hundreds of years ago!




We were running out of time before we had to meet up with Michelle so we headed over to the Palatino to get a little looksy. Haha along the way we passed by this sign and I told Britta to pose and she did this awesome pose.
When we made it up to the top of the hill we found the beautiful, open, green area. These trees were so cool...they stood there solitarily on the little green mounds against the solid blue sky. Gorgeous.


There were also trees with these brilliant pink flowers. Did I ever tell you guys that I love nature? Because I do, I love the beauty of nature. It is so complex and intricate yet it is just a part of everyday life.

After the Roman Forum we went to meet up with Michelle and then to meet up for a free tour that we planned on doing with some people from our hostel in Florence. Unfortunately we thought we were supposed to meet at the Colosseum when indeed the tour ended at the Colosseum, so we ended up not going since we were going to be late for it. Instead we headed over to the Trevi fountain to see it in the daylight and take some pictures.
The five of us in front of the Trevi Fountain!!!! It is so sad cause all four of our sunglasses are now broken :( Alex was the smart one and didn't bring her sunglasses with her on the trip because she didn't want them to break. If only I had that idea cause I was so sad when mine broke. They were my favorite pair of sunglasses!
The next ten pictures are of each of us normal in front of the fountain and then a picture of us throwing in a coin. It is kind of funny to look at how different all of our throwing pictures are. I honestly don't know how all the other girls looked cute doing it. I went last and was thinking okay throw it gracefully and cute, but heck no it was way too sunny. I could barely see I had to squint my eyes cause the sun was right in my eyes. Haha I don't know how they did it, but oh well mine is funny.

Aww, Michelle had sunglasses she cheated. I just realized that. So not fair.


Then after all that hard work working out or throwing arms we had to treat ourselves to some more gelato! Delicious. And it was a nice way to relax and rest our feet.


When we were at the gelato place Kat came and met up with us and then Mandy joined us too. Mandy just happened to be in Rome at the same time as us with her grandfather. It actually worked out nicely for her because her grandfather ended up getting sick so he couldn't really go out with her so she was able to join up with us and go around for a little bit.

After we met up with them at the gelato place we headed over to the Pantheon.


That ceiling looked so cool! I learned while I was there that the whole in the ceiling is supposed to be God's eye and it is open so it allows in sunlight and even rain.
Oh my goodness! Alex is holding God's eye!!! Haha I am such a loser. I was trying to do this with my hand but we decided that Alex has prettier hand than me so we used her fingers.
We took the time to relax here too cause we were all tired of walking. We had already done a lot of that this day so we deserved another rest period. We also thought we were waiting on Sarah to look around more, but we eventually realized that she probably just lost us. Shocker :)
I love this candid picture. Everyone doing their own thing. We eventually got up and started to look for Sarah and ended up finding her outside waiting for us to come out. It was so cute cause when we found her she was like I made sure not to move from this spot cause I could see the door and I didn't want to miss you guys coming out. Oh by the way she didn't have her cell phone with her either so if we ever lost her on this trip it would have been hard to find her.
After the Pantheon we decided to go to the Colosseum since Kat, Alex, Britta, Sarah, and I still had our tickets for it and along the way we stopped in front of this building to take a few family pictures :) I honestly have no idea what this building is. The whole time we were thinking it was the Spanish steps and we kept being like no it isn't, but what is it. I think it may be some political building. Either way we took pictures in front of it cause it seemed old and important.

This is our wonderful family. All trying to act our parts. HAHAHA. Oh my, my friends crack me up. Also since Kat joined us we had to figure out what part she played in our family, but first we had to see how she interacted with us and we really had to take the time to figure out a good spot for her. We finally decided she is the crazy aunt. Let me explain. We had to take into consideration that she was only with us for a short period of time so she couldn't be an immediate family member cause it wouldn't make sense for her to come and go. Then we took into consideration her personality and it just clicked that she is the crazy aunt on Alex's (the husband's) side. One because they are both tall and two cause they both had blonde curly-ish (Alex's is fake) hair :).

SUCH LOSERS!!!

With our brief picture pause we continued on to the Colosseum. Alex, Kat, and I got the audio tour again, but Britta and Sarah chose against it. I am happy I got it cause it kind of helped me picture more how it was supposed to look before all the looting and deconstruction of it.
It was crazy being in there. SO COOL and it is so old it is such a unique feeling to be in a place like this. I mean can you imagine being there when it was active with fights and gladiators!!!!





It is hard to picture what it used to look like. First you have to understand that the fighting ring is supposed to be fully covered on top of all the maze looking stuff on the ground. Then yo have to picture there being bleachers all the way around the place on top of the archways. It would have been amazing to see it then, but seeing it now it pretty awesome too.
As soon as we walked in there we lost Sarah, but it didn't really matter besides the fact that we didn't get any pictures with here. She had to leave a little early anyways to go and meet Michelle outside so the two of them could go over to the Vatican City to pick up our tickets for the Papel general audience.
When we were done with the Colosseum we went outside to find Michelle still sitting there and immediately 'uh oh' went through my head. She had thought that she was supposed to meet Sarah right outside of the exit, but she was really supposed to meet her at the arch next to the colosseum. So we really had no idea where Sarah was, we just hoped that she got to the Vatican city safely. The worst part was we had no way of knowing whether she was okay or not cause she didn't have her stinkin' phone!!!!

We again took some time to relax after we got out of the Colosseum. We sat on these steps for a while and I took the time to take some pictures on my iPhone and do some cool editing on them.
I really liked doing the whole sunglasses thing...I think it looks pretty darn cool.
After our little relaxation time we headed back to this unnamed building to walk up the steps but they were closed. Instead we walked around this to another set of random steps to walk up.

Haha half way up the stairs Michelle got tired and decided to lay down on the railing. Alex obviously found it quite hilarious.


As we were walking we found this cool little water fountain. That was a really cool thing about Rome, they had water spouts all around the city to drink from or refill our water bottles in.

The Colosseum at night! Beautifully lit up!
That night we went back to the hostel and met the boys then headed out to meet Alex's friend who is studying abroad in Rome. She took us to a really good Italian place for dinner. This whole time Sarah still hadn't come back and we were all really worried about her. We felt really bad that she was off by herself but really happy when we got back to the hostel and she there and safe!