Europe

  File this one under “Stupid Shit Kids Do.”

I’ve always been a less-than-adventurous eater; I ate PB&J sandwiches or peanut butter & crackers every day for lunch from Kindergarten through 5th grade. (Not kidding. Not even a little bit.) As …

In America, it’s uncommon to hear of people taking really long vacations or trips lasting more than two weeks because most companies in the US don’t offer much paid time off or …

Six weeks is a lot of time for self-reflection and lesson learning. Here are 10 things we learned during out adventure abroad!  

In case you missed any of our blog posts during our awesome six week Eurotrip adventure, you can catch up with this handy list! 🙂

The bathrooms of the world are diverse and range from high-tech toilets with warming seats and built-in bidets to communal bathrooms and simple holes in the ground to squat over. Exploring the …

How do you sum up a city? How do you convey the sense of an entire place, made up of so many people and buildings and cultures? How do you explain how …

During our month in the Hague, we took a few side day trips to other Dutch cities: Groningen, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Netherlands is a small country. Slightly less than twice the …

Someone recently told us that they thought Bruges was beautiful but like a museum. We didn’t really know what they meant and had no preconceived notions about the town. (Well, not many, …

We arrived on Wednesday, Aug 10. It’s been a fun, but not over-taxing, four days. We’ve seen some and still have some of the big sites to see (up next: la Sagrada …

#tbt to that time I went to Europe with my dad, my brother and his girlfriend…

As we dove deep into planning our six week European adventure, we talked about all the places we were interested in visiting — for me, Paris is always at the top of …

In elementary school, I used to tell people that Schwartau was the shortened version of my real last name, the Ellis Island version given to my ancestors when they immigrated to America. …

August 20, 2005. I was 20 years old, had 6 years of French under my belt, and got to fly international first class (!!!) avec mon père to Paris. Two full semesters …

We had the opportunity to spend 8 wonderful days in this city. We’ve seen so much, met lots of friendly people, and have blisters on our feet from walking so much. I wish …

A lot of people don’t like Paris. Whether it’s bad experiences with rude French people or confusion on the metro or witnessing homeless guys peeing on the side of a building, plenty …

(To view any of the photo thumbnails larger, just click on them to load in a lightbox viewer.) Budapest is made up of two cities – the hilly, quieter Buda and the …

I’m sure there’s some writing advice out there that says not to give away the punchline in the title but alas. Rules were made to be broken, dammit! My brother and I …