Ahhh, London!

We've arrived in London! We haven't done much yet, but I just wanted to report that I LOVE SPEAKING ENGLISH!!!!!! When we arrived at the airport everyone spoke this mysterious language - I talked and people understood! I didn't even need to use hand gestures! I could even ask questions and people understood and responded accordingly. Currently, this is the best place on the planet :)
Pete is still sleeping, but when he wakes up and we get into tourist gear, I think we are going to do the Tower of London today and some shopping! Yeah! Or, as Leah would say, yyyyyyyrrrrrreeeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh!!!! (Can you tell I'm giddy?)
I know I'm why behind on email and correspondence in general, but it's been tough to email at internet cafes that cost a million dollars. In a week when we get back to Sofia I'll be an emailing queen.
I hope everyone is having a good day!

Heading for English speaking territory!

Hello all! Pete and I are back in Slovenija before we fly out tomorrow afternoon to London. I can't believe it, after a whole year overseas, we are going to finally be among a whole nation of English speakers!!!! Oh the joy!!!! I can barely stand it! Today is Pete and my first year anniversary of being abroad. Today we have officially been overseas for 365 days. In that time we have visited 14 countries, learned a few words of a different language, danced in a Bulgarian Christmas concert, and learned more than I ever thought possible. Wow, is all I can say. I miss home terribly, but I am so glad that we are doing this.
On another note, I'm currently about 100 pages away from finishing "1984." Did any of you read it in high school or there after? Somehow it escaped me until the age of 30, which is a shame. If you haven't read it, you should. I wonder if George Bush has read it? Probably not. It sure has given me a lot of food for thought.
Anyway, enough of my soap box. We love and miss you all. Grandma, I'm thinking about you ever second and I can't wait to give you a big hug in person. I love you so much!

Vienna

Hi all. Sorry for the long time, no post. We have been traveling like crazy and are currently in Vienna. We had a change of plan in Croatia - I ammend my earlier statements. I still definitely recommend a Croatian vacation, but, if traveling in summer, be ready for major crowds and make sure you have places to stay in advance. We obviously, did not :) So, we headed for Slovenija, which is now one of my favorite countries of all time. We went to a small town in the Alps with a beautiful lake called Lake Bled. We just relaxed, hiked around, rented a row boat and Pete rowed me around the lake (ver nice). Now we are in Vienna, where I have exactly 40 seconds to post this so I will do so now. I love you.

Kortula

Hello everyone! We are still in Croatia and will be for a while longer. Today is a bit rainy so it seemed like a good day to do some internet. We have just been relaxing in Korcula, which is wonderful. I did not realize how exhausted I was until we arrived here yesterday. I took a super long nap and then slept all night. Traveling really takes it out of you!
On my last email I forgot to say Happy Birthday to three very important people, so Sydney, Molly, and Anne - Happy Birthday!!! I hope you all had a fabulous day and that there is an even more fabulous year ahead for all of you. We love you and were thinking about you on the 9th!
One more ... Norm, it was so good to hear your voice on your birthday. We hope it was a great day, and we can't wait to give you a belated bithday hug in Rome in October!!! Have fun at the beach!!!! We love you!

Macedonia, Albania, Monenegro, and Croatia

Hello from Croatia! Pete and I arrived in Dubrovnik this afternoon and have been introduced to the reason Croatia is all the rage! Very cool here. It has a Prage-like feel to it, and, like Prague, has been discovered by tourists worldwide. Before this we were in Montenegro in a place called Kotor. Kotor has officially made it to our top ten list, as we liked it as much as Santorini and Vernazza. Before Kotor, we were in Albania (yes, you read that correctly), which was a beautiful drive in, but we were very ready to leave. Apparently, Albania hasn't caught on to the fact that it is Albania, and not some ritzy place in central Europe. We paid 40 Euro for a dive hotel that had a toilet seat that was coming out of the floor, only one towel, mold on the ceiling, and provided soap that had been used as was apparent by the hair that was in it. Sick! Anyway, at least we can say we've been to Albania. Before Albania we were at Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, which was a relaxing place to kick off the 2nd half of summer. If you are keeping track, you will see that we have been in four countries in a week. I'm exhausted an ready to stay put for a couple of days! We booked a kyack\snorkle tour for tomorrow morning, which I am looking forward to.
The picture here is one I downloaded off a website about Kotor. If any of you are planning a European vacation in the near future, I highly recommend both Montenegro and Croatia. Amazing. Oh ... I might also want to mention that I forgot to bring the camera. It's safe and sound in Sofia. When I realized that and told Pete, he said he needed to talk to my dad, as he has had years of experience with my forgetfulness and once told Pete, "Get used to it." after a similiar incident of forgetfulness. We have purchased a disposable and hopefully I will be able to burn the pictures to a disc and upload them when we get home. I swear sometimes I need a new brain.
Anyway, we love you all! More at the next internet stop!!

Athens and Meteora

Here are the last pictures from the first half of our summer vacation. We stopped for one night/day in Athens and did a whirl wind tour, which of course included the acropolis. From Athens we headed to Meteora, which is a small town in northern Greece where thousands of years ago they built monasteries on the top of huge rock formations. It was a very beautiful and very relaxing place. I highly recommended it as a not frequently traveled to spot in Greece.
We'll hopefully leave at 7:00pm tonight for the second half of our journey. We didn't buy tickets yesterday for the bus, so hopefully we'll be able to buy them today. We love you guys - I can't tell you how much we are missing all of you right now. Even in the midst of all this fabulous travel, faces and love from home sounds pretty nice. Only four and a half months 'till Christmas!!!

Santorini and a few other items

O.K., the verdict is in and the picture stays for now. Maybe we'll get another shot that I love during the next section of our summer adventure. Speaking of which, our resting days are coming to an end and tomorrow we head out again. We'll leave Sofia tomorrow evening and head to Lake Ohrid in Macedonia. We'll spend a couple of days there and then go to Albania, then Montenagro, then Bosnia, then Croatia, and then Slovenia. From Slovenia will fly to London where Pete will finally achieve a dream come true when he sees the Rolling Stones in concert on his 31st birthday. It should be quite a trip! We'll get back one day before school starts again and we will once again be back in the real world (sort of).
Today and tomorrow I will finish putting the pictures up from Greece. These pictures are from Santorini. I really think Santorini is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. We absolutely loved it there and hope to go back someday, hopefully on a family trip. We camped in Santorini, but lived the high life in every other way. Pete and I were basically by ourselves there and took advantage of the romance. We had a wonderful dinner at a fancy restaurant while the sun was setting. One day we took a tour on the boat you see in the picture. We went to the volcano and climbed it, then the boat stopped at some hot springs and we dove off the boat and swam in them, then stopped at a cute village on another island for lunch. The trip ended in Oia, where we watched the sunset. It's supposed to be one of the best places to watch a sunset on the planet, and it was ... minus the 8 billion people that were there watching it with us! :) The picture on my last post is of that sunset.
Anyway, I think this next part of our trip will be different, interesting, and hopefully less expensive! :) I'll do one more post with pictures tomorrow, then it will probably be back to only words for a while.