ToewsTravels – Page 23 – every country or bust!

vienna layover

st. stephen’s cathedral, vienna, austria

on our way to ethiopia ann and i had a day-long layover in vienna! we took different flights, and met up in the vienna airport before taking a train into the city. i had worked a 24 hour shift just before leaving so was a bit tired. we walked around the old city listening to a rick steves audio tour, which was great. the central st. stephen’s cathedral in particular is very impressive.

we then came across a manmade beach club on the banks of the danube, and relaxed there for a bit. great day in vienna!

dominican republic

haiti!

my hosts in port au prince – thank you / mesi!

my friend sandra from college and her husband, port au prince

very clean mennonite health clinic, port au prince

antigua, guatemala

el salvador!

super fresh coffee on the routa de las flores

how iceland almost killed me

and its not how you’d think! i had an eight hour layover in iceland on the last leg of getting back to the usa for the last time in a while. it was fitting too, as iceland was the first stop i made back in 2008 when i made my first international trip by myself! this time i decided to visit the blue lagoon, an outdoor, lava-strewn geothermally-heated pool close to the airport. it was so amazing i stayed immersed in its silica-laden hot waters for five straight hours!

and then all of a sudden muscles all over my body started cramping up. i had been drinking liters of water, but no salt, so i guess i had some hyponatremia going on. the cramping quickly became completely debilitating and i could barely ambulate out of the pool and back to the changing rooms. and i clearly had some heat exhaustion too, as when in the changing rooms my field of vision really closed in and i suddenly got super nauseous. the culmination was collapsing in the showers and some teenage icelandic janitorial staff had to revive me with cold water. i haven’t been that messed up in a while, if ever. finally managed to get some clothes on despite the continued cramping any time i moved, and very slowly made it outside to the bus stop. by this time though my bus had already left. luckily there was another one which got me to the airport five minutes before my flight started boarding. cramps continued throughout the flight until i was able to get some good ol american electrolytes in the system but: survived!

a day in oslo

the next stop was oslo, norway. i stayed in a hostel for two nights and wandered during the intervening day. very nice city. most interesting to me was the atrium of the city hall, where the presentation of nobel prizes occurs.

quick stop in luxembourg

after parting way with my family in venice, i had a few more stops before stopping. i had a day-long layover in brussels, belgium, during which i decided to take a train to luxembourg, a country to which i had not yet been. things always take longer than you anticipate so i ended up having only exactly one hour to walk around luxembourg’s old city before having to catch the return train, but it was better than nothing. quantity over quality i have occasionally been known to say.

san marino or bust!

one day while in venice, my dad and i drove the few hours south to the tiny country of san marino. it is the third smallest country in europe, and is up in some mountains completely surrounded by northeastern italy. there are some very picturesque castles perched on the mountain overlooking the countryside, and the roadtrip was fun. on the way back we stopped for pasta in bologna, a mecca for italian cuisine, and it was a great day!

daytrip to slovenia

while around venice, my family was kind enough to indulge my desire to visit some nearby countries. we rented a car and one day the whole family drove east from venice into nearby slovenia, to the seaside old town of piran. the slovenian coastline on the adriatric sea is just a couple dozen kilometers long, but it is truly beautiful. we wandered about the pedestrian-only old city that sits on a peninsula which juts out into the adriatic sea and it was really nice:)