Hiking the Beautiful High Tatras, Slovakia

High Tatras Lomnicky Stit from Valley TrainAfter a long day of traveling from Oswiecim, we arrived in Poprad, Slovakia for one night’s stay before heading to nearby mountains. Even though it was a weekday, we stumbled upon an outdoor market with vendors selling cold beer, succulent sausages, and hand crafted goods (plus a chance to be put inside a large balloon and float on top of a pool). 1_FullSizeRender1We tried some of the beer and sausages while enjoying the outdoor market in downtown Poprad. After doing a bit of souvenir shopping, we ate at a recommended Italian restaurant, La Primavera, for a surprisingly filling and cheap dinner.

Our hotel room was straight out of the fifty’s with wood paneling everywhere! Luckily, we were staying in Hotel Poprad only for one night because it was hot with no AC or even a fan, and spotty wifi. In the morning, we checked out and caught a train into the mountains. The High Tatras are a very small mountain range rising majestically over the surrounding plains. The entire range is about 80 kilometers long making it feel even more Continue reading

A Countryside Escape to Hastings, England

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Breakfast at Regency Cafe in London

Despite how tired I was after having a fun weekend in Glasgow, it was very hard to sleep in the uncomfortable seats on the overnight Megabus. Tiredly arriving in London, our first goal was to find coffee and breakfast. My brother in law, Todd, is our personal London guide because he has several extended visits under his belt. He had emailed us a list of pubs and a breakfast place we couldn’t miss. Being 7:30am, we headed to the breakfast place, Regency Cafe, which was just a few blocks from the Victoria Station. Walking in felt like a throwback to the 1960s. It was a cute little neighborhood place where the set breakfast needed to be ordered just right at the counter (thankfully Todd gave us a heads up). Everything was delicious. The large portions in the typical English breakfast was the perfect thing to recover from a rough night of sleeping and a weekend of drinking.

After a filling breakfast and wandering around a few blocks looking for a Continue reading

Completing the Big Five in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

Day 27

FullSizeRender42Our safari group said goodbye to Serengeti National Park and Godlove retraced our steps back to Ngorongoro Crater. We headed straight to camp which was a beautiful grassy area right on the crater rim. When we arrived, there was a dazzle of zebras grazing in the tall grasses on the edge of the camp! We saw several tourists approach them to take selfies – Sara and Erin couldn’t resist either. After putting our belongings in the pre-pitched tents, we arranged happy hour with the senior truck and our guides. While everybody reminisced about the last 48 hours of epic-ness, I snuck away to climb the tree we were sitting under hoping to find a better sunset view. Instead, I found spider webs and everyone wondering why I was climbing the tree. The short climb was actually the most exercise I’ve had in the last week!

Day 28

Waking up at the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater felt like being on a cloud – more precisely, in a cloud. There could have been lions Continue reading

Hunting Big Cats on the Serengeti, Tanzania

Day 26

After Erin and the senior truck left for their hot air ballooning adventure, the rest of us had tea and coffee before starting our pre sunrise game drive. Our camp, Nguchiro, was situated in the middle of Serengeti National Park without any fencing. Overnight, we were all warned about leaving our tents and told to avoid bathroom breaks during quiet times. The tour guides, drivers and chefs were usually up until midnight and get moving around 5am so we were told their noise should keep any animals away. It was the midnight to 5am we should worry about. Neither Will or I had the urge to get up in the middle of the night and we didn’t venture to the bathroom until 6am. During morning tea, we learned that there were buffalo about 50 meters from our path to the bathroom – good thing they were not interested in us! We also learned that some others in our safari group had animals rummaging around next to their tent during the night – now this is real camping! Continue reading