Nicole's Adventures

I had dreamed about visiting Italy for a long time, and when Joel asked that if I did go and travel somewhere on my own, it be somewhere that he hadn't been for obvious reasons right? We want to travel to new places in the future together.  I had ten days and landed in Rome on Sept 30. I did the free walking tour in Rome, however could barely hear anything the guide was saying because the group was huge and there were a ton of tourists and people constantly harassing the group and selling things. I couch surfed while in Rome, however my host was quite busy and not really able to show me much or recommend things to me. Possibly a language barrier problem, or that he is just bored of telling people where to go weekend after weekend. He usually hosts almost every weekend. I found that I could understand a decent amount of things from Spanish and Portuguese combined. I visited the Colosseum and while it was very very impressive, I just felt disconnected to it i...

I was super blessed to have the opportunity to take five weeks and travel to Portugal and Italy in September and October. Though I didn't do a great job taking notes on my trip like I have in previous travels I will try my best to remember everything! Joel and I unfortunately had to fly on separate flights because he had come from a work trip in Sydney and flew direct with Emirates, the most expensive and direct way from OZ to Europe. Though I lucked out with finding round trip flights and stopovers that weren't bad at all. I flew  Melbourne to Singapore (8 hours plus 4 hour stopover) Singapore to Istanbul  (12 hours plus 4 hour stopover) Istanbul to Porto ( 5 hours) Singapore airlines was my first stretch of flights and they absolutely lived up to their name, and the airport in Singapore does not disappoint. Wifi strong enough to make skype calls, butterfly pavilions, sunflower garden, pools, lounge chairs, lounge beds, fish ponds, the list goes on and on. I spent mos...