First blog post of 2019! ❤

How was your New Year's Eve celebration?? We went to our cousin's house just a few blocks away from ours, had our dinner, watched Bird Box, reminisced our Christmas and New Year in the US several years ago, watched my pamangkin play the piano, and by 10pm, our family rushed back to our own house to prepare for our Korean media noche!

I didn't bother to finish this na before my usual year-ender post. But it's nice to say that FINALLY! We are down to my last Eastern Europe trip travel blog!

In here we will explore the city of Krakow in Poland, our last stop for the backpacking adventures before we headed back to our relatives in Oslo for about 2 days, and then finally head back to Manila. Here's how those last few days in Europe went down. Oh how time really flies by when you're having fun!

Prague was easiest my favorite city in this Eastern Europe trip. I was kind of denying it pa at first coz friends who've been to this side of the continent will tell me "Talaga!?" or ask "How about Stockholm?" (Or Oslo, Austria, Berlin, or the other cool cities I've been to!!). I love them all equally, as each has a different, and very distinct charm--and I am not just saying this for the sake! But Prague took me by surprise with its old fairytale vibe.

Coming in close is the capital city of Hungary which is Budapest. Tired from traveling for consecutive days, no pauses unless we were on sleeping trains, Budapest was refreshing and exciting and brought back so much of my energy.

I had to pause my Euro blogs for months because of info and photos overload (lol). I had to live my life a bit again, go to new travels, and finally--after everything's settled--I am back again in those summer days in Austria.

We left Berlin from where we entered it. We took a 4-hour train going to the country of Czech in their city called Prague (aka Praha). Inside the train, Ate and I were in front of a couple seemingly nursing a hangover, their legs inconsiderably stretched up to our space. They also placed all their humongous backpacker bags on the floor in front of us instead of putting them on top along with the other passengers' bags so we have more space. I plugged my earphones and endured the ride.

We arrived in Prague at about past lunch time, and compared to our first two destinations, looking for our accommodation is a bit swifter thank God. I pulled my carryon through cobblestone streets, quaint medieval houses as backdrop. It was an overcast day (my kind of weather although it looks bad on photographs) that I was in such a good mood in no time!

People use the adjective COOL for Sweden, but I have no other better words to describe this city in Germany called Berlin.

Stickers are plastered all over their walls and street sign poles that my Ate had to ask our tour guide where she can buy some as souvenir (haha, they're free and used as advertisements by brands!!).

It is dirty, it is lively, and it has so much (his)story up their sleeves.

As most people say about life: The journey is the destination. 

Or a huge chunk of life, at least. Imagine just eyeing your great goal and then forgetting everything else happening at that moment. I now realize that this also applies when traveling. We often just see photos or videos of travellers once they reached that coveted Instagram-worthy tourist spot, but how often does one enjoy and write (or vlog) about how they slept in airports, or how they still made sure to do their nightly skincare in a small cubicle toilet of a sleeper train, or went claustrophobic seating on a tiny reclinable chair of a night bus? 

When I look back to these in-transit travel moments, I cannot imagine how I survived with just the bare minimum!

I miss going to an unfamiliar place. The past months I've been traveling to countries I've already been to, and although it's a different city or season, you can't take away the sense of fulfilment or should I say "adventure" when you go to a totally different continent, with a different language, currency, culture, and timezone!

So many things happened for the past weeks since I got back from Europe, that this dream trip that I've saved up for a long time now felt like a looong long time ago. It's so sad that memories and moments are fleeting, but then again, maybe this is also the reason why I became so masipag in blogging every bit of the remaining details that I can remember from my travels. I always quote the great writer Anais Nin on this: "We write to taste life twice".

Anyway, this blog post is about the things I brought and the outfits I came up with during our "backpacking" around 6 countries of Eastern Europe. As you can see, I had to put those punctuation marks in "backpacking" to pay respect to real backpackers haha--because technically, only my Ate (elder sister) suffered from carrying one HUGE backpack for this trip. She managed it well--The European Style! 👌 Meanwhile, I had to give my old back a break by separating my stuff into 2 semi-big bags -- one a carry-on and the other is a Cabin Zero backpack.

A lot can be said about Oslo, but to me first and foremost, Oslo is home to many of my Gonzales fam.

I've always wanted to go to Norway ever since I was a kid. I've heard it so many times from my father's side of the family, because two of his siblings are based there (one is even married to a Norwegian). My cousins will visit the country from time to time, bringing with them chunks of the best cheese I've ever tasted in my life, and blocks and blocks of chocolates!!! During Christmas time, they will also send postcards with snowy houses and their updated family pictures with the greeting "God Jul!". 

So before the funny Norwegia issue in Manila, or the beautiful Northern Lights in everyone's bucket lists, those are my first impressions of Norway. 

As they say, your trip starts not when you reach your destination, but the moment you boarded the plane. This is the start of our journey.