Due to the lack of internet access, it’s been awhile since my last update. This may be a long one , so bare with me…

So the last month or so has been filled with many ups and downs that I don’t even know where to begin… Let’s just say that traveling takes a lot out of you! While traveling around, I have come to the conclusion that I may be a little on the high maintenance side. After dealing with trains, buses and ferries; not getting to places on time (I have ‘being late anxiety’, which may be a result of college athletics) I’m no longer a fan of public transportation. It stresses me out!!!

Alright, I said my piece, and now on to the good stuff… After leaving Vienna we headed to Cesky Krumlov, one of the world’s best preserved medieval cities. It’s a small town about three hours southwest of Prague, and it was absolutely amazing!! We stayed at a place called Hostel 99 with good food and good people. My friend  Cambria and I had this little loft to ourselves…

The first day we arrived in Cesky Krumlov, we hiked up to the castle, which is the second largest castle in the Czech Republic. From there we climbed to the top of the bell tower that had the most breathtaking view I’ve seen in recent history!!!

The Vltava River flows right through the center of town. On day two, about twenty of us from our hostel went floating down the river in rafts. It was kind of like being in the lazy river at Raging Water, but much better scenery. My raft dubbed itself the six-pack!!! It was Cambria, Casey and I, along with our two new friends from Texas, Katie and Kyle, and Peter from South Africa. With paddles in tow, we set off for what might have been the best day of the trip.

Along the way, our whole group would stop off at different camp sites with little hut-like snack shacks. While at our pit stops we would all hangout, play games and some even went for slip’n’slides in the mud…

After two days of nonstop fun, the six-pack continued its way to Prague! Our good luck with public transportation continued… Due to some delays on the tracks, four trains, three buses and two trams later we finally arrived at our hostel in Prague!! Since it was already getting late by the time we arrived and checked in, we decided to freshen up and all meet for a nice dinner, a traditional Czech meal of chicken (like most places in Europe they were big fans of pork) and dumplings. Dumplings are the Czech traditional side dish made from wheat or potato flour, boiled in water like a roll and then sliced and served hot. It was delicious!! Once we were done eating, we headed to one of the largest dance clubs in Europe, Karlovy Lazne. Clubbing is not one of my favorite things, but I do enjoy a night of dancing here and there. This club had five different levels, where each floor has its own style. My favorite floor was the one with the multi-colored light up stage that played oldies…

On our second day in Prague, we took a free walking tour through the city where we saw the Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, Bertramka Villa/W. A. Mozart Museum, Old Town Square with the Astronomical Clock, etc. Later that night we ended up going on a pub-crawl, where we ended up with a bunch of Americans… It seemed when meeting people, once after getting each other’s names, the next question is “Where are you from?” So I’m mingling with a few people from New York, and they inform me that another guy in their group named Greg is from San Diego State. They call Greg over, and come to find out he is my former teammate’s brother!!! It really is a small world!!!

I also came across the Padres playing on TV in one of the local pubs…

On our last day in Prague, 4th of July, we took the train up to the Sedlec Ossuary, which is a small Roman Catholic chapel. It’s located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora. The ossuary contains approximately 40,000-70,000 human skeletons which have been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. I found the church to be a little disturbing…

We got back to the city just in time for the fireworks show, or the show I was sure we were going to see from the US embassy… I heard a rumor that the US embassies set off fireworks around the world on the 4th, so we camped out for a picnic across the river in front of the embassy because I was fixated on the idea that they were going to do a fireworks show. Needless to say, I was left very disappointed when there was no show because I love fireworks!

From Prague we took a night train to Budapest, and the train was packed so we decided to upgrade to a sleeper cart. The city is separated by a river with Buda being on one side and Pest being on the other; a fun little fact I did not know until we got there. I think our hostel was on the Pest side, but I can’t remember… On day one, since we were exhausted from traveling, we decided to spend a relaxing day at the Turkish Baths!! Budapest really gained its reputation as a city of spas in the 1920’s. There were two outdoor swimming pools, fun pool, five indoor thermal pools with temperatures ranging from 72-104°F. The indoor thermal pools were filled with water containing nitrates, calcium-magnesium-hydrogen-carbonates and sulphate-chlorides, as well as fluoride ions in significant quantities. After taking a dip in each different pool, we went inside for Thai massage… It was a nice treat, and another highlight of the trip!!!

The following day we hiked up to the top of Castle Hill, where we got an unbelievable view of the city!!! We were also reminded of how really small the world  is… Casey was looking around taking pictures when she runs into a boy she went to high school with! What are the odds?

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After Budapest, we wanted more sun and more relaxation, so we headed southwest to Dubrovnik, Croatia… But of course our traveling around by public transportation could just not be easy!!! We knew our rail passes ended in Hungry, but we knew we could also just take a train from a border city to Zagreb. Since almost every country we visited had a different currency we tried to use up all of our Hungarian forints… Not the best idea! What we didn’t know was that the small border town of Gyékényes was in the middle of nowhere!!!

Once we arrived we needed to get our tickets to Zagreb. Our first problem was that the women working the ticket counter didn’t speak a word of English… Second, they didn’t accept cards… And third, we used all of Hungarian currency!!! After running back and forth trying to communicate, not getting anywhere I found someone who was able to speak a little bit of English. He was able to help me communicate with the women at the ticket counter, and we were able to pay in Euros…

Finally, after a few stressful hours, we were on our way to Croatia!! From Zagreb we took an eleven hour bus ride down to Dubrovnik. Since we thought taking a night bus was a great idea, we decided to sleep as soon as we arrived… After catching up on some much needed ZZZs, we headed into town to check things out. We walked down to the Old Town and ended up touring the ancient city walls, which gave us an amazing view of the Adriatic Sea. The rest of our time in Dubrovnik consisted of visiting the beach, gelato, enjoying the scenery and the nightlife. On day two Casey and I bought floaties for the water… Best investment yet!!!

From Dubrovnik, we took a ferry to Bari, Italy to eventually get on another train to head up to Milan so we could fly back to Holland. Once again we decided to take an overnight train that left us with hours to kill in Bari… We decided to go shopping and get pedicures!!! After 48hrs of traveling and little sleep we finally came full circle ending up back in Holland!!!

After lots of exhausting traveling, all in all I had a blast!!! Up next… Working a camp!!!

Can anyone tell me how Italians are not fat? With the past few days being filled with pasta, pizza and gelato, I would guess I have put on at least 10lbs!!! I mean we tried really hard to eat healthy, but it was just not in the cards for us… I’m really looking forward to a home cooked meal in the not-to-distant future! The Italians and Austrians are not that big on chicken; it’s all bruciato and schnitzel!!

After leaving from Amsterdam at 11am last Sunday, taking a train to the airport in Düsseldorf, Germany, we finally arrived in Venice around 10pm. Once my friend Cambria (who is also playing in Holland for the summer, but on a different team) and I arrived, we were able to meet up with my Mom and Casey. It was very convenient that my Mom was able to trade her trip for Venice so we had a nice hotel to sleep in our first night. Due to some rules about how many people you‘re allowed in your room, we quickly busted out our camouflage to sneak into the hotel and the four of us girls had a fun little sleepover.

The following day we took the shuttle with the flight crew back to the airport to pick up Justine, who was flying in from Paris!! From there we finally headed to the island… I never realized Venice is an island with boats being the main way of transportation in and out of the canals until we started planning this portion of our trip. I didn’t see one car on the entire island. With that being said, there isn’t that much to see! Our time in Venice was a little long. I would recommend 2-3 days at the most.

On Tuesday, we took the boats over to the islands of Murano and Burano. Murano is where they make the world famous Murano Glass, and we were able to go into the factory for a glass blowing demonstration. It ONLY takes about 15-20 years of apprenticeship to become a glass blower in Murano!!! While we were there, they were busy making a chandelier. I really want one of these chandeliers for later in life when I hopefully have my own home; with the currency exchange and shipping it would probably cost about the same as an Escalade! After our demonstration we had to go into the glass shop, where we all spent something on some souvenirs. Go figure, I bought myself a really neat looking glass ring!!!

After Murano, we got back on the boat and headed to Burano. Burano is just another cute little island where all the houses are painted different colors (we’re talking hot pinks, yellows, oranges, blues, etc.)…

Once back on the island of Venice, we went shopping for our wannabe designer purses!! This always reminds me of downtown LA, where you can haggle on the streets for a better price and we did!!! The guys selling the purses would always ask for some crazy amount ranging from €80 to €120 and we were able to talk them down to about €20. If you showed any interest in their purses at all they would follow you and become quite rude if you didn’t end up making a purchase!!!

When traveling, I’ve come to expect the unexpected. While shopping along the streets in Venice, we ran into my friend Adam from high school!!! It wasn’t completely random because thanks to facebook we had talked and both knew we would be there around the same time. He tried calling me earlier in the day, but I guess the calls weren’t going through and who would have thought we would have spotted each other in the middle of the streets. He and his friend Matt joined us girls for dinner the next few nights.

The weather in Venice was really hit or miss with rain in the forecast. One would think that being an island there would be lots of beaches, but that was not the case. The only beach was on the island of Lido, so on Thursday we got back on the boat an headed to the sand. The water was clear and the beaches were filled with lounge chairs, umbrellas and little huts that reminded me of the changing rooms you see in movies from the 50s.

Despite having a good time in Venice, Rome still gets my number one vote on favorite city so far.

Justine flew back home early Friday morning and Casey, Cambria and I continued on to Vienna, but not without a few speed bumps along the way… From Venice we had to take a double-decker bus to Villach, which is a border city in Austria because that was where our rail passes started. We safely made it to the train station, asked the man in the ticket office about our train and if we needed a reservation or to get our ticket stamped… He said, “No, they will stamp it on the train,” so we proceed to board our train.

After about an hour into our train ride to Vienna, we think we are smooth sailing… The conductor comes around to check our tickets, he informs us they are wrong and needed to be stamped back in Villach! He tells us we either need to buy tickets or get off at the next stop to get our passes stamped. We decided we’ll get off because to buy a ticket when we already had our passed would be silly.

Go figure the stop we get off at to get our passes stamped is a ghost town with no ticket office, and the two people we found don’t speak any English… At this point in time, we are thinking we are in big trouble, and don‘t worry as we are sitting there planning our next move we hear thunder, followed by lighting and then a steady down pour of rain!!! We come to the conclusion to get back on the next train and we’ll play dumb if the same thing happens… As the conductor comes around, the three of us are trying to think positive thoughts, which end up working because this conductor says our passes were fine and lets us continue on our merry way.

Eleven hours later we arrived in Vienna!!!! We bought our metro passes and headed to our hostel. I have yet to see the movie Hostel, but from what I’ve heard, I was a little apprehensive about this whole situation. Keep your fingers crossed, but so far so good… Our hostel is about a block away from the metro and H&M is around the corner!!!

With the three of us not knowing that much about Vienna, we decided to hit up the recommended sights to see from Casey’s “Let’s Go Europe” book… We went to the Hofburg Palace (medieval castle), Hoher Market, Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral which from the outside reminded me of the Sangrada de Familia in Barcelona), and the Prater (a giant Ferris wheel). I was a little disappointed when we walked over the Hoher Market, which was once an execution site and home to the Roman encampment, Vindobona. Supposedly Roman ruins lie beneath the streets, but I left with the feeling of “that was it!”

This weekend there is a huge music festival going on in another part of the city. We heard it was the largest free music festival in Europe with about 14 stages… We planned to check it out later this evening, but the rain has seemed to follow us, so we’re still contemplating our options.

Tomorrow we are heading off to Cesky Krumlov (supposedly parts of Hostel were filmed here) on the way to Prague. The three of us are very excited because we heard and read that they have a nearby river where you rent inner tubes and just float down to the bottom; I guess like the lazy river at Raging Waters!!!

We got our train passes stamped just so we don’t end up in the middle of no where again! Casey says hi, and until next time… Guten Abend (that‘s the extent of my German)!!!

GO USA

In the Netherlands, the bike is a major means of transportation. I think people here learn to bike before they can walk. People just weave in and out of streets, around cars and passing by pedestrians at ease, but don’t be fooled!!! In the US, we have an expression that I’m sure you’ve all heard… It’s just like riding a bike, well its not!!! I’m not gonna lie, biking is not one of my better talents, but I did enjoy taking my pink beach cruiser out around mission bay for a little joy ride…

While participating in my own Tour de France around town, I crashed!!! I was riding along when a bus pulled up on my left only about two feet away from me. If I stuck my hand out, I would have been touching the bus. Apparently, I spook easily because as I saw the bus out of the corner of my eye, I swerved and ran into a pole, flipped over, landed on my back with the bike falling on top of me!!! I’m sure it was a site to see because everyone stopped to stare… I laughed it off and luckily survived with some minor bumps and bruises!!!

On a lighter note, I was quite the tourist this week!!! On Wednesday, my roommate, a teammate and I headed back to Den Haag to check Madurodam. Madurodam is a miniature city, that has models of Dutch buildings and landmarks scaled down to 1:25 of their actual size. I felt like a giant, or King Kong!

On Friday, the Aussies (Chris and Alice) and I took the train to Amsterdam. It was a long day of walking around, but I had three must sees on my agenda: Anne Frank House, Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. We started with the Anne Frank House, which is a museum dedicated to the Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, who hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the building. I can’t believe they lived in such a tiny space for about two years until they were betrayed and sent to concentration camps!!! Throughout the museum they had quotes from Anne’s diary posted all over the walls.

From there we headed toe Rijksmuseum, which is the Dutch national museum. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts and historty. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian Art. My personal favorite was the pirate ship replica. To our disappointment, a large portion of the museum was not open because of construction!

After having lunch at the best sandwich stop in Amsterdam, I got in touch with my artistic side at the Van Gogh Museum! It was quite the educational experience as I was unaware of his tragic death (I’ll refrain from the details)… Some of his artwork was quite pleasant to look at, while others were just depressing.

All in all, I enjoyed each museum minus the one that wasn’t on my list of must sees. Chris and Alice wanted to go through the sex museum! It was only 3€, and I figured going in would be better than sitting outside by myself… Let’s just say I should have waited outside!

Last, but not least, who goes to Amsterdam without seeing what the city is known for… The Red Light District!!! I was not that impressed, but that’s not my scene!!!

On Saturday, our team had its last set of home games before the summer break. I’m hesitant to share the results because we dropped two again. Maybe this break will be good for us, I know I’m taking full advantage of it… I got to Venice on Sunday, and will be here until Friday morning then taking a ferry to the Croatian coast. From there, the plan is to travel by train to Budapest, Prague and Vienna!!!

The internet access is limited (the reason for the lack of pictures), but I will try to get on and keep you all updated as much as possible!!!

Last Sunday night, my roommate Chris and I went out in town for Den Bosch Zingt, which was just an annual music festival in town where everyone sings along to popular songs.  There was a stage set up with everyone crowded around wearing orange hats (orange is the national color).  It reminded me of the concerts in the park.

They even had some American classics such as “You Can’t Hurry Love” by Phil Collins, “All You Need is Love” by The Beattles, “I Will Survive” by Hermes House Band and a personal favorite the Grease megamix!!

So I finally got a new computer!!!!  I feel really high tech with all the new gizmos and gadgets that are built in (i.e. web cam and microphone, so I don’t have to wear my super cool headset anymore).  The parentals came through in the clutch!!  On Wednesday, I took the train all by myself to meet up with my mom in Den Haag (also where the computer swap took place).  We had a really fun day!  We took the tram around town being the ultimate tourists.  First stop of the day… The beach!!!

After hanging out at the beach with the no sun and trying to find shelter from the rain, we decided to head back into town…  When we arrived there was an outdoor market open, and since the Dutch are known for their cheese my mom got really excited when they had this special kind with cumin in it.  She also got really excited by the cute paper they used to wrap up their cheese…

From the market, we headed to the the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, the museum where they had the painting of the Girl with a Pearl Earring on display, but by the time we got there it was closed!    Disappointed, then headed to the Binnenhof, which when translated means the “inner court.”  Binnenhof and the Knights’ Hall, the political center of the Netherlands, are where the queen holds her annual speech at Prinsjesdag.  Basically, she just sets out the main features of government policy for the coming parliamentary session.

With all the weather issues and missing the museum, what else could go wrong?  We decided to head over to the Peace Palace!  The Peace Palace is often called the seat of international law because it houses the International Court of Justice.  The Palace is filled with many gifts from the different nations who attended the Second Hague Conference as a sign of their support, and it also features a number of statues and portraits of prominent peace campaigners from around the world such as Andrew Carnegie, Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi!  As our luck would have it, the Palace was closed for renovations!!!

With all the sight seeing we eventually became starved, and what better place to go than to an all you can eat rib joint…  This place was amazing!!!  You ordered full racks of ribs with up to their flavor options (pepper, cranberry, ginger, peanut, sweet and spicy).  We had to try them all; between my mom and me we had three full racks (Matt and Tyler would be so proud)!!!  Unfortunately, we don’t know the name.  The flight crews just know how to get there and recognize it by the painted window…  It’s been dubbed the three rabbits place!

Most recently, I’ve been trying to stay dry.  We did get our games in last Saturday, but we dropped two again!  I pitched the first game that went nine innings with a 5-3 loss, and the second was not that close.  Looking on the brightside, we’ll be back at home again this Saturday!!!  I’m also anxiously awaiting for the movie The Hangover to be in theaters here!  I heard it was hilarious!!!  Anyways, later this week I’m planning of heading up to Amsterdam to check out the Anne Frank House, Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmusuem, so I’ll keep you all posted!!!

I like to be outdoors; hiking, hitting up the beach, and even the occasional camping trip with my friends!  Although I do think camping could be a little more enjoyable with nice showers and the comfort of an RV!  I like to think of myself as a trooper, but when it comes to gross things that creep and crawl… Well that’s a whole different story!  I think it all stems back to second grade while on a camping trip with my Girl Scout troop (yes, I was a girl scout).  For some reason my tent-mates and I thought it would be a good idea to pitch our tent under a tree…  It started raining (or so we thought)!!  We woke up in the morning to find MAGGOTS everywhere; it rained MAGGOTS!!!  I was officially grossed out, and needless to stay not the best camper after that!

And that little story leads to where I’m at today…  It seems as though my roommates have some trouble with taking out the trash.  When I arrived on day one, there was about four full bags of trash that needed to be taken out just piling up in our little kitchen.  I get it, taking out the trash is not as easy as one would think here in Den Bosch… You have to carry it down three flights of stairs, up the street a block, and around the corner for another block to this little silver box machine.  The silver trash box needs this magnetic card to open which can be sensitive at times, but if you’re patient it will open eventually!!!  Back to the story, my roommate Monique says she was trying to see how long our other roommate would go before taking out the trash because she felt she was the only one being proactive with the cleaning duties.

I couldn’t deal with the trash situation, so Monique and I decided we would just take it out!  As we lift up the bags, what do we find… Yup, you guessed it, MAGGOTS!!!  I was so disgusted I wanted to throw up!  The situation at hand was just not ok, and I don’t think its fair that I was the one who had to deal with it, considering it wasn’t even my trash, but I took one for the team!  Monique was just as jumpy as I was with the little creepy crawlers and started to sweep them up with the broom!  She wasn’t getting very far and was even more opposed to the idea of cleaning them up!  Next idea… I asked her to get the vacuum!!  We plugged the vacuum in and started sucking those little bugs up!!!  It worked like a charm!!

After the whole situation, we left a note, had a discussion and came up with a cleaning schedule!  Yes, I realize this sounds very juvenile, but if its the only way to keep our living quarters clean, then it’s a must!!!

Even with the new schedule, someone is still letting the trash pile up again…

On another note, my computer broke on me…  What a tragedy in this day and age, right?  It’s the same computer I’ve had since I started college, which makes it about 105 in computer years!!  Recently, the hard drive crashed, the battery was completely dead, and I needed a new battery adapter because the cord broke on my old one… I might die if I go too much longer without my own laptop!!  On the bright side, Herb and Ging to the rescue (for those of you who don’t know, Herb and Ging are my parents A.K.A to some The Spices, and they have really cool names)!  My dad is in the process of ordering a new one and my mom is coming here on Wednesday with the delivery!!!  In the meantime I was able to find my two favorite stores… H&M and ZARA!!!  These might be the two most dangerous places of all!  Lately, it has taken all the will power I can muster up to keep from going broke in the first week!  I have only allowed myself to window shop because once you start trying things on, its a downward spiral from there…

I have a double header tomorrow, and will hopefully be able to borrow my roommates computer to keep you all updated on that… If not, I will be back in full force on Wednesday with my new laptop!!!

Tot volgende tijd, vrede uit!!!

I guess it might sound a bit cliché, but my life lately has felt very surreal…  The last few weeks have flown by, and I’m not sure where the time went. It started with traveling to regionals with the SDSU softball team in Arizona to pitch BP in 105º heat, followed by finals, graduation, graduation party, memorial day, packing my life up into boxes and moving to the Netherlands to play professional softball.

For those of you who don’t know, I grew up in Santa Clarita, CA and out of high school went to the University of Kansas to play softball. After a year at KU, I transferred to San Diego State, where I had an awesome college experience. I was given so many opportunities in San Diego, and I really do think everything happens for a reason.

As I mentioned, I just graduated from SDSU!!! It doesn’t seem real… It probably won’t hit me until late August/September when school should be starting up again, but I’m officially done with that!!! Graduation has been somewhat a bittersweet experience…

The ceremony itself… boring!

The graduation party… fun!

The celebrating with friends… Awesome!

The job hunt… And that’s where I’m at now… I decided to flee abroad for the next four months in attempts of putting off searching for a real grownup job; with the added perk of playing a game I love!!!

I guess now to the good stuff… I left San Diego last Saturday morning at 8am, had a two-hour layover in Houston, and about 15 hours later, finally arrived in Amsterdam!!! From Amsterdam, the clubs manager picked me up and we headed south to s-Hertogenbosch (for short Den Bosch). The drive reminded me of the Midwest, with lots of flat, green farmland filled with livestock… The Dutch are known for their cheese (not sure if it compares to Dimock cheese, but that’s a whole different story), which may explain all the cows. Cow tipping anyone???

Once I got unpacked and somewhat settled in, I took a loooong nap!! I was exhausted (I still am)!! Eventually I forced myself out of bed in hopes of being able to get a decent night sleep. My roommate then showed me around town a bit, but it was like a ghost town. I guess Sundays and Mondays are typically off days, but apparently they have an outdoor market most other days of the week (basically what we know as a farmers market) and I’m really looking forward to checking it out tomorrow.

As for today, we traveled to Haarlem and I already pitch in my first game! I know right, no time to decompress and get my bearings right… Just thrown to the wolves!! All things considered (still recovering from jetlag, meeting my catcher an hour before game time, and my rhythm and timing being off) I guess I did all right. I’m embarrassed to say we lost 1-0. 

Oh and don’t worry, they have McDonald’s here and it was the only thing open (my roommate and I were starving)!! I have never seen a fast-food restaurant as packed as I did today! The Dutch use mayonnaise on their french-fries instead of ketchup, the drive thru is known as the McDrive, and they have their a new sandwich called the McKroket (not sure if I’ll be adventuress enough to try this one, but who knows)!!!

On the agenda for tomorrow… Troll around town with my digital acting like the typical tourist (since my battery needed to be charged today), hitting up the market, try to find a gym and practice in the evening!!

Until next time, catch you on the flip side (Can anyone name that movie quote?)!!!