Bride To Be!! Mrs. Metrailer

Hey guys! I am so glad Mary Shannon got on here last year and give our blog a bit of closure. Now that the time has come....I just had to log back on once more and tell everyone that come Sat. April 21, 2012 our very own Mary Shannon will officially become Mrs. Metrailer! Mary Shannon and I's journey has turned into 7 years of fun, exciting, scary, sometimes sad, happy, crazy memories. We have now been living together for 7 years! It's crazy because it feels just like yesterday that we met! Although she will be officially closing the "single" chapter of her life let me just say "the best is yet to come." I have had so many amazing memories with my very best friend as you have witnessed several of them from this blog and come Sat. I will be standing next to her as her maid of honor as she enters the next phase of her life as Mrs. Metrailer! What a wonderful ending to an amazing journey! Mary Shannon is the true definition of a true and loyal friend! She's got a heart made of gold and no one deserves happiness as much as she does! As I was working on my Maid of Honor toast I couldn't help but reflect back to this blog and relive such an amazing journey that we had and of course also pick my favorite stories because believe it or not....there is a time limit on toasts! haha We all know I am a story teller so the fact that I was going to have to limit my story telling....well stressed me out a bit so I had to pick my favorite stories! So long story short after we returned back from Europe, Mary Shannon had to move to Little Rock to finish up on her nursing and I had to stay in Fayetteville one more year without her :( But sure enough it wasn't too much longer until I received a phone call that there was this guy (Aaron Metrailer) that she was thinking about having lunch with but assured me it was no big deal she was just going to feel him out and see what kind of guy he was. Sure enough 4 years later she's marrying that same guy! Aaron is currently an ENT resident and lives in LR pretty close to me and Mary Shannon so when she does move out she won't be far away :) He has such a great heart and is so much fun to be around! Most importantly he loves Mary Shannon more than anything in the world and wants to call her his wife. That alone allows him to pass that best friend test that we all know about. ;) Needless to say they will be getting married this coming weekend and I will be sure to post a bridal pic because they are absolutely gorgeous! What a happy ending to a wonderful journey! When talking with my 13 year old sister about the true meaning of friendship only one person comes to mind and that is Mary Shannon! Only when I start to describe our friendship to my sister do I tend to tear up (of course I'm the emotional one) because it is then that I realize the relationship that me and Mary Shannon have is rare and hard to find these day! I am blessed to have someone like Mary Shannon in my life! She has taught me more than she would ever know! We have seen the good, the bad, and occasionally the ugly... and I have learned so much from her that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. To my very best friend....Mary Shannon....With every ending there is a beginning. While the end of our crazy singles days may have changed now that your married it has not changed our friendship! I look forward to all the new experiences we will share in the future! I love ya MSD! Your going to make a beautiful bride and I am extremely honored to be standing next to you as you and Aaron exchange vows and you become Mrs. Metrailer! :) Love ya and let the party begin! :)

A VERY late The End

The blog was never finished properly, as visions of America, American food, and family began to fill our thoughts. What is important, is that this blog finds closure:

Four years later, and it is a pleasure to read back through our escapades. We met many new people, encountered many new cultures, and saw many new, incredible places across Europe.

Most importantly, we discovered a lot about ourselves. Kelsi and I shared some difficult times - emotionally, mentally, and physically. Our friendship grew over long train rides, delicious dinners, robust wines, castles, cathedrals, and mountains. It was also tested by new and old relationships, television and Dr. Pepper starvations, and (to us) an incredibly scary night that changed us forever.

Fortunately, Kelsi, we made it through all of this. We are also the better for it all. Thank you for traveling parts of the world with me, especially for showing me how to have fun, let go, and believe in other people.

I can't wait for the adventures that await us...

Barcelona!

Mary Shannon: Hello all! Kelsi and I are sitting here in the school computer lab trying to book a flight to ATHENS! However...planning weekends gets really, really exhausting and sometimes extremely confusing. After this Greece trip is done being figured out, we will be glad to not have to do it again for a long time!
We did find a hostel though for 10€ a night-should be 'interesting'
What we have figured out though, especially from last weekend, is the cheaper the hostel=the more varied the roommates. This, in turn, creates better stories : )
Last minute last week Kelsi and I decided that Spain had to be on our list of countries visited. Barcelona, of course, was the most obvious choice of cities based on all the other travelling students' suggestions. We booked our first flight on ryanair.com, one of many European airlines that offer cheap flights across the continent for less than €100 each.

St. Peter's Square Easter Sunday!
All the people behind us that came to see the Pope speak

Inside the Vatican City participating in Mass given by the Pope himself!

When we went to see the city of ruins

Inside the Colosseum

Us visiting the Colosseum.

Happy Easter!!

Kelsi: I have now posted my 3rd and final posting until next week. I am trying to catch up but I didn't want to mix it all up in one subject so I divided it. So Easter weekend and we are headed to Rome to see the Pope. We stay in Florence until Sat. and then get on a train and head to Rome. We have both been there before so we didn't need to do the whole tourist part of it although I did want to see inside the Colosseum since last time I went it was closed. So when we got there we checked into our hostel and headed to the Colosseum. Oh and did I mention that there was suppose to be 600,000 tourists in Rome Easter weekend! So we knew we would be dealing with lines. We got to the Colosseum and the line was sooo long. This woman walked by and tried to sell us the little tour deal which says that we can cut line and get an english speaking tour guide that will take us around the Colossseum for 20 euros. Well I was like ok lets do that since we get to skip this line. Oh I know what your thinking which is how in the world can they get away with that. Well the tour guides there and at every other famous tour site are protected by the Italian mafia so the police don't say anything to them and the people that have the little souvenir shops along the these tour sites are apart of the Jewish mafia. Crazy huh!! Anyways we go inside the Colosseum take a few pictures and head out. We wanted to go to church at St. Peter's Basilica but we found out that the only do the services in Latin and Italian and we were really wanting to go to an english Mass. Well so then my mom calls and tells me that she has gotten a hold of Sister Susan. Ok so we have family friends who is related to Sister Susan and she works at the Vatican and lives in Vatican City so mom has been trying to get in touch with her for us. Mom then gives me her number and I call her. I was a little nervous but she was so very nice and informed us of an Easter Vigil Mass that would take place that night and it was in english. We got directions to Santa Susana which is the name of the church and head that way. We get there rather early and we sit in like the 4th row. This church was so beautiful inside which should be of no surprise because all the churched in Europe are absolutely beautiful. The church begins to get crowded and as we are looking around we realize that 3/4 of the people were nuns. It was cool I mean we didn't feel weird or anything but it was just really interesting to see as many nuns as we did taking part in this english mass. I was suppose to try and find Sister Susan but after seeing all the nuns I didn't even know where to begin to look. The Mass was phenonmenal. It was the most beautiful Mass I have ever seen. Since it was the Easter Vigil they gave us our candles and they turned out all the lights and had a bonfire at the back of the church. The readings were so cool because they had 4 different speakers and it was in total darkness as they were reading. We saw 3 people get baptized which was also cool because I had never seen teens get baptized through the Catholic church. Sister Susan sought me out and introduced herself. I introduced her to Mary Shannon and we had a nice conversation for awhile and then we left. Sister Susan was so kind and helpful to us. After we ate we went back and went to bed since we were going to have to get up at 7a.m. to make it to the Mass with the Pope at 10:30. We got up and got ready and headed out. OMG the lines were ridiculous!!! There were hundreds and thousands of people heading to the Vatican and this was at like 8 a.m. We were told you were suppose to have tickets but they didn't ask us for ours so we just walked right on in and found a great seat!! We waited and waited and then after a couple of hours the place was packed. I mean you couldn't even see the St. Peter's Square it was covered with people. Thousands and thousands of people... people of all different kinds which was so cool to witness. Then we heard the Swiss guards and then we saw him!! Chills ran up our spines, tears down our face and there he was the Pope himself walking through the people up towards the church. The crowd was cheering for him and clapping and the whole place was just filled with utter happiness it was so amazing. He then reached the microphone and began to speak and within the first word the place went silent. These hundreds of thousands of people became so silent you could hear a pen drop. He proceeded to do the Easter Mass which was in Italian but the cool thing was when they did the readings they did them in different languages. Like someone would say the reading in italian then the next person would come up and say that same reading in a different langauage. It was really cool. They did alot of singing throughout the Mass which was different but way cool. Spiritually it was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. I mean there we were Easter Sunday going to a Mass that the Pope was conducting. There's not a more perfect place to be at that very moment than where me and Mary Shannon were. After Mass he gave the Papel address to the world. He announced that "Christ has risen" in every language. It took about 10 minutes to say that small sentence in every language... I know hard to grasp right... As he would say the different languages the people of that ethnicity would stand and shout with praise as he said those 3 words. I will never forget the way I felt that very moment as I stood there watching the Pope and his every move just staring at him in amazement. After it was all over he stood there for about 10 minutes and just waved to everyone and smiled. People were showing emotions of all kind towards him crying, cheering, chanting, just doing anything and everything so that the Pope would know that his is loved and appreciated in so many ways that aren't even explainable. After he went in we began to work our way through the crowd. That was the biggest crowd I have ever seen I mean bigger than any concert I have ever been to. It was a mad house in trying to get out of there. We finally got out of there and went to find a quiet street to go eat. We find this place to eat because now it is about noon and we picked the wrong place. Man oh man it was so not good. But it was Easter and so we didn't want to complain and I don't even want to write it down to you all since it was Easter. Oh but it gets a little worse. Well so we were very unhappy about our lunch and by now we are tired and want to go take a nap so we head to the metro. Well in the metro your suppose to get a ticket which is 1 euro but most people never get a ticket because I mean the lines are long and usually you can just hop on and not worry about it. I know it sounds bad but after riding the metro so much the whole ticket thing just gets to be to much and you just start to get on ticketless. Well God was teaching us a lesson i'm sure of it. We don't get a ticket and head down the stairs to get on the metro and we see these 6 people in blue suits and they ask us for our tickets. Ummm ok I was like oh I have it somewhere let me look... knowing good and well we didn't have one. I keep messing around in my purse thinking they are going to grow tired and just let us go....nope they don't and so I pull out this old one and show it to them. They are like it's not valid which I knew and so I just played dumb and then we were like oh do we need to go get a ticket. They then are like no you need to come with us!! Crap we are introuble. They send us to this woman who wasn't going to give us a break at all. We start playing dumb and I say this is our first time out of the country and we didn't know and weren't aware of the fact that the tickets expire and then she looks at us and says it's not a language barrier the ticket says good for 75 minutes!! Ok now what!! Mary Shannon is like oh we didn't see that what do we need to do... do we need to go buy another ticket or what do we need to do? She then says to us you will have to pay a fine. We were like ok a 10 euro fine or something we understood. NO IT WAS A 50 EURO fine!!! Ok comon for not paying for a 1 euro ticket!!! She asks for my passport and all this information and I give it to her and I am like you want us to pay that right now. She says either we pay her upfront or we pay the post office the next day and it would go up to 100 euro!!! Omg this is nuts I tell her I don't have any money and she points me in the direction of the ATM. Well now i'm thinking we can just run away once we get up there but then she makes Mary Shannon stay with her so pretty much there is no getting out of this one so what do I do... I become even more frustrated and mad. I then say ok I need to see some i.d from you. Mary Shannon just kind of looks at me and then the woman was looks at me with confusion and I tell her how do I know you aren't trying to take me for everything I have just because? I said this doesn't make sense and I have never seen any of yall before. She then says ok and pulls out id. Ok so I throw in the towel and give her my money. I then asked if that 50 euro fine would get me on the metro or if we needed to go buy a 1 euro ticket and she says oh it will get you on the metro for only one ride!! That is the most ludacris thing I have ever heard!! I mean granted I know I was in the wrong but comon for a 50 euro ticket I would think you would have to do something really bad!! Now we are international criminals which haha is kind of cool but then one will ask for what and I'll will have to give that lame excuse. haha oh well we got over it well sort of and know that we can't really be mad because we got caught and we were in the wrong. So I have to just suck it up and go on! haha We went back to the hostel after that and took a nap and I called my family and talked to them and got really sad because that was the first holiday I have missed. I really did wake up Easter morning and was a little dissappointed that the Easter Bunny didn't find me ;) I have a 9 year old little sister so everything is still very big in our house! So yea I missed my family on Easter and all my extended family that gets together on Sunday and eats and catches up on everything. We always get together with everyone and always have a blast so that was sad for me but it's like my parents said I went to Mass with the Pope there is no better place to be on Easter than there which is so true I know but it was still a little sad for me. If my family is reading this I am so sorry I missed you all at Memaw's. I hope all is well with everyone and I miss you all and can't wait to get back and share stories!! Back to the rest of the story... sorry I tend to get side tracked really easy. We went out to eat that night and then came back to the hostel and met these cool guys and talked to them for awhile and then went to bed. We woke up the next morning to an early train ride back to home and layed in bed all day and had us some R&R!!! We were loving it too!!! We are now getting ready to head to Barcelona this weekend!! We are flying this time no overnight train for us so we are pretty excited about that!! We are hoping to find a beach so we can lay out all weekend!!! Cross your fingers for good weather!!! :) Love you all and miss ya! Talk to ya soon!!!

Me eating horse meat!!

We love our Chi-O's. We are at the largest Greek Theatre in the World :)

Sicily... The Beach!!!

Kelsi: We are now headed to Sicily which in case you didn't know is by the beach!!!! Me and Mary Shannon signed up with the school for this trip which we were kind of glad about because we wouldn't have to do anything since they had everything taken care of ahead of time. All we had to do was show up! As we are going to the train station (Santa Maria Novella) we read this paper that said for us to meet at Campo Marte which is the other train station if Florence that is like a 10 minute train ride to get to from Santa Maria Novella. Well when we showed up the paper said to catch the 8 p.m. train to Campo Marte. Well remember how I said there was the departure and arrival board and you were suppose to look at that..... well I guess since Campo Marte is so close and just a small station then they thought it didn't need to be put on the board. There we are again looking at the board in utter frustration. We are suppose to meet everyone at Campo Marte by 8:30 and then catch the overnight train to Sicily from there. Ok so it is now 8:15 and we are still standing there now with McDonalds in our hands (its a tradition) and still looking at the board. Well so now we call Kellen to see where he is and he tells us that they are just going to walk to the station but that is 20 minutes away and we need to be there in 10 minutes and we are not walking!!! So we are kind of starting to get nervous and so I call our friend Joe and tell him to tell the people not to leave without us because we are coming! haha thinking that they are really going to wait on 2 people! haha Well we are getting really nervous now and i'm still emotional from leaving my family so my brain isn't working and we are about to start panicking when I hear this girl talking about the school trip. I run up to her and start asking all these questions like where in the freakin train to take us to Campo Marte and when is it leaving, and what bin is it in? haha she is trying to say goodbye to her mom and they are both just looking at me and then she says hang on and calls her friend who is already on the train and gets the bin number. She tells it to us and then she proceeds to say its leaving in less than a minute. Here we go again..... running full speed to catch this train and we jump on WITHOUT a ticket and head to Campo Marte. We get there right at 8:30 and we walk up to this huge crowd of students. We were so excited it was like a reunion! There were so many people going on this trip! We get our cabin numbers and hop on the train. Now the coolest part was that we were in the first class cart!! The beds were bigger and softer and we even had a sink in our room! What can I say now days we are amazed easily! :) We go to sleep and wake up to to the window view of the ocean! It was the most beautiful site ever!!! Once we got off the train we figured we were heading to the hotel but oh no we find out that we are about to go tour something. Ok so since we went with the school you know they are all about the tours and all that mess while I am just wanting to find a hotel so I can clean up and take a shower. Everyone feels gross after an overnight train I don't care who you are! We landed in the morning and got on the bus and they head off to a city call Tourmini (not sure of the spelling). Ok none of us students had taken a shower or even brushed our teeth! They then tell us that we would be going to the beach but not going to the hotel until later that night. I start freaking out because I needed to shave my legs! haha I was thinking that we would go the hotel first thing clean up put our bathing suits on and head out boy was I wrong. We go to this city and it was beautiful and it had a great view but we were still gross. haha We stay there for awhile and then we head back to the bus. We were talking to the head guy and tells us that if we wanted to change into our bathing suits then we needed to do that at the bus stop. Great! I have to put a bathing suit on with unshaved legs! Well I have the intuition razor which already has the soap stuff on it so all you have to do is get it wet so I figured maybe I could do a quick shave in the sink. Yea I know I feel like white trash but desperate times call for desperate meausures. So me and Mary Shannon go and get our bathing suits and head to the bathrooms but we had to hurry because they were leaving in like 10 minutes. So I get in the bathroom and start to change and then the lights go off!! They don't use light switches over here its more like these light sensors that go on and off when it senses movement. Ok I start moving and it doesn't come back on! Great!! So I finish changing in the dark and then try to shave my legs then I hear Mary Shannon say they are leaving we have to go. So still unshaved legs and I take off running and throw my stuff under the bus and am about to get on when I realize I left my sunglasses in the bathroom. Ok so I would have just left them behind but they were my new prada glasses and uh yea that just wasn't happening! So I take off running and tell them to please wait and so now I am holding up 2 buses with about 70 students on them. As I am running back the bus even honks at me!! Ok thanks embarassing!! We finally make it to the beach and of course it starts to rain but we are determined to go anyway. Most of the students and us head to the beach and try to lay out key word being "try". All the guys start to jump into the ocean which was absolutely freezing. All the girls were laying out and me and Mary Shannon really wanted to jump in the ocean just to be able to say we jumped into the Mediteranean!! Well none of the other girls would do it so of course small town girls take off in a dead run and jump in!! OMG the coldest water I have ever jumped in.... I mean like take your breath away cold!! We did it though and were the only 2 girls that did! haha Arkansas girls!! After we left the beach we went to the hotel which was 2 hours away and we were soaking wet so it wasn't an exciting ride but we made it there and into our room which had a wonderful shower!! haha We ate dinner at the hotel both nights and they even took us to the bars each night so that was fun. We went to bed late and then had to wake up really early to start the tours!! We had no idea how much walking we were about to do. We went to the world's largest greek theatre which was pretty cool. We even took a Chi O pic there and then went to the catacombs which was way cool!! After that we were getting really tired and we met up with these 2 girls and Ashely and Taylor and these 2 guys Jackson and Ryan and we decided we were tired of touring stuff and we wanted to see the beach! We kept trying to come up with a plan on how we could sneak away from the group but we were hestitant because we didn't know where the beach was and all that. Well after lunch we were soooo hot and the sun was shining so brightly and we wanted to go the beach so bad!! I needed a pair of shorts because I was dying from the heat since we were all wearing jeans. So I go to this one store which I am still upset about and pick up these short to buy them and the woman says I have to buy the set. I was like what set... and she pulls out this ugly t-shirt... I was like you have to be kidding and she of course wasn't so I end up buying the set for like 30 euro which wasn't fun but oh well I got a cute pair of shorts. haha enough with that complaining... haha so Jackson calls and says he knows where a beach is and so me, Mary Shannon and Kellen leave the group and head back to the hotel to meet up with everyone. We get 2 taxi's and head to the beach. When we got there we saw these other people from our group that had split to so we didn't feel so bad. Me and Mary Shannon take off running down the beach like 2 little kids screaming and laughing and loving life. We had come up on the most beautiful beach ever!! It was gorgeous and the weather was perfect!!! We layed out for a couple of hours and just soaked up the sun!! It was amazing! When it was time to go back to the hotel we got in the taxi's and headed back that way. We were trying to get back the same time that our bus did so we could meet up with the rest of the group but we did a little better than that. Our 2 taxi's pulled up in the middle of the 2 buses and we got out of course in our bathing suits and everyone else still in their clothes. haha but it ended up not being a big deal because our teacher said they let people go and that it wasn't a big deal so it was all good. We went out again that night and had a blast with everyone. We kept meeting so many people that we go to school with here so it was fun and made us feel comfortable around everyone. The next day we were heading back to the train station. When we got there our teacher said that we needed to eat the famous Sicilian sandwich and me and Mary Shannon of course said yes. Having no idea what we were about to eat followed the teacher. We came to know really quickly that it was HORSE MEAT! I didn't even know that people could do that! We ate it anyway I mean comon we are trying to be one with their culture and experience everything a European experiences which I guess includes a horse meat sandwich. It was ok when we ate it though a little chewy but then a few hours later and we weren't feeling so hot. I mean just thinking about it kind of makes me queezy! Anyhow we got on the train and headed out. Now we didn't realize it because we were asleep on the way over there but we have to get onto a ferry to cross the ocean. Our train literally connects onto the ferry and it takes us across the ocean and lets us off. It was so cool. We got out once we got on the ferry and me, Mary Shannon, Taylor, and Ashley who is also a Chi O head up to the top to explore. Well we meet up with Kellen and start climbing ladders and get to the very top of the ferry! It was sooo cool, no one was up there and we were just running around screaming acting like Charlie's Angels, being stupid and crazy!!! It was so much fun!! We run to the very front and it felt like Titantic when she says the whole cheezy line of "Jack i'm flying" I mean we were at the very top at what looked like that same spot. We see the rest of the students down below us and we start waving to them and then we hear these men yelling at us! We were like uh oh maybe we aren't suppose to be up here! Yea we weren't we were on the crew deck! OOps. We took off running and ran away and met up with the rest of the students to try to blend in. haha but wow it was so cool! The view from up there was incredible.... I have never seen anything like it!! We continued to look around and then headed back to the train since we were about to disconnect. Not much of anything exciting happened after that we just fell asleep until we got back at home. Sicily was beautiful and so much fun!! Although we got a little worn out with the touring thing I mean when you are traveling every weekend the museums and duomo's all start to look alike so sometimes you need a change of scenery like the BEACH!!! It was awesome we had so much fun and we are hoping for another beach trip real soon!!! Oh and we also saw where the mafia's headquarters were which was way cool... just to add that in there! haha I keep remembering little tid bits of things that I have to add in!! :) Talk to ya soon!