Recovering from Jet Lag

Landed in London and celebrated Boxing Day with Josh's extended family. It felt like an extension of Christmas...late breakfast, coffee and relaxing, pub for beer, nap, shower, champagne, and a big pork dinner with wine. OH and I learned about Christmas Crackers...google it...unless I'm the only crazy American that hasn't heard of it. The train workers were on strike on the 26th so we stayed the night at the Pickles (Josh's relatives). When heading back into London the next day the trains were up but they were working on half of them so a 30 minute trip turned into a 2 hour or so adventure. The days are short during London winters so after arriving at Sioban's apartment we headed straight into town to see the London bridge, Big Ben, etc.

After a 2am start on the 27th, we arrived in Amsterdam at our bed and breakfast at about 10am. Headed out to explore right away and stopped at a coffee shop...explored some more and returned for an afternoon nap due to our early start. Amsterdam is adorable around the canal areas! We walked by the red light district at night and I learned the meaning behind the name red light district. All the windows are lit red! Who would've guessed it was a literal name?!

Awaiting Departure from JFK

My best friend growing up, Shelby, had been wanting me to go to a psychic she has been to twice now. After previous disinterest in the matter, I started warming up to the idea and made an appointment prior to beginning my travels. It turns out there is hope (for my mother who likes to give me a hard time about it), and I will someday marry and have two kids. More importantly, she said I will be safe on my travels! Although she did say I need to stay away from "hamburger meat" unless I know the origin and know that it is safe. She thinks I will travel for about four months but then said I might be in Australia for a few years. She also mentioned Greece for a few weeks (yay...climbing!).

After hearing I would have safe travels, the next thing on the agenda was packing. Packing is rough when you're trying to pack minimally and in a large backpack and smaller backpack carry on...especially when you are including snowboarding boots, pants, jacket, goggles, etc, AND minimal climbing gear, including a harness, shoes, and quick draws, not to mention a sleeping bag, hammock, and clothes to actually wear. Needless to say it was a chore at which I did not greatly succeed. I am overpacked but plan on offloading snowboarding gear when I am done in Austria...which is my excuse for having overly stuffed bags at the moment.

I am currently killing time at the JFK airport where I have about an eight hour layover. From here I will land in London on the 26th early in the morning and celebrate Boxing Day with Josh's relatives. Josh is an Australian who I will be traveling with for my first two months out of the country. To further appease those in need of my "planned itinerary" which doesn't actually exist...here is the order of approximately where I will be traveling but dates are completely unknown:
London, England
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Germany (Frankfurt and Munich)
Austria (near Innsbruck snowboarding)
Prague, Czech Republic
Krakow, Poland
Budapest, Hungary
Belgrade, Serbia
Croatia
Greece

Anything after Greece has yet to be planned. Please stay tuned for future updates!