London Fog

After our overnight flight from NYC, we arrived in London around 11AM. Our flight into Gatwick was phenomenal and the airport was amazing (highly recommend.) In New York, we met Italian brothers who gave us directions around London. We took the Gatwick Express into Victoria Station, and ventured around London!
Here are a few of my favorite photos from London:




 

  
  
  
  
While our day was wonderful, I would recommend bringing an empty water pouch through security because water was difficult to come by. By the time we landed, 11AM London Time – 4AM Texas Time, we were in a bit of a fog. We made it through the day and onto a plane headed for Prague, sleeping for 12 hours once we arrived. By the 10th we will post the highlights of Praha! Enjoy!

Just a Quick Update! 

We made it to London!  

 
We have an 8 hour layover before we head off to Prague, so we’re going sightseeing of course. We met a few Italians in JFK that gave us the highlights that we have to hit; I won’t give them away, pictures to come! After a quick face wash and hair brush, we’re jumping on the Gatwick Express and heading to Victoria Station. Any suggestions on food or local treasures, leave them in the comments below! 

Away We Go

As we wait out our layover  (definitely not with a $12 mimosa in hand), it seems now is a good time to update y’all! We are off! Alarms started blaring before the crack of dawn.. Thank goodness my mother recommended we put our backpacks at the back door, packed and ready to go. We made it to Love Field around 4:30am (thanks to my father, whose punctuality was “instilled” by the USAF), boarded by 6am, headed for NYC with a layover in Atlanta. 

Now we sit here contemplating how we’re going to handle the jet lag once we finally make it overseas. We will be eight hours ahead of CST so it’s going to be a big adjustment. However, thanks to the Bar Exam, we’ve been up studying at all hours of the night for the last 3 months; maybe it won’t be so bad. My chiropractor and masseuse both implored us to chug water, water, and more water. Google suggested sleeping on the plane without sleep meds, taking naps, and spending the day outside once we arrive to help adjust our circadian rhythm. I guess we will see what works! 
We are now mid-flight to NYC for a 10 hour “layover.” Thanks to a phenomenal Southwest flight attendant, we have a plan for our time in The Big Apple outlined in a napkin! 

   
 
Plans include Battery Park, Times Square, finding wonderful food, and then heading to JFK for our transatlantic flight! Europe, here we come! We will post pictures and a blog post as often as possible!  

Stay tuned and wish us luck!  


  

New Type of Countdown

So the test is over. I now know all of the laws for nothing. Before you ask, we have no idea how we did – results come out at the end of April (projected for April 29). Feeling okay about it but worst case scenario, we retake in July. But in better news, we leave for Europe in 5 days!!

We will have a rough two days to begin our trip. We leave Saturday on an overnight from New York City for London, switch airports and head to our first location! Prague! Any tips for things to leave and things to pack, bring it on! 

11 days to go

Now that there is less than 2 weeks before I still for the bar, I spend around 16 hours of my day sitting at a table with my head in a book. My Fitbit is questioning my steep drop in steps per day. Since I never move, when I HAVE to leave the house I throw on whatever is available.. aka I never match and currently I look like a 5 year old dressed me. My ability to care about anything other than passing this exam has significantly waned. 

So it is now that I look for encouragement in the littlest things. I try to remind myself that this was the best move for my health and future…and I hope and pray that this turns out the way I planned. 

Back to the books… but first, maybe a shower.

Changing Your Travel Plans

Every time we book a flight, I always wonder what if.. What if something happens and I can’t make this flight. What if I have to change my dates, time, or cities. Well, it happened.. and it wasn’t that bad. Here is what we learned.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to move our flight overseas forward by almost a week. We tried to find the most cost effective way to make this work, but even when the cost to change flights in Europe is around 50£, this price does not apply to international flights (because of course not) BUT it was the easiest thing I have ever done in relation to changing flights around, thanks to Norwegian. When we looked online and realized the change fee was triple what we expected we called Norwegian, and they explained the differential treatment of international flights vs European flights, and reminded us to book online to avoid over-the-phone costs. We changed our date, our arrival city, and our flight time for an additional $400. Which doesn’t sound that bad until I tell you that we booked our flights over for $550 in the first place. 

We did manage to arrange our plans so we only missed the first location on our trip, picking up in our second location as if nothing ever happened. [Location list to be revealed at a later date😘] 

In the end, we had to change 1 flight, let 1 flight go, and add a new flight. It took us about an hour to work everything out and about $700, but we are back on track! And I ended the day extremely impressed with Norwegian’s customer service! 

Coffee is a MUST

We have 27 days until the Texas Bar Exam, and my go to is obviously coffee these days. 

 
I started thinking about what phrases I need to learn before traveling to all of the different countries on our list. I downloaded Earworms in Mandarin a few years ago when we hosted a few schools from China and the musical background really helped me remember a minimal amount of phrases that I needed. I’ve now acquired the first level of Earworms in Greek, Italian, and French. Each of the sets starts with teaching you how to say “I would like” and includes a type a beverage, be it coffee, tea, wine, or beer. I realize I will not be able to survive without coffee, so I’ve compiled a list of how to order coffee for most of Western Europe! Enjoy! 

USA: I would like a coffee (with milk), please.

Greece: Tha íthela énan kafé (me gála) , parakaloúme. For those of you who want to see it in Greek letters! Θα ήθελα έναν καφέ (με γάλα) , παρακαλούμε.

Italy: Vorrei un caffè (con latte), per favore.

France: Je voudrais un café (avec du lait) , s’il vous plaît.

Spain: Me gustaría un café (con leche), por favor.

Czech Republic: Chtěl bych si kávu (s mlékem), prosím.

Hungary: Szeretnék egy kávét (tejjel), kérjük.

Norway: Jeg vil gjerne ha en kaffe (med melk), kan.

Denmark: Jeg vil gerne have en kop kaffe (med mælk), bedes.

**powered by Earworms and Google Translate

Coffee is a MUST

We have 27 days until the Texas Bar Exam, and my go to is obviously coffee these days. 
   
I started thinking about what phrases I need to learn before traveling to all of the different countries on our list. I downloaded Earworms in Mandarin a few years ago when we hosted a few schools from China and the musical background really helped me remember a minimal amount of phrases that I needed. I’ve now acquired the first level of Earworms in Greek, Italian, and French. Each of the sets starts with teaching you how to say “I would like” and includes a type a beverage, be it coffee, tea, wine, or beer. I realize I will not be able to survive without coffee, so I’ve compiled a list of how to order coffee for most of Western Europe! Enjoy! 

USA: I would like a coffee (with milk), please.

Greece: Tha íthela énan kafé (me gála) , parakaloúme. For those of you who want to see it in Greek letters! Θα ήθελα έναν καφέ (με γάλα) , παρακαλούμε.

Italy: Vorrei un caffè (con latte), per favore.

France: Je voudrais un café (avec du lait) , s’il vous plaît.

Spain: Me gustaría un café (con leche), por favor.

Czech Republic: Chtěl bych si kávu (s mlékem), prosím.

Hungary: Szeretnék egy kávét (tejjel), kérjük.

Norway: Jeg vil gjerne ha en kaffe (med melk), kan.

Denmark: Jeg vil gerne have en kop kaffe (med mælk), bedes.
**powered by Earworms and Google Translate

Every Time We Book

Everytime we book a new location our excitement builds. We are nearing the end of our booking stage which is wonderful and saddening because I know it means we will eventually have to leave the fairytale. 

Just to give you an idea of how this started… we started off trying to plan a specific route and ended up taking the most cost effective route instead. While the dream would be to book a one way and go where the wind takes us, the more pragmatic approach is planning out our trip location by location. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for spontaneity but does provide comfort in knowing that we are set up on every stop! We weighed benefits and detriments of hostels and hotels and eventually decided on using AirBnB to find our foreign homes. 

Some considerations in using AirBnB: 

Super Host: Super hosts are a wonderful find because the notation suggests that the host have honored a vast majority of their bookings, have a vast majority of 5 star reviews, and they truly love hosting. 

Proximity: We did a lot of research on the local neighborhoods and the proximity of the neighborhoods to transit, tourist attractions, coffee shops, and nightlife. Just a quick note here – longer post later – when you’re booking cheap flights on EasyJet or Ryanair check the airport you’re flying into. They usually fly into a city right outside of your destination and you’ll have to grab an hour train in from the city. So, if you’re flying in late, pay the extra $50 per ticket to get into the main airport or you’ll spend the same on late transportation into the city. 

Reviews: M spends most of his time reading the reviews of our AirBnBs, not just to see if they’re good but a lot of those who stay will mention a close coffee shop or advice for transportation. They will also mention things like whether your amazing view of the city comes at the price of a 7th floor walk up (like my Paris stop this year).. 

As always, more to come!

32 Days

I’m definitely not panicking.. 

The sheer amount information you are required to commit to memory for 3 days is a hard pill to swallow but knowing we only have a month left.. 

The fact that this is my second bar exam has been useful, not that I remember a large portion of the material, but I have mnemonics and tricks that are stored somewhere deep in my brain. But it is still so much to remember. 

32 days..

In the end, this will all be worth it..