Hi! Margaux here, writing to you from an internet cafe in Berlin!  Since June 15th I’ve been backpacking through Europe with my best friend Alexa and we are so excited to be able to share our trip with you this way!

First, a little bit about us.  We grew up together since age 3 in Northeastern New Jersey, but we usually just tell people we’re from Manhattan (Bad Habit? We think it’s fine).  After high-school we parted ways: Alexa ended up at U Miami in The Sunshine State (Florida) and I ended up at Wellesley in the exact OPPOSITE of the sunshine state (Massachussetts).  We both just graduated this year and this backpacking trip was inevitable…

Travel-wise, I’d say we’re both quite seasoned for your average college graduates.  Here’s some history:

Alexa: When I was 12 I first ventured into Lugano, Switzerland for a month long stay at an American University named TASIS. After that, I was hooked and travelled back to Italy three times (I’m Italian so obviously that’s my fav country… Margaux won’t stop making fun of me about it, apparently white Juicy pants are “SOOOO Italian.”) I’ve also travelled around Spain, Turkey and the islands of Greece. Outside of Europe I’ve been to Quebec, Montreal and your standard high-school spring break: the tropical islands. I’ve also hopped around the states, from coast to coast.  I’ve never backpacked until this trip…

Margaux: But I have! Summer after 8th grade I backpacked through the mountains of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont learning about hiking, biking, kayaking, camping and kissing. Summer 2002 I spent 5 cultural and corruptive weeks in Salamanca, Spain while I studied at the University and did a bit of traveling around there.  I spent another backpacking summer in Costa Rica, doing community service and living in the mountains.  Other than that, I’ve gone on family trips to London, Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam in Europe and on various ski trips in the states.  Oh and of course, the tropical island spring breaks… who HASN’T done that?

Unfortunately though, neither of us got the chance to study abroad while we were in college.  Neither of us really regretted that decision, but that’s why a MAJOR trip through Europe our summer after graduation seemed so inevitable as I said before.

Alexa and I have very different travel backgrounds and very different personalities, so we thought we’d be a perfect pair to travel together.  Alexa is more organized, I’m more spontaneous.  Alexa is more reserved, and I’m pretty outgoing (sometimes obnoxious?).  We both, however, LOVE eating, LOVE sleeping, LOVE culture and LOVE partying.

Hopefully reading our stories you can always relate to one of us… sometimes Alexa will write and sometimes I will, but we’ll both be sitting at the computer (internet cafes can get super expensive, it’s not worth it to get two computers…).

In our next post we’ll let you know some details about our past 4 weeks.  Tonight we get on an overnight train from Berlin to Munich… should be interesting!

Ciao for now, we’ll update you soon!