I Need Your Help!

GUYS. So I've mentioned that I want to do something fun with the giant white wall in my bedroom. I want to make a collage/media wall with my Europe pictures! Some shadow boxes, etc. I want to get a giant watercolor map of the world, then I need to pick three pictures to be the really big ones. I CANNOT decide. I think it's more of a I need to travel more situation, obviously. But for now, I need to get started! So, I've decided for sure this one: 

 So I need one from Amsterdam and one from London! I'm a little attached to the Tower Bridge one, but also love all of the ones I put here. Since I took fewer pictures in London + Amsterdam because we were too busy having the most fun, I am really attached to all of the ones I did take. SO. I need your help! Should I make like, a collage? Should I do a bunch of like 4 x 6 pictures? I am having a really hard time making this decision. 

Okay, but I'm a little sad looking through these trying to decide what to print + frame. Also, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I should print them? Like should I do it on the internets or should I do like in person at target or..... ? The struggle is real guys. What do you think? What are your favorite ways to display your travel pictures? In related news, I've decided my next goal is Greece next summer. So, stay tuned for that one.... 

5 Reasons You Should Go On An EF College Break Tour

**update** First of all, thanks so much everyone for reading and appreciating my honest words. We did so well that EF not only cancelled my referral code, but took away all of the credits I had earned from actual people I knew and this post. They even updated their terms of service. I see that while I was trying to figure out a solution, someone else was sending their referral code, which apparently hasn't been cancelled, so I can't earn credit for my opinion, but someone can use my opinions to make money off of, real cool EF. real cool. I'm going to leave this up, because I genuinely enjoyed the trip, and you know, apparently still want them to make money off of my honest opinion. More so because I do want there to be an unbiased, very much so not paid for review of the trip. Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions, but I can no longer provide my referral code. For what it's worth, they never contacted me regarding this post, asking to take it down or anything, because it's clearly driving people to take the trips, they didn't tell me they were cancelling my code, and they took away what I had already generated. **

Okay, up front. I was zero percent compensated by EF College Break for this. I am more than willing to share my referral code with anyone who wants to book a trip (I'm not going to include it in this post because I have a feeling it's against the rules I agreed to when I booked my first trip. side note, does anyone ever actually read the "terms + conditions" or do we all just agree? Do you ever wonder if we're like, unknowingly signing over our first born because we didn't want to read them?)

ANYWAYS. When I first stumbled upon EF College Break, through a Facebook ad of all places, I googled the crap out of it. I couldn't find a single trip review that wasn't on their blog. Not that I don't buy those opinions, just that it seemed weird that nothing was on the regular Internet, you know? Positive or negative. Then I vowed that I would blog the living daylights out of my trip so the Internet would know. It's my duty, right? So this is what I got out of my trip + why I will absolutely be going again. 

I 100% stole this picture from facebook. please don't sue me.....

Traveling Solo for maybe just the flight over // I didn't have anyone to travel Europe with me. When I booked the trip I was in a bad place + just needed anything to look forward to. I read all of the posts on their blog about "50% of our travelers sign up alone, 0% travel alone." I thought that was the corniest thing I had ever heard, until I got off the plane in Amsterdam. I literally made friends when I found the people waiting for the bus. That's it. Granted, I can talk to a wall, but I didn't feel like I was forcing anything + I was so pumped to make new friends. We even still chit chat on Facebook today (hey guys, glad you're reading this!) about how we're going to try to go on more trips. I think it helps that we all obviously had that wanderlust gene. 

BOAT TOURS IN AMSTERDAM

Fantastic day-to-day events // To be honest, I wouldn't have known where to begin if I was planning the entire trip by myself. I made a list of things that I absolutely had to see, then followed the planned excursions + optional add on adventures. I could not have possibly found the tour guides that we had on my own. From what I understand, EF is really serious about the people that they hire, and they're great about it. I've talked about our tour guide in London (remember? "what the front door?!"). We had equally fantastic tour guides in every city. Super knowledgable, fun, + not afraid to go off the beaten path. They were great. Honestly. I couldn't say enough nice things about all of our guides. I never once felt like I was drudging through a history class with a monotone professor who lived with the dinosaurs. 

Monthly payments for the win // Oh, you have three grand to drop on a trip today? Well, good for you, want to take me too? I know I didn't have a cool couple grand laying around when I decided to go. I did make a bigger down payment (because last year I didn't owe the IRS money...) then I had totally manageable monthly payments. So I paid off my trip month by month rather than magically being good at money management. It's super empowering to be able to pay something like that off, by the way. It's a steal too. My entire trip was less than I would have paid for a flight to Amsterdam and back. 

this has nothing to do with our tour director because I didn't plan this post while I was there so my photos don't reflect it.

The Tour Directors are the bomb.com // Along the trip we crossed paths with a couple other tour directors, obviously none of them were as kickass as ours (his name was Adam. he's fantastic! I would take a tour 100% just because he's the director.) They are amazing. Just like with the tour guides, they are super selective + only hire the best of the best. I'm sure that if we had a lame tour director who wasn't all about, well I don't know anything but us having a kick ass trip, we wouldn't have had a good trip. Adam wanted to make sure we loved it + had a blast + I don't think we could have had a better director if we tried. 

BECAUSE YOU WANT TO TRAVEL + YOU NEED TO TRAVEL // I have the bug. I have the wanderlust bug bad y'all. I want to go again yesterday. Obviously since I've blogged about wanderlust at least once a week since I've been back. I bet you're tired of hearing it. I wouldn't have been able to realize that dream without the folks at EF + so I cannot say enough good things about the trip. They recently bumped the max age to 27 -- so GO! OH BETTER -- LET'S PICK A TRIP + GO TOGETHER! 

Have I convinced you yet? Do you want to talk about it more? You should totally shoot me an email or stalk me on any other social media outlet (you can see some of my favorite pictures on the instagram machine...) Have you picked out a trip yet? I'm daydreaming of Greek Isles or Thailand or you know, a casual month in Australia + New Zealand. Again. 100%. EF didn't ask me to write this (guys they didn't even pick my pictures on insta to regram, that kinda made my inner blogger sad. I thought I instagrammed awesome pictures. #kaseygoestoeurope.) I just honestly think it was the best decision I have ever made. Hands down. Are you ready to go on an adventure with me?

ALSO. Did you miss my Europe posts? Catch up here:
London
Paris one || two || three
Amsterdam

Darling, Let's Be Adventurers.

Back. To. Back. Write or Die prompts made just for this pretty little princess right here. I have to be honest. Taking that trip to Europe was the biggest leap of faith + best life choice I have ever made.

The only thing that I didn't really think would happen, is my insatiable need to go again. I could live out of a suitcase if I could just travel the world. Sometimes I think maybe I could get over my anxiety with flying enough to be a flight attendant so I could go all of those places and get paid for it. I just don't know if I actually could do that. I keep waiting for that e-mail that says "Kasey. Your blog is fantastic. We love the pictures you took on your last Europe trip. We're a company that puts together all inclusive trips + we would love to send you on one anywhere in the world as long as you promise to take pictures of it + blog about the experience. Get packing!" (hey, it worked for classpass...)

They say travel is the only thing you can spend money on that makes you richer, I believe that wholeheartedly. I'm not worried about paying off my student loans any time soon. I only want to pay off my credit cards so that I can travel. I could leave tomorrow guys. I plan on exploring closer to me this summer. Trips to Naples (Florida, not Italy, sadly.) and Charleston and who knows where else. 

Where do you want to go? PS! Don't forget to linkup your favorite baseball memory tomorrow! OH MAN am I pumped for that!! 

London Calling

GUYS THIS IS MY FAVORITE. So don't tell me if they're not the best pictures ever okay? Because that would break my little heart into forty gazillion pieces. Without further ado, London.

I've mentioned it probably a million times, but London was hands down my favorite city. I loved the people, I loved the history, I loved the food (I haven't found fish + chips that even comes close stateside, so if you know of any, please help a sister out.)

We had a hilarious tour guide for the city bus tour. I mean, we didn't take a fun red double decker bus for it, but how touristy can we be? ANYWAYS. He was adorable and kept saying we were fun because we weren't "dusty old coffin dodgers" OH AND. he thought it was hilarious how Americans say things like "shut the front door!" and thought we just used "front door" instead of that four lettered F word. so then he would say "WHAT THE FRONT DOOR!?" It was great. 

When we stopped for our touristy pictures of the Tower Bridge, he goes "now we're going to see the landmark from our greatest gift to cinematic history -- Spice World!" 

spice up your life!

Apparently one time a bus really did jump the gap because the guard who was supposed to stop him from driving over it fell asleep + the bridge opened + that all sounds really terrifying if you ask me.

In case you're wondering, I am still trying to figure out a way to get back to London. Like move there for a couple of years. I think that maybe if I lived there for a few years I could see all of the things I wanted to see. There are two things I took absolutely zero pictures of. One, is the pub crawl we paid WAY TOO MUCH for, but had a killer time until it took us two hours to get back on the bus (guess who had to pee the entire way because, well, it was me, because I always have to pee). TWO is the killer Jack the Ripper tour we went on. Our tour guide was fantastic. I was a little convinced that he might be Jack the Ripper. 

Ugh. This one made me sad guys. I'm really ready to go back. Have you been to London? What was your favorite part? Can you take me back?

**edit** I cannot believe I forgot to include my picture of Wembly Stadium at sunrise. I took this from the way too small for four people hotel room window. because LOOK AT THIS VIEW. 

I need to laugh + when the sun is out -- I've got something I can laugh about ☼ || #kaseygoestoeurope #sunrise #beatles #vscocam #vsco #wanderlust

A photo posted by Kasey Decker (@kdsmoove) on Jan 7, 2015 at 12:49am PST

[Mostly] Wordless Write Or Die Wednesday..

This week's prompt is a picture of a love lock. So I'm abusing it as an excuse to post more Paris pictures because why did I take so many? Also love is kinda bumming me out right now. OKAY GO.

this is actually probably really creepy, that stranger there just seemed so deep in thought. I assume about his love lock being taken off by the French government + whether or not that meant their love story was over.

I hope all of these people really do live happily ever after. Even if their love is too heavy for the bridges. Since I didn't really write anything, does this mean I'm going to die?

Père Lachaise Cemetery -- Paris, France

I don't think it's any secret that I'm a total history nut. It should also not be a secret that I'm completely fascinated by cemeteries. Which is probably weird, but I'm not even a little bit sorry. This entire post is dedicated to the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. 

"in the end, we don't regret having come"

Oh man guys. It was really hard for me to pick just ten pictures for this. I totally took all of my lenses + carried them around, but never used anything but my cute little "nifty-fifty" lens. Did I mention that we went at sunset + there were crows everywhere? It was so eerie and I absolutely loved it. Plus, could you ask for a prettier sunset than that? It was crazy, because it rained until well after lunchtime. We wanted to see Oscar Wilde too, but the cemetery security ran us out, because apparently it closes at like 5:30! 

Paris Is Always A Good Idea

Warning. I have an unpopular opinion about Paris. I didn't like it. I mean. I'm glad I went, I do want to see the crypt where all the bones are, but I don't think I'd be all about going back. I wasn't impressed. I loved the food [guys, escargot is actually really tasty.] I did take forty million pictures though. I might even need more than one post. Whaaaaaat. Here are some of my favorites:

Obviously, there are plenty of Eiffel Tower pictures. From like seventy billion different angles. Because.. Paris?

UNTIL TOM EATS JERRY. #relationshipgoals. ALSO. We learned that the French government does not care for your love locks + that a couple of weeks before we got there part of the bridge FELL OFF + ALMOST KILLED SOMEONE ON THE RIVER. Your love is too heavy for the bridges in Paris guys. 

I actually think I would like to see the gardens at Versailles in the summer. So maybe I could be convinced to go back to Paris. Who am I kidding, I will alway be down to go anywhere.  

Official decision, there will be at least one more Paris photo dump. Soooooooo stick around! Have you been to Paris? What was your favorite part? 

Amsterdam For New Years

I don't know about you, but I hate New Year's Eve. Think about it. There's so much pressure for that night to be awesome that it literally never lives up to the hype. Well, at least that's what I thought until I went to Amsterdam, officially setting the bar for future NYE celebrations at unattainable levels. So here I am, 25, and I will most likely never top that experience. Tampering future expectations obviously. Or maybe I'll just have to spend NYE in a different country every year. What an adventure that would be. 

SO we did literally a million things on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day. It was a fast trip. Way too fast. I probably could have spent two weeks in Amsterdam alone. I'll have to go back in the summer. One of, if not my favorite activity on the whole stay in Amsterdam, was the self-guided canal boat tour. Our group rented three boats, we piled in with baguettes, boxed wine, cheeses, and grapes, then took off down the canals. Obviously, our fearless leader knew his way around, but it was fantastic. We dodged a few giant canal cruises with a bunch of miserable looking people on them, and waved our hello's to everyone, just in case they were thinking we might not be tourists.

Before the canal tour, we had a guided walking tour of the city. Our tour guide was the best, cracking jokes and taking us to all the places we wanted to go and some we didn't even know we would want to go. Our tour ended at the Ann Frank House, which I would have loved to have had a little more time to take in. There were some pushy people behind our group, as well as a few people who maybe didn't understand the gravity of that place. I'd have to say, I don't feel like that's really the place for joking around. Maybe that's just me though.

Finally, for the actual NYE festivities, we all hopped on the tram from our hostel (which, by the way, was not anything like we were expecting from the movie Hostel. It was just like summer camp, aside from having to push a button to keep the shower water running + the motion sensor lights in the bathroom not staying on long enough for you to pee, I would totally stay in one again!) Grabbed a quick pizza (you know, "American food") and tried to find a good bar to start the evening at. I learned that they don't drink tequila in Amsterdam (or Paris, if you're wondering.) I ordered one tequila drink, where I was promptly told she couldn't make me a tequila drink, but I could have a tequila shot. Seems reasonable. She ended up giving me too much change anyways, so I got paid to take a tequila shot.. We then headed to a market, because we figured why not take advantage of how "open container laws" are an American thing.

I'd be surprised if you expected anything less

A bottle of wine to each of us, we wandered around to Nieuwmarkt, found a bar to settle in, then rang in the new year out on the square where there were literally all kinds of fireworks from all angles. I definitely got hit in the face with one or two. It was equal parts beautiful and terrifying. They really love their explosives over there. I'd say the fireworks were going off until about the time we left on January 2nd. Sometime before our adventurous two mile walk home, I lost my driver's license, then turned super melodramatic exclaiming that I didn't even exist any more. Which is reasonable.

New Year's Day we did some more exploring and made our way to the Heineken Experience. Y'all. If you're in Amsterdam, you gotta do it. Buy your tickets in advance though, so you save a couple of Euro and don't have to wait in line. It was so cool. The brewery has so much more history than the craft beer places over here, so there's so much more to the tour than "this is where we mix the hops. not sorry about the smell." There was even a 4D tour where we were turned into beer + then taught how to take "manly sips" to enjoy the beer better. I would actually probably do that tour again.

All in all, Amsterdam was definitely the best place I could have possibly picked for my first adventure out of the States. I will be back. In the summer. I'll rent a bike and look at the tulips that started wars and take another boat ride down the canals. I will absolutely be back.