(Written and originally published on: 14 June 2013) I’m currently sitting in the lounge area of the Berlin International Youth Hostel, I’m waiting for my room to be available at 1:00 PM, and so instead of hitting the city, I’ll take the time to catch up on blog entries. Day 5th of the Big Blog Exchange was spent on a day trip to Schloss Hohenschwangau and Schloss Neuschwanstein – a dream of mine since the start of time was to visit a castle, which I can finally cross off the list of things to do before I die. It was a long trip going south of Bavaria, about 2 and a half hours, but 3 if it’s your first time traveling in the area and you still tend to get kind of lost. Thankfully, there are A LOT of tourists going to the area, and so it was mostly “Follow where the tourists are going” for me, if ever I was unsure. The ticket center to the two castles was extremely long, so thankfully I booked my tickets in advance and didn’t have to line up with everyone else. I don’t understand why majority of these tourists don’t book in […]

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I owe you guys more entries for what else happened during my Germany trip, so here’s what went down after my visit to Munich… My next stop was Potsdam! Another 4 hour ICE high speed train ride from Munich to Berlin… Honestly, one of my favorite modes of transportation. I think the best choice when traveling from city to city or country to country around Europe, would have to be via high speed trains. It’s cheap, efficient, clean, comfortable, and the best of all? You get a killer view of the country side and get a glimpse of the little towns and houses along the way! (When I crossed the border of Germany and Netherlands, it was the coolest thing. You could literally tell you’ve crossed the Dutch border because the walls had embossed windmills on it! How cute is that?!) (Anyway, moving on… I didn’t mean to segway all the way to Netherlands. Berlin. We are in Berlin.) After navigating through the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, I found my way to Am Wannsee, which is quite far from the Berlin city center. I was to stay here at the Jugendherberg Am Wannsee hostel for 2 nights so I could drop by […]

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(Warning: Crazy long, because I literally talk about the whole trip and what went down.) I spent approximately 2 nights in Amsterdam right after I had visited Cologne, Germany. I figured Amsterdam was small enough to explore in 2 days because Paris (where I was headed after) was way bigger and required more days to explore. I only extended a week after The Big Blog Exchange in Germany, so my time was quite limited. I chose Amsterdam to visit because of four things: The city of sin It’s absolutely beautiful Canal houses Anne Frank House I stayed at The Bulldog Hostel, which I later found out was famous for The Bulldog Cafe and their special brownies. And no, I did NOT get high in Amsterdam. It just didn’t seem right considering I was a) all alone and b) didn’t want to be high while touring… although everyone smokes pot so you could easily get high from secondhand smoke. I kid you not, I got several bad headaches from walking behind people smoking pot. If you’re wonder if staying at a non-Hosteling International hostel was scary, it wasn’t. Just make sure to check reviews and when you book a room (if […]

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Press play for some French vibes while reading this post. Some of these songs were playing on the tour bus as I went around Paris :-) Feel free to follow this playlist as well, I’m currently adding more songs as I go along! A dream of mine since I was a young girl was to travel the world. I already knew that I wasn’t meant to sit still in one place, that I would eventually find a way to go out there, to leave, to discover, to learn, to explore. Paris, France was always on top of my list. My mom used to say, “Maybe you were a French actress in your past life.” because of my keen interest in Paris, the French and also acting — the interest in becoming an actress eventually faded in time, but the French and Paris? Never, ever. I spent a total of 4 short days in Paris last June 2013. It was the last city for my mini (Germany – Amsterdam – Paris) Eurotrip. I stayed with my dad’s friend who, on the second day, had to leave for Marseille (southern part of France) on a business trip, so I had the flat […]

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I just realized it’s been a whole year since I went to Paris. And it took me a year to finally edit photos and find my way through all the feels to finally post the Paris entries! Haha So throwback to last year, days two and three were spent touring some more of Paris, and then on my last day I went to visit the town of Versailles to visit the ever so famous Chateau de Versailles! (This is quite a photo-heavy post, just a little warning.) The famous bookstore that I absolutely fell in love with. Quite possibly my favorite bookstore in the whole world, because it has been around since after World War II (the original was closed down during the war), they sell old & new books, writers/artists can even live here temporarily for free as long as if you help with chores/work during your stay, there’s a small nook with a typewriter so visitors from around the world can leave messages (you bet your bottom dollar I left mine), there’s a piano you can play (someone was playing the piano the day I was there, I sat around and listened for a good 10 minutes), and […]

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This guide is for applying for a UK tourist visa in the PHILIPPINES. If you need any other visa aside from a tourist visa, kindly check Google other blogs instead :) Being a Philippine passport holder, you’ll just have to assume that you will be required to apply for a tourist visa in the Philippines for every single first world country you may want to visit. It’s the harsh reality, unfortunately. My U.K. visa would be the third time I’ll have applied for a tourist visa, so you’d imagine I’d have this entire process down to a tee. I’ve applied for a Schengen visa through the German embassy (I’d write about it but they’re changing the visa application process starting August 1st 2015 — so my would-be post on the experience would be outdated) and a U.S. visa through the U.S. embassy, and both were quite difficult in the sense where, yes the requirements were easy but convincing them you won’t illegally live and work in their country was the tough part. I found that the U.K. visa application process was the least stressful of the three. I kid you not. It’s also quite easy, you just need to be extremely detailed with your application […]

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It’s currently 5 minutes to 2 in the afternoon, and Gab and I have been traveling for more than 24 hours running on about 4 hours of sleep each. We’ve been lugging around our heavy backpacks and extra luggage, barely eating, barely sleeping, navigating through London airports and finally making our way to Paris, to the very same flat I stayed when I visited 2 years ago. As I type this, Gab’s snoring softly in the other room, and I know I should wake him because we’re supposed to stay up until 10 PM to fix our body clocks to match Europe time, but he’s been such a trooper lugging around heavy baggage while I navigated us through city to city, I think I’ll let him nap for a bit more. We’re taking it easy today, just do some groceries and have lunch, walk to Trocadéro where there’s a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower, basically just soak it all in. I don’t think it has really hit us yet. We’re so exhausted and stressed out from the traveling that we’re unable to really appreciate where we are. Mostly, all we’ve seen is airports, planes, buses and trains. It’s also […]

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If you told me exactly a year ago that I’d be going on a Eurotrip with my boyfriend, I would’ve rolled my eyes and said, “As if… I don’t have the finances for it.” but a lot has changed since then. This whole Eurotrip plan actually began last year when Gab decided to book tickets to the Hamlet play at the Barbican Theater in London for October 2015. He was a fan of Benedict Cumberbatch, Shakespeare, and the city of London; three very good reasons for him to decide on a whim that he’s going. It was supposed to be a solo trip, but over the course of 3 months, we decided to make it a full blown Eurotrip. The last 2 months of the Eurotrip planning went painstakingly stressful, there was a lot of stress and a lot of crying. My passport got wet, visa interviews got delayed (repeatedly), I experienced my first visa rejection, cue more tears and stress and then the elation of finally receiving my French Schengen visa two days before our flight! You could say the planning was an adventure in itself, and that was just the beginning. On Our Way On the morning of September […]

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Craponne is probably a place you’ve never heard of before in your entire life, which is okay, because I didn’t know this place existed up until a month and a half ago. It’s a small, peaceful town just a few minutes by car or public transport from Lyon, France’s third largest city, in the Rhône-Alpes region. I’ll be living here for two months (November & December, originally three months but there was a problem with my visa and the French embassy could only grant me the two extra months after my Eurotrip) with the Garcia family, learning all about the French culture, their food, way of life, and hopefully pick up more of their language while teaching them conversational English in return. It’s a pretty awesome deal. I’ve been planning this homestay since the beginning of the year when I randomly stumbled upon Cultural Homestay International after how many nights of endless Google searches on programs that would allow me to live in France for a short period of time without having to go through the pain-staking process of looking for a job and applying for a work visa, or having to pay hefty fees to study again. I wanted full-on immersion, where I didn’t […]

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Paris will be a city that I’ll probably find myself visiting time and time again, if not live in. Gab, on the other hand, never really understood why I loved Paris so much, or why I dreamed of living there in the future (actually, I dream of living anywhere in France in the future. Paris just made my top choice because it’s the first French city I’ve explored twice) but after the six days we spent there, Gab changed his mind completely. Paris became one of his favorite cities out of all the 9 we visited. It’s safe to say he even liked it better than London, and let me tell you, he was hell bent on visiting London and the 5 days we were going to spend there was completely his part of the trip, it was the first reason why this Eurotrip even happened in the first place. In the six days, we spent a lot of time exploring the city on foot, eating pastries, visiting our favorite Franprix near the flat to stock up on some junk food. We put no pressure on ourselves to visit each of the famous monuments, just seeing them was good enough. […]

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When Gab and I were planning our Eurotrip, we knew first hand that we didn’t want to miss visiting Switzerland, with one goal in mind: visiting the Swiss Alps. Bern, the capital of Switzerland (not Zurich!) is a UNESCO world heritage site due to sandstone houses, narrow streets, and beautiful fountains, all well preserved dating back to medieval times; Bern also happens to be a gateway to the alps and Jungfraujoch was on the top of our list for Switzerland. According to local legend, Bern (Berne) got it’s name from Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen, who vowed to name the city after the first animal he met on a hunt, which happened to be a bear. The best thing about traveling in autumn isn’t the cold weather, it’s the way nature changes color, as if to mimic sunset representing the end of the year. Our quaint looking hostel: Youth Hostel Leissigen, our home base in Bern. More about our stay here soon. Leissigen is a quiet little village with a population of around 976 people, give or take. Taken on our first morning, waiting for the train to head to the Old Town Bern. Charming Leissigen train station is my favorite out […]

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Let’s go back to the beginning, on the 30th of September, right when my first eurotrip with Gab started. My visa just got approved 2 days before departure, so everything was a whirlwind from that point on. Last minute bookings, canceled trips and a whole lot of stress just getting to our first eurotrip destination: Paris. I’ll let the video explain just what I mean. If you want to read the blog version, you may do so here. I hope you guys enjoy this first eurotrip vlog. I promise there’s more. I took footages every day, at least 350 GB worth!!! It ate up my entire hard drive. My apologies if they take forever to be edited and uploaded. I promise, I’m working on it. :-) Special thanks to Philippine Airlines & Hosteling International for supporting #CamieAndGabTakeEurope

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Let’s go back to October 7, 2015 when Gab and I made our way to Bern, Switzerland from Paris and we stayed at a beautiful holiday home turned youth hostel situated in the quiet village of Leissigen. Did I mentioned it sits right by Lake Thun making it a youth hostel with its own beach? And that the holiday home used to be owned by a man named Albert Wander, the same man who invented the Ovomaltine malt drink? You can read more about the hostels history here, if you’re interested. The Leissigen Youth Hostel literally has the old charm feel, like you’ve traveled back in time to the 1900’s with its interiors and furniture. It’s also a great base camp for taking day trips to the old town of Bern, Interlaken or visiting the Swiss Alps — which is why it was my favorite hostel during our eurotrip. The Leissigen Youth Hostel is open from April 29 to October 23, the months between that is the winter season and therefor would be too cold to stay in because there’s no central heating… Yes folks, the building is pretty much in its original state since it was first built, around the time […]

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If you ever find yourself in Switzerland, don’t miss out on the chance to visit the alps and the alpine villages, trust me on this. You’ll be missing out on sceneries that will take your breath away, that will make you fall in love with mother nature, that will make you never want to leave such a place. In the early morning of October 9th, Gab and I woke hours before sunrise. The Jungfrau website’s weather forecasts claimed we’d be having a clear day with a chance of clouds before noon, but even that was no guarantee. Going up to the alps is always a big risk, because nature can be a tricky thing and the weather can turn on you in an instant up there — I mean, nothing completely drastic, but if you’re splurging to see the alps, you’d want to actually see the alps instead of clouds. But we knew it was now or never. We layered up to prepare for the drop in temperatures once we arrive at Jungfraujoch and packed ourselves some lunch to enjoy instead of buying the expensive food on site. We left our hostel while the entire village of Leissigen was still sleeping. And as we made […]

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The charming town of Cochem sits on the Mosel river in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany, known for it’s beauty, slopes of vineyards and the Reichsburg castle that sits on a hill overlooking the town. It’s a popular destination among tourists, mostly older couples doing cross country roadtrips on their RVs or young married couples with a baby or two — just something we observed, as Gab and I hardly saw anyone of our age. The date is the 10th of October. Gab and I made our way to Germany from Switzerland, with two heavy backpacks, missing our train in the process. Actually, we didn’t technically miss the train. We got on in time, but decided to change train coaches, and the moment we got off, we hadn’t realized the train was due to leave that exact moment too. Fortunately, the swiss railway ticket vendor told us not to worry about missing our train because it’s off-peak season, meaning we wouldn’t need to purchase a whole new ticket to get seats, and our train conductor didn’t mind that we were on the wrong train to Germany either. Our Airbnb host offered to pick us up from Cochem’s hauptbahnhof (train station) […]

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Burg Eltz was a castle I randomly saw a photo of online and fell in love with the way it looked, so when we were planning the Eurotrip I made sure it was a castle we had to visit. Luckily, it was on the way. If we were to travel from Bern to Amsterdam, a stop in Germany would not only be welcome, but convenient as well. On the morning of October 12th, Gab and I boarded a train from Cochem’s main train station towards the sleepy town of Moselkern, with only one plan in mind: Follow the signs to Burg Eltz and hike our way to it.Taken on our train ride towards Moselkern. I loved this view because of the two swans swimming along the misty Mosel River. Walking through Moselkern Right outside Moselkern’s train station were signs to help us tourists get to several destinations. Castle Eltz’s hiking trail was 90 minutes away. Gab and I braced ourselves for a very long walk, with him doubting I’ll last more than halfway. I generally hate walking, but I told him it’s only unbearable to do so back home in the Philippines where the weather is perpetually hot and sweat […]

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It rained the entire time majority of the time in Amsterdam. A stark difference from the last time I was there. It made the ambience of the city a little more charming, but somewhat depressing too (the cold + wet weather tends to do that to you). We didn’t have a set itinerary for Amsterdam, our mood being in a very “come what may” manner. And so, we spent three days walking around, getting wet in the rain, checking out flea markets and book stores, meeting up with an old friend and visiting the red light district every night. Unfortunately, I was not as adventurous as I would’ve wanted. Maybe the third time I end up in Amsterdam I’ll gather up more courage to try a brownie or something. :-P Amsterdam, the capital city of Holland or the Netherlands, is a city known for their canals, the charming house boats and their citizens biking everywhere more than walking or taking cars — In fact, Amsterdam has plans on becoming a car-free city!  There are 165 canals in Amsterdam. And it’s easy to get lost in this city, because aside from impossible to pronounce street names, everywhere almost looks entirely the same.  The Dam Square […]

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The date is the first week of October, Gab and I finally made our way to Paris after what felt like such a long journey from the Philippines to London. We soldier on and try to break the jet lag, with me failing miserably — a little warning: I end up whining about being tired quite a few times. I promise you, that’s the first and last of it for the rest of the Eurotrip vlogs. This is the first two days of our stay in Paris. There may be 2 more vlogs in this Paris series.   Enjoy! :-)

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The second part of our 6 day stay in Paris, France last October 2015. A shoutout to my wonderful tito bobby & tita lou (family friends) who let us stay in their flat for the week, ultimately saving up a lot of our eurotrip budget. Watching this second vlog made me realize Gab and I really didn’t do a lot of touristy things and now we’re itching to go back and spend another week in the city of lights. Enjoy! :-)

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Bern, Switzerland. Painstakingly expensive, but amazingly beautiful. The first part of Fox & Bear’s Switzerland vlog covers our arrival in Bern and visiting the city for a day. I’m also trying out a new editing style in regards to color grading, let me know if you like it or prefer the original colors of the video? I personally like this look, but if it’s not looking great on your laptop, do let me know. :-) Enjoy!

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