Germany: It's real.

Louvre-in' it

2008-04-07T05:16:00.000-07:00

We went to France! Bonnie and I hit up Strasbourg and Paris a few weeks ago, braved shady night trains, ate too many pastries, and marveled at famous sights. Here's the picture synopsis:

Snowy Strasbourg | Lite Brite pedestrian signals?

Me being excited about food...weird I know. But seriously -- Nutella banana crepes were incredible in Paris.

The Louvre

This might give perspecitve to how small the 'Lisa actually is...

Notre Dame Cathedral

Tim gearing up with Mountain Dew for a night full of trains

To Sarah and Nikki

2008-03-31T06:39:00.001-07:00

98 words

Speedtest

Brussels, Mussels, and Markets

2008-03-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm a little behind. I tried to trick you all into thinking that our Czech adventures were recent, but in all honesty, it was three weekends ago. I had to get that off my conscience.

Two weekends ago, Tim, Mitchell and I went to Belgium. Brussels, mostly. And friends, I ask you to scrap all of your preconceived notions, and toss your waffle insecurities aside - because I'm here to tell you that you will never taste anything more delicious than a Belgian waffle. (Except for maybe the Nutella/banana crepe that I had in Paris the other day...) Belgians love their chocolate, too, and I wasn't above making that a part of every meal, either.

There were parks that spanned several miles, and cool museums. The city itself was really pretty and fun to walk around, but aside from old churches and regular town square-ish buildings, I'm not sure I have many highlights to share about the architecture or famous monuments. The culture was much more in-your-face than a typical German city, so getting yelled at in French was intimidating at times. We stayed in "Hotel the Moon" which is ALWAYS funny to reference (as are other poorly translated-to-English places we've been such as the "Pizza Go Home" that we went to in Prague).

Allow me to reveal to you, via photographs, my weekend. There are a lot:

Crazy statue on a busy Brussell(ian?) street. No explanation, nothing.

Chocolate everywhere! Above is a sculpture made entirely of chocolate, and since we were there so close to Easter, this stuff was everywhere.

The famous Cologne Cathedral, and the Rhine River. The cathedral is the biggest Gothic church in northern Europe... which means it's really big. (Yes, I know Cologne isn't in Belgium, but we had a layover there on our way home at 4am...)

Walking along a regular Brussels street, we stumbled upon what appeared to be Paradise.

WAFFLESSSSSSS!

WAFFLESSSSSSSS!
Not sure what this building was. The clouds were cool though, right?

Hotel the Moon!

These wooden figurines were everywhere.

Okay, so these kids bombarded us as we were sitting peacefully on a bench in this park. The boy in the middle proceeded to chant something in French over and over while his friends laughed at our confused reactions. The building in the background was the venue for the Menomena concert we went to.

Tim learned French on a software program years ago and didn't have the chance to use it with real people until this trip. This is Tim extremely excited about the chocolate he just ordered flawlessly in French. What a champ.

This ridiculous legend is a pretty big deal in Brussels, and the corresponding statue is an even bigger deal. I, however, could not bring myself to post such an atrocity on this blog, so if you're curious about it, just Google it.

Ceske Budejovice and Cesky Krumlov

2008-03-21T05:15:00.001-07:00

Emily, Beth, Bonnie and I recently took Bohemia by storm. I don't know a lot about either of the cities that we went to, except that they were both beautiful and Czech-esque. Two words: potato dumplings. We saw colorful storefronts, icy rivers, old castles, and bears. Bears? Yes, inside the castle wall at Krumlov (and outside the castle itself) were several bears roaming the landscape. I think the city keeps them there for old times sake, and when we saw them, they were just chowing down on platters of fruit. We ate crepes and goulash and pastries and tortes.

The hostel room that Bonnie and I shared had a sign on the door that read "Love Shack." Also: the guy manning the hostel's reception office told us to not be surprised if when we woke up to check out the next morning, we found him passed out on the floor outside of the door, sleeping off his inebriation. Shaaaady. Luckily, when we went to turn in our keys in the morning, he was sitting upright at his desk, and seemed coherent enough.

Anyway -- here are some pictures from the weekend.

My bike.

2008-03-21T05:13:00.001-07:00

(I'm obsessed.)

Lennon Wall

2008-03-07T06:12:00.001-08:00

Pragueland. Slightly after the fact...

2008-03-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

Gelato. Oh, and some cities in Italy.

2008-03-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

Italy was spectacular. We spent most of our time in Florence, but within the span of five days, we also hit up Rome, Pisa, and Venice. These pictures are all of Florence, since I apparently neglected to take digital pictures of the other cities. The weekend was packed full of walking many miles a day, staring at old buildings, and eating mostly gelato. Mmmm, gelato. The weather was in the 60s in most of th places we went, which was fantastic. The in-your-face demeanor of the people are such a contrast to the straight-laced Bavarians I'm used to. They were so personal and loud, often aggressively trying to sell us "Rolex" watches and weirdly dyed roses. Overall a great trip, and quite possibly my favorite experience thus far. Here's the dirt:

Rome - I guess I hadn't realized that the Colosseum is real. Like, it actually exists over here, and it is old and big. It took me a while to believe that I was standing in front of it, and it wasn't just a figment of history textbooks. Tours to go inside were really expensive, so we walked around the outside for a while before heading to the next stop. We bought day passes for this really cheesy "hop on, hop off" double-decker tour bus that took us around to the main stops - really handy for our attempt to see all of Rome in one day. Other highlights included going inside the Vatican/St. Peter's Cathedral, the Pantheon, gelato by the Trevi Fountain, and seeing ruins all over the place.

Florence - Gelato. We ate gelato every day we were in Italy, and sometimes I'd order two servings in a row to prove to my fellow travelers that I do not in fact have self control. The Duoma Piazza was the most impressive sight with one of the largest, most ornate cathedrals in Europe. We also went to the Academia museum that holds Michaelangelo's famous marble statue of David. One evening we hiked up into the hills between some vineyards and found some great churches and views of Tuscany. (By the way, contrary to the Maestro's declaration to Jerry about there being no places to stay in Tuscany, there are indeed rooms for rent. Don't be fooled.)

Pisa - The tower leans! It leans way more than I thought it did, and honestly made me feel a little uneasy, just looking at it. The city doesn't have much to offer besides the main piazza with the tower and church, but we made good use of our time wandering the run-down yet picturesque streets, and, again eating gelato. Later that day we took a bus about 15 minutes out to the coast to check out a little of the Mediterranean.

Venice - By far my favorite of the four cities. Stepping out of the train station, I was instantly amazed by the Grande Canal. That day I took an entire roll of black and white pictures with the Rebel camera, and I'm pretty excited to see how they'll turn out. I was a little apprehensive of Venice before I got there, because I had heard such mixed opinions from people, ranging from "it's awesome" to "it smells" and "it's too crowded." Luckily for us, we didn't experience either of the latter, and spent six hours roaming the winding cobblestone streets, dodging canals when necessary. San Marcos square is the famous one with all the pigeons that's in a ton of movies, and that was pretty cool to see in real life.

Blogging is hard!

2008-02-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

I thought I could do it. I thought I could keep up with the daily pressures of blogging, and I thought I was going to come out on top. Turns out I'm no better than the rest of you.

My excuse: I take most of my pictures with a film camera, and for the digital ones I don't have software on my computer to upload them with. The digital ones are coming at you slowly but soon, so just keep in mind that the payoff is gonna be really good. Until then, I'll throw in a few pictures of Bonnie's.

We've started our second class now, which is Reformation History. The professor is a pastor from Texas, and a really nice guy. It's an overwhelming subject for me to learn in two weeks, since I haven't had any background in RH yet, but I'm trying to soak it in like a champ.

Last weekend a group of us went to Prague for a few days. The streets of Czech Republic bear a sharp contrast from spic-n-span Germany (well, Bavaria anyway) and was a challenge for some to get used to litter on the sidewalks and graffiti on the walls - but after I convinced them to get over it, we had a good time. I couldn't help being weirded out by all the marionettes, though. Seriously, what is it with Europeans and weird dolls? Anyway, Prague was great (also bitterly cold/snowing). We hit up the castle/cathedral area, the Lennon wall, the Charles Bridge, Old Town Square, and of course Bohemia Bagel.

In other news, weather in Germany is really warming up. Yesterday was in the 60s and we celebrated after church by going to a nearby village called Kallmunz and hiked up to some 800-year-old castle ruins on a hill overlooking the countryside. I'll try to scrounge up some pictures of that, too.

Next weekend, you ask? Italy. No big deal. Bonnie, Mitch, Jeff and I are taking a night train on Thursday evening and will apparently end up in Rome by Friday morning. It's magic! Roman magic.

Swiss Cheese and Ricola

2008-02-13T08:12:00.000-08:00

Mostly, I want to live in Switzerland.

Jeff, Mitchell, Bonnie and I decided to take advantage of our four day weekend by climbing aboard trains to Switzerland. With visions of ski slopes and Swiss army knives dancing in our heads, we spent the first half of Friday en route to Zurich. We were greeted upon arrival with beautiful weather and the shimmering Limmat river, around which the city was built. After wandering the streets of Zurich, the idea was to set up camp in Interlaaken , a small town a few hours away sandwiched in the lower Alps, and go from there. We didn't end up going skiing while in Switzerland, but we did take a series of trains and gondolas up into the Alps, and I almost pooped my pants in excitement. I can honestly say it was one of the greatest days of my life. At the top of Maennlichen there was live music - Jamaican-esque Elton John covers to be exact - and of course skiers everywhere. We bought Swiss cheese and baguettes to eat at the top, and were each given a free piece of Ricola by the accommodating staff at the final gondola. I spent the better part of two hours turning in circles, trying to take it all in. We were on top of the world.

Blood oranges?

2008-02-13T03:48:00.000-08:00

Call me crazy, but I've never seen this before. A few weeks ago, Bonnie and I were eating oranges and cut open the peel to find this - much to our dismay. Blood oranges? Really? They taste the same except just really sour and tart. Still not sure how I feel about them. I guess red is the new orange. Literally.

The Mother Load

2008-02-12T12:04:00.001-08:00

Weekend before last we went to Dresden, a city that was demolished in East Germany. Here are some pictures from the scenic drive on the Autobahn.

This is my absolute favorite part about living in Amberg: Cruising around town on this beauty.Jeff and Mitch
Bonnie
The Vils river that runs through Amberg's Old Town.

2008-02-12T07:32:00.000-08:00

Doors. You know.Apple pancakes/waffles in NurembergFarmers market in the town square in Nuremberg

View from the clock tower we climbed. There was definitely some Neo Nazi party rallying going on in the square.

2008-02-12T07:13:00.000-08:00

This is the Glockenspiel at the Munich city square. We got there before 5pm to see the clock in action on the hour, and even climbed up into a different clock tower to see the view from up there. Well, it never happened. It was a great view of the city though... (how do I get this to stop writing hyperlink-style?)Shadow shot against the city wall of Amberg. Two members of my 'posse', if you will, Jeffrey and Mitchell.
Bonnie and I found a book store that looks like the Fox Books Superstore in You've Got Mail. They have fun chairs, too.
Table spread from my favorite restaurant in Amberg, the Schloderer Brau

To my family:

2008-02-11T15:14:00.000-08:00

Hi! Check in here for updates on my existence in other countries. Love you/Miss you all.

Hannah