Paris

After Switzerland, we headed to what was probably the highlight of the trip-Paris! We got to our hotel, and to our pleasant surprise, it was VERY nice and new and clean and had a really neat decorated restaurant and bar. Everyone ate dinner at the restaurant then we went on a night time city tour of Paris. It was so beautiful to see everything lit up at night. We went by all of the main tourist attractions, then went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was so cool to do at night! There weren't as long of lines and the view of the city lit up was so pretty. It was, however, probably the most cold and wind blown I have ever been in my whole life! The tower goes into disco mode every hour on the hour, so it was pretty to see that at night as well. At the bottom there is all of these African men trying to sell you crappy Eiffel Tower gear and they just won't leave you alone. It's funny because a lot of the people we were with got the same stuff for completely different prices-moral of the story: If you buy stuff from these guys, you can get it for practically nothing-they'll take anything!

The next morning we went to the park in front of the Eiffel Tower to get pictures, then we had the whole day to explore. Adam and I started out by going to the Louvre. It is amazing how big and pretty and detailed this building is! There is enough to see in it to last you a lifetime, so we basically just went to see a few main things we were excited about: Mona Lisa, Apollo's Palace, Venus de Milo, and Napoleon's apartment. After the Louvre, we went to the Notre Dame (there was a guy dressed like the hunchback outside of it). It was so awesome, but the line was SOOOO long so we didn't go in. Afterwards, we went to the Latin Quarter and found this cute little bistro to eat lunch at. We had real French onion soup, escargot, a goat cheese/apple/green salad, and of course wine! Everything was delicious and didn't disappoint! The French sure do know how to practice portion control though, which I like! Despite what everyone says too, I thought French people were nice-the servers, our hotel staff, even a girl at the train station who gave us a coin!The rest of the afternoon we walked more and saw the Palace of Justice, we shopped (and I got Kristie a Christmas present I love!), went by the Opera House, saw the Madeleine Theatre, then walked up Champs Elysee (shopping and Christmas stands). Then we hurried home to get ready for our last night in Europe!

One of the main things I wanted to do while we were there was go to the Moulin Rouge, which I was lucky enough to get to do! It was crazy getting there (Saturday night in Paris is super busy PLUS the drivers there are HORRIBLE), but we made it. We sat with a big group and they served us a nice dinner with lots of wine while a cabaret band played and people danced. Finally they brought our champagne and the show started! It basically is like a musical, a circus, and a strip show all in one. There were dancers, gymnists, a juggler, a vantriliquist, ponies, snakes, a talking dog, and lots of American songs (but mostly French). It was something I would definitely recommend everyone to do at least once in their life if they are in Paris and all the guys even agreed that it was awesome.

After the show, we all went to this bar next to the Moulin Rouge to hang out one last night! It was a really fun night and everyone had a really good time. It was sad that the trip went so fast and that we probably won't see most of these people we had such a good time with ever again!

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Lucerne

After Italy, we had a beautiful drive into Switzerland. One of my highlights was driving by Lake Como and seeing George Clooney's house from across the lake, but the Swiss Alps were nice too :). When we arrived to Lucerne, it was so pretty. The city is surrounded by snow capped mountains and has so much character. We went to see the Lion Monument and the famous bridge, but mainly just walked around and looked at buildings, houses, and shops (known for their watches and knives of course). We tried authentic Swiss chocolate, which was DELICIOUS! Adam got it in his head he wanted cheese, so we went into a grocery store, he didn't find what he was looking for, so we decided to leave. As we were leaving, the buzzer went off when I went through! We couldn't communicate with the mean checkout lady, so they called security on me and took me back into this room! I was thinking "I'm going to Swiss jail for nothing." Anyways, turns out my extra memory card for my camera that was still in the package made it go off. The security guy was nice and let me leave. It made for a little excitement.

That night we all went to this sports bar in town. It was a really fun night, but we were lucky we weren't the last to leave. Apparently, 5 people got home late and all got onto this TINY elevator in our hotel. It was on its way up when it dropped and they were stuck inbetween floors. They started yelling for help and this guy Matt heard them, panicked, and punched through the glass to try to get them down. It didn't work, and they had to call the elevator guy to come in. The people involved in this little incident had to pay A LOT of money for the repair (140-300 Euro each) and for having the elevator guy have to come in the middle of the night! Oh well, makes for a good story of their adventure in Switzerland!



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Venice

Our first night in Italy was interesting. We ate dinner at the hotel we stayed at and all just sat in the lounge area with couches and mingled. I drank some delicious Italian wine but most people had the mixed drink, which we came to learn were so strong they were practically deadly. This made for an interesting night. People who had these drinks ended up having a really rough night-Adam being one of them :) The next morning on our way to Venice, we learned a lot of people were up in the night being sick and a few people even got sick on the way there, ewwww(don't worry, not Adam). Glad I stuck to the wine!




We started our visit to Venice at St. Mark's Square. We were super lucky because the day before we were there, Venice flooded. The raised walkways were all out in case it flooded the day we were there, but luck was on our side! We walked by the Bridge of Sighs (the bridge that leads to the prison Cassanova was in). We saw Doges Palace, the columns, the belltower, etc. We also went to a demonstration of how they make the famous glass sculptures there; it was so funny, this HUGE man who looked out of the Sopranos was the artist and he was rough!





After the glass demo, everyone walked to this little authentic pizza stand and got gigantic pizza slices. Then Adam and I walked all over to see the Rialto Bridge, neighborhoods, canals, etc. Everything here was so pretty!



After awhile, we met up with the group to go on a gondola ride. Adam and I rode with 4 guys-Chris, Dave, Kane, and Andrew, haha. Not so romantic but really fun. The gondola man was so funny-I pictured an old guy but he was a young man who seemed to be a model want to be.

After the ride, we walked around more and finally went to a cute little Italian restaurant for dinner. After some Bordeaux and seafood, we headed back to the hotel for bed! It was a long but fun day!


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Austria

After Germany we headed to Innsbrook Austria. The drive was so beautiful. It looked like the Sound of Music-mountains with snow everywhere then mountains with green grass. It was fun to see the people from South Africa react to snow because most of them had never seen it in person. When we got to Innsbrook, we went to the Swarofski Crystal museum first. The basement of it was set up as a winter wonderland display and was all glittery and sparkley-very pretty. Afterwards we basically walked around, ate lunch-the best pumpkin soup ever, took pictures, and finally tried world famous desserts (strudel and sacar), then we were on our way to Italy!

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Germany

Sunday night we arrived to St. Goar, Germany. It is a cute little town in the Rhine Valley on the Rhine River that has the world's largest cuckoo clock. We stayed at this cute family owned hotel that was very old fashioned. Most of the hotels had twin beds that they pushed together for us which was funny, but this one was all Brady Bunch yellow and right out of the seventies. This night we went to a wine cave for Reisling tastings. The Rhine Valley is known for Reislings, which I typically think is too sweet, but they had a dry Reisling that was really good. We also got to taste ice wine, which is really expensive because it takes the amount of grapes to make 8 bottles of regular wine to make this. It was super thick and syrupy, like honey, but sort of good. After the tasting, everyone hung out at the hotel bar, which was fun and low key!

The next morning we left for Munich. The hotel we stayed at here was a lot more modern/nicer and they had my favorite gummy bears on the bed like we put mints on pillows :) We started out at Marienplatz Square and saw the Glockenspiel. We also went to Frauenkirche Cathedral where there is supposedly the devil's footprint. Legend has it that if your foot is the same size as this print, you are the son of the devil! Luckily, our feet were too small! Woohoo.

After exploring, we met the whole group at the Haufbrau Haus. This place was one of the highlights of the trip. It basically is a huge beer hall/restaurant where everyone drinks out of gigantic beer steins, sits at long tables, listens to the oompah band, and eats. The servers are dressed in traditional German clothes and they carry all the steins your table orders at one time! There are lots of tourists here, but one side is reserved for the locals who have their own steins in locker type things. We tried gigantic pretzels, sausage, schnitzel, and of course saurkraut! It was an Australian guy named Kane's 19th bday, so it was fun to celebrate with him. This guy reminds me of what Adam would have been like at 19...he was never dull to be around. We basically played games and drank beer all night. We even tried this liquor called obstler, which supposedly is supposed to melt all the food and beer in your stomach so you can keep drinking without getting too full...didn't work for me, but it's a nice thought! Anyhow, this was one of the most fun nights I have had in a super long time, and I would LOVE to go back to this place!

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Amsterdam

The morning after we arrived to London, we met with our group we were traveling with to start on our way to Amsterdam. We all got on the coach bus and met the tour guide, Dean, a low 30's guy from Australia who knew a ton and was super helpful/funny. We saw the White Cliffs of Dover, then got on a ferry to France. After this, everyone on the tour got up and introduced themselves. There were about 50 people aged 19-33 from USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Brazil, etc. Everyone was super cool and it was fun to meet people from such different places.

We drove through Belgium and stopped at a rest stop for the first time. Rest stops in Europe are so fun! They serve gourmet food buffets and wine or beer with every meal. Most of the time you have to pay to use the restroom though, booooo. At this first one, we tried Belgian chocolate, mmmmmmmmm! Then we continued our drive until we reached our hotel in Amsterdam. We quick ate, got ready, then headed out!

We started the night on a canal cruise. It was super fun! We got on this little boat with tables and snacks and had all you can drink wine or Heinekin (which originated in Amsterdam). It was a fun way to mingle with everyone, and we sat with another married couple from New Zealand and London, Stuart and Kim(there were about 4 other married couples, a few dating couples, and mainly singles). There were so many pretty bridges lit up and cool houses/buildings along the canals.

After this we got to walk around and see the night time Amsterdam-totally different than anything I had ever experienced. We were in the Red Light District, which you are not allowed to take pictures in. Why??? Because Prostitution and Pot smoking is legal. You basically walk along the streets and there are windows with women in lingerie dancing and waving at men as you smell the aroma of marijuana coming from the "coffee shops." It was definitely interesting to see, but seemed pretty shady to me!

The next morning we headed out to explore daytime Amsterdam, which is way nicer than night time. Everyone rides bikes, even during the day and there are really pretty buildings along the canals. We went to the Anne Frank Museum, which I thought was super cool to see where they hid out! We basically just walked and looked all around, ate lunch, then met up with the group to hit the road to Germany!

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Starting off our trip in London

Adam and I just got back from the best trip either of us could have imagined. It was a whirlwind of a trip: we were gone for 12 days, saw 8 different cities in Europe, met tons of fun people, and had fun together as well! We did so much and took so many different pictures that one blog post isn't enough. I'll start with our first stop: London.

We left early Thanksgiving morning and flew from San Diego to Detroit, then Detroit to London. Neither of us could sleep on the flights, so when we arrived in London at 7AM their time it technically was time for us to go to sleep. As soon as we got off of the plane though, neither of us felt one bit tired. We took the tube from the airport to the city and found our hotel fairly easily (we took a few extra laps around the block, but no big deal). We checked in and ditched out suitcases and began walking around 8:30AM. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral, then to the River Thames, saw London Bridge, then walked along the river.

We saw the Old Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern but then came across little wooden stands set up for Christmas. It turns out, these are set up in every city, but we were excited by the fact that you could get warm mulled wine and walk along the streets with it, so we got a glass to warm us up and walked along to the London Eye and Big Ben.

Next we grabbed some lunch, walked to Buckingham Palace, walked through Hyde Park, then walked down Oxford Street home. This is where all the shopping takes place, so it was jam packed and fun to hear/watch people. I liked listening to all the locals talk and seeing all the little girls dressed so classy (all little girls were wearing peacoats, tights, mary janes, etc.).

Finally we got back to the hotel, and my feet and legs killed. We calculated that we had walked between 15-20 miles. It was exhausting, especially on zero sleep and in the rain, BUT we had to try out a traditional English pub. The person at the hotel suggested a place that we walked to, but we found a place on the way in an alley that looked perfect. It was called Swan. It was super packed, had a fireplace, and lots of people having fun drinking beer. We went here and hung out with the locals, ate din din (fish and chips for Adam/ a Jacket Potato for me, aka a baked potato with stuff on it), had some drinks (beer and cider) and went home to rest for our departure to Amsterdam the next day!

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