Pictures

We're currently in Germany staying with Summer and Kashyap. It's gorgeous here and their house is great. They've been feeding us incredible food the entire time! We went to Neuschwanstein Castle last Friday and have otherwise been enjoying the local area. Went to the military base today...always exciting! =) We will be reluctant to leave.

Thought we'd update with a few pictures.

Gluttons for Punishment

We arrived in Brussels via overnight bus! We told ourselves that we wouldn't so that again after our Norway bus fiasco...and just a couple of weeks later, we did it again. It actually wasn't that bad, but it is exhausting and takes a day to recover.

We had a great trip out to Cambridge and spent one more day in London. We hung out in the afternoon at Hyde Park, went to an organ recital at St. Paul's Cathedral and visited the Bag O'Nails pub before getting on our bus.

We only spent 2 days in Belgium. We enjoyed some good Belgian beer, Belgian chocolate and of course a Belgian waffle. That was a calorific delight! Ha! I'm not sure how they make them, but they're kind of crispy almost with a more soft middle coated with sugary, honey-like stuff. Then it's topped with whipped cream and chocolate! On our second day there we took a day trip to Ghent. It was a very cute little town with all sorts of little shops and cafes. We found a great chocolate shop there and put together and little sampling of truffles. Phill asked the woman working there which ones were her favorites. She looked at him as if to say -- "how could you ask me to choose?" She's obviously in the right line of work...she loves them all. She helped us put together an assortment...caramel, coffee flavors, crisps, amaretto, cookie, vanilla, white chocolate, etc.

After enough days in Europe, you would think that cities and countries would start to look alike, but they don't. Belgium had some of the most unique architecture that we've seen yet. The building fronts are highly detailed and decorated and hide the steep roofs behind them. From the front, some look almost 2 dimensional.

We are now outside of Stuttgart, Germany visiting Summer and Kashyap who are living here for 3 years while Kashyap is a contractor for the army. They have a great place here in a village called Wildberg. It's very authentically German with great access to so many cool sites. I'm not sure what we'll occupy our week with, but it's sure to be a good time!

Divine Intervention

I think we experienced some divine intervention today. Between last night and today we saw Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster, Trafalgar Square, London eye, changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London and Tower Bridge. And then we made our way to King's Cross station to take a train out to Vanja and Cameron Sutter's house near Cambridge. It was rush hour and the train was packed with people. We were feeling claustrophobic and a little stressed because we were running late. We tried to buy our tickets at the ticket machine, but the price seemed strangely high. We were too tired and stressed to try to figure it out, so we were going to just book it anyhow. The 1-way train price was going to be the equivalent of a night's hotel reservation almost for a 35 minute ride! That makes it hard to hit our daily budget. The debit card wouldn't go through. Tried another machine and it wouldn't go through there either. So, I stood in line to talk to a real person while Phill tried one more ticket machine. Debit card failed. We finally got to the counter and the ticket guy gave us a price that nearly half of what we were about to pay at the machine. It was such a relief! The smaller price helps us out tremendously on overall London costs.

As a rule of thumb, we've decided that we really need to learn to slow down and think things through. There are so many times that we've plowed forward out of exasperation and frustration and learned later of a better, more efficient option. If something doesn't quite seem right, it probably isn't.

Anyhow, we've arrived at the Sutters and plan to see Cambridge tomorrow. The weather is great, so it ought to be a fantastic afternoon.

Strangers are friends you haven't yet met

Ireland was intoxicating. The more time we spent here, the more charming it became. It's home to some of the friendliest people on earth, I think. Whiffs of beer and good food fill the streets which are lined with cute shops and pubs. If you stay up long enough for the nightlife, the pubs are filled with the sounds of traditional Irish musical charm. The musicians keep a steady buzz and visitors cheerily tap their feet and sing along. The wood floors are smooth and slick from so many years of foot-tapping! We've found that you become part of the pub family in no time at all. They have signs posted reading - "Strangers are friends you haven't yet met." The bar keep is there to talk! But you have to pay careful attention because the chatty Irish speak so quickly that the words start to run together. Bars are named O'Neils, O'Briens, O'Connells, O'Flanegans, O'Donaghues...you get the point.

We spent 3 days in Dublin sightseeing and just enjoying the stress free atmosphere. Our first evening, we toured the Guinness Brewery. You can smell the hops and malt from the beer from blocks away. The next day, we spent the afternoon seeing Christ Church, Trinity College, O'Connell Street, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, the Custom House and the downtown port area on the river. In the evening, we got fish and chips from Leo Burdock's - supposedly the oldest fish and chips joint in Ireland. It's take out only and comes in a paper bag. It was pretty good!

That evening we did a sort of pseudo pub crawl around Dublin. We liked each pub too much to truly do a pub crawl, so we stayed longer at each and chatted with the bar tender. We ended up only making it to 3 pubs - Porterhouse, O'Neils and Peader Kearney's. Each was quite unique and a lot of fun!

We day-tripped to Kilkenny on our final day there which was kind of a quaint Irish town outside of Dublin. We pretty much spent the day just walking around and enjoying the town. They have about 8 cathedrals and 80 pubs! Haha. Typical Ireland we think! We went through Smithwick Brewery and learned a lot about the history of Kilkenny and of Ireland from the bar keep there.

All in all, we had an incredible time in Ireland. Add it to the list of a place to return to and spend a great deal more time exploring further into the country.

Norway in a Nutshell

Paul and Helena took us on the Norway in a Nutshell fjord tour on Wednesday which was beautiful! The weather really held out for us too. It's about a 2 hour scenic train ride to get to the ferry. Then the ferry ride itself is about 2 hours as well which cruises between the mountain walls. Being in the water on the boat with the mountains around you gives you a sense of being quite small! It's really spectacular.

Our road trip from DC to Seattle was made up of almost entirely natural beauties and wonders. And then we got to Europe and have been seeing almost entirely man-made wonders. And while both are equally impressive, it's been neat to be in Norway where we're definitely back to the natural beauties. The fjords were carved solely by the receeding glacier thousands (or millions) of years ago.

We went out on the town last night, but since beer here costs about 10 US dollars each, we spent the majority of the evening at Helena's high school friend's apartment shooting the breeze and visiting, and went out later. I didn't really have anything to wear, so her friend brought me a pair of jeans to borrow. And here in Europe, all they wear is the skinny jeans...so I had to brave it!! Haha! We kept telling Phill that he should wear Paul's jeans so that he could have skinny jeans also!

Enjoy the pictures. They're from a hike we took near Helena's parents' house, the Fjord tour and a few of our night out.

Pictures

Just thought we'd update with some pics from Budapest, Prague, Berlin and Norway.

Finally in the Fjords

I lost count of the number of hours involved in our travels getting here! We started the night of the 7th with an overnight from Berlin to Copenhagen which went smoothly. But there were no more trains going from Copenhagen on the 7th to Oslo. We considered planes, ferries, etc. but nothing was going to work. So, we sucked it up and took an overnight bus to Oslo with plans to take a train from Oslo to Bergen. The bus worked out okay, but it was long and uncomfortable. We were ready to be there, that's for sure. Then we about curled up and starting crying in Oslo when we learned that all trains to Bergen were booked as well. We had to take an 11 hour bus ride that wound around countless roundabouts and switchbacks. We were sure glad to arrive. Neither were sure how much more of the switchbacks our weary stomachs could handle.

At any rate, we've arrived and we're very glad to be here. Although the bus ride was long, it was very scenic. Norway is such a beautiful country. And we were happy to see Paul and Helena.

Berlin Bottoms

We had quite an interesting day in Berlin today. We spent the afternoon sightseeing the parts of Berlin that we missed on our tour, mostly the Berlin Wall area. We made a trip out to the East Side Gallery - the longest remaining section of the wall. Artists from 20 plus countries have graffitied the wall since 1989. The art itself was neat to see, but more than anything, it was amazing to think about what it all meant. So many celebrations and parties happened during the time that it came down. And we were really in awe to be there.

The most interesting experience in the day actually had nothing to do with Berlin history at all, however! We had a picnic lunch at Tiergarden, which is a green grassy park near the zoo. When we were walking and looking for a good spot to set up our picnic, Phill thought he saw a naked man through the bushes. I was kind of skeptical of his observation until I turned briefly to my left and noticed a huge grassy area with at least 30 naked men lying about. Berlin is actually known to be very gay friendly and have a large gay population. We lived in Key West...and I can honestly say neither of us had seen anything like it! Haha! Apparently it's a popular sunbathing spot. We ended up staying for our picnic. It was quite the cultural experience... Too funny!

Jacko and Blanket

Due to our somewhat limited time in Berlin, we thought that an overview tour might be our best bet to see the city. It worked out really well. We went through Terry Brewer's free tours (except you end up tipping relatively high). We saw all of the highlights and learned quite a bit about each spot. The highlights of Berlin included:

Spree River and Museum Island
Humbolt University
TV Tower
Fassenbender & Rausch Chocolatier
Bebelplatz
Check Point Charlie (kind of hokey)
Park above Hitler's bunker and offices
Memorial to the Jews
Brandenburg Gate
Hotel Adlon

All of the sites were very interesting, but some of our favorite little tidbits from the tour include:

1. There was a sign in German here telling boats not to anchor in certain areas of the river because undetonated World War 2 remants are lost throughout the city. Anchoring into one could end up blowing you up. The city doesn't seem overly concerned about this though! In fact, we heard a story about a man that found a WW2 hand grenade with the pin missing. He couldn't find any polic officers around, so he put it in his backpack, traveled the very busy metro until he found an officer and handed it over. The newspaper issued a statement the next day saying - If anyone finds WW2 remants, please leave them where they are and report them. No kidding!

I guess Berlin is really broke - iike 60 billion in debt broke. Their slogan is "broke, but sexy." It's very appropriate for Berlin which is a very artsy, counter culture city.

Former East Germany has happy worker man as the green and red pedestrian walking lights. After the wall fell, the government was going to switch them all out, but the people preferred them. It's called Ost-stalgia - or EastStalgia.

Bebelplatz was the site of big book burning that took place during Nazi Germany. One of the authors whose books were burned was Heinrich Heine, who was quote 113 years earlier saying - "wherever they burn books, eventually they'll also burn people." Quite eery foresight.

And of course Hotel Adlon...the balcony from which Wacko Jacko dangled Baby Blanket.

I'm on a boat...

We LOVED Prague. We actually stayed on a boat there which was really funny. It brought back Coast Guard memories for Phill. The room was tiny with seperate twin beds and a tiny bathroom that gets the toilet wet when you shower! It even came with lifejackets! It actually was really great! We spent some evenings on the sundeck just relaxing and enjoying the scenery. We even watched a storm pass with residual lightnight for quite some time.

We met an older couple with a young dog named Fikos. He put his paws right into my hands. The woman smiled and apologetically said - "he's young." When we went our seperate ways, she said in her best english - "enjoy your days." I'm sure we will!

Prague

Hello quickly from Prague! We arrived here in Prague two days ago and have been loving it here! Great weather, great food, and excellent beer! I think this might have even topped Vienna on our favorites list.

We are headed north to Berlin in a few days and will do a better update then. We are safe and sound and enjoying our travels. More later...