First Weekend in Paris

25 June 2011
We hopped off the train with the girls and split up at the metro. We were headed to Place de Clichy to check into our hotel and planned on meeting up with the other girls at 4 at the Disney store. We were able to find our metro stop pretty easily and with only one transfer. Poor Zane had to drag my massive bag and his up several flights of stairs though (we found the escalator later). It took us a while to figure out where our hotel was though. We had to ask a few different people and finally the last guy google mapped it for us on his phone and told us it was around the next corner. It seriously was two blocks away from the metro stop (which made us both very happy). We finally got to the front of the hotel and it had a beautiful facade. The lobby was also nice, they had a glass table with little fishy inside. We checked in and to get to the fourth floor we had to go up one at a time (max of 1 person with 1 luggage or 2 people) to get to our room. I went up first and I spent forever trying to get into our room. The light went out and I couldn't see a darn thing and then Zane came up and opened the door right off... Our room was pretty ghetto. It was like staying at a hotel in the old strip in Vegas; gets the job done, but you don't want to pay more than $35-40 a night (and yet we were paying more than twice that for this place). I would upload a picture for you, but apparently I didn't take any. Let's just say I wouldn't go into the bathroom without my flip flops on. After getting our things in we left pretty quickly to meet up with the girls. We needed coins to buy more metro tickets so we stopped at a conveince store to buy some drinks first (this just added to our tardiness). We were able to get to the Champs Elysees stop without problems. When we finally stepped outside though, we were extremely overwhelmed. Everything was so big and we had no idea where to go. We found an info booth and the lady was able to tell us which way to go, so since it was already after 4, Zane dragged me (I swear I was flying behind him) to the store in just a couple of minutes. We found the girls who luckily hadn't been waiting for a long time for us. It became our mission to help Kate see as much as possible in the hour before we needed to have her back to the train station. I'm very disappointed that we only were able to get her to see the Arc de Triomphe and the spire of the Eiffel Tower. Zane and I hopped on the metro with Kate after that, so she wouldn't have to try to get back to the train station alone. We met back up with Pam, Malorie, and Kristy at our meeting spot and walked around aimlessly waiting for Cathy to arrive. We finally decided to head back towards our meeting point because we hadn't heard from Cathy in a while and sure enough she was there and her phone had died. We went to eat at one of the restaurants on the Champs Elysees and were able to dine outside. They had the menus in English, which was nice, unfortunately we didn't have a waitress in English. She seriously messed everything for Kristy up except for her wine. She tried giving her a ceasar salad instead of goat cheese (they looked completely different) and veal instead of scallops. We asked for more tap water and she brought out a bottle of natural water that we turned away, but she came back and said it was included for us. Pam and Cathy had also ordered the same main course (even though they came out at separate times), yet Pam had fries and Cathy had noodles (tell me how those are the same?). After a long night with this woman who luckily didn't understand the things that were being said about her at the table, we got the check. She freaking tried to charge us for the water and the ceasar salad!! And added another 5 Euros without specifying what it was for. We naturally just asked for the manager that had already been to our table a few times and spoke perfect English to come and help. She was able to get the tab right and we were finally able to leave. We were tired, so we ended up splitting off from the girls (Pam and Malorie were staying with Kristy for the night) and going back to the hotel for the night.

                      This was part of the really nice park that we found on our aimless walk around


26 June 2011
Pam, Malorie, and Kristy took a taxi to our hotel and met us around 930. We took Pam and Malorie's bags up to our room, while Malorie checked them in. We then set off for the metro, making a quick detour to find the Moulin Rouge, since we had yet to see it, even though it was only 100 meters from our hotel. We hopped on the metro and went back to the Champs Elysees in search for the "hop on, hop off" bus tours. We were able to find a stop right around the corner at the Grand Palace. While we were waiting for the next bus, Zane and I decided we couldn't afford to pay approx. $75 for the two of us to go on it, so we were just going to meet Pam and Malorie at the hotel at 6. (They had to leave the next day, so it really was the best way to see Paris in a day). Zane and I walked around and before the girls even got on their bus, I found the Eiffel Tower!! :D I was so very excited!! Poor Zane probably had a bruise from me getting so excited and trying to get his attention. I took several pictures before we crossed one of the most beautiful bridges in search of the Eiffel Tower. We stopped in a store to get drinks and a bakery to get some large pain au chocolat (it was a large baguette like thing with chocolate chips, so I don't know what else to call it). We made it to the Eiffel Tower in pretty good time! When we were walking around to get different pictures, I spotted Kristy and ran up to all of the girls to say hi! Out of the thousands of people that were there (apparently Sunday is one of the busiest days) we still ran into them! Zane and I walked across the Seine and went up to the Palais de Challiot to take amazing pictures of the Eiffel Tower and see some basketball show down going on. We sat in the park and cooled down before heading to the Louvre. It was a nice walk, but I was wearing flip flops, so we occasionally sat down to give my feet a break. On one occassion this man tried claiming that he "found" this gold wedding ring on the ground next to us and insisted on giving it to Zane. He walked away and within 30 seconds came back asking for us to give him money for food (I thought he was asking for a cigarette) and when we tried giving him cookies, he just took the ring and walked away. I decided we weren't going to take any more breaks until we got to the Louvre. We were able to walk through the beautiful gardens leading up to the Louvre and walked around and looked in. I even got to put my feet in the water in the fountains around the building. We then took off towards Notre Dame. It was absolutely beautiful. I loved the facade and the color of the building even more than the one in Strasbourg. We wanted to hear the bells go off, so we found a place in the shade to wait and right after the bells went off and we were getting up to leave, guess whose bus came by? I ran and yelled Puh-mel-uh! Knowing that it would get their attention. We waited for them and were able to go inside of the cathedral and grabbed some lunch afterwards. We then agreed to meet up with Pam and Malorie (Kristy's husband was coming in, so she had to meet up with him) at Sacre Coeur at 6pm. They hopped on their bus and we made a quick detour to see the flying buttresses in the back of the cathedral before taking off. We walked for what seemed like forever and finally made it into this mall (on the map there is a mall at the bottom of the hill where Sacre Coeur is), so I thought we were finally there. When we made it out of the mall and still couldn't see it we found our coordinates on the map and realized we weren't even close, we were barely halfway there. We asked a few people and ended up finding the nearest metro stop and just hopping on. We had to climb what seems like the hill of death just to get to at least 100 stairs to get to the top and we were late. It was about 6:15 and we spent the next 45 minutes trying to find the girls. We went into Sacre Coeur (and they were having a service going on, it was really beautiful, but really awkward), found painters square, and watched this amazing guy juggling a soccer ball with his feet while hanging by his hands from a light post. We were going to just head back to the hotel to find Pam and Malorie, but I wanted to go down a different way. We were looking down at the crowd when the girls spotted Zane and were able to grab his attention (I still hadn't managed to see them). We were able to meet up and go back and tour everything. We went back to the hotel to let the girls check in and clean up a bit before going back out to find Hard Rock Cafe (Pam collects something from each of them). We walked there and on our walk we were able to find the Opera House (which I thought was absolutely beautiful). We were in and out of Hard Rock in minutes and found the nearest metro stop and headed towards the Eiffel Tower.We were able to get a nice spot on the grass and admire it all lit up. Zane kept saying when is it going to be all lit up and I thought he was crazy. But he insisted that white lights would come on. We pulled out the Top 10 Things to do in Paris book that Pam and Malorie gave us and it said that every night on the hour after dusk the tower lights up like a Christmas tree and sparkles for 5 minutes. We didn't have to wait much longer for Zane to prove himself right. It was absolutely beautiful. I don't think I could ever get sick of looking at it. I was so happy we stayed! After that we headed back towards the hotel and grabbed some big bacon burgers from Quick/Quality burger and peaked at the Moulin Rouge all lit up before calling it a night.

If you were able to make it through all my gruesome details...

                                          The Grand Palais

                                          The awesome bridge!

                                          First glimpse

                                          Awesome bridge part 2

                                          Palais de Challiot

                                                    Obelisk

                                          The Louvre

                                Notre Dame (with lack of hunchbacks)

                                          Sacre Coeur Part Un

                                          Sacre Coeur Part Deux

27 June 2011
This morning we said goodbye to Pam and Malorie before taking off on our hunt for Zane's school. It took us a little while to find it, but we managed to stumble upon the school. We found K-Rae on the 4th floor. She had lots of apartments to choose from and all of the answers we were looking for (but she is still no Gianluca). She set up our appointment to meet with the apartment we were most interested in at 7pm and printed off a map for us. We went back to the hotel and did some laundry really quick, so we could pack for our trip to Rome (our backpacks could only weigh 10kg). It took longer than we expected and we finally had to break into the third suitcase in order to get everything to fit (we didn't realize how much we relied on our backpacks). We then made our way back to the school and were able to store them all under one of the tables in K-Rae's office. She then showed us how to get metro passes and a place to get a cell phone for our stay in Paris. We didn't have anything to do for another 4 hours, so we made our way back to the hotel to take a nap. We ended up waking up at 6 and had to sprint out of the hotel to make sure to make it on time. When we got off the metro, I realized that I didn't have the map in my purse because I had taken it out to look at it in the hotel. We started to panic, and decided to head towards the school to see if we could get K-Rae's number. The people there didn't really know what to do and the lady that could speak English was actually having her first day on the job and said they couldn't give us her phone number. We tried asking if we could online, but she just kept talking and wasting time. We pretty much started jogging down the street looking for a McDonalds. We finally found one by Bastille and logged on and found K-Rae's number. Luckily, we were the first students to check in and she remembered exactly where we needed to go. We somehow managed to get there in just a few minutes, but we didn't see anyone waiting at the front door (it was just after 7). When I called K-Rae back to double check, this nice woman asked if I was Jenny. HUZZAH! We found Stephanie! She gave us a quick tour and we loved it! She gave us the keys and set up a time to meet up with her after our trip to Rome. We were ready to be done with the night, so we ended up just going back to the hotel for the night.

Strasbourg

11 June 2011

It was only about a half hour or so until we arrived at the Holiday Inn here in Strasbourg from when we left the gas station. We all checked in and went off to our rooms. They put us all on the same floor in rooms by each other like they did in Belgium. We like it better this way. We are next to Tom and Kate and across from John and Gianluca. At every hotel except for Luxembourg (when we only shared the hall with the professors) we have been next to the boys. I guess they’ve got to keep them together. Zane and I were letting Amarilla store her luggage in our room (she is staying with a family in a neighboring city and Kristie and Cathy are sharing an apartment in the city center) while we were going to go on our tour and such. Professor Del Duca announced before getting off the bus that there would be a student from the University that would be in the lobby at 3 to answer any questions of how to get places and what to see in the city, so we decided to go down there. I’m glad we did, because only Tom and Gianluca were down there. Olivia was so cute and friendly. I don’t think she understood some of the things that I was asking her, but I was all over the place, so it’s understandable. We came back to the room and Zane changed to go swim with the other guys that were going down there. I went into the little “health room” (aka: workout area) and watched him “swim” (he gets really bored and spends more time seeing how long he can hold his breath or do hand stands or other fun tricks) while Tom, Gianluca, and Prof. Del Duca swam laps around him. It was fun to watch. Zane came up and got ready and we all headed to the lobby where we were to meet at 5:25 to leave for our guided walking tour. We were naturally some of the only students in the lobby and the guide was getting inpatient by 5:30. Eventually everyone came down and we were off. We took the tram to the center and walked swiftly to the Notre Dame Cathedral. The guide was going really fast and I wasn’t quite sure why he was so adamant about getting to the Cathedral so quickly, but I soon found out. We were able to go inside and they were having a showing of the Astronomical Clock and we only got to it with a couple of minutes to spare. He pointed out all the little details of it and the history behind each thing. It was absolutely incredible. I was super excited for it to go off, but it was only “5:30” (the clock runs a half hour behind for tourists, so it was really 6pm) and it wasn’t as extravagant as I was hoping, but it was still amazing to watch. He pointed out different little symbols in the cathedral and we got to go back in the seats as he was showing us the stained glass windows and the differences in them. We had to leave quickly because there was a mass that was about to start. We went outside and listened to the beautiful bells ring for I swear 10-15 minutes and were able to take pictures of the incredible details on the outside of the building. Our guide explained that it wasn’t always as tall as we were seeing it. It was originally built in the 1200s (I believe, this is all going off of mine and Zane’s memory and if it’s wrong I apologize) and after some time they built an addition to it to make it taller; I think they added different levels 3 or 4 times. But it wasn’t until the 1400s that the spire was built because the people wanted it to be the tallest building in the city and it was for a long time. It wasn’t until skyscrapers started coming around that it was no longer the tallest building in France. However, I believe it is still the tallest cathedral. Zane and I want to try to go back and climb to the top one of these days. We went through the center a little more and got to see lots of little restaurants and shops. We ended in Petite France, which is this cute little part of town. Most of the shops and restaurants are just off the water. The houses were adorable; they had taken the really old homes and refurnished them into expensive apartments. We started losing part of our group to different restaurants and soon enough we were on our own. Almost all of Zane’s classmates were staying at this restaurant where the guide left us to try the local noodles (I have no idea how to spell it), but it was a little out of our budget, so Zane and I headed back towards the hotel. We rested for a bit and went back down to the lobby to ask the concierge where a grocery store was. She said it was too late and they’d all be closed until Tuesday (Monday is a holiday here). So we went back to the center because we weren’t going to pay 13 Euros for a sandwich at the hotel. We went back to this little place Zane saw by the cathedral. He order the tarte flambee (I’m probably spelling it wrong) and I got chicken that came with a salad, fries, and crème brulee. Mine was alright, but I have to admit Zane’s was sooo good! I guess they’re known for tarte flambee’s in Strasbourg (we’ve got to learn how to make them!) After dinner we headed back to the hotel for the night.

12 June 2011

We got up at 8:30, got ready for church, and had some breakfast. We weren’t sure how long it would take to get to church. We asked the front desk if the roads we wanted to take were safe for us to walk, but they said that we’d have to get on the freeway, so we decided against it. At about 9:45, we had them call a cab, but the driver was already there, so we hopped in. We got to the church by 10 (I’m pretty sure it’s closer than our church back in Denver!) and a nice Brother helped us get to Sunday School. The Sister who was teaching the lesson was kind enough to write down all the scripture verses on the sweetest spinning chalkboard, so Zane and I could follow along. We were able to meet a lot of people before and after Sunday School, everyone was SO nice and friendly (it was so wonderful to be in that atmosphere again). We went to sacrament meeting and I was really bummed that I didn’t know the language because everyone was saying how wonderful it was. After church we were asking the Elders (one of them was from Herriman, Utah J) how to get back to the hotel and they actually found us a very sweet couple that was willing to take us back. When we were in the hall getting ready to go, another family offered to take us to their house and feed us and then they would take us to our hotel after. We were so overwhelmed and grateful for everyone. We went back with the family to their BEAUTIFUL home in this really nice “village.” They were telling about all these different little facts about Strasbourg and about their families and it was just so nice getting to know them. We got to their house and were able to help out a little bit in the preparation (we were having a bbq J). Patricia was explaining to us that the last speaker in church had a wonderful talk, but people were getting upset because in France lunch is the most important to them and no one should cut into their lunch time, so if you go over 12:00 by even a little bit, people start to get really upset. I thought that was awesome. But she wasn’t kidding about them taking lunch really seriously. They had chicken kabobs, steak, sausages, rice, salad, fries, cake, pie, and ice cream. It was totally better than going to any restaurant! I was overly stuffed by the end of it (around 5:30). It was so nice getting to know their family and they had another family from the ward over as well as a sister who was just recently baptized (she was here on a study abroad from Venezuela and she was just the sweetest girl). The other family had brought their Jack Russell Terrier, so Zane and I had a fun time getting in our puppy fix! We had such a fun time, so naturally we were really bummed to leave. Jean was kind enough to drive us back to the hotel and he knew right where he needed to go. We enjoyed the remainder of the evening in.

13 June 2011

Zane was back in class this morning. Since it’s a holiday (Pentecost?) here, the University was closed, so they had class in a conference room downstairs. Today the third class, Comparative Constitutional Law, started (Zane wasn’t able to take this class because it would put him over his limit of 8 credits), so the schedule changed a little bit. Instead of having 2 hour classes, they’ve changed to just over an hour. He now has Professor Del Duca’s class first, has an hour break and then his Human Rights class with Professor Van Dyke, who took over for Professor Nanda today L. During his break, Zane came up and was able to take a short nap before going back down to class (we should have gone and had a second breakfast J). Since most places were closed, we decided to wait to have a late lunch, so we wouldn’t be eating out twice. Zane ended up doing his homework right after class. We were going to go to lunch around 2, but decided to wait to go out with some of the other students at 4. We ended up going out with Pam, Malorie, Tom, Eunice and Maren. We found this cute little café on the corner of the street over from our hotel. Tom and Eunice decided to continue on to find something else, while everyone else stayed to eat. Zane and I got bacon burgers… except it wasn’t your typical hamburger. It was ham, hamburger patties, cheese, and the works all on a 12 inch baguette. It was interesting, but still very good. We went with the girls to go find something to take back to Kate (the poor girl is slaving over this journal for the school, I hope she finishes soon!) and we were able to find a tiny little shop that sold some food. They were able to find some snacks as well. And then we headed back to the hotel and hung out there for the night.

14 June 2011

I decided to go to the University with Zane today because we wanted to go to the grocery store after class (because it’s just across the street) and since we didn’t know where he’d be, I didn’t want to get lost. I was glad to see he was going to a real University, instead of just a house/apartment complex, even though it looks like something that would have come out of the 70s. While Zane was in class I watched 10 Things I Hate About You on my ipod J (the poor people around me probably thought I was crazy when I’d sit there and giggle about something that just happened). During the break we went with Kate and Pam to the library because that’s where everyone else said they were going. It was a few buildings away, but we couldn’t find anyone (it didn’t help that it was huge). The girls were doing some reading and Zane and I were restless, so we went out to go walk around, but just ended up at the building where they have classes. We got online and Zane looked up when Pretty Little Liars starts up for me and we found out that it airs tonight! But of course I can’t watch it on ABC Family because of our stupid IP address. After Zane was done with all of his classes we went across the street with Kate and went shopping. We loaded up on bread, cheese, water, imitation pims, chicken with thyme chips, and a few other snacks. We headed back to the hotel and pretty much stayed in for the day. We ate our cheese and baguette for lunch and dinner, Zane went swimming and did his homework. We watched some tv and talked online with family. It was really nice and relaxing day.

15 June 2011

It was really nice today because Zane only ended up having one class because we went to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which took place of Zane’s Human Rights class. So Zane was back by 10am and he was smart and did his reading for the day. At 1:45 we all met up and headed towards the court. It wasn’t too far away. We passed the European Parliament building that was absolutely incredible! I was kind of hoping that we were going there, but instead we went to a little more dated building (they said it was only built 10 years ago, but I don’t believe that). It looked like it was supposed to be a science museum, so I was basically the only one that enjoyed the inside of the building. The elevators looked cool to me for some reason. Prof Del Duca asked the guide if we could quick go take a look in the courtrooms upstairs and she had said that one of them was being used and she’d quick ask if we could go to the other one, but he still led us all up the stairs. The first one we went to had a guy getting his make-up done and a camera crew was setting up. The courtroom was nice and big, but I don’t remember the details of it as much. We went across the way and Prof Del Duca was explaining to us about the rooms and the significance of having both of the round and other history behind them, but as we were following him and in and he was trying to get us to go in, we saw a guy coming towards us (got up from a round table with about 12 people) shaking his head behind the professor and shooing us. He said that the President Judge was having an official lunch and we were not allowed to look in or to be up there. It was funny and embarrassing. From what I saw, it didn’t look much like to courtroom to me though; I would love to see it all set up. We then headed downstairs to a nice, big meeting room and waited for the Vice President to join us. For the following hour we were addressed on how the ECHR is set up, what they do, and the kind of cases they take, ending with about 45 minutes for questions (mainly from the professors). We then split up and we were part of the group that headed back to the hotel (I wish I would have realized then that the Parc du L’Orangerie was just a block away… we could have gone then!) We went swimming, to the sauna for a little bit and even tried out the nasty steam bath (I was assured that they’re not all like that). A little while later we headed towards the laundry mat. We somehow were gone for two hours doing laundry before heading back to the hotel for the night.

16 June 2011

Sadly I don’t really have anything to report for today. It was rainy and we stayed in and watched movies, played games, and talked to family. Zane did his studying while I napped and we just had a nice lazy day at the hotel.

17 June 2011

Today I walked to Zane’s school to meet up with him after he was done with classes and boy did I regret it! I don’t know what I was thinking for wearing a sweater cardigan and power walking to the University that’s a 20 minute walk for Zane (meaning it took me 35 minutes, but in my defense I hit just about every red light) at noon when I am NOT adjusted to this insane humidity. But I was dying when I finally reached the school. I had about 3 minutes to cool down before Zane got out and we headed to the grocery store. We were able to load upon imitation pims and baguettes for the weekend and head back (luckily taking the tram back). When we got back we tried going down to the pool, but there were probably about a dozen other people down there and for a girl that barely knows how to swim, I immediately turned around and went back up to the room. We stayed in the room for a bit while Zane started to read, so he wouldn’t have to worry about it this weekend before I talked him into going out with me because I was dying of boredom. So we walked to the center which was actually a really nice 10-15 minute walk. We window shopped for a bit before heading towards Petite France deciding whether we wanted to try spaetzle or have another tarte flambee. Well before making it to that part of the city we found a place that had tarte flambee on their menu (I love that they all basically display their menus outside for you to look at) for 6.90 Euros, so we went there. We shared a traditionalle one because we didn’t think we were very hungry (later regretting we both didn’t get one because it was SO good!) and shared a bottle of Evian water that was freaking 5.50!!!!! (Ugh) We walked around the center until it started to get dark and slightly rain on us before we went back to the hotel for the night.

18 June 2011

Today we left for Kehl, Germany, at 10am with Pam. We asked the front desk how to get there walking and she looked at us weird and gave us a map and showed us the tram and bus route, so we just followed the routes (I’m sure we could have saved time if we hadn’t, but not all the streets are listed on the map and we had no desire to spend an extra hour getting lost). We went the usual way up to the University and just continued on. We saw some nice buildings and then we got to a bridge over a decent sized river, so we started taking pictures because we thought it was the Rhine and that we were crossing the border. We were wrong; we were just passing into the ghetto part of France. We ran into this cute bundle up family that started speaking German to us and eventually started to ask us how to get to Strasbourg. I felt like such a pro in being able to tell them how J and handed them one of our maps that we had. After talking to them I started to get really excited, since they spoke German, knowing that we were getting really close. We finally approached this large park and didn’t really see a road going through it, so we turned left and walked up on a slight incline until we realized it turned into the bridge that really DID cross the Rhine. We took our appropriate pictures and stared at this gigantic boat that was underneath us. We turned right onto the first road we could and it was actually a really long street that had a lot of shops and led to an information booth and beautiful church. We bought pretzels and a pretzel roll (I was so glad Katie introduced me to them, so I knew what I wanted to get). We went in and out of stores (we’ve hit an H&M in every country we’ve been to- Zane is not a big fan of this fact).We found a Woolworths and I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on this planet that didn’t know what it was (I need to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou? again) and tons of 1 Euro stores. We spent hours going through different stores and buying little things here and there. We searched for a stein for Pam’s brother, but they were nowhere to be found, we even had to ask someone where we could buy postcards! (it’s clearly not that touristy of an area). I think the only store Zane was okay with was the media store he found his cd at. Later in the afternoon we sat down to eat at a little fast food place. Zane and Pam got bratwursts with fries and I had delicious kroketten (because I did not have enough while I was in the Netherlands). After lunch we started heading back, but got distracted by a lego store. We probably spent another hour there and we even ran into Cathy, Kristy, and Malorie there (they spotted Zane in the store J). There were so many cute toys, I wanted to get so many things, but I wasn’t about to spend 30 Euros on a small teddy bear even if it was Steif bear! We started to head back again, but instead of going the exact same way back, we wanted to find the cool walking bridge we saw on postcards. We walked through this beautiful park (the same one that we ran into, but on the Germany side) and admired the art work and cute houses. We finally got to this incredible bridge and had such a good time walking across it. It was so cool that it even had benches in the middle of it for you to sit and overlook the river. The whole time we walked across, I could smell chocolate, but we couldn’t tell where it was coming from. (I thought there might be a chocolate factory across the way.) We enjoyed walking all through the park on the France side as well. We got to see a few guys show off their mad kite flying skills, a waterfall fountain, and they even had a small scaled solar system. As we were walking out of the park all I could smell were horses, I was bummed that I couldn’t go to a chocolate factory or even see the horses. We were able to find our way back to Strasbourg safely and without getting lost J. About 5 minutes from the hotel it started to down pour (without any warning of a few droplets or anything!) and the wind was blowing so hard that the rain was just coming down sideways. We took shelter in a door frame until the wind let up and walked as fast as we could back to the hotel. We had to clean off from the massive puddles we went through and ate our pretzels for dinner. We ended up staying in for the remainder of the evening.

19 June 2011

Happy Father’s Day!!

This morning we were debating on getting a taxi or bikes to get to church. We were a little worried with how dreary it was looking outside that we might get poured on, but we still decided to rent the bikes. We looked up how to get there and wrote it all down and then it took about 15-20 minutes just to rent the bikes from the front desk. Between those two things, we didn’t end up leaving until 10:30ish. It was a really nice bike ride, except we couldn’t figure out where half the street signs and getting lost and having to ask for directions about 3-4 times. We finally made it to church 15 minutes late, but still had a really nice time. After sacrament meeting all of the kids got up and sang “Mon Papa” for Father’s Day and gave all of their dads a little gift. We said hi to all of the people that we had met last week before getting back on our bikes to get to the hotel. It was much faster going downhill and knowing where we needed to go and were back in 15-20 minutes! We returned the bikes (which btw it was so tall that I could barely reach the pedals, we even had to switch bikes b/c I really couldn’t sit and pedal on it!) and went up to our room. For lunch/dinner we had a plate of fries at the lounge bar downstairs while talking with Zac and so Zane could have a nice little Father’s Day gift by seeing our Max! We also tried chatting to as many people from our families as possible and stayed in for the night.

20 June 2011

After Zane got back from class today, we joined up with Pam, Eunice and Tom and went to the train station. Buying tickets to Baden-Baden ended up taking forever, so we missed the train we had intended on getting and had to wait until 2:20 for the next one. In the mean time, we ran into Cathy, Kristy, and Malorie buying tickets to Germany as well. We went to a little bakery in the train station, I want to say it was called Paul’s, and had some pain au chocolat. When the girls joined up with us, we decided to buy our tickets to Paris while we waited, so we went back with Pam and Malorie to get tickets all on the same train (Kristy had purchased hers earlier, so we were finding that same train). We then walked to our platform and boarded the train. It seriously felt like one of the slowest trains we’ve been on, after we got out of France it went a little faster, but it still wasn’t going very fast. We got to see a lot of the countryside and it was beautiful. We had to transfer trains in Appenweier, which took some extra time (if we could have found a direct train it would have saved us about 30 minutes). We were able to take a double decker train from there. We finally arrived in Baden-Baden around 3:30. We tried seeing if we could see anything from the train station to be able to walk somewhere. Eunice and I decided to split up to see who could get more info, she went into a convenience store and I went into the information booth. I was able to get a map, but the lady wouldn’t show me where we were on the map and she gave me this dumbfounded look when I asked her about the huge cuckoo clock. I gave up and went to check on Eunice. She was looking at bunch of different tour guide books. I found the cuckoo clock and was all excited to see the Black Forest; it was then that I was informed that Baden-Baden is in the outskirts of it! We didn’t want to pay $10 for the book, so we just continued on. We found a map at the bus stop, but had no idea where we were and the next thing I was running to get onto a bus that everyone else was getting on. Eunice was sweet enough to buy us all a bus pass, which was for 5 people (how crazy!) Across from us a there was a girl, holding a Chihuahua in a little bag carrier, sitting across from her mom. The pup reeled use in when its little tongue was hanging out of it’s mouth (like Max’s use to when his didn’t fit in his mouth).  Eunice has 3 chihuahuas, so she wanted to go play with it, she asked if she could pet it and the mother gave this stern hard look and said “no.” We were all sad and tried really hard not to stare at the puppy anymore (it was then that I decided it would be bad to take a picture of the puppy). We found our stop in the downtown-ish area and got off (so did the mother and daughter). We decided to head up one alley and window shopped, it had only been a few minutes when Eunice and I saw the most amazing rings in the window of a glasses store. I have no idea why this glasses store sold them, but I am glad we went in. Basically, you start out with a ring that has a little screw coming out of the top of it. You can choose up to three accessories to stack on the ring, having the final one being able to screw on. I had so much fun! They only had a limited amount of trinkets because they usually order them for clients (clearly that wouldn’t work for us). I was extremely sad when she started to price out Eunice’s ring because it was getting to be over 100 Euros, so I stopped being serious about getting one. We were probably in the shop for an hour. While Eunice was wrapping up the sale, Zane and I managed to get a customer’s dog to come over to us under the table, so we could pet him. It was so sad because he had this hole in his head… it made me love him that much more. When we were getting up to go, the sales lady showed us that they have watches that you can build too (they were so awesome, you can switch out the band, layer different bands and decorate the faces of the watches) I wanted one of those also! I am in love with Eunice’s ring! It looks very vintage looking and it’s only local to Germany, so no one will ever have on like it back in the states. Zane, Eunice and I bought pretzels from this little bakery that Tom had found while we were getting the ring. We then went in and out of stores before running out of stores up the alley, so we went back down and turned down another one of the alleys. We went into a tourist shop where we finally found a stein for Pam’s brother J! We were waiting outside for Eunice who had gone into the store next to us. Pam went in first to get her, then I entered *BAD IDEA.* It ended up being the most amazing store for me… it was full of jewelry (like the cheap stuff I wear J). They had tons of the plastic/glass rings that I love everywhere. They had headbands, necklaces, and bracelets galore. Zane had to come in and stop me from my madness. I ended up getting one thing and it wasn’t even for me, so I’m very proud of myself! We continued on and noticed a forest of trees with a path going through them just up the hill. Zane tried asking someone if that was part of the Black Forest, but the guy said no to speaking English. We decided to walk up there anyway. It was so beautiful up there. We were able to play at a little park for a few minutes before continuing on. Instead of going down the way we came we found another little passageway that we thought would lead us to the hotel we had ended up at earlier. It didn’t quite take us there, but we managed to get back down to all of the stores. Zane and I left the others at their beer garden, while we went on a search to find a decently priced restaurant that had wienerschnitzel (I was very happy to find out that it wasn’t hot dogs served with chili cheese fries). We went up and down 4 or 5 alleys at least. We had also stopped for drinks because we were dying of thirst. I got the apple soda that I have fallen in love with here (it’s like Martinelli’s) and Zane got this “cola kissed with orange” at least we think that’s what it translated to. After 40 minutes we sat out on these benches in front of the beer garden because we didn’t think it would be so good to sit at a table if we didn’t intend to order anything. However, after 30 minutes of waiting for them, we went up and told them about the places we found and decided to sit down at the table next to them. Zane took a swig of his drink and dropped his lid on the ground, (which was pretty much dirt) so he refused to put it back on. He kept drinking and I heard this guy yell out behind us saying “Hey!” and made these gestures of a dumb person (I thought he was trying to mock us or something) so I was getting really self conscious and told Zane he probably shouldn’t drink at the table any more. He was being a punk and didn’t care and within a minute or two, the guy is coming down and telling us that we can’t drink our drinks at the table because they don’t want people looking in (which btw the patio was on a platform and not even Zane could see over the fence) and seeing that we had outside drinks and that they didn’t want the customers thinking they could order them. He also said that we could only stay for another few minutes. Since I was completely embarrassed, we just got up and left, telling the others that we’d be at the benches. A few minutes later they came out and we were going to find a place to eat. One of the more decent priced places was just across the path, so we decided to go there. I was getting a little nervous because the train I wanted to get on left at 8:24 (it was a direct train back) and it was already about 7:45 when we ordered. We looked at the schedule of trains to go back and there was one that left at 8:30 and 10:47 (NOTHING in between!) We didn’t get our food until just after 8, and knowing how restaurants in Europe are, we knew there was no way that we’d be getting our check by 8:30, so we decided then that we’d just catch the last train back. We enjoyed our wienerschnitzel, but not so much the spaetzle (I was really sad about that). We decided we’d walk around to other cafes/restaurants looking for black forest cake and apple strudel. We must have looked at a dozen menus before giving up on the black forest cake. We all ended up getting the best apfelstrudel I’ve ever had with a delicious scoop of vanilla ice cream. We window shopped on our way back to the bus stop. We were happy to make it to the train station early (because we really had no idea how we’d get back if we missed this train). We got on and I found seats in a row that you pull down, so we could all sit together. There was only one other person sitting in this area and she was across from us. First glance and I thought “now that’s what I call a hippie.” I know it was bad of me, but she had her big flowy dress down to her feet with her dreadlocks and piercings galore. She had her backpack and gear spread out all around her and she had two hula hoops lying on the ground. I thought it would be kind of a pain to be backing through Europe with hula hoops! She spoke English and asked us a few questions and we found out that she was on her way to Strasbourg too! We had to get off and transfer in Appenweier again and she began to follow us. I’m not going to lie, but she did make me a little nervous. By the time we got to the platform though I wasn’t so scared. She had Tom hula hooping like it was nothing. He even did two at the same time! She was very protective of them, because he was getting close to the edge and Eunice was spinning one on her arm. We learned that she was from Canada and she had come to Europe to teach acting in Romania and was there for about 4 months. She then travelled around and started hula hooping with a few other people; she even performs with some that light on fire! France was going to be the 13^th country she’s been in (I was pretty jealous when I heard that). We all got on the next train and Zane and I sat behind everyone else (because the seats are usually in groups of 4). Zane and I were talking about how we really should have gotten on the earlier train, because there wouldn’t be so many crazy people out. One guy was trying to ask if anyone on the train had anything to relieve a toothache. That guy eventually started to go up to everyone asking them individually. They got to our group behind us and proceeded to tell Tom that he wasn’t dangerous and that he didn’t need to be afraid. The guy decides to say something to the extent of, I’m like a scorpion, I’m only dangerous when I’m provoked. Tom says that’s he’s not afraid and Sara (the hula hooper) says that he’s being annoying (at that point I was getting extremely scared of the events that could have happened). He kept mumbling words that I couldn’t make out, but luckily he was getting off at the next stop (which happened to be Kehl, so I was happy knowing we were almost where we needed to be). We finally made it back to Strasbourg. We thought the trams stopped at midnight and it was shortly after that, so we started to walk back. We then noticed trams still going around, so we found the next stop and hopped on. We then learned that I was wrong and Sara was not in fact a hippie, but rather she had studied with Romanian Gypsies.  Not before long we were back to our hotel and in bed.

21 June 2011

Not much happened during the day today. Zane was exhausted and managed to keep sleeping even though I kept trying to wake him up every half hour. Luckily, he had started on his reading. When he finally woke up and finished all of his homework, he was hungry, so we went out. We decided to go back to the restaurant that we found with the really good tarte flambee. When were walking and when we got to the park I noticed that there were tons of people out and music was blaring. I was thinking, “Wow, this is what we miss during the weekdays!” But then Zane told me that it was music day for the summer solstice. Just about every street and alley that we turned down we heard different music being played, whether it was live instruments or dj’s with large groups of people. The restaurant was completely packed outside because there was a group right out there playing, so we ended up going in. We each order a tarte flambee and they were delicious! We had a great time walking around, but managed to get twisted around with all the groups out and went down a different alley. I was distracted with a group of country western dancers and told Zane, “I thought we left this behind in America!” They even had their cowgirl hats and wranglers on. It was then that we ran into Cathy and Kristy J we see them everywhere! I love it! We kept walking and noticed the carousel that we haven’t seen since our first weekend here and then figured out we were going the wrong way. I was kind of glad that we did, because we were able to see more groups perform. We eventually made it back to the hotel and stayed in for the night.

22 June 2011

I met up with Zane after his first class and hung out with him during his break. I played on the touch while he was in his second class, and when that was over everyone went up to the 5^th floor for the reception that was being thrown by the dean of the law school. Unfortunately, the dean was in a meeting for Deans of Law Schools, so we were joined by two of the Vice Deans. They had nice hors d’oeuvres for us to enjoy for the next hour or so. We then hopped on the tram to avoid the major downpour that was about to happen. I hung out in the room while Zane met up in the lobby with everyone for a review session that Professor Del Duca was kind enough to hold. I then tried to get Zane to study for his finals, but he just did his homework for the next day. We went out trying to find something to eat, but to keep it close, but a lot of places had already closed. We then found a bakery and decided to go in. I was trying to talk Zane into getting an éclair, but he didn’t want to pay 2 Euros for it, so we just got a baguette. When we got back we ran into Malorie who told us that dinner was at 8 (we had heard rumors that everyone was going out with Gianluca to a place called Marko Polo, but we didn’t know what time or how much it would be). We decided to join them, so for the next hour and a half, Zane worked on his outlines. We met up with everyone and went to Petite France and met up with the girls that aren’t staying at the hotel and Olivia. There were so many of us, but we managed to find a place to sit together. Everyone, but us were having wine, but we still had such a good time. It took about an hour just to order and get our food, an hour to eat, and an hour to wrap things up. Everyone was just enjoying one another’s company and the waiter was so fun. They brought out dessert wines for everyone, so Eunice and Maren had ours (they’re even more entertaining when they’re slightly intoxicated… it reminded me of Lisa and me in high school). The waiter even gave us all lollipops as we were leaving. Zane and I traded ours, so I had a delicious pear one and he had strawberry. We then walked home and it was such a beautiful night. I am so glad that we walked! We lost some of our group who wanted to get one more drink. We finally made it back to the hotel just after midnight.

23 June 2011

Today was strictly dedicated to Zane and his studies. He finished up his outlines, we wasted too much time getting hotels in Paris and Rome, and printing off our boarding passes to Rome. We went to the sauna for a little bit because we were so cold that we were changing colors. I quizzed Zane for a couple hours and had a really good time. I am so proud of him and how much he knows. We tried to get to bed earlier than the past few nights, so he could be well rested for his finals.

Luxembourg

6/8/2011
It was the most beautiful drive to Luxembourg; I’m really bummed that I slept through more than half of it. The scenery was so very green, with an occasional break of cute little canals and rivers. There were gorgeous cathedrals and the most amazing architecture everywhere and when we were getting closer to the hotel it didn’t stop. About fifteen minutes from our hotel I spotted an Ikea  and we started getting off at the next exit, so I was very excited! Unfortunately, we stopped because a bus driver here can only drive for so long, so they had to trade him out, even though we were so close to the hotel. I was in love with the city of Luxembourg as soon as we entered it. That amazing architecture and the greenery didn’t stop on the freeway, it just continued throughout this entire country. I was pointing left and right to each building, telling Zane just how in love with them I was. I saw a sign for the Parc Bel Air and I gasped at what an incredible building it was, but then I remembered we were staying at the Parc Plaza. We stopped at a red light and I looked out the window and told Zane not to look at the building, because it was ruining the beautiful country because it looked like a Dentist’s office that was built in the 1970s (U-G-L-Y). The light turned green and we went about 100 feet and stopped… that ugly building was our hotel! I was totally bummed, but once we got off and had to walk through a maze to get to the actual main building I was greeted with the most beautiful view. The hotel was basically on top of a large Hill and overlooked one of the most beautiful valleys. You could see this incredible bridge down the way and it was absolutely picture perfect. We finally got inside of the building (which they had modernized and wasn’t as ugly as the other buildings) and checked in. Our room is nice, but kind of weird. When you first walk in, to the left there is a door that encloses the toilet, then there is a nice little rack and place to hang your clothes, next to that is a door frame that leads to a sink and the shower. Oh boy, the shower. So I don’t really understand their layout of rooms. You see the shower has a half pane of glass and that’s it. The towels are hanging on the opposite side of the shower head, but are still in the shower. This all boggles my mind, but even more than that… half the people in our group are in doubles like ours, in what world are you down with taking a shower that doesn’t have a door that is in a bathroom that doesn’t have a door when you’re staying in a room with complete strangers? Thank goodness Zane and I are married. The rest of our room is alright, we have a nice bed, a lounge chair, a little desk, and a ghetto tv that at least has interesting channels. Well we dropped off our things and seeing that it was almost 8pm, we decided to head out and grab something to eat. On the bus, Professor Del Duca was talking about the center of the town (that’s really close to the hotel) that has almost 6,000 restaurants and they have a stage that usually has a local band playing every night. We asked for directions from Professor Nanda and headed out. It was a little tucked behind some buildings, but it was pretty easy to tell where you were once we got there. Professor Del Duca was right, there were tons of restaurants; unfortunately for us, they all cost a fortune! A freaking salad was 24 Euros at one place (maybe it’s because of the whole e-coli bit that’s going on), but there was no way that we could afford that, so we grabbed some burgers. Zane was smart and went to Quality Burger and got “The Big Bacon,” I’m pretty sure it’s now his favorite hamburger. The sauce on it “tastes like beef jerkey” and he would recommend it to anyone. I went to McDonalds, because they had all these advertisements of “Premium Chicken Sandwiches” that looked amazing, too bad it didn’t taste amazing. However, I did get an incredible Magnum Brownie Mcflurry with it. After we were done, we were both freezing and the jazz band was only warming up to play, so we just decided to head back to the hotel for the night.

9 June 2011

I was up by 6 getting ready for a long day ahead of us. We went to breakfast, in that ugly building I first saw when we arrived, and it was really elaborate and delicious. We finally got the entire group together and hopped on the bus (with our fabulous driver… I was praying he wouldn’t get us lost today) to go to the Court of Justice of the European Union. We were actually on time for once, and we had to wait for our tour guide before going through security. They gave us the sweetest heavy duty visitor badges that made us all feel legit. That was just the beginning of our realization of how incredible the building really is. We walked past a coffee shop, the biggest cafeteria ever, a bank and several other things on our way up to the briefing room. Zane and I were in awe of how awesome the briefing room was. It seriously is something you see on tv. We were the first group to arrive, so we were able to take some pictures and look around. Two other groups joined us before the briefing began. I didn’t quite fully understand what we were being briefed on; once she started talking about farmers it kind of lost my interest. I felt kind of bad for her because I’m not sure if I was the only one that lost interest because no one asked any questions. She had a really nice presentation though. She had a power point going on and was full of information, besides them telling us and the fact that she looked like she was 15, I wouldn’t have known that she was a trainee. After we were briefed, we walked across the way into the most incredible courtroom that I’ve EVER seen. Wow! It was beautiful. We all took pictures while we were waiting and got our ear pieces ready. Zane was super bummed when no one was in the booth to translate to Portuguese. We sat through, in my opinion, the most boring case we’ve been to, but it was still so awesome to be there. The case ended up being about discrimination against farmers of certain ages… I think. There were five judges (depending on the severity of the case, you can have a group of 3, 5, or 13 judges hearing the case and if it’s something so extreme (which hasn’t ever happened to the secretary’s knowledge) they can have all 27 judges present) and the Advocate General. I took lots of notes, that I’m sure won’t be useful to anyone… ever, but they helped keep me alert. After that we had a half hour break to get drinks or snacks. Zane and I decided to wait until lunch and then we were off to a little meeting room. We had a really nice time in a question-answer type setting with a legal secretary and a trainee of Judge Schiemann (from England). I think they had somewhat of a presentation prepared, but never got around to it. They were full of information and they made it fun to learn about the court. After them we had a President of Chamber (from Belgium) present to us who also was very insightful. We then broke for an hour and half lunch! They had so many choice of food, but as soon as I saw pasta, I knew what I wanted (too bad I can’t read French, or else I would have known that the sauce had tuna and anchovies in it…), but we loaded up on bread and I got this really cute and yummy looking tart for dessert and we got glass bottles of Minute Maid apple juice all for 13 Euros!! It was the nicest meal we’ve had in days and it was probably the cheapest too. We ended up going and getting more juice because they were only 90 cents each (which was such a blessing, because most CANS of soda have been 2.50-4). After lunch we went back up to our little meeting room and a trainee of Advocate General Sharpston addressed us with a nice presentation about everything you have ever wanted to know about an Advocate General. I’m actually really sad that I didn’t tally how many times he said Advocate General in that hour, because I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was in the triple digits. We then sadly were done with our court visit and had to leave that incredible building (we wished we could go back there for all of our meals in the next couple of days) and were headed back to the hotel. We changed and went back to the town center and walked around. We found their Notre Dame cathedral, which was sadly under construction, but we were still able hear the beautiful bells. Found the Palace of the Grand Dukes, which was absolutely beautiful, but was surrounded with other buildings so I couldn’t take a good photo of it. We went to some shops and realized they all were starting to close around 6, so we stopped for some cheap and absolutely delicious gelato (because we weren’t very hungry after the huge lunch we had). I had kiwi and raspberry and Zane had cookies and cream and strawberry. The kiwi was the best! We went back to the hotel so Zane could read and ended up staying in for the night.

10 June 2011

I’m really disappointed in myself today. After breakfast I wasn’t feeling as well as usual, so when Zane when to class, I went back to sleep. I woke up around 10 and had already told Zane I would finish up my shopping while he was gone, so he wouldn’t have to be tortured again, so that’s what I did. I don’t know how I managed to get to H&M because I’m pretty sure I was still half asleep. I walked right past Cathy (Prof. Nanda’s wife) and I feel so bad because I only managed to get a few words out and it was the last time I was going to see her L. I wander around in and out of shops looking at all the beautiful things I will never be able to afford (unless the dollar somehow skyrockets in value). I still felt sick, so around noon I headed back to the hotel. I was able to say goodbye to Professor Nanda before he left (we’re really going to miss him and his wife!). When Zane got back from class, he asked if I wanted to go to a castle (the one on our wish list) with some of the other girls, but it was an hour away and I still felt awful, so we didn’t go. I tried talking Zane into going and taking lots of pictures for me, but of course he wouldn’t leave me. After resting for a little bit, we got up and walked to a grocery store, but they actually don’t sell any medicine at them, so we just picked up some juice and goodies and headed towards the center. We quick grabbed some big bacon burgers, hoping that it would help. We found an apothecary where I was able to buy some ibuprofen 400mg (without a prescription J) in the coolest box that has brail on the outside of it (I think it’s brilliant!). I took some right away and headed back towards the hotel. Zane decided to start on his homework early and I took a nap. When I woke I was feeling much better. So we decided to take a walk heading across the bridge to the opposite area that we’ve been going to. The view over the bridge was absolutely beautiful. As soon as we got across the bridge we saw these incredible buildings and of course took lots of pictures. We walked past little cafes and shops, but I couldn’t resist just walking past one that had shoes on display for 15 Euros. We went in and I found a cart full of shoes for 5 Euros!! I found two really great pairs of heels and then the rest of the store was set up sort of like a Forever Young with shoes all over the store with clothes along the walls (apparently they had an upstairs just of clothes too, but we didn’t make it up there) and I found a pair of flats as well. I was the last purchase of the day and I was stoked that I was coming out of the store with 3 pairs of shoes for under 22 Euros. Too bad it was our last day here, because I just found my new favorite store! We kept walking towards the train station, which was gorgeous! We didn’t really see much past it, so we turned around. We walked back the same way and enjoyed everything one last time. I forgot to mention that there was a cute little park that was really well kept and maintained that was dedicated to the martyrs and victims of the Nazis. It was incredible. We walked back towards the hotel and decided we would go get gelato one last time and went back to the town center. We ran into Amarilla on our way over and invited her to join us. I got the cookies and cream with chocolate hazelnut and Zane got melon (they didn’t have kiwi today) and raspberry. They were both delicious. Just as we were finishing, Melody and Jon were walking by and it started to rain, so we walked back to the hotel with them. We stayed in for the rest of the night and talked with our families and watched tv that we didn’t understand.

11 June 2011

We got up and had breakfast before checking out of the hotel. We were second in line to Pam and Mallorie, this time, to get onto the bus. While waiting for the whole group we looked at all the pictures Pam took of the castle and I was SO very jealous (and angry that I didn’t suck it up and go). Pam also told us it was only 3 Euros to get there and back and the castle was also inexpensive to get in. We really want to try to make it back if we can. I’m really upset that we didn’t accomplish anything on our wish list while we were in Luxembourg. I was really sad to leave Luxembourg and their beautiful country, non-sandpapery toilet paper, inexpensive shoes, castles, incredible architecture, and town center. The only thing I won’t miss is the breeze coming into the shower and their prices on food J. Finally around 11, everyone was ready to go and we left heading towards Strasbourg. We didn’t fall asleep this time, so we could look at the countryside and listen to good music. It was another beautiful drive and didn’t stop when we got into France. Not before long, we were stopping at a gas station to get food. We had an hour because we were close to the hotel and didn’t want to get there earlier than check in. Zane got sandwich, yogurt, and a drink combo, while I got some bolognaise and chicken with thyme flavored chips to go along with it. I was most impressed with the chicken with thyme chips; it really tasted like a chicken dinner in your mouth. I want to stock up before going back to the states! Oh, we also tried the cranberry magnum bar that was delicious. We sat around and talked with everyone before getting back on the bus.

Belgium

6/5/11

Prof. Del Duca woke me up from my nap announcing we were in Belgium and stopping for a bite to eat. I spent probably 30 of the 45 minutes just deciding what I wanted to eat. We were at a trucker/bus/gas station and there was a café, diner, and the convenient store, so I had a really hard time choosing. I was set on getting chicken nuggets and fries until I saw that it was on the children’s menu. So I ended up getting this French sandwich that I can’t spell or pronounce, but it was “basically a hot ham and cheese,” according to Zane. He had totally hyped them up, but I found it rather disgusting, hopefully they’re a lot better in France! To wash out the taste, Zane got us a drink and a piece of delicious chocolate cake. Then we were back on the bus and within 30 minutes we were at the outskirts of Brussels. We drove past many beautiful buildings and nice areas and I got super excited. Naturally, we start getting into a shady area and I think that we would stop, but we didn’t. Just past the shady area we stopped at this building that was half cut off and under construction… our hotel (Ibis, like the one we stayed at in Heathrow). I don’t know if I mentioned that the last hotel was also under construction, it must be that we get discounted rates because of it (JK). We had about an hour before we were going to meet with the group to have a tour at the Grand Place. We settled in a little bit and met up with everyone. Right next to our hotel is the subway station and across the street is the train station. We took the underground three stops to get to the Grand Place. It was hectic trying to buy tickets and keeping the group together, but we finally made it right on time to meet up with our tour guide. She showed us so many beautiful buildings. The one that I was so impressed with was the Town Hall and across from it was the Maison du Roi Broodhuis, which has actually turned into a museum. After looking at the main square we walked a few blocks to Le Mannequin Pis, it was so funny, but honestly I was a little disappointed in how small he is! Our guide told us that they decorate him in outfits/costumes for different holidays and other events (I was bummed we didn’t see him in anything, but they say if it’s too hot they leave him be). We walked back and she told us that they were known for their lace, comics, chocolate, beer, and waffles. She told us where to get her favorite Brussels waffle and showed us a few lace shops before heading back to the square to tell us a little more history about the buildings. After that she showed a really nice covered shopping area ($$$) and all kinds of different restaurants. This was scary because some of the shady restaurants will have a host step in front of you in the path, grab your arm and try to tell you to eat at their place even saying that things are free, but don’t actually turn out being free at all. The guide told us that it was illegal and if a police officer was walking by, that they’d actually be fired and arrested. She made up us having to hurry to get the airport to get one of the guys that was pressing way too hard off of her. We went back to the square and she told us of this fairy tale land called Brugge that we should try to go to. Then she left and we all split up to find dinner. We were going to go back to one of the Italian restaurants, but we were too cheap to pay over 10 Euros for spaghetti. We then decided to go try some of the 1 Euro waffles across from Le Mannequin Pis, but the line was outrageous and we noticed that the waffle shop across the street had 1 Euro on their sign too! We went over and ordered a waffle with strawberries and cream and it was not 1 Euro, but it was so worth it!! We went back and got a “naturale” waffle, which I think I almost liked just as much. Since we were hiding under an awning, because of the rain, we decided to head back to the hotel for the night.

6/6/11

We had to be down to breakfast at 7 today, because Zane’s classes are being held at one of the local universities, and 6:30 rolled around way too quickly! The breakfasts here aren’t as good as the last hotel, but they still have a decent variety. I went back to sleep when Zane left and then I tried getting ready and hung out in the hotel (we don’t feel very safe with me just going out on my own). Zane didn’t get back until 1:30!! His class went a half-hour over and then it took another half hour to get back, but he didn’t get lost when he came back all by himself! (We got a little lost last night trying to find what escalator took us up to the right spot by our hotel.) He quick changed and we went to the café across the street from the hotel to look for lunch, but they were out of whatever we ordered and our French isn’t so great, so we left. When we were lost at the underground station last night I noticed a lot of shops and cafes, so we ended up going to one of the places there. We had one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in a long time! We ate in our room and Zane read part of his homework before finding a good stopping point. We asked if Thomas or Gianluca wanted to come with us on our adventure to the Atonium/World’s Fair Monument, but they were too good for us (they really just had other plans). We hopped on train 6 and got off at the second to last stop. We walked outside and couldn’t see anything, but then we turned the corner and there it was! Wow! It is GI-normous! As soon as we saw it, it started raining, so I unfortunately didn’t get as many pictures as I wanted. This couple that took our picture for us, asked us where Mini Europe was, we hadn’t even heard of it, but I thought it sounded it awesome! It was just across from the Atonium, but with it raining and being cheap, we didn’t go in. We also didn’t pay to walk up to the top of the Atonium either. We took our pictures and hopped back on the subway (which I might add we got a ticket for 10 rides for only 12 Euros!! It is already so much cheaper than The Hague.) and went back to the Grand Place. We went to the little “Tea Room” that the tour guide said had the best Brussels waffles. I order one with ice cream and berry sauce and Zane got ice cream and strawberries. After ordering, we were joined by Eunice and Maren from the program, who also wanted to try the waffles. I was sad that I liked the ice cream the most out of the whole meal. Brussels waffles aren’t suppose to be as sweet as the Liege waffle (that has little chunks of sugar in the waffle) and what we had definitely wasn’t, but it was also a bit too crunchy for what I was hoping. Maybe we just had a bad batch. After that we went back and got another “naturale” waffle for dessert J. We then headed back to the hotel so Zane could finish his reading for class.

6/7/11

Today was a little bit different for Zane’s classes. Professor Nanda and his wife lost their passports and had to go to the embassy get new ones this morning, so Professor Del Duca’s class was moved up to the 8:30 slot. I slept for a little bit after Zane left, but they were drilling below us and even I couldn’t sleep through it. I got up and finished getting ready and went and asked how to get to Brugge because everyone wanted to go after class. Minutes after I got back to the room, Zane came up and surprised me. He changed and we waited for everyone else to get here. We soon headed across the street and bought tickets for the 12:05 train. It took just under an hour to get there and Zane managed to read 20 of his 90 pages for class tomorrow!! Zane and I were left behind when we stopped to get waffles (ooh, mine was so delicious… I had melted white chocolate on it… mmm…) Luckily, they don’t walk very fast and Eunice was wearing a bright yellow jacket that was easy to spot. But after we got closer into the square it was hard to keep 12 people together (all but 2 girls and the staff came on our escapade) and we branched off into 3 groups. We took lots of pictures of the main square the beautiful buildings and horse carriages and adorable puppies (including a beagle, that made me miss Max that much more). We walked in and out of stores. Zane and I bought some raspberry truffles made of pure cocoa. We ran into one of the groups and talked with them, but then went our separate ways again to find food. We sat down with our group, who unfortunately were having beers at probably one the more expensive places, so Zane and I split a sandwich (which wasn’t nearly as good as yesterday, but this place uses butter instead of mayo so that could be one reason) and headed back to the train. I was sad to leave, there were so many little shops with lace, chocolate, shoes and clothes that I could spend days in. We were the last group to get there which made me really nervous because we only had one ticket for the 12 of us and Christy, who wasn’t in our group, had it. But we all got on a double decker train and headed back. We came back and started packing our stuff and ironed Zane’s suit for tomorrow. We cleaned up the room, turned on the AC and all of the lights and prepared to have class in our room. See they had planned to have class in Professor Nanda’s room tonight at 7, but we offered our room, because somehow we scored the corner room that is freaking HUGE! Which another odd story… Zane apparently didn’t send the reservation to this hotel or didn’t get the confirmation or something weird like that, so they didn’t show us as part of the group. However, Kate had signed up to be in a triple room, but they booked her in a single room and she was trying to get out of it and ended up giving her room to us. I was surprised that they would give such a large room to a single person (it has a queen bed and a single bed on the side). So basically we scored big time. Anyway, they’re in there right now having class and I’m out in the hall typing because there weren’t any outlets downstairs at the tables. Sounds like they’re about to get out! Yay! Au Revoir! 

Den Haag

5/27/2011

We boarded our train at platform 20 in Brussels headed for The Hague. Our tickets didn’t specify hardly anything on them, most definitely not a seat number, so we followed others and looked for an empty cabin (no one was around to direct us or take our tickets). We found one and it didn’t seem like many people were going to cabins around us, so I was a little worried about the car not being in service or something, but I didn’t really care to get food and I didn’t notice any signs that stuck out, so we just enjoyed the cabin to ourselves… for about 15 minutes. We noticed soon after we left that our train was slowing down and we realized we were already at the next stop, well the seats in our room filled up fast as did the other cabins nearby within the next couple of stops. I felt bad b/c there wasn’t a lot of leg room to begin with and I had my giant suitcase in the middle b/c there was no way that it was going to be fitting on one of the tiny metal racks/shelves that were above our heads. After it was too crowded in our cabin Zane managed to get his suitcase up on the rack to make a little more leg room for him and the older lady across from him. The lady across from me was very sweet and without asking I was speaking English to her from the beginning, for whatever reason, I could just tell that she spoke and very well. She told us that it was about two hours to The Hague from where she got on (the stop after us), so after a few minutes I didn’t feel so bad about falling asleep. After 45 minutes or so I woke up seeing a couple of new faces and was wondering how far away it would be. I had fun looking out the window and tugging on Zane’s arm every time I would see a cool building (we could even see the main square and the big Atom thing at the beginning of the trip). It was beautiful. Not too long after a gentleman came by speaking really fast in a language I did not know. He wanted our identification cards and our tickets. Upon examining ours he looked up at us and said that we were sitting in first class with second class tickets *WHOOPS*! He said we could pay 16 Euros or move, we asked if he took card b/c he had a little machine in his hands and he said the next car was that way (pointing backwards), so we got our belongings and headed back (we still wonder if he misunderstood us, thinking maybe we asked where the other car was). Well there were all these crazy older ladies huddled between the two cars so we were stuck for a while and ended up standing by the bathroom for the remainder of the time (luckily it was only 3-4 stops away, so we were able to ride in “first class” for more than half of the ride). Which might I add that the second class trains looked exactly the same on the outside/inside and there were 1 and 2s written all over the outside of the trains, and the car that we had originally started out on had a 2 on it! Whatever. We weren’t sure where we needed to get off b/c the announcer didn’t say anything in English like the last train had. So while I was walking around looking for two seat next to each other Zane had struck up a conversation with a guy that was telling him that we were suppose to get off at the last station (even though I couldn’t recall the signs anywhere saying The Hague or Den Haag). At first I was a little panicked, but it sounded like something that would happen that day (all this bad luck must have been because Zane opened the umbrella in our last hotel room to dry. ;) Just kidding) But a nice lady was walking through and the guy asked her if he was right about the last stop (at least that’s what I think he said… he said it Dutch, I think.) She said it was actually the next stop that we would want to get off at (Hurray!!) So we got off and followed several people to get out because there was absolutely no English translation :S. We eventually found from the information desk that we could hop on tram 1 and it would take us right in front of our hotel. So we went out and I immediately saw a tram 1 pass us, so we quick made it to the stop and waited for the next one. There were a couple of other trams that came by and we noticed that there wasn’t anywhere that you really paid and everyone would just get on at any of the doors and sit down, so we thought that they were just free. So we lugged our suitcases on and we were off. After a few stops we realized we had no idea what stop it would be at and we would just have to look out for it. Zane nudged me to ask the girl across from us because “she looked like someone that would speak English” and she did, but she didn’t know where our hotel was, but the lady across from her told her it was definitely not the way we were going. I was frustrated. We got off at the next stop and thought maybe they went both ways, so we had to walk a block to find a stop that went the other direction, and sure enough tram 1 does go both ways. Before we got on another tram we looked at the map and decided we’d get off near the world forum and walk to our hotel from there. Well it took us about a half hour and we got to pass a lot of beautiful buildings and I found a little place I totally wanted to go back to and shop. Luckily there was a stop called the World Forum (I swear, it’s the only thing in English on that tram) and we got off, we looked around and had no idea which way to go and a lady waiting for another tram noticed and asked us where we were going and said “It’s the big white building behind you” and naturally in big red letters it says Crowne Plaza (in our defense the trees were blocking it from where we were originally standing though). We then proceeded to check in and went into our incredible room! (We later learned that it is actually a 5 star hotel) I was reading through the information booklet and they said to ask the front desk of good places to eat and shopping areas. It was still very bright outside and we were hungry so went back downstairs and asked and she told us it as 10 minutes to the beach and about a 20 minute walk back to the shopping plaza we had passed. We were trying to go down a nearby street to see if there were any closer restaurants, but could only find business buildings, so we turned around and headed towards the beach. 40 minutes later we were freezing (because we decided it was so hot coming in that we’d leave our jackets, but boy howdy was it windy!) and finally reached the beach shopping plaza. We looked around inside and half of the shops were closed, and nothing sounded too appetizing to us. We thought maybe an all you can eat buffet place that we passed, we glanced at the prices and saw that it was 27 Euros a person and turned around. We soon became aware that most of the restaurants around were not cheap, so we ended up going to a New York Pizza Place and shared a pizza. We looked around a little bit longer and found a supermarket and got some little things we thought would be handy and decided to take the tram back (which we did find out from the front desk that you do need to pay). It wasn’t long after that we passed out for the night.

5/28/11

We woke up around 730 and went down to the best breakfast buffet we’ve had yet! They had these delicious little pancakes and potatoes (hash brown rounds?) and toast, meat, scrambled eggs, fruit, pastries, yogurt, cheese and so much more! So we stuffed our faces and went back upstairs and fell back asleep for quite a while. We didn’t realize how tired we were! We woke up and started getting ready and in the middle of it, housekeeping kicked us out, so we went to the front desk and asked where a nearby Albert Heijn (from an Email Agatha sent us telling us all of the places we should see and the food we should eat) and where we could find a convertor.  She told us it was about a five minute walk and circled it on our map. I asked her if it was by the World Forum building that we had walked by the day before because she drew it on the map in the middle of the flags down that way, but she said no, we head towards the Shell station and turn right, so that’s what we did. And we sure got lost, we found ourselves in the middle of this neighborhood and managed to find it on the map and saw that we were way off!! So we went back to where she had drawn the store (by the World Forum) and noticed there was nothing down there, so we tried going down a side street and found a nice couple who spoke English (it was then that we realized that just about everyone speaks English here, even better than most British people!) and they told us that the Albert Heijn down the way we were going would be a very, very long walk and showed us one by the beach that would be closer. I was very irritated with our receptionist. We went back to the hotel and bought a day pass for the tram, hopped on the tram and headed towards the beach. We found the Albert Heijn and bought some Vla and stroopwafel (DELICIOUS!)  Then we began our mad hunt for a convertor. We found out that convertor is one of the words that a lot of the people struggle with and found out that it’s called a transformer here. We went into about a dozen stores down the strip and back at the beach plaza and couldn’t find anywhere that had one. We bought some of the best cream puffs at a local bakery and hopped back on the tram headed towards downtown. Once again, we asked several people and went in and out of stores looking for the convertor and found nothing. Before we were going to give up and go back to the hotel, we decided to go back into the first place that we started (that Zane wanted to rush through because it was about a 5 story department store and he feared for our wallets). We asked where the travel section was (because we had only really looked at the electronic section before) and headed up to the 3^rd floor. Sure enough… SUCCESS! We were thrilled and exhausted! We went back to the hotel and stayed in for the night.

5/29/11

We had some more of the delicious breakfast buffet before meeting with Zane’s program. We went downstairs into one of the meeting rooms (I immediately realized that it was small and there wasn’t many seats set up) and Zane got his paperwork and signed in (I scanned the list and saw that there were only 13 people!! I was so shocked of how small the group was). We sat in the back, because I didn’t want to take up someone else’s seat. They started with introductions and we found out that Zane is one of THREE students that came here from the University of Denver! He didn’t recognize either of them (we later found out that they were in all different sections). Soon after a little intro, we went on our walking tour of Den Haag with a woman that lives here. She took us downtown and showed us all of these different historical spots, the parliament buildings, shopping areas, a palace, foreign embassies, and so much more with all of the incredible history behind everything. After a few hours we went back to the hotel and had lunch. The orientation began and I went up to our room and began to read a book. Several hours later we went down to the beach again, this time it was a little less windy (I didn’t think we’d get blown away this time) and had dinner. We came back to the hotel soon after, so Zane could finish his reading and we could talk with our families before going to bed.

5/30/11

This was the first morning of class and 730 sure came around quickly. While Zane was in class I unpacked our things and ironed some of Zane’s shirts and trousers and read. After class was over I had the privilege of joining the class on their trip to the International Criminal Court (ICC). We had to rush through lunch because our taxi came late and then we went up to the room where they hold all the press conferences. I thought the room would be a little bit nicer, but our guide told us that the building use to be a garage, so they did quite a nice job turning the place around. She told us a little bit about the cases they have and had a little question-answer session before the President Judge came in to present to us. President Song was very informative and entertaining. He was able to give a lot of information and take questions within the half hour we had with him. Following his address, we were able to go up and watch one of the cases. They had super nice Bose headsets for us to get the proper translation of the witness (the main languages at the ICC are English and French). It was an intense case! Two men were being charged with three crimes against humanity and seven war crimes (I’ll spare you all the gory details). We were able to watch from the public gallery because it was an open trial; which was basically a room that we sat in and could watch the court through the glass (which is much smaller than any courtroom I’ve ever seen). From where I was sitting I could only see one of the men, but Zane could see both. We, unfortunately, only got to see part of the witness’ testimony before having to go back downstairs. We had a short break and few minutes to ask our guide any questions. Then we heard from a representative of the Presidency (he was from America :D) and a representative of the Office of Prosecutors. We were dismissed and took taxis back to the hotel, dropped off our things and hopped on the tram to go downtown. We were on a quick mission for some fresh Stroopwafel! We stopped in to Albert Heijn because the stop was right there to get some more goodies and head for the square that we were told the stand would be, but as we were walking down the alley we noticed that half of the shops were closed and I remembered that our tour guide had told us that all the shops start closing at 6:30 on Mondays (they have to make sure to honor FHE… JK!) So the stand wasn’t there and we were bummed. I got a bite to eat and we headed back for the night.

5/31/2011

While Zane was in class, I went back downtown to do some shopping. I didn’t think that I was going to be able to go to the courts when I planned for this trip, so I didn’t pack the most conservative of clothes, but after going in and out of stores, defeated in prices, I ended up only getting some nylons. I went back, hurried and got ready and waited for Zane to get out of class. We were going to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that was just across the street from the hotel. But they checked our passports, so we still ended up being late. We were rushed through another lunch, but luckily we were smart this time and only got sandwiches. We were led up to their public gallery to watch the Radovan Karadzic trial!! Karadzic was representing himself and it was just so awesome to see history in the making! If you don’t know anything about him, you should definitely look up this genocide case. We were led to a meeting room where we got to hear from a Prosecutor at the ICTY. He had a power point that went into the gruesome details of the background of the ICTY and their cases.  We found out from him that the media that was surrounding the building was due to the transferring of Mladic to the ICTY today!! Because of this huge event, we were not able to hear from the President Judge and were let out early. Zane and I made another trip downtown and succeeded in getting fresh Stroopwafel and an entire outfit for under 20 Euros! :D

6/1/11

I went back to sleep while Zane was in class today. It was wonderful. After classes we had about an hour before meeting to go to the Peace Palace, so we grabbed a bite to eat at the gas station. We had gone past the Peace Palace several times on the tram going down town, but it was so much more beautiful the closer up we got. We actually arrived early today, but security wouldn’t let us go through until 2:30 because that was when we were scheduled to be there. As soon as we walked in, my eyes got big and my mouth hung open in awe of how completely gorgeous the building is. We had a few minutes before Boris, our tour guide, found us. We had gathered in the courtroom that the dispute between Cambodia and Thailand has taken place two days before. It was one beautiful and detailed room. Boris joined us there and explained about the case and the history of the room before moving us into the Red Room. Boris was a very funny and informing Frenchman; it was very enlightening to hear from him. After about an hour President Owada addressed us. It was very nice of him to give us an hour of his time, but it was very hard to stay awake with the thick accent, lack of air condition, and it being in the middle of the afternoon. He spoke straight through about different cases, but with 80 pages of reading for the next day, no one wanted to stay for questions. So we stayed in for a long and tiresome night.

6/2/11

Today was the first day that there wasn’t something going on after classes. So we went downtown to take pictures of all the cool buildings that we got to see on Sunday, but couldn’t take pictures of when my camera died. But before doing that we stopped to get some fries with mayonnaise (we thought they sounded disgusting, but we actually really enjoyed them) and kroketten (I don’t know how to even explain what this is, but it’s GOOD). After seeing all the sights and walking past all the shops we ended up deciding to just walk back to the hotel (because today was actually a holiday and a lot of the shops were closed). Stopping and taking pictures of all the cool things that we saw made the walk seem much shorter. We went in the hotel so Zane could read for class. We also worked hard at getting all of laundry washed, so it would have time to dry before we leave. When we were done, I was hungry and we were heading towards the beach, but we were tired and it was getting late, so we went back to the Shell station and bought some yummy chicken wraps. We decided to have dinner on the balcony and we were joined by Gianluca on the patio next to us. It was nice to chat with him for a bit, but then Zane got on the subject of futbol and I was then left in my own little world. We cleaned things up after and called it a night.

6/3/11

We made it through the first week of classes! Huzzah! We went to ask the front desk if we could rent a bike and they broke my heart by telling me that they had all been rented. I totally wanted to ride to the temple, because there was no way my little legs would walk 25 km in that heat and survive. So that was the first thing that we didn’t make on our list, hopefully there won’t be many more. So we decided to walk behind our hotel because we got to see a glimpse of it on our way back from the ICC and we saw a few parks. Well the park turned out to be even cooler than we thought. It was huge and there were several right by each other. One looked like it was mainly for kids with the typical playground, one appeared to be for local sunbathers, which was in front of a pond/lake, and the others just had several trails going through what seemed like a forest. On one of these paths, we just so happened to accidentally stumble upon the Madurodam, which is Holland on a miniature scale. We peeked over the fence to see it, because we’re too cheap to pay 14 Euros each to get in. We then walked back and headed towards the beach again and went to our favorite store, Albert Heijn. We looked in some of the stores that hadn’t ever been open on the other days that we had come down. We went towards the harbor and bought some Strawberry/Vanilla Vla (not as good as the chocolate/vanilla) and people watched while we decided on what to do for dinner. In the end we walked back to Albert Heijn and bought goodies to make sandwiches and went back to the hotel for the night.

6/4/11

Following breakfast this morning, we hopped on the tram, with 4 of the girls from the program, to the Hauge HS train station. From there we took a train to Amsterdam. It was incredible just to be there! I was in awe of how many people there were and how many freaking canals there really were. We were going to stay with the girls for a while because they were on their way to this huge flea market and I wanted to check it out, but we made a few stops along the way… They stopped in a couple of the local souvenir shops and the red light district. It wasn’t quite what I expected. I actually don’t think I would know if the girls didn’t say anything, but they made a turn and the next thing we know we were going down a prostitute alley with the girls in their doorways in just their underwear trying to lure in people. Poor Zane did his best to just to look down at all times. After that we weren’t sure what the girls were actually up to and with everything being legal and them not having the same standards as us, we decided to break out of the group and head towards the Anne Frank house instead of continuing on with them. I had read online that we should get to the museum early, so the line wouldn’t be so long, but we didn’t get there until after noon… We had the honor of waiting for an hour! The problem with the museum is there is not a lot of room inside to have people line up so the line wraps around the building, so we were out baking in the sun. I totally think it was worth it, I’m not sure if Zane would agree, but I thought it was awesome to actually stand in her room and see the actual diary and hear/read the stories. After wrapping things up there, we went to the Albert Heijn and bought more food to make sandwiches and sat on a bench and watched the local people and puppies J. We walked around a little more and went to one of the malls that I clearly couldn’t afford, but it was one of the most beautiful buildings! And we went into a few other little shops before deciding to head back because we were so hot and tired and so Zane could read for Monday. After getting back we packed all of our things up, got some ice cream bars at the gas station, and enjoyed our last night in the Netherlands.

6/5/11

We slept in a little longer today (HALLELUJAH)! Quick had our breakfast and headed down a little before we had to meet the group in the lobby, so we could check out. I am so glad Zane had us go down early, because it seemed like more than half of the hotel was checking out after us. So while we waited for everyone we watched people’s luggage/ Zane helped load the luggage onto the bus. Soon after we were on our way to Brussels on one of the nicest busses I’ve ever been on!