Last Stop: España!

Here I am checking in again. A few days have slipped by again between posts, so I'll try to go over our events since the last post.

First though, I've added some more pictures to previous posts. Also, we've found it interesting that lots of backpackers are carrying great big packs, and if it wasn't clear, Brady and I only have our school backpacks. We're kind of proud of that. We certainly came out with a "camping" mindset: pack light and wear the same shirt and pants lots of times!

We enjoyed our second day in Florence and were able to see some more great sites. In the morning we went on a walking tour of the city, and in the afternoon we went back and spent more time looking at things that seemed the most interesting to us. Among the sites we got to see was Michelangelo's David. Wednesday morning we headed by train down to Naples. When we arrived we hurried out to Pompeii to see what we could. After looking around for a bit, we went back to Naples where we started searching for a good pizza place (we had learned that Naples is supposedly the birthplace of pizza) and a place to stay for the night--and yes, in that order! As it turned out, we stumbled upon one of the best places in Naples for pizza; when we checked in later at our hostel the manager figured we must have been in Naples for a bit of time to have found that place, so he was surprised to find out we had only been in town for about 30 minutes. The pizza was indeed fantastic!

The next morning we headed back up to Rome. When we got to Rome, we decided, of course, that since we were in Rome, we would do as the Romans do, so we first set out to find togas. Just kidding. Highlights of our time in Rome were visiting the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Ara Pacis, Trevi Fountain, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Vatican Museum. And while Rome wasn't built in a day, we nearly saw it all in one. No, actually it took us two. Any guesses of what our last thing to do was as we prepared to leave Italy for Spain? One last stop at a gelato shop!

Early Saturday morning we headed to the airport, where we caught a flight to Barcelona, where we found ourselves tonight. Here in Barcelona we have enjoyed beginning to see the city, spending some time at the beach, attending church with one of the Barcelona wards this morning, seeing some pretty intense street celebrating last night when FC Barcelona (Barcelona's soccer team) found out they were the league champions, and watching the Magic Fountain of Montjuic water show, which will probably be one of the highlights of Barcelona--the show was really impressive!

Posting Again!

Hello again! I haven't had the chance to post anything new for a couple of days, in case you didn't notice. Hopefully you did. Hopefully someone did. Hopefully someone, somewhere noticed and is now reading this...


The trip has been going great. I had a post nearly finished a few nights ago with quite a large update, but I lost it when I tried to publish it. Before I start with this update, though, I want to give a shout out to my Mom! I called and talked to her yesterday but still want to take the chance to wish her a happy Mother's Day. Here's to the best Mom a guy could ask for: I love you, Mom!


Second, here's another big, hearty congratulations to my older brother Skyler, who yesterday graduated from Cornell Law School! Congratulations Sky! Finally, nice work to my younger brother Tayler and his fellow teammates who won their playoff game against Grantsville and are heading to state baseball this week. Good luck!


Tonight I am writing from our hostel in Florence, Italy! Interestingly enough, our roommates tonight have the names Botticelli and Michelangelo. Just kidding. But that would be cool, right? So let's see, last time I left off, we had just eaten some frog legs in Paris on Monday night. We continued to explore Paris on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday we visited Versailles. I have looked forward to seeing Versailles since I took AP European History in high school, and we found the palace very impressive indeed! We couldn't believe how intricate and elaborate each room was, and we found the gardens very impressive as well.

On our way back to Paris from Versailles, we made a stop at McDonald's so that we could grab some French French fries (which we figured was another must when visiting France)! When we got back to Paris, we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower in the daylight, so we got off the metro there. We took some pictures and then decided to ride up to the top of it. On the top we got to watch as the sun went down and the city lights started to turn on. An interesting side note is that Brady got to be the cameraman for a guy who decided to take advantage of the opportunity of being on the top of the Eiffel Tower to propose to his now fiancee. After we walked the famous street of Champs Elysees then made our way back to our hotel.


On Wednesday, we visited the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, got a train out of Paris to Switzerland lined up for later in the day, then hustled over to the Louvre where we could not believe we saw some of the things we did, such as the Mona Lisa! The painting had an entire wall to itself. Unfortunately, we did not make it back to the train station in time for our train, so we ended up getting one scheduled for the next morning. With the extra time in Paris, we walked the streets a bit more, had a crepe, and found another place to stay for the night.


Thursday morning we left Paris for Switzerland, and after a beautiful, scenic train ride we arrived in the peaceful, awesome town of Interlaken. We had a great time there, and highlights included enjoying walking around Interlaken and seeing the amazing little Swiss village that it is--it almost looks like something out of a Disneyland resort, eating Swiss chocolate and cheese, eating our first kabob (a type of food made with a special kind of meat offered in each of the places we have been so far), hiking in the Alps and seeing breathtaking views, and jumping in one of the freezing cold lakes, also breathtaking!


Saturday morning we left Interlaken and headed to Cinque Terre, Italy. Cinque Terre is a national park in Italy and consists of five little villages built in the hills/cliffs along the northwestern coast of Italian Riviera. The uphill climb we took to our room for the nights there reminded me of Acapulco. While initially we were worried all the rooms in the towns might be full for the weekend, we ended up finding a very nice place to stay. In Cinque Terre we climbed out on a rocky crag just off the edge of town to have the best seat in the place to watch the sun set, hiked 5 or so hours from the southern most town to the northern most town, enjoyed the intense heat but great water of the beach, and ate our first authentic Italian pizza and gelato--both incredibly delicious!


We left Cinque Terre early this morning and headed farther south. We made a stop in Pisa where we had fun seeing the famous Leaning Tower. After we hiked across the town to a central train station where we boarded a train to Florence. We made good use of the time this afternoon here in Florence and have already seen a decent amount of the city, although tomorrow we will head out to see some of the more famous attractions. And have no doubt that also on the list of things to accomplish tomorrow is this: find the best gelato in town!

Another Day in Paris

Yesterday we had another very enjoyable day in Paris. In the morning we accidently found ourselves in the Galleries La Fayette as we headed to the Louvre and saw some VERY expensive items (the layout was basically like a mall). After leaving we bought some bagettes and continued our walk across town, seeing the Paris Opera House and the Paris Ritz-Carlton. When we arrived at the Louvre we realized it would close before we had all the time we'd like to see it (the map we got from the train station said it would be open until late, but the information desk said the days the museum stayed open late had changed). So we headed over to Notre Damme of Paris. As we entered I was impressed that I was seeing in person images (like the art on the trumeau and tympanum of the cathedral) that just this semester I had been studying in my humanities text book. Mass started while we were visiting. When we left, we went to an art exhibit at the Hotel De Ville, and after, we went and looked at two different universities here in Paris. We were searching for the Sorbonne, which I had learned in humanities was the second oldest university in the world, but before we found it we stumbled across the University of Rene Descartes and another just across the street from it. After, however, we found the Sorbonne.

The final note from yesterday is that when we left the university, we got directions from the locals to the oldest part of Paris where we found a restaurant whose specialty was frog legs, and we helped ourselves to a few. Believe it or not, we've got a bit more bounce in our step today!

Roughing it in Paris

It was strange to wake up this morning by a garbage can on a busy street in Paris! Just kidding. We had an event-filled day yesterday here in the city of love. After we arrived (the picture is of us arriving on the speed train, we couldn't wait to see the city!) and sent out our update, we went out to find a hostel where we could stay the night. However, Brady decided to check what the price would be at a hotel, and he actually managed to convince the manager to give us a killer deal on a hotel room, so we're staying in a hotel room and getting a free breakfast for cheaper than we could be staying at a hostel!

The highlight of yesterday was seeing the Eiffel Tower last night. Seeing it with its lights on is beautiful and amazing! We were also able to visit the Arche de Triomphe, some strange mall/Congress building (we haven't taken time to figure out what's going on there yet!), and some other sites. We also started to figure out the public transportation here in the city.

A few notes in general about the trip. Flying over Canada and then over the ocean to arrive in Germany was just kind of an exciting feeling. The view out the plane window was great as we flew above a sea of clouds and watched the sun set on the horizon. Also, as we walk around here in different places, it is fun to realize that we are seeing in person sites that we have seen in movies, read about, or heard about. Yesterday we commented that because we put the trip together so fast, instead of thinking "Wow, we finally made it to Paris!" as we walk around--which we would probably be feeling if we had been anticipating the trip for awhile--we kind of think "What! We're in Paris? When did that happen?!"

Underway!

Hallo! Bonjour! I am finally getting on a computer to track our travels! So the hallo is a shout back to Germany, which we just left 2 hours ago. And the bonjour, of course, is for our current location: Paris!

The adventure started Friday afternoon when we flew out of Salt Lake City at 1:50. We touched down in Cincinnati around 7 and after an all-night flight, we landed in Frankfurt, Germany Saturday morning around 10. A cool note about the flight: we joined with the other passengers in clapping after successfully touching down. Once we were off the plane, we grabbed tickets to Saarbrucken for later in the evening and ventured out to explore Frankfurt. Downtown we found a famous statue of three supposedly famous Germans, although we couldn't get any sure identifications of which famous Germans they might be from passersby. It was very nice weather in the afternoon, and we found many people out enjoying a meal in the sunshine at any one of the numerous restaurants we passed.

After a while we went back to the airport and boarded our train to Saarbrucken. We arrived in the late evening, so we found our way to the local hostel and decided not to stay! While the hostel looked nice enough, we decided the weather was pleasant enough and the city calm enough that we give sleeping out a shot. So we found a nice soft spot of the lawn at a close by field, spread out our Delta-provided blankets, and cashed in!

This morning we explored the city a little more, found the closest LDS chapel (where we actually attended sacrament meeting with the local French branch), then loaded on our train for Paris where we arrived a little bit ago. I think I'll sign off for now. Au revoir!