"I can have whatever I want"

Our last day in Montpellier was spent relaxing on the beach. I thought I was so smart putting on sunscreen for once in my life, but I some how managed to forget to put it on my back and stomach. Right now I am possibly the tannest I have ever been in my life.. Except my back and stomach are a little on the red side. Note to self- Apply sunscreen every where. Sam was too cool for sunscreen and didn't use any. He know has a red back.



After we were all tired and sun tanned out, we went to change our train tickets, buy me some 'after shampoo' (conditioner), and go to the winery. From there we went back to Anne's to shower and get ready for the night. Anne had made reservations at a restaurant on the beach on an island called Sète. It's about 30 kilometers from Montpellier. It was absolutely beautiful. Sète is a port island and is full of fisherman. It's a cute town! And has amazing seafood since it's all fresh. The restaurant we went to sat right on the beach where we had an amazing view of the Sea. The mountain in the middle of the island was spotted with lights from the houses on it. The restaurant of course didn't have english menus, so the waiter was kind enough to take Anne and I to look at the different fish and sea creatures and tell us what each one was. I ended up buying a seafood platter that was full of muscles, giant oysters, and crayfish. It. Was. Amazing. And so fresh! What a way to end an amazing time in Montpellier. We left the restaurant and headed back to Anne's house in Montpellier, Sète lit up and sparkling in the rear view mirror. When we arrived at Anne's we threw a few things in our suitcases and went to bed.





Right now we're on our final train ride headed back to Paris where we'll meet with Philippe and Florence and spend our last night in Europe.

Tomorrow afternoon we fly back home to Minnesota. It has been such a blessing and such an amazing experience to be able to travel around Europe for the last month. Everyone here has been so helpful and I am so thankful to everyone! Thank you all for translating things into english for me, for driving me around, for taking me skating, for being a tourist with me, and for letting me stay with you.
Philippe, Florence, Phil, Marlinda, Ingo, Matt, Ola, Veit, Anne- You are all wonderful :) Thank you for everything! If you ever come to America you are more then welcome to stay with me.

Too everyone who read this- Thank you for all the comments and well wishes. Thank you for actually reading this! I was a little worried no one would look at it except my parents- but I have been proven wrong. You are all awesome!

See you all soon
Au revoir!


Things I learned in Europe:

1. If you can't parallel park or drive a manual you should reconsider renting a car.

2. Public transportation is so much easier and more convenient than driving a car.

3. I love me some techno.

4. Clothes are a lot cheaper at home. Actually, most things are. Except for fruits and vegetables. Those are cheap here.

5. We are very casual dressers.

6. Generally I have no idea what I'm eating here, but it normally tastes really good.

7. I like the different lifestyles here.

8. Downtowns in europe are much safer than ours.

9. The people are much more open and less 'cliquey' here.

10. I love Europe <3

"Is this the autobahn?"

Sam and I arrived in Montpellier on Sunday evening. Anne picked us up from the train station and then we went back to her flat, dropped off our luggage and headed for the beach. Sam and I had not seen water in ages, so we were quite excited. Especially since it was the Mediterranean Sea. The water was so refreshing and nice! And salty. We spent what was left of the day on the beach, and then went back to Anne's for dinner. While she was cooking her friend Philippe came over and he joined us for dinner. It was a nice evening. We went to bed soon after dinner and slept for a long time. Apparently we had not slept as well on the night train as we thought we had.



The next day Anne had to work, so Sam and I walked into town. It is so beautiful. When you think of Europe, you think of old buildings, narrow streets and cobble stone roads. I thought Paris fit this definition quite nicely, but little did I know I was actually thinking of Montpellier. The next two hours were spent wandering the streets and going into a few shops. When we first got there we found a playground, which was quite exciting ;) But while walking the streets what did I find? A clutch! The best part? I later discovered it is sized for euro bills. Not American dollars. I guess I'll be folding my money, haha. Soon after we had lunch at a little place on a little street. I'm going to miss the baguette sandwiches they keep feeding me here.. After lunch we found the Arc de Triomphe in Montpellier. And what was only a little behind that? An aqueduc. It was incredible. It looked like it was straight of the history books. Near that was a beautiful church and a giant cross in the center of the two. Sam then decided he was tired of walking around the city and wanted to go back to the beach, so we headed back to the Olympic pool (which I forgot to mention earlier) and hopped on a bus that would take us to the beach. There we spent the next few hours swimming and laying in the sun.







Later that night we returned to Anne's, had dinner (another amazing meal!), and headed out to have drinks with her friend Guihem (I hope that's how you spell his name..). After chatting for a while, Anne gave us a tour of the city at night. It's so pretty. From there, Guihem left to go home, but Anne took us to a beach bar where we got to experience a bit of the night life in Montpellier. It was a bit quiet since it was monday night, but it was nice.

Montpellier is a beautiful place. If you ever get the chance to come here, you should. It's all that a vacation should be.

Wish you were here!

"What's in this chocolate?!" "...Nutella"

The last three days have been relaxed and very busy at the same time. One of the days we only managed to accomplish doing our laundry, walking with Matt and Ola to get food for Bubba (Matt's fish), and going to the Turca (where else would we go?). When we got back to Matt's house, Matt and Ola had to operate on Bubba's teeth because they were getting too long and he couldn't eat. So they put him in a bowl, knocked him out, and Dr. Ola cut his teeth. Veit liked to lighten the mood by throwing in things such as, "I think that's his brain in the bowl." To Matt and Ola's relief, Bubba made a full recovery and is happily swimming in his tank again.



The next morning Matt and Ola left at 3 to go to the airport for a week long vacation in Greece. How exciting :D So Sam and I slept in and packed up. I went for a run once it stopped raining. I ran to this park Matt had told me about and ran to the top of the hill. The top of the hill provided an amazing view of the town. I THINK I found the velodrome from the top. When I got back from my run, Sam and I went to lunch at the Turca (we had to get our fix before we left), and then I set off to find the velodrome. After a tram stop too far and adventuring around tennis courts, I finally found what I thought would be the velodrome. It had a biker on the sign and everything. But unfortunately, all the doors were locked :( Sure enough, the building that I thought the velodrome was in, is right next to the oval I inline at. Way to not see it sooner, Dano. After getting back on the tram and heading back to Matt's, Sam and I went to the Turca one last time so Sam could get 2 kebabs to go. We would later discover this was a bad idea. After that we were off to our night train!



The night train was quite the experience. Sam got to cross another goal off of his trip list- Talk to the locals. Good thing he knows french! (Earlier this week he got to cross off go to a club, which he said was a lot of fun. However, he left Germany tattoo free. Maybe we'll try again in France) Once on the train we went to go see what there was on it. I was so thankful we had beds to sleep in. The chairs looked comfy and all (and harry potterish), but I couldn't imagine spending the next 14 hours sitting and trying to sleep in one. There were 6 beds in our room and each bed was taken. We had a small room of people. All 6 of us seemed to get along well though. And they had some interesting stories about crashing their cars.



We awoke the next morning in Paris. What a way to travel! It was so much better to do it all at night and not waste a day! But as I type, we're sitting at another train station in Paris, waiting to board our final train to Montpellier. We arrived in Paris at the Paris-Est train station and had to go to a different train station, and we had to take the tram/subway/train thing twice to get here. Needless to say, we are experts now. Sam never ate his kebabs last night, so he just decided to eat one. As soon as he took it out of his backpack I could smell it.. This wasn't a good sign. He opened up the tin foil and we saw that his kebab had turned pink and soggy. In the bin with his two kebabs. Sorry Turca. After throwing out his food he decided to try the chocolate Ola had given us from Poland (she's so sweet!). We each grabbed one from the box and tried it. It was the most amazing chocolate ever. I couldn't place the taste though.. I asked Sam what was in it and sure enough, it was Nutella. Yes! Well done, Ola!

Anyways, our train to Montpellier should be pretty fun since it's a high speed train! I'm excited for it! Montpellier, here we come!

Wish you were here



Things I learned in Berlin:

1. Mezzo Mix. Enough said.

2. Kangaroo tastes good.

3. Most people will speak in english for me :)

4. There's a lot of walking when you're here.

5. Germany doesn't like losing at football.

6. They don't have beaches but they do have beach bars.

7. The one 'beach' they do have you have to pay for.

8. Monday night to the club, tuesday night to the club, wednesday night what a headache, but I went to the club…

9. You really need to obey the walking lights here. This isn't Paris. The cars wont stop for you. Neither will the tram for that matter.

10. If it looks like hamburger, it might be pig. If it looks like gnocchi, it might be potatoes. If it looks like chicken, it might be tuna. Just sayin'.

"If that ball goes on the track I'm going to eat it"

Yesterday we awoke to a cool temperature for once. It was a little cloudy and windy, giving us a much needed break from the heat. And because of the nice weather, we decided to head into town. But not before we stopped at A La Turca. It had been 3 days since we had eaten there, so we felt it was needed. I don't know what I'm going to do when I leave Berlin and I can't go there anymore.



I had never felt like more of a tourist then when we took pictures of this place.. Especially because I looked super American that day. Anyways, we hopped on the tram, dropped off some postcards at the post office, and then we were off to the mall at Alexanderplatz to find a clutch. After an hour and a half of searching I came up empty handed :( Oh well. So off we went to the DDR museum. It was the first museum we could understand, allowed pictures, and said you could touch what ever you wanted. They had pull out shelves and cars you could drive, too. Wooo! I'm still a child. After that we wandered outside and across a bridge where we came across a man playing the cups. We're not sure what else to call it. But it was like Miss Congeniality was going down on the bridge. Skills.



From there we went to the Berliner Dom, which is a giant church. It's beautiful. I took some pictures, but they don't really do it justice.







At the top you can go outside and walk around the edge. It was so neat! You could see the whole city. And the wind was nice, too ;)





It was kind of late when we left, so we headed back to Matt's so Sam could get ready for his big night at the club. We got on the tram and headed for home. As we stepped off the tram we heard someone yelling to us. Who did we see? Matt. At a la turca. So of course we had to eat there again ;)

Right now Sam is sleeping and I'm patiently awaiting the club report. I'll let you all know the details when I do ;)

Wish you were here

"Didn't you ask for peas?"

Today was a day full of walking. We first went on an adventure to find a museum that was suppose to be full of Berlin's history. Along the way we found a hidden door.. it was super James Bondish.



Anyways, we found the museum, went in and found not many people spoke english.. Which made things a little difficult because we had no idea what they were saying to us. We walked around the museum and decided it was not at all like the description we had read. Of course, maybe it was like the description, but since everything was in German it was hard to tell. But by what we were looking at, we didn't think it matched up. The best part was the face we found across the street.



At this point we were already some what tired of walking, so we found the U Bahn and mastered that. It was great. However, we didn't get too far. We ended up by the Sony Center, and then walked about another 20 minutes or so to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial. It had 2,700 cement blocks in remembrance of everyone who died. I thought it was awesome looking. And really fun to walk through!





After chillin' on the blocks for a while we were starving, so we went to the U Bahn and found some cheap food. They are masters at their sandwiches here. Seriously. Yummm. After finishing our meal we got on the subway and headed for heckshamarkt? I can't really say it, so spelling it is a challenge.. But anyways, that's where all the cool shops are. So we went on a mission to find the birkenstock store (again). Sam finally got his new shoes! And then we switched objectives.. We were looking for a new clutch for me since mine was destroyed by the water I spilt in my bag :( Ahhh. It's falling apart. So sad. Unfortunately, that mission is so far unsuccessful.

Sadly, we had to leave town because Sam wanted to go back and rest before his big night at the club. Little did we know his night at the club would change into something completely different. We met Matt Chocolat at his house, and then we went back into town to go see the free side of the Aquadom (Which is like underwater world.. but it has an elevator surrounded by water instead of a tunnel you go through). It was actually pretty neat. I think I saw a puffer fish swimming around in it :)



After that we went to a restaurant by the spree (a river through the city) and had some of the best (and most expensive) ice cream ever at one of the beach bars. It was soo much ice cream and soo good. Mine was called Caramel crunch I think.. Caramely goodness pretty much. Matt Chocolat had death by chocolate.. How fitting, haha. And Sam had a milk shake.. but we quickly made him get a giant ice cream.. and he got one with nuts in it. I swear there were sun flower seeds in it. From there we went to the mall (which I did not see earlier other wise I feel my clutch search would've been more of a success) and found a tattoo place. Since then we've been trying to come up with a good tattoo idea for a certain someone.. but I'm keeping this all top secret so it'll be a surprise if/when it gets done... Like potentially tomorrow. On our way out we had finally found someone selling bratwursts! I had been waiting to find someone selling them so I could have a german one. It was funny because it doesn't fit in the little bread they give you, so it's kind of awkward looking, but oh well. It was delicious :) 1.50 euros well spent! Sam and matt patiently waited for me to get one and then we hurried over to catch the tram to get back to Matt's house since he has skype dates. Popular fella'





Tomorrow's going to be a busy day!

Wish you were here

"If you buy these, you are euro"

Yesterday was a slow day. It was 102 degrees again so we spent a good chunk of the morning inside hiding. But after a while Sam and I thought we should be more productive, so we went out on a walk to find the Stasi museum by Matt's house. After walking around for 15 or 20 minutes we finally found it, but unfortunately I couldn't go in because I told Matt I would meet him at 4:30 for a workout and the tour was just a little too long. However, Sam went and said it was pretty intense and he doesn't want to go back. I can't really say more than that though since I wasn't there. But I thought the outside was pretty scary looking.



Other than that we didn't do much yesterday. Today was better though. After an early morning workout, Sam and I met up with Ingo and he took us into down town Berlin. After eating a quick lunch we discovered there was a whole other part of Berlin we were missing out on. Good thing Ingo took us there- it had all the good shops! The Original Adidas and Oakley were my personal favourites. The Adidas store was great. We found this hilarious full zip sweatshirt thing, without sleeves and a full zip hood. Sam said I looked like a tennis shoe when I was wearing it. The Oakley store was awesome, too. No, nothing was in my price range :( but it was sweet because upstairs they had a little Oakley history museum type thing. A little time capsule. There were glasses from 1980 to now. We also found a Birkenstock store for Sam (since he has completely worn his out), and all the shoes are MUCH cheaper here then they are at home! Which is the first for anything. Ingo said the sales tax here is at 19%. Ingo also pointed out these golden bricks in the ground. He said on them are everyone's name who were taken from their home and put into camps. The bricks are outside of the house they were taken from and they stay there as a way to remember them. After walking around and shopping a little, Ingo dropped us off at the train station and we were off to the Olympic Stadium (Thank you Ingo for a fabulous tour!).





Since Sam and I are now pros at public transportation (and with a little help from Ingo) we were able to easily find our way to the Olympic Stadium. It was amazing. The inside where the track is is beautiful. Apparently they still use the soccer field for a team they have here (which is really popular.. although I can't remember it's name..). The more popular use was in 2006 for the Fifa World Cup. It still looks amazing though. Outside we found another running track, a bell, some monuments, and a bunch of other neat things. However, Sam's favourite part was the swimming pool with all of it's diving boards and diving platforms. It's really cool! They let you swim and dive in them and everything. Unfortunately we didn't have swim suits.. But that didn't stop Sam. Off he went to jump in! He wanted to go off the high one, but it was closed by the time he got there, so he was stuck jumping off of the shorter diving board. He said it was still really fun though. I couldn't go in without paying, so I stood on the outside, took pictures of his jumps, and met some locals. Sweet :)





Oh! I forgot to mention that while we were in the soccer team's gift shop we decided to act out the world cup final (Netherlands vs. Spain). If you saw the game, you will understand this picture.



After Sam's little swim we hopped back on the train and headed back to Matt's. We were going to go to a restaurant that sold everything I should try (such as crocodile..), but prices had doubled since he had been there last, so instead we headed to one of Ingo's favourite restaurants and ate a bunch of good Italian food (we needed a break from A la turca).

I am so blessed to be here experiencing this. I really hope you're all enjoying these posts so far.
I miss you all so much <3

Wish you were here..

"If I start choking, don't save me"

Today was pretty slow. We woke up to the morning heat and found out it would be 37 degrees out (98 degrees fahrenheit) today. Whoaaa. So after a slow morning, Matt took Ola to the bus station, and then him, Sam and I were off to the beach.. that cost 4 euros to swim in. But it had a water slide! Being there reminded me so much of being in Minnesota (except that there were hundreds of people at this beach since there's only one lake instead of 10,000). Dirty lake water.. yumm. How I miss you Minnesota.. but still, my heart is here. We spent our whole day on the beach soaking up the sun and trying to get tan. Eventually Sam and I ended up swimming out to the middle of the lake (Matt didn't go because he was afraid of the seaweed). Once you're in the middle there's some buoys and a lot of people were floating on them if they didn't have a tube or something else to rest on. So I went to rest on one, and then some lady came and just took it away from me. I was kind of confused.. I said I didn't speak German and didn't move. But I was buoy swiped anyways. Oh well. I can handle treading water. They looked exhausted.



After a long, hot day at the beach we headed back to Matt's where we changed and head to A La Turca (of course) and ate and watched the football game. Yaaaa Spain! Way to pull out a win!! I thought Holland would win, but then after seeing their tactics I wanted Spain to win. Besides, the octopus said Spain would win so who was I to bet against it? Espana 2010!!



Oops, I forgot to mention we put our clothes in the wash at the laundry mat next to A La Turca before the game. So when the game ended we went to get our clothes out of the washer, but too bad we didn't know the laundry mat closed at 11. Of course we got there at 11:05. So as I type this, our clothes are sitting across the street locked in the washers. Sweet! I'm not having too much luck with washing my clothes. Oh well, if that's the worse that's happened to me I'd say things are going well.

Tomorrow's suppose to be another hot day. I think Sam and I are going back out to find the museum we couldn't find earlier this week. And then perhaps a post office. And of course I have a workout with Matt to look forward to.. which should be a suffer fest since it's jumps.. and I've never done a jump workout before. Awesome.

Oh! And here's the attack penguin picture I promised



Wish you were here..