Eurotrip!

I wish we were still there in some ways, and yet I absolutely am CRAZY about being home with the kids! I missed them so so much! They are such treasures to both Eric and myself! I will post a blog later about Emily's birthday that occurred yesterday! She's two years old now!!
Okay, our trip.
SWITZERLAND, AUSTRIA, GERMANY
Well, we left on May 2nd, 2007. (Leaving was extremely hard for me, but we survived! I don't leave my kids for more than a few hours, never two weeks!) We flew directly to Zurich, Switzerland where my friend Bronwyn (Brownie -- that's my name for her) and her husband, Bernhard, and their new baby Jonus (Cowboy Jo) met us at the airport!! It was so exciting to go to another country yet be greeted by "home." Bronwyn lives over there now and her hubby is a pastor.
They showed us around Zurich and took us to a historical church, but I can't remember the name of it to save my life. All I remember is that it is where the "baptist" movement started way back when. We walked around a bit, and got to see the beauty of Zurich and we stopped for coffee!! Then we went to their home in Dornbirn, Austria (about 30-45 minutes away). They live in what Eric and I called "Uptown." It was very cool! Eric and I stayed in a Hoffe (which is like a bed and Breakfast) down the street. It was fun to get to see what life was like for her! SO RELAXING and PEACEFUL! I told her that she lives a fairy tale life surrounded by beauty! Austria is absolutly georgious!
While we were visiting them they took us and showed us beautiful and historical places. My favorite of which was the castle Norschawnstein. Built by Crazy King Ludwig (I think that he was gay...) But anyway, that castle is the one that Walt Disney modeled Cinderella's castle after...cool huh? AND, there was another castle there also call Hohenschawnstein. It was a yellow castle that was the "winter" castle. They were absolutely magnificant! We went shopping in Germany (somewhere), and I bought some yummy teas. We also went to Brownie's English calss where she teaches English to a bunch of Austiran budiness people. It was fun to sit and tell them about America -- although I didn't know what to say and she had to tell me what to tell them about America, it was still fun!! Everyone LOVED Eric's stories. They asked him tons of questions, and Eric even shared Christ with all of them. Brownie isn't supposed to talk about Christ, but Eric had the opportunity to!
PARIS:
We rode the train from someplace in Switzerland to Paris, but we ended having an adventure along the way. We didn't know that there were two different stops call "St. Gallen." We got off on the first, but we were supposed to get off on the second, yet no one told us that... SO, we missed all of our other trains. The main problem was that we didn't have Bronwyn there to translate for us!! We didn't know a lick of German, and we were in the "ghetto," so no one else knew English either. It was a bit frustrating until we left that St. Gallen stop and went on to the next one. There we were able to get on the last train to Paris, the only bad thing was that it was a 9 hour long ride rather than the 6.5 long ride we had. There are different speeds of trains. Originally we were on "the bullet" but we ended up on "the slug." God knew what he was doing by letting us miss that stop. Even though I was super tacky and tense, what I thought was a nightmare ended up being the best part of our trip. We were going First Class on the train, and originally when we were on the bullet train we weren't going to get to be next to each other, BUT when we took the slug train we were the only people in First Class so we had the entire car to ourselves and we had a fancy dinner and just talked. It was one of those good talks where you actually see the other persons heart, and all walls are dropped. What a PRECIOUS TIME!!! (I'm not good at opening up to Eric like I should. I normally expect him to just figure it out.) The talks we had on the train just added to Paris. If you ask either one of us, we will tell you that Paris was our favorite place.
When we finally arrived in Paris it was about 11:45 at night. It was election day in Paris and Nicholi Sarkozy had just been announced as the winner and new Presidant of France. We had to be at our hotel no later than 12midnight or else they would not guarantee us our room. Well, we walk out of the train station to get a taxi and discover that there is a HUGE line to get a cab. And there is alot of screaming and loud stuff going on. The cabs are slowly coming and taking people away, all the while the screaming, etc. is getting crazier and crazier, and a little freaky. It's finally our turn to get a taxi, and cab drivers start saying that they aren't going through the riots anymore, and they are turning away passengers. Well, finally we found a guy that would push through the crowd with his taxi, and brave the "crazys." (He cost us a "mint," however.) He couldn't get us to our hotel due to the fact the the road was blocked by 20 -30 police vans full of solders, etc. So we had to report to the guard and then we were allowed to go on the street and get to our hotel. We didn't get there until after 1am. BUT, the night crew that was working at the hotel was very friendly, and they let us choose our room! So, we had a beautiful view overlooking Paris. Our hotel was super swanky, so I liked that too! (Any place that gives you chocolates, bath salts, bubble bath, and your robe and slippers out on the bed is my kind of place!!)
Our furst DAY in Paris we slept till noon and then ate at a very yummy cafe and at PASTRIES!!! Then we just walked and walked and walked. We had NO IDEA what we were looking at, but we enjoyed knowing that the following day we would be going on a tour, so we could find out then what we were looking at!! The next day we took a general tour of Paris which included the names of all the things we had seen the previous day, lunch in the Eiffel Tower, a cruise on the river while they played the gool old tunes like, "I Love Paris," "La Vi En Rose," and some other Singer Standard music. We really enjoyed that! Eating at the Eiffle Tower was fun, and much less windy than being outside!!
Eric makes life so fun. How many men do you know of that will sing and SKIP through Paris! I must admit that there were several times that I just kept walking due to embarassment! While window shopping, we went past the main Louis Vuitton store near the Arc de Triumph. They were closed but the lights were still on, and while I was aproaching the door to peer in, Eric steps up to the window and blows hot air from his mouth to make the window fog up. I was mortified, and speedily walked away. Later I found out that he was going to write in that fog of breath "I love Cat!" Can we say EMBARASSING yet absolutely hilarious!
LONDON:
We FLEW on an airplane (thank you GOD for airplanes!!) to London. I was DONE with trains, YET once we arrived at the airport in London, I learned that you have to ride the Underground to get to the city... UGGG!That completely stresses me out. I wanted to get a cab, but as the man at the airport said in a cockney accent, "What. Are you made of money?" Eric agreed, so off to the trains we went. And there we were sitting among dozens of people once again with our luggage while watching for pickpockets.
I don't think that I mentioned this yet, but it felt like we were the rain makers of Europe. They have been in a drought, yet in every city we arrived in we seemed to make it rain and some major politcal thing happened. The morning we arrived in London, Tony Blair announced he was resigning (forced) and that Brown was the Interum Prime Minister.
The worst of the rain was in London (which every time I've been there it has rained, but this time it really annoyed me) We get off the train at Marble Arch, knowing that our hotel is in that general vacinity, but which direction...? So, we start walking in a direction in the pouring rain with LUGGAGE, not even sure of where we were going. We found a book store, and at this point I was DONE, so I wasn't friendly. I went to the maps section of the book store and found a MAPSCO. According to the map the street we were looking for (Upper Berkley) was about a 20 minute walk from where we were (at least that's how long of a walk it would take the girl that I asked). After learning that bit of info, and obviously being very "put out," we flagged a taxi and told him where we were going, and he drove down the street 2 blocks turned the corner and stopped. We were at our hotel. I could have walked it it 3.25 minutes while carrying luggage IF I HAD KNOWN WHERE I WAS GOING!!! Oh well! At least we didn't have to pay very much for the taxi!! We didn't like our hotel all that much comparing it to the previous one, but we weren't in it really at all, so it didn't matter that much. That night we wanted to just stay in the room, eat chocolate, and watch a good move, but the hotel didn't have movies, so we were a little bummed, but finally found "The Day After Tomorrow" playing on a television channel. The following morning we woke up at 6am, and were out the door in no time. We went on an all day tour with a ton of "wiser" people. We were the youngest, but we loved it! We went to Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, saw the Changing of the Guard, Tower of London, went on a river cruise, and went all over, we made some friends too, so that was fun! That night we had tickets to see the premier of the musical "LORD OF THE RINGS!" Absolutely Creative! It was very well done as far as trying to get an absurdly long story in to three hours. The best part of the show was the stage. I would go into detail, but most of you don't get all excited about the technical side and talent of theater like we do. BUT, if you go to London, you need to see it. They used stilts of all shapes and sizes to make the Hobbits look like Hobbits, and the trees look like trees, etc. It's a stationary show right now due to the complexity of the set...it takes months to put together.
The next day we went to Windsor Castle and had tea with the Queen, toured the house, saw some cool pieces of art, then we went to Stonehinge (one of the 7 Wonders of the World), and Bath to see the ancient Roman Baths. That was a busy day, but fun! Our tour guide was the most facinating part of ourday! He knew the Queen personally, was a tranlator for the South African King/President/whatever, went to Cambridge, and had amazing stories to fill all the driving time we had.
The next morning we got on the train once again to get to the airport, and boy were we ready to get home. We had a blast, but all we wanted to do was hold our kids!
We have done nothing but GO GO GO ever since we got home, but we are so thankful to the Lord that we got to make memories together -- just us, AND have fun together! I may have sounded negative, but it really was fun! It's always easier to point out the negative, but I wouldn't have changed much about our trip!!