Munich Day Two

What a long day in Munich!! We did so much walking. We were up and going at about 6:30, out of the hotel at 7:30. We walked around our hotel and the Marienplatz and Odeonplatz until things started to open. Stopped and got some coffee at San Francisco Coffee Company. We went to the Residence Museum and to the treasury. This was where the Bavarian royalty lived. We also took a bus tour, walked through the English Gardens, went to the Olympic Park where the 1972 (i think) Olympics were held, had lunch at the Haufbrauhaus and dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.





These photos are from around our hotel, around the Marienplatz. The second one is the Rathaus (the old city hall), the first I think is the bell tower that is down the street from us and the third one I am not totally sure, it is probably just a neat looking building.






The first two pictures are from by the Rathaus. The third picture is in the English Garden, which is one of the largest parks in the world, about the size of Central Park in New York.

Well I have a lot more pictures to put up, but I have to go and get ready to head out. There won't be any new pictures for a few days while we are in Fussen because we won't have internet connection. After Fussen we are off to Paris for a few days, should be able to post more then.

Munich Day One

We arrived in Munich. After traveling all day we got into Munich around 7:00pm. The train ride wasn't too bad, about 7 hours with changes in Aachen and Frankfurt. Our hotel is in a great location right off Marienplatz, near the old square. We didn't do much exploring tonight since we were all tired. We found a beer hall to eat dinner at, it was really good. I had dumplings, potatoes and eggs, which was good but so heavy!! We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow!!

Here are a few pictures from our train trip. The first is from our short trip from Geilenkirchen to Aachen. The other two are in Aachen while we were waiting for our train to Frankfurt, we sat outside in the sun until it started raining on us. That is the weather in Germany sunny one minute, rainy the next!!





These are from the beer hall that we had dinner at. It was a really neat place. Most of the walls were made of a dark wood. The waiter was really friendly and funny. It makes a meal so much better when the waiter is at least semi friendly. I think everyone agrees that we had a great first meal. My dumplings were good and everyone else had schnitzel which they really liked, even Blake!!

Blake and Katie made it!!!

Blake and Katie got here on Thursday. We picked them up in Dusseldorf and than just hung around the house the rest of the day because Luke had to go back in to work. Friday we went over to Schinnen to get some real "American" food and had some Burger King. Then we went to Heinsberg and got some ice cream and walked around the old church that they have there. It was a pretty nice day. Than last night we played Settlers of Catan (coolest board game ever!). Blake won on his first game, and unfortunately Luke has not won yet :-(

Today we got up early and took the train with Marita and Christian to Cologne. We got to see the Dom (Cathedral) that is there. We also went to the Hard Rock Cafe and we were going to go to the Lindt chocolate factory but it was so busy and the line was so long. It was neat to look around because last time I was there with Kyle we walked the wrong way into the dirty part of town. There was so much shopping where we were, I will have to go back. We got the newest expansion, seafarers, and played it tonight and Blake won again. So Blake has won two games in a row!! Crazy!!

Tomorrow we might be going to eat cake and have coffee with Marita and Christian and than all 6 of us will be playing settlers. Monday we leave for our trip to Munich, Fussen and Bern! I will post pictures when I get them loaded onto the computer.

Best Friends Internship

A few weeks ago I found out that I received a spot in the internship program at Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah.



The internship is six weeks long. I will be taking part in the October/November session. So I will be flying into Vegas a few days early before heading to Kanab, which is about four hours outside of Vegas. The internship is defined as animal care. Pretty much the interns work with the different animals that they have there (dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, birds, farm) than they choose an area to focus on. While I am there I will also be able to attend a workshop that is taking place at the same time as my internship. It is about starting nonprofits, fundraising and a little more of the political aspects of animal work. Should be fun, I can't wait.

Blake and Katie will be here Thursday so I should have pictures from our trips up once we have gone. Munich, Bavaria and Switzerland.

Norway Social

Here are a few pictures from the social that we went to. We went to the troll park which is a big deal around here. The largest troll in the world is here, it is 14km high. There is also the fairytale castle which tells of the Norwegian fairy tales and also we toured the ice hotel and had a drink at the ice bar. The glass that they served the drinks in were ice! You had to drink it fast or else the ice melted. Even more fun the drinking it was smashing the glasses on the ground when you were done. We had a three course dinner at a restaurant called TrollKavern. The whole place had trolls all around. The food was pretty good, we had smoked salmon with lemon and lime it was good lots of flavor, then we had reindeer (yes I ate rudolph :-P) it wasn't too bad, a different taste but not bad. Then we had cloudberries and ice cream. Cloudberries are rare and found more often in Northern countries, they are yellow and bitter. I guess they make good alcohol too but we didn't try any. It was interesting, it was a good thing we had Rune there to explain all the Norwegian stuff, like cloudberries!

Here are a few pictures of the fairytale castle.






Here are a few pictures of the trolls. The first one is of the huge 14km troll. I wish we could have gotten better pictures but it was snowing and we were being rounded up for dinner while we were trying to get pictures. The last two are from the restaurant where we had dinner.





The first picture is from this igloo that had a chess set in it. We were bored waiting for people get done with the fairytale castle tour so I was going to put Luke out of his misery with a giant chess pon :-P The second photo is of Hafjell Ski Resort, the 1994 winter Olympics were here in Lillehammer and this hill was were they did some events. We also saw the Viking Ship, which is were they had the Olympic speedskating event but I wasn't quick enough to snap a pic. The third one is the largest lake in Norway i just took the picture while we were stopped on the train heading back to Oslo. I thought that it was pretty.





Here are some pictures from the ice hotel. The first one is of the ice bar. I couldn't get a really good picture because it was so crowded. It was neat though the whole bar was made of ice and they had a huge bottle of liquor in an ice bottle sitting on the bar. The second picture is of wedding clothes that were in the ice chapel. The third and fourth pictures are of the chapel in the ice hotel. The last is a picture of Luke and Rune with their drinks...notice that the cups are ice. It was a good thing that they brought gloves.







More ice hotel pictures. The first is of Luke in what I call the man room. It had all sorts of power tools drilled into the wall, definitely geared more towards the male demographic. The second picture is the entrance to the ice hotel. The third picture is me at the ice hotel. It wasn't as cold as I though it would be, even sitting on the bed wasn't too bad.





The last picture is of the reindeer meat. I felt so bad eating rudolph! It was just weird to think of eating reindeer since it is so uncommon, but in Norway it is just as normal as eating beef or chicken. Everyone was making fun of me at our table because I was so apprehensive about eating reindeer, eventually we just decided that we weren't eating reindeer at all it was really elk :-P That was until Rune made the comment, " Yumm, Rudolph tastes fantastic!" It was a fun evening.

What Disney Princess Are You?

You Are Pocahantas!

Free-spirited and wise. You have a strong passionate spirit that touches and changes all who know you. The wisdom and common sense that you have is really what guides you through life. Even so, you also have a very playful side that loves adventure and excitement.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Norway Day 1

I got around to doing some exploring this afternoon. I got up early and went down to breakfast with Luke before he left for his meetings. Did some homework down in the lobby, they have really comfortable chairs and sofas everywhere which is nice. The hotel lobby has a very homey feel. It was snowing this morning so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to go out to far and get pictures. But by noon the snow had stopped so I wandered down into town, which was quite far. Our hotel is on this huge hill that goes straight down. Now going down wasn't bad at all but going back up was horrible! The town is nice, there is one main street it kind of reminds me of Heinsberg. I stopped in a 7-11 because I thought bottled water would be cheaper there than at the hotel because it is 7-11! No I paid 57NOK which is one more than I would have paid had I got it here and it still was like $8 for two bottles of water!!
border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176488179329962658" />



Just a few of the cute houses that I saw walking into town. I love the wood and multicolors I think that it is just too cute.




A couple more cool buildings that I saw I think the second one is some type of school but I am not sure. I just thought that they looked neat.






Some pictures of the snow and of a church that I came across. I have a few more but I have yet to figure out how to turn them the right way.

Tomorrow is the social so we are supposed to be heading to the ice hotel, should be fun.