final update

So, to follow up on the rest of our trip...

Internet was hard to find during the rest of the trip so I never really had a good chance to update the blog. So, we left Interlaken, Switzerland where we did the crazy swing/bungee jump thing. We then set out for Luzern which is also in Switzerland. The drive was absolutely beautiful. There were waterfalls around every corner. The photography became a little monotonous as we passed waterfall after waterfall and gorgeous countryside views at ever look. Anyway, Luzern is this really neat city right on a huge lake. We got into town and returned the rental car and had nowhere to go. We walked around looking for the cheapest hotel possible. All the “cheap” hotels weren’t cheap by any means. They were running at least around 110 dollars a night. And on top of that there was not room in the hotels. We called around and finally found a hostel for a decent price and dropped our stuff off there. It was nighttime and raining but that didn’t keep us from doing a little bit of site-seeing. The city has a great covered bridge and castle like structures. It was really a shame we had to leave the next morning.

So we then got up early the next morning to walk to the train station to catch our 5 hour train ride to Frankfurt, Germany to visit Juliane and her family. They were there waiting for us at the train station when we arrived. It was great to see them. From the train station we headed to a steakhouse called the Blockhouse where we were meeting the rest of the Family. There are 5 people in her family: Julian, her 17 year old brother Philipp, Miriam, her Mom Cristiana and Dad Willie. It was a pretty pricey place to eat but the family is so sweet they wouldn’t let us pay for anything. The food was great and afterwards April and I went with the 3 kids to a “blind” museum. It was a very interesting place. At the museum we spent about a hour and half playing these games where you improve communication skills. It was pretty fun. The second half of the museum tour was very interesting. We are given blind sticks and led into a completely dark room where we are led through a pitch-black city tour by a blind man. It was pretty interesting to be completely blind and be led around and feel different things and go into different environments. It was pretty fun.
The next day we went with the whole family on an exciting monument and castle tour. We drove out of the city a little ways to this really cool town Rudesheim along the Rhine river. From there we took a chair lift to the top of a big hill where there is a big monument erected in the 1800’s during the French-German war. From there we went on a long walk and another chair lift down the hill to this other cute German town where we got on a boat to cross the river to an awesome castle that we had to hike to where we had a self-guided tour and a picnic. And then got on another boat ride up the Rhine to the town where we started. The Rhine river is huge. There are 400 foot long oil tankers that run up and down the river all day. I didn’t know that the river started in Switzerland and runs through Germany and all the way to Amsterdam where it ends in the sea. Anyway the rest of the day we went home and just hung out because we were all pretty tired. I went and played some soccer with Philipp which was fun. The next day Juliane and April went shopping and I tagged along as well and that evening we had to go to the train station to head back to Paris.

When we got to Paris on Monday night we found our hotel which was 1 block away from the Notre Dame Cathedral. The hotel was a little scary and old but the location was great. Tuesday morning we went to Notre Dame to get in line to go to the top of the towers to see the gargoyles and the bells. We then went over to the Louvre but to our disappointment is closed on Tuesdays. It was a bummer. We then proceeded to the Orsay Museum which is a really cool museum. It is a large art museum in an old, gorgeous train station. It houses a lot of Van Gogh, Renoir, and Manet. Van Gogh was by far my favorite because he uses so much paint that it gives the painting almost a third dimension. After the museum we set out to see the catacombs which was even more of a disappointment. We took the subway there and got off at the right stop but the directions were terrible to find the entrance and ended up walking around for 40 minutes. By the time we found it was passed the time of the last tour. It was quite upsetting. After that we went to the Eiffel tower again to get some more pictures and also some good night shots. It was really cool to see the tower at night. We again were exhausted by the time we got back to our room that night. And the next morning we were off to the airport to board our 10.5 hour non-stop flight. Neither of us really slept on the flight but watched about 5 movies a piece.