Maria and Nate's European Adventures

the Louvre

2010-07-27T19:00:00.002+02:00

The Louvre. Where do I start?

In my opinion, the grandest museum of them all. The oldest museum in Europe, it contains some of the most recognizable art in the world under its roof. And trust me, it's a big roof, covering over 652,000 square feet! So much to see and so little time.

The Louvre contains prodigious paintings...

spectacular sculptures...

and ancient artifacts.

Of course, the Louvre contains the most famous painting of all, The Mona Lisa.

In person, it's not really that big, but it's still extremely popular.

The Louvre also contains two of the most famous sculptures in the world, Venus de Milo and Winged Victory.

After Michelangelo's David, I think Winged Victory is the most impressive statue I've seen in person.

The Louvre also provides an opportunity to tour the apartments of Napoleon III. Can you find Maria?

Here are a few of our favorite, but less famous, pieces.

One of the most fascinating pieces in the museum is actually two paintings. These paintings are hung back-to-back. One painting depicts the front of a scene with David about to cut off Goliath's head. The second painting depicts the back of the same scene. Pretty clever!

I'm standing in front of the top of a column from the audience hall of the palace of Darius I. You may be familiar with King Darius, he's the guy that threw Daniel into the lion's den.

Baby Jesus was one of the favorite subjects for many paintings. For some reason, the painters of old really struggled to paint babies. I'm not even sure if a mother could love these babies.

Naked ladies were another favorite subject. Here are two of the more famous naked lady paintings that you're ever going to find.

Here is a brick panel from the city of Babylon constructed during the time of King Nebuchadnezzar, another one of Daniel's friends.

Made you blink.

If you ever have the opportunity to visit the Louvre, we highly recommend it. But we must warn you, it's amazing how sore your feet will become after walking around any museum for several hours. We've walked miles on ancient cobblestone streets and hiked miles through the Alps, but my feet are always more sore after walking through a museum! Must be the slow shuffling.

Even with sore feet, you should put the Louvre on your bucket list!

Paris Again

2010-07-25T16:22:00.019+02:00

We first visited Paris on Valentine's Day 2009. In case you don't remember this earlier trip, click here for a refresher. However, since the weather was dreadfully cold during this visit, we decided to make another trip when the weather was a bit warmer.

If you clicked on the above link, you probably noticed that we took lots of pictures with the Eiffel Tower, but we did not actually go up the Tower. On this trip, we made it our goal to go up the Tower! As we walked from our hotel to the Eiffel Tower, we stumbled across the Royal Palace Gardens.

The garden was so relaxing that we decided to sit and take a break in the shade.

Since Paris is a very "artsy" city, I also stumbled across some art.

Upgrading my picture partner.

Needless to say, the weather was much warmer on this trip than our previous visit. The fountains outside the Louvre looked so refreshing that we decided to take another break and stick our feet in the water.

After walking along the Seine River, for what felt like several miles, we finally made it to the Eiffel Tower.

Somehow, I was able to talk Maria into climbing the tower! Based on her big smile, I think I took this picture of her on the way down.

The tower actually has three levels. This picture was taken on the first level, about one-fourth of the way to the top, but lots of steps from the ground.

After we finally made it to the second level, about half-way to the top.

Fortunately, the views of the city made it a fantastic place to take a long break!

We were both happy to be able to take a break and enjoy the amazing views.

Maria is trying to point at a person on the ground to give you an idea of the view from the tower. The people looked like ants.

As you can see, we were still a long way from the top. Unfortunately, the elevator line to the top was extremely long, so we decided to skip the very top.

After descending the tower, we hopped on the subway to Montemarte in order to catch the sunset over the city. In order to reach the Sacre-Coeur for the best views of the city, we had to climb a few more steps.

The extra climbing was well worth the effort.

After a good night's sleep, we had planned for the next two days of our trip to be spent exploring the city's many museums. As we attempted to purchase a two-day museum pass, the store clerk informed us that all museums would be closed the following day due to Labor Day! This was an inconvenient surprise, but even more puzzling, since the next day was a Sunday. As a result, the only museum we were able to visit was the Louvre. We need a whole blog post just to share all of our Louvre pictures, so I'm going to skip ahead to our last day in Paris.

Outside the Notre-Dame cathedral.

Inside the Notre-Dame cathedral.

The cathedral's twin towers and the "Kings of Judah" statues. These statues represent the biblical kings of Judah, but were mistaken for the French kings during the French Revolution. Keeping with the guillotine craze of the day, the citizens stormed the cathedral and decapitated each of the kings.

Maria enjoying the cathedral's flying butresses.

Some very Parisian-looking apartments.

We quickly realized that the French Labor Day was a blessing in disguise, because we were really able to enjoy and experience the ambience of the city. Here, Maria is demonstrating how to best enjoy the ambience of the Tuileries Garden.

Maria took this picture from the Louvre courtyard, one of our favorite spots to relax in Paris.

Finally, we also relaxed by the Seine River with one of Maria's Parisian friends, Elo.

Catch your breath, because the Louvre blog is next...

A Little 'Taste' of Europe and Beyond...

2010-07-06T22:25:00.005+02:00

We apologize for the long delay between posts! We've been traveling the past few weeks, so our time to blog has been limited. Before we begin a series of posts about our most recent travels, we wanted to share a post that has been a long time in the making.

I must confess that I enjoy food (Just so there's no confusion, this is Nate, not Maria!). I will try any food at least one time and there are no foods that I really despise. My grandmother Diering is to blame for this behavior. From an early age, my grandmother made me try escargot and other exotic delicacies. At the beginning of my relationship with Maria, I often joked that, "You can't spell Diering without F-O-O-D." At first, she didn't understand what I meant, since she comes from the pizza/hot dog/chicken tenders school of thought. However, after sharing enough meals with me, she now understands what I meant. Needless to say, I'm no longer allowed to use this expression, except on very, very special occasions. So, with that being said, I very proudly present the food blog...

Sure, European portions may be smaller and European drinks may be warmer, but the food in Europe is pretty similar to the food in America. Of course, it's a totally surreal experience when you're enjoying a pizza in the shadows of the Colosseum or a creme brulee in sight of the Eiffel tower.

We took our first major European trip to Italy. In Rome, we enjoyed a plate of antipasta...

truffle gnocchi...

and linguini with lobster and red sauce.

In Venice, we tried pasta tossed with olive oil, red peppers, asparagus and fresh fish.

Pesto originated in the region of the Cinque Terre. So while visiting Vernazza, we felt obliged to try the ravioli with pesto. We also sampled some of the freshly-caught local seafood, including calamari. Maria did not think it looked to appetizing, so she asked for some marinara sauce, which was actually a wise request!

My favorite Italian meal was probably the least impressive meal by appearance. Based on our guidebook's recommendation, we found a hole-in-the-wall place with a plate-of-the-day that was local sweet onions served over grilled steak, accompanied by Italian-style mashed potatoes. The steak was seasoned to perfection and was so tender that it practically melted in my mouth. The onions were a spectacular complement to the steak, because they were light and sweet. A very simple, but very delicious meal.

Of course, we would be remiss not to mention the world-famous Italian gelato. As you can see from our smiles, we are huge fans of gelato! I enjoy fruity flavors, while Maria enjoys creamy/chocolatey flavors.

Ironically, our favorite pizza was not served in Italy, but in Spain.

Prior to moving to Europe, I rarely drank wine. However, in Europe the wine is inexpensive and really good. In my opinion, nothing beats an Italian red wine. However, for white wine, I'd prefer a glass of French wine.

In Germany, their preferred drink is beer. Maria took this picture at the famous Hofbräuhaus in Munich, where those enormous mugs are the only available size.

We weren't very good about taking pictures of our meals in the Czech Republic, probably because the food was so tasty, but we did manage to snap a shot of this plate. Good thing I ordered this dish, because Maria probably wouldn't have touched the fish.

We were also not very good about taking pictures of our food in Egypt, but to be honest, the local cuisine was not a highlight of this trip. Especially, when you consider that each member of our traveling party endured an upset stomach at some point during the trip. Sometimes, you just need to go to a familiar place, so while in Cairo, we visited McDonald's. However, it was an adventure just to place our order. Take a look at the menu for yourself:

In the Northern France region, on of the specialties is tarte flambe. Maria and I call it a "french pizza." It's paper thin, with a delicious cream sauce, ham, onions and cheese. It's definitely one of our favorites meals!

How can you go to France and not eat a crepe?

Don't forget about the famous French cheese!

Eating creme brulee in Paris = hard to beat.

There's a great restaurant on the beach in Monaco that Maria's cousins always take us to eat when we visit. This fresh pizza is a delicious treat in the summer.

This next picture is one of the only ones we've taken of Swiss food during our time in Switzerland. We don't eat out often because it is so expensive. This picture was taken during a visit to the Alps with our friends, Teran & JJ. The dish on the right is called rosti, which is basically glorified hash-browns. In this case, the rosti is covered with lots of melted Swiss cheese and a fried egg. It pairs wonderfully with a long day of skiing in the cold.

Of course, the German-speaking countries love their sausages and sauerkraut. We tried this sausage sampler in Salzburg.

Maria was pleasantly surprised by the food in Turkey. It was fresh, different, tasty, and cheap. All of the food in the feast below was around $10!

Pide... like a cheesy calzone. How can you go wrong with that?

The Turkish are very good at grilling kebab-type meats.

In Azerbaijan, the food was very similar to Turkish food, probably because these countries share a border. This is a big skillet with grilled veggies and meats. The tortillas are there if you want to make a 'fajita'.

Sometimes, you just crave a little taste of home. While walking down the street in Amsterdam, we stumbled upon this American shop!

Another great way to satisfy your American food cravings is Hard Rock Cafe. So, even though it's touristy, Maria and I often find ourselves dining at a Hard Rock. Fortunately, for us, they're all over Europe! This particular picture was taken in Dublin.

Speaking of Ireland...

In my mind, I did not expect the British dining experience to be all that great. Fortunately, my expectations were flat-out wrong. In Scotland, we ate lots of amazing seafood. On the Isle of Skye, we saw a bag of mussels walked through the front door not 2 minutes before we placed our order!

Some more Scottish seafood....fish pie and a crab-meat salad.

The classic interpretation of seafood in England, Fish and Chips.

Sticky toffee pudding, a classic English desert. Although I'm not really sure why they call it a pudding, because it's definitely just a cake.

However, I think Maria would prefer ice cream over sticky toffee pudding any day of the week. What do you think?

Desert before dinner?

The English breakfast is always a good way to start your day.

The British food was a pleasant surprise, but I think our experience would have been a lot different if we were hippies.
Who doesn't love a latte and fresh-squeezed orange juice with their breakfast? Well, in Spain, it was the standard drink. It was cheap & delicious. Of course, if you add a cafe con leche, it's almost enough to make you forget about the English breakfast.

Almost, but not quite. Here's an example of the Spanish breakfast food.

Spain is definitely more famous for its tapas and sangria than for its breakfast.

We had one of our favorite tapas/sangria experiences sitting beside the Barcelona harbor.

However, our most memorable tapas experience was at this next place. Once again, we found it on a Barcelona side street based on our guidebook's recommendation. After we walked in, we realized that we were the only customers. Since it was known for its apple cider, we decided to order a bottle. After we poured ourselves a glass, the waiter tried to explain that we were pouring the cider inappropriately. He only spoke Spanish, so he had to show us the appropriate pour. As you can see below, Maria was a quick learner.

Because we bonded with the waiter over apple cider, he gave us a complimentary piece of cured ham, another Spanish specialty.

A local Spanish specialty in Toledo was marzapan, a delicious desert baked from almond paste. So good!

We ate the fanciest meal during our time in Europe at Carmen de Mirador in Granada Spain. The restaurant is perched on the hillside of the old Moorish town and looks across at the might Alhambra. As part of our fixed menu, we sampled many delicious dishes, but this was our favorite one....grilled pork served with fresh cut french fries smothered with a lightly fried egg. Different, but delicious.

Of course, we would be remiss not to mention Spanish olives. Absolutely amazing. Maria and I didn't like olives until we came to Europe, but you can't find olives like this in the States.

In addition to olives, the markets also sell all sorts of interesting goodies.

In St. Petersburg, they sell honey straight from the honeycomb in the markets.

So sweet!

Speaking of sweet. Maria quickly learned that there was cotton candy on our Scandinavian cruise. I think it's safe to say that she was more than a little excited.

Wow, that's a lot of food! I hope you enjoyed a few of our edible experiences. All this talk about food has made me hungry, so I'm off for a snack. Bon Appetit!

Visiting Julie in Istanbul

2010-05-22T13:55:00.006+02:00

On the way back from Azerbaijan, Chad, Heather, and I stopped over in Istanbul for a quick trip to see our friend Julie and celebrate her birthday with her. Istanbul is one of my favorite cities. The people are so friendly, the city is very diverse, and it's located in Europe AND Asia... I mean, it doesn't get more interesting than that! For those of you who have been following our blog since the beginning, you have probably already read (or at least looked at the pictures :)) from my previous trip to Turkey. If not, you can see my previous post on the sights of Istanbul by clicking here. And to read about my take on their culture, click here.

Out celebrating Julie's birthday!

The Golden Horn - historic inlet of the Bosphorous

What better way to celebrate than to go shopping. :) This is Istanbul's famous Bazaar:

They sell all kinds of things here. I thought these lamps were beautiful.

Here we are in the historic core of ancient Istanbul. The Hagia Sophia...

And the Blue Mosque...

We took a boat ride out to the Maiden's Tower for Julie's birthday lunch.

It was a great view from the top. Europe on the left and Asia on the right...

Chad and Heather posing down by the water.

The view from our table

Trying to get a good taxi fare back to the hotel turned out to be much more complicated than we thought.

A beautiful sunset that evening on Julie's street.

The next morning we flew back to Basel. It was a short, but sweet trip. :)

Baku, Azerbaijan

2010-05-22T00:20:00.000+02:00

Awhile back, I traveled with some friends to the country of Azerbaijan. Do you think you can find that country on a map? I know that I couldn't before I found out that I was going for a visit. It is a small country off the Caspian Sea and surrounded by five countries: Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, and Iran. Caught between Asia and the Middle East, it makes for a very interesting culture. I had the preconceived notion that Baku was going to be very Islamic, but it was much more secular than Istanbul or Cairo. Azerbaijan was actually the first country to establish a democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world. Baku is also much larger than I thought; over 2 million people! It is rich in history that dates back to the 4th century, so it was really neat to be able to travel to such an interesting place. Here are some pictures from the trip:

Baku has a beautiful old town district with many cobble-stoned streets.

Looks like it would be tricky to hang those clothes up like that.

The city is full of construction projects. One of the reasons is to make their tourist sites more attractive... such as the following picture where they're making a new road/walkway.

They have a long way to go! You can see those same two men working on the left.

The Azeri people have a superstition about throwing bread away in the trash can.

You're probably wondering why this next picture is of a toilet...? But I thought this was weird... you're not allowed to flush toilet paper, so you have to put it in the trash can. That was definitely hard to get used to!

While we were there, the weather was pretty cold. So one of the sight-seeing days, we hopped into a carpet store to get warm. The rugs were so beautiful, I almost bought one, but then I remembered I didn't need it... Nate would've been proud.

The people were so friendly and hospitable. They even gave us a cup of warm cay. :) (chai tea) In this picture: from Ryan, Kathryn, me, & the other Katherine (our friend who lives and works in Baku)

Back out in the cold, we walked past the only large mosque that I saw.

Martyr's Alley. A devastating memorial for more than 15,000 people who were killed in a massacre during the independence movement (from the Soviet Union). Read more about it here.

The view of the Caspian Sea and the big city of Baku from the edge of the Alley.

I don't know why the background is so washed out, but this is the only picture I have of just the girls: Heather, Katherine, Kathryn, me, and April... we are all friends from Bay Leaf in Raleigh.

One neat thing about visiting Katherine, was getting to see where she worked. She teaches English at a club called Compass. Compass is a great place where adults of any age, but mainly college-aged, can come to learn English and just hang out. Everyone was so friendly... we had a great time together!

We played one of my personal favorite games, mafia. But their rules were a little different then what I was used to!

Azeris are very good dancers. They proved that to us, by showing us a little number... very entertaining!

Here is a brief clip of their dance. Sorry, it's not the best quality!

Another day, some of our new friends took us around Baku to see some new sights. This is the beautiful Poet's museum:

The traffic goes on right by the old city walls.

And people (as they do in most Eastern countries) walk right through the traffic. Kathryn looks a bit nervous. :)

Group picture in old town. The new girls that we met did not want to come for a walk with us because it was too cold and windy for them!

It was actually so windy, that we thought we could fly away on a carpet. I mean, doesn't everyone want to do that since they watch Aladdin as a kid? Or is that just me?

Instead of flying (since flying carpets aren't real), we hiked up lots of stairs to get to the top of Maiden's Tower (a National emblem of Azerbaijan).

View from the Top

You can see that it looks windy and cold! We didn't stay up for long.

We finished our day by walking along the Sea. :)

I hope you enjoyed hearing about Azerbaijan. It was a short visit, but I still had such a great time visiting and making new friends. Next stop, back to Istanbul, Turkey!

Fasnacht Baby

2010-04-01T10:32:00.007+02:00

What is Fanacht? Fasnacht is difficult to describe and better to experience. I'm not sure if I can do it justice, but let me try to explain. To begin, let me bore you with some details. Don't worry, you'll see pictures soon enough.

No doubt about it, Fasnacht is the biggest event of the year in Basel. All hotel rooms are booked, trams are re-routed around the city-center, and many businesses close. People that have grown up in Basel either hate it or love it. The people that hate it go skiing in the Alps for the week, but the people that love it, call Fasnacht, "the three most beautiful days." Fasnacht is Basel's carnival. A time for the Baslers to let their hair down and act crazy. Keep in mind, I mean Swiss crazy. One could argue that Fasnacht's American counterpart is Mardi Gras, minus the excessive drinking and bodily exposure.

In most places, like New Orleans, carnival immediately precedes the Catholic Lent season because it provides one last chance to party before 40 days of self-denial. However, Fasnacht begins on the Monday night after Ash Wednesday (the traditional beginning of Lent), since Basel is a Protestant town. Consequently, Fasnacht is known as the only Protestant carnival in the world! Specifics about Fasnacht's origins are obscure, because the great earthquake of 1356 destroyed the city's archives. Yes, that's right, 1356. If history is not your strong point, let me put this into perspective for you. The USofA formally became a country in 1776. That's 420 years after the earthquake! Said differently, that's 136 years before Columbus discovered the New World! Okay, enough details for now, let's get to the pictures.

Actually, I lied. Before we get to the Fasnacht pictures, let's talk about the fire parade. Yes, that's right, a parade of fire! It's a little boy's dream, but a lawsuit waiting to happen. This parade will not be coming to an American town near you anytime soon. The fire parade takes place through the middle of Liestal, a small suburb of Basel. Their fire parade takes place on the Sunday before Basel's Fasnacht. I've been told that the purpose of the parade is to drive away winter but I think it's just an excuse to play with fire.

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

The torch was definitely the night's flame of choice.

It's official. I am a fan of the fire parade.

This picture was taken with the flash. You can really see all the smoke and ash that was floating in the air.

After the torches passed by, the big fires came rolling down the street pulled by a group of men. The bigger your group, the bigger your cart, the bigger your fire.

The big fires were HOT! When the guys pulling the cart decided to take a break right beside us, we had to turn our backs to the fire, because the heat was so intense. You can see the people in the background doing the same.

Keep in mind, these fires were being pulled down a street with medieval, wooden houses on either side.

Don't worry, the firemen were there to make sure the fire didn't get out of control!

Liestal's fire parade is a one-of-a-kind experience. Needless to say, we enjoyed it!

Okay. Let's get back to Fasnacht. Fasnacht begins at 4:00am with Morgestraich. Yes, 4:00am. What is Morgestraich? I'll let Maria explain.... (Maria disclaimer: Keep in mind that I woke up at 3:30AM and I'm a little out of it.)

If you didn't understand Maria's explanation, let me try to help. At 4:00am, all the lights in the city-center are turned off and the parade begins. The parade participants are members of the various Basel Cliques. The Clique members dress in crazy costumes, wear silly/scary masks, and typically play an instrument. The only light source for the parade comes from the Clique's lanterns. There are two types of lanterns: large lanterns pulled on carts or smaller lanterns worn on the head. The lanterns, often coordinated with their costumes and masks, portray the Clique's selected theme of the year. These themes typically address a current event and 2010's popular themes were UBS' greed, Gaddafi's craziness, and the new bike helmet law.

Not sure what the themes of these lanterns are. I think they're just supposed to look pretty.

After a morning of sleeping-in, another parade starts in the afternoon. Since it's light outside, there are no lanterns. However, the lanterns are replaced by floats. Clique members ride in the floats and throw various things at you.

Sometimes they throw confetti...

Sometimes they throw oranges...

Sometimes they just give out flowers to beautiful ladies...

Regardless of what they're throwing/giving out, there is always high demand.

One of the best parts of the parade is the bands!

Another great part of the parade is confetti! Native Baslers claim that the tradition of confetti began in Basel. Not sure if it's true, but there is no doubt that they know how to throw some confetti! However, they only sell single color bags of confetti in town, because an old Swiss lady gave Maria a stern lecture after Maria picked up confetti off of the street to throw at me. Maria learned the hard way that, "even Swiss children know that mixed confetti is dirty confetti."

Here I am trying to dodge confetti.

Maria was sad that none of the Clique members threw confetti at her, but pout and you will receive. Here's the before and after pictures.

Happy Wife = Happy Life.

Another great part of the parade was the costumes. Here's a sampling of some funny/silly costumes.

And here's a sampling of some of the more offensive, not-so politically correct costumes. I don't think that all of these costumes would fly in America, but maybe something is lost in translation. (These costumes are in no way endorsed by www.mariaandnateineurope.blogspot.com and simply represent the opinions of the depicted Cliques.)

After a long, fun afternoon of catching oranges and dodging confetti, it was time to make our way back home. Unfortunately, making our way back home was easier said than done.

A Weekend in Amsterdam

2010-03-29T22:47:00.003+02:00

Nate is back. I know you've missed me. Busy season is winding down, so now I have some more free time to blog. Yes, I know what you're thinking. You're excited, but also confused. Nate is back, but it's also that time of year where everyone prepares their taxes. Fortunately for you, I don't do taxes.

So, long, long ago in a far-away land, Maria and I made a quick weekend trip to Amsterdam. We left Basel at 8 in the morning on a Saturday, hopped on a quick flight, and were in Amsterdam by 10:30...pretty crazy.

Upon our arrival in the city, we strolled around town enjoying the many canals and the narrow, tall houses that line the canals.

For some reason, Maria has a fascination with doors wherever we visit...

After checking into our narrow, tall hotel, we strolled over to the Anne Frank House. Most of you are probably familiar with her famous diary, which documented her family's two-year attempt to hide from the Nazis in a "Secret Annex" hidden at the top of her father's business. It was overwhelming to stand in the very same Annex that you read about in her diary. The Annex is much smaller than you'd think and I can only imagine how claustrophobic it must have been to quietly share it with seven other people, with no hope to see daylight or feel the wind upon your face.

It was colder than we had anticipated, but we're smarter travelers now, so we came prepared...at least I did.

After walking around all afternoon, we decided to eat a fantastic meal...at Hard Rock Cafe. Yes, we realize that this is stereotypical American tourist food. However, we felt justified, since you can't find a comparable burger in Switzerland. Plus, our guidebook recommends Indonesian food, which didn't really sound too appetizing when visiting the Netherlands.

If you haven't heard, Amsterdam is famous for its nightlife. We didn't do anything crazy, but we were intrigued by the Magic Mexican Mushrooms.

If you can't hold it, there are urinals conveniently located in the middle of the street.

There's nothing like a glimmering canal on a quiet evening.

The sun decided to make an appearance on day 2, but it was still quite cold. This picture really captures the classic Amsterdam view.

Just in case you forget where you are...maybe it's for people who took too many Magic Mexican Mushrooms.

No, this is not Maria's mood, these are her initials.

Amsterdam's most famous museum is the Rijksmuseum. This museum houses the most impressive collection of Dutch Masters around, at least that's what it says in our guidebook. The most famous painting in the museum is probably Rembrandt's Night Watch. Here's a sample of a few of my favorite paintings:

Here's some more typical Amsterdam scenery...

From far-away, the building on the corner looks really crooked...

It also looks crooked from close-up. Not sure I'd want to be the owner of this home.

During our walk, out of the corner of our eye, we thought we saw heaven. We were wrong. It was just a store full of American junk food that we can't buy in Switzerland.

Maria's mother's father's side of the family was originally from the Netherlands. Can't you tell?

After a long, exciting day, we flew back home on Sunday evening. It was a whirlwind, but a fun trip...and it had nothing to do the Magic Mexican Mushrooms.

Kari & Bobby's Visit

2010-03-26T15:00:00.007+01:00

I don't really know where to begin, but I'm going to take you all the way back to November when my good friends, Kari & Bobby visited. I first met Kari while I was working at Cotton Inc. We still kept in touch after I left Cotton, so she and her husband, Bobby, decided to come visit us in Basel. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the best at that time of year, but we still had a wonderful time together. Their first full day, we walked around Basel...

We took our very first ferry boat ride!

That night we had a relaxing evening at home with Kari's (newly discovered) favorite food, spatzli, for dinner. Those of you who have come to visit, know what I'm talking about. Kari, did you ever find that in NC? :)

The next morning, Kari, Bobby, and I took a road trip to Germany and Austria. When I printed off directions from Google maps, I must have accidentally done the "scenic route" because it took us forever to get there on back roads and we got lost a couple of times... whoops! Fortunately, Bobby was patient and we were able to stop a few times to ask for directions. Sorry guys. But... isn't it funny looking back on it now? ;)

This is funny: The last time that we got lost on the way to the castle, we stopped at a McDonald's (of course) to ask for directions. I went in and asked the first random person I saw for directions. And did I ever pick the right person. This guy was with his girlfriend in line and after I approached him, he just said, "follow me," and walked right out of the restaurant.. got into his car (with his girlfriend) and waved at us to follow him. At first we were a little weirded out... thinking, where is he really taking us?? But after driving about 10 minutes, we arrived at the castle and then he turned around to go back to McDonald's for his "date." Talk about the most random act of kindness ever! But we were very thankful.

I was a little embarrassed for getting us lost, since I had already been there, but in my defense, Nate was my navigator... and I was only concentrating on driving. Not the direction to which we were going. So, when we finally made it, I was very happy!!

Inside the Neuschwanstein Castle's courtyard

After Kari & Bobby toured the inside of the castle, it quickly turned dark. Below is... a view from a window in the castle, K & B in front of the castle that crazy King Ludwig grew up in, and a side of Neuschwanstein.

We then headed to our hotel. We were sooo hungry and fortunately, the food was excellent. I forgot to take a picture of dinner, but desert was photo-worthy. The next morning was beautiful... as you can see in the photo below on the right.

The next part of our trip was the primary reason we took our journey to that area. Bobby expressed interest in going to a concentration camp, so after some research we decided to go to Dachau. Dachau was the very first concentration camp built in Germany. It served as a model for all other camps that followed...

We all know what happened during the holocaust, so I don't have to go into detail on that, but I will tell you that being there at that camp, was one of the most haunting things I've ever experienced. It felt so real. I kept thinking... HOW could this have happened. The words in the picture below read "Arbeit Macht Frei" which means "Work will set you Free." The Jews were told this lie that if they worked, they would be set free...

The audio guide led us through the camp. There were also interviews with survivors, government officials, and journalists. There was one British woman that stood out in my mind. She described the state of the camp when the Jews were liberated and she said that there was an indescribable stench of death. She went on to describe other horrifying things that brought me to tears.

You can see what Dachau originally looked like in the next picture. There were lines of barracks where the prisoners were packed like sardines, especially towards the end. You can read about the cruel medical experiments below. They tortured some prisoners to test the effects of things like hypothermia and altitude pressure on the human body. You can also see how big the area is... but the Auschwitz concentration camp was over 20 times as large in size.

The barracks were burned and the camp is simply lined with the remaining cement foundations.

The Star of David

This is inside one of the barracks that they re-built to show what it looked like. I can only imagine someone looking out the window... hoping that they would one day escape.

Inside the museum...

This next picture may be disturbing, but it made me realize how awful the conditions were for the prisoners. Many died from starvation over the last few years because they were not fed enough food.

The "Brausebad" literally means "Shower bath," but we know that these were the gas chambers. I had a weird feeling come over me as I stood in that place. To think of all the Jews (in all the camps) that went into a place like this thinking they were taking a shower, and it was actually their death. There was truly an indescribable, haunting feeling there.

This is the barbed-wire fence that stood between the Jews and their freedom.

If it wasn't for Bobby wanting to go to the concentration camp, I don't think I would have ever gone and now, I am thankful that I went. For me, it just confirms Jeremiah 17:9 but thankfully, there is hope (Romans 3:23-24).

Spending time with Kari and Bobby was great. We love having people in our home, because we really get to know them better. We wanted to spend even more time with them by doing another mini trip... this time to Portugal... BUT our flight was canceled. The worst part is that I booked K & B on a different flight because we thought ours was full, so they took off before us, and we never got to meet them there! Nate and I were so upset the whole weekend. :( We were so bummed, but from the looks of Kari's blog, they had a nice time... which made us feel a little better for sending them off!

If you would like to read about their trip from Kari's perspective... take a look on her blog:
http://runningyankee.blogspot.com/2009/12/spatzli-and-other-swiss-delights.html

Many Thanks!

2010-03-24T10:27:00.007+01:00

Thank you to all of you who commented on the last post! Your words were very encouraging and have given me the motivation to keep on blogging. :)

As of late: Nate and I have been serving as the youth group leaders at our church since Christmas, so we have been very busy with that... but it has been a lot of fun. This past weekend we had a youth ski retreat and our previous pastor and his wife came to minister to the kids. We had a blast. Now that I have started teaching tennis again, it is really hard to find the time to blog! So, today I leave you with this:

Click here to see more pictures from the retreat!

I have devoted tomorrow and Friday to some serious blogging. I will be doing posts on travels to Dachau, Amsterdam, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. We have also had some interesting things go on in Basel... so I will blog about that too! I told you I had some serious blogging to do. Check back in a couple days!

Our Apologies and a Little Motivation

2010-03-17T23:21:00.001+01:00

Sometimes life gets so busy that you put off things that you wish you wouldn't have. This blog is one of them... Our apologies for not keeping it up to date. There is a lot to catch up on, so if you want us to keep blogging, we need your comments for a little motivation. If you've ever enjoyed reading or just looking at the pictures on our blog, let us know! To our friends and family back home: We love you and miss you very much.

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

2010-02-02T00:40:00.002+01:00

There really is no place like home for the holidays. The best thing about being home was spending time with friends and family. Because we had missed everyone so much, it made this Christmas all the more special.

We flew in on a Thursday night and by Saturday, our house was decked out in Christmas decorations and we threw a party for all our close friends... we were able to do that because of my two brother-in-laws... they were a great help!

Some highlights of what we did:
Had Christmas morning at our home :)

Ate at the Angus Barn (our favorite restaurant!) with Nate's family... a little Diering tradition.

Took a Solc family photo for the first time in awhile...

Hung out with Nate's brother, Matt, and the new addition to the Diering family, Buddy!

Jake and Buddy loved to play!

Sometimes it got a little rough though...

Played with Camden, my sister's son. He just LOVED his Uncle Nate! My sister called me yesterday and told me that Camden is STILL talking about Nate. That doesn't make me jealous at all... haha.

Got some long-awaited Raybans for Christmas... a big surprise from Nate!

My little brother and Chelsea got ENGAGED!!!!

We wrote an announcement on the chalkboard at Starbucks. :)

The Happy Couple...

Camden, being cute!

Got to go with Joy to Camden's art class... I think I enjoyed it as much as he did!

Had lunch with some of my favorite Brier Creek Tennis ladies... it was so good to spend time with them! Teresa, in the purple sweater, is a faithful blog reader and commenter! Thanks, Teresa! :)

Girls night with some of my favorite girls... Katherine, Parker, & Shae. Katherine came over, even with her one-month old baby, Haley (in the picture). She is SO precious!

Once Nate went back to Switzerland, I spent most of my time hanging out with family. I love my siblings SO much!! I am so blessed to have them. Me & Josef:

Me & Joy:

All 3 of us... not really sure why my brother's making that face...

I love this picture... it's so happy!

Culture Shock in America..... What!?

2010-01-26T16:42:00.002+01:00

Nate and I love that feeling of just stepping off the plane to be back home again. After being gone for almost a whole YEAR, we were overjoyed to be able to be with friends and family around Christmas. The interesting thing after being gone for a year is that you have a different look on life in America. Little things that used to be "normal" to us became a bit of a shock. It's a little hard to explain, but here is a list of some things that 'shocked' us while being home...

-Everything is in English! (You're probably thinking, duh, but this was SO nice!)
-More things, like signs and labels, are now also written in Spanish
-Everyone was speaking English (Another duh, but it was also oh, so nice)
-The majority of people are extremely friendly everywhere you go
-Grocery stores are massive
-Wal-Mart is overwhelming
-We still love Target
-Everything seemed so inexpensive (compared to Europe's prices)
-A Chick-fil-A sandwich, Bojangles biscuit, and sweet tea taste even better than we remembered
-We have missed free refills, ice, free ketchup, and unlimited napkins!
-Portion sizes at restaurants are too big
-Toilets are much lower than in Switzerland (weird, but true)
-Raleigh seemed so spread out after living in such a condensed city
-We spent too much time in the car
-Everyone's houses felt HUGE
-Most Americans (including us) have too much stuff
-Life is more comfortable... sometimes a little too comfortable... and at the same time, too busy

After being away from American culture for awhile, it's easier for Nate and I see how our lives now compare to before. We realized that it was harder to evaluate our lifestyles when we lived in the same place with the same routine. And we are thankful that we have had the opportunity to see that sometimes we lived a life that was a little too comfortable and complacent. We love Raleigh so much because it is our home, but when we come back we hope to take things that we've learned back with us... like:

-Simplicity
-Spend more time with family and friends
-Spend more time outside
-Watch less TV
-Don't take everything in life so seriously
-Practice more faith in God
-Eat more ice cream (in moderation of course!)
-Exercise more (since we'll be eating more ice cream)
-Challenge ourselves more... learn new things, read more books
-Travel more in the States
-Take more trips to the beach and mountains (since they're so close!)
-Be more involved in church and outreach to the community

The list could go on, but these are just a few things that we have learned and I challenge you to do these things too!!

Sorry there are no pictures, but I promise to put up a post of pictures and stories from our time at home soon!

Home for the Holidays... Sneak Peek

2010-01-11T15:29:00.002+01:00

We hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas and we wish you a Happy New Year... :)

The Basel Swiss Indoors Tennis Tournament!

2009-12-16T15:05:00.003+01:00

Every year, Basel has a professional indoor tennis tournament and since Roger Federer is from Basel, people come from all over to see him play here. It is crazy to think that he was once a ball boy at this very tournament. I wonder if he ever thought to himself... I'm going to win this tournament one day... I'm sure he did.

Again, since Roger Federer is playing in his home town, it is very difficult to get seats and they are very expensive! So, I thought it was going to be impossible for me to go, but when the time of the tournament came, I decided to go to the arena and just see if I could still buy a ticket. Much to my surprise, there was a guy selling tickets right in front and I bought mine for cheaper than face value... I was ecstatic! I was going to be watching professional tennis ALL day!! The only unfortunate thing was that Nate could not join me because of work, but he was happy for me that I could go. He's so sweet. :)

You could watch from two different courts: The center court in the arena, or court 2, which was no bigger than a high school gym and you could sit wherever you wanted. I liked court 2 because I always meandered my way to the front row! Here, I'm watching Korolev. A Russian who's ranked top 50 in the world. And he's Ana Kornikova's cousin!

The guy you see in the picture is Korolev's coach and brother. I ended up talking to him and then he got Korolev to give me a signed tennis ball! He said I was good luck because he was losing and then I came in and he started to win, and ended up winning in a thrid-set tiebreak.

After Korolev's match, the Bryan Brothers (top American doubles team) came in to warm up. I was excited to see them, but I didn't watch their match because Federer's match was supposed to start any minute on the other court. Court 2 cleared out real fast when it was time for Federer's match... poor Bryan Brothers, but I'm sure they understood what was going on!

And there he is.... ROGER FEDERER. I was freaking out inside because he's been my favorite player for a long time and I never imagined being able to see him play!

In action...

More action... I loved seeing how effortless and eloquent he is... even more so in real life than on TV!

The Federer match seemed to go by way too fast, but once it was done, I quickly went to the other court to see Gonzales play.

Gonzales is a top ranked player and really entertaining to watch. Federer and Gonzales were also playing singles at this tournament. I only had the chance to see them play doubles, but I actually think it's more fun because they are less serious and their personality comes out a bit more. Gonzales and his partner were so nice. They came over and signed autographs after their match. :) And I got theirs right on their picture in the yearbook that you see at the top of the post. I was a little disappointed that Federer didn't come over and sign it when I tried to get his attention, but maybe next time. (haha)

DJOKOVIC! I also love to watch him play. His singles match was the last one of the night. He dominated in straight sets. He was on fire!

Look at that concentration...

The stadium is not very big, which was nice. I walked up to the top to take a picture of the whole court, and this is as high as I could go.

Then I went down close because a lot of seats opened up at the end of the match. Some girl asked me to take her picture, so she did the same for me! I was SO happy to have the privilege to see such amazing tennis... it is something I will NEVER forget!

Herbstmesse: Basel's Fall Fair

2009-12-16T02:16:00.002+01:00

The Herbstmesse has been a Basel tradition for over 500 years! I'm not sure what it was like back then, but now, it is similar to the State Fair in NC... lots of rides, good food, and fun. It is spread out over the city in seven squares and it doesn't cost a dime to walk through. Nate and I took advantage of that and went several nights just to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere. One of the squares is just a couple blocks from our apt. building, so it was very convenient. Here are some pictures of the different times we went:

The Ferris Wheel

The views of Basel from the Ferris Wheel (taken on two different nights)

Some of our friends who are living in Lausanne (the French part of Switzerland) came to visit one weekend to come to the Herbstmesse. Bottom left: Jonathan & Ashley... Ashley is scared of heights so she is closing her eyes. Next to them: Our friend, Adam. Jonathan and Adam are both from NC!

Adam and Jonathan rode some more rides while Nate and I stayed back with Ashley. I think she is still laughing at high how we just were!
I also went to the fair with some of the high school girls... that I've met from church. Noelle (pictured below) and I went on the Romania mission trip together... and I just love her to death now! We rode some rides and ate some good food, like chocolate covered strawberries.. yum!

I forgot that most high school kids have no fear when it comes to riding rides. Well, let's just say... I'm definitely not in high school anymore! I would not ride the following...

Noelle, Hannah, and Hannah's little brother Alex all tried to get me to go on this ride, but I refused.... waaay to scary for me! I know, I'm a wimp. :)

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year and having an amazing fall fair makes it even better. I took this shot on the last night. The reflection over the Rhine was so beautiful!

Snow Day in the Alps with Teran & JJ

2009-12-09T18:45:00.004+01:00

When our friends, Teran & JJ returned back to Basel after being in Rome, they were a little tired, but we mustered up enough energy to "hike" in the Alps. Little did we know we would run into massive amounts of snow on our hiking trail! But it was okay because we ended up having a blast in the snow!

Instead of hiking, we decided to build a snowman! It was actually really hard to make because the snow was so fresh and powdery, but eventually, we did it! We named him Snowie or Alpie or something... we couldn't decide on one :)

We also had snow ball fights! The boys disappeared for awhile and then, out of nowhere, they came running at us with ready-made snowballs and tried to hit us with them, but we were too fast. :) You can see the boys' attack in this picture (from left to right):

We also hid in trees... okay, that was just JJ. Click on the picture to see if you can find him! Teran's not really sure what he's doing...

We weren't the only ones having fun in the snow, Jake also loved it! He ran around so much that he was absolutely exhausted on the train ride home! (see the pics at the end)

After a great day of playing in the snow, we were cold and hungry, so we went to a great Swiss restaurant to warm up and eat some yummy food.

The plate on the right is a Swiss dish called rosti. It's hash browns, lots of cheese and an egg on top... it is delicious!

Our last group picture together. Teran is great at using self timers on cameras. :) Look at the snow line on the mountains!

The skies really cleared in the evening and it was simply beautiful. I love this picture of Teran & JJ...
As I said, Jake was wiped out after all the running around in the snow. Usually, he freaks out on train rides (ie. doesn't sleep), but this time he couldn't fight it any longer. The fact that he has to be in a "bag" on Swiss trains makes these photos just that much funnier!

Teran & JJ Come to Basel!

2009-12-08T13:35:00.002+01:00

The day after I returned from Romania, our good friends, Teran and JJ arrived! (are you starting to see a pattern as to why I didn't blog for awhile??) I have known Teran and JJ for several years now, but this was my first time to be with them as a married couple! It was great to have them and it was JJ's first time in Europe, so there were many things to do and see for him. Here are some pictures that we took on their first full day in Basel. Can't you tell that they're newlyweds? ;)

We walked around A LOT. So Nate and I took breaks to sit down every once in awhile, but Teran was still going strong! (it looks like she's trying to climb a gate in the picture below)

The next day, Nate had to work, so I showed Teran and JJ around other parts of Basel in the morning. Then I had to work in the afternoon, so I sent them out on their own to explore and fortunately the weather was great. Here are few pictures from their second day:

I think one of the things that JJ liked most about coming to Basel was making best friends with Jake. Jake has made a lot of new best friends since we moved. He is so loving and affectionate towards everyone who stays in our home. You know he loves you when he gives you his famous Jake hug! (see below)
He is also a very good snuggler. After all that walking around, JJ and Jake would get exhausted and then curl up on the couch and take a little nap together. :)
Jake tried to show equal love by snuggling with Teran too, but he doesn't look as comfortable... what do you think?
Well.... like everyone who comes to visit, Teran and JJ wanted to make the most of their time in Europe, so the next day they explored the city of Luzern and the day after that, they went to Rome for 3 days. We suggested that they see one of these 3 major cities of Europe (Rome, Paris, & London) because they are easily accesible from Basel, and it was JJ's first time in Europe! They had a awesome time in Rome and if you want to read more details about their trip, you can check out their blog: www.2weeksandcounting.wordpress.com

"Stay tuned" for the next post: our snowy experience with Teran & JJ in the Alps!

Romania Mission Trip

2009-12-03T23:20:00.003+01:00

The day after my sister and her family left, I picked up and went to Romania. I didn't have to work this week, because of Fall Break, so I was able to join the youth team from my church to go on the trip! This is a view from the Parliament building in Bucharest:

Since moving to Europe, I have felt very blessed to have time to do things that I am passionate about.... teaching tennis (even though I did this in Raleigh :)), traveling, and missions. Every time I take part in a mission trip, I always learn something new. Even though I might not think it is possible, God seems to reveal different things to me every time. On this particular trip, my eyes were opened to see how blessed we really are... when I saw "we", I mean Nate and I, as well as, America, or any other wealthy country. Growing up in one of the wealthiest countries in the world makes you take what you have for granted. We should be thankful to God everyday for every little thing he has given us, instead of complaining about how we want something bigger and better. And trust me, I am guilty of the latter. But I'm thankful for what I have experienced in traveling to less fortunate cultures, so that I will always be reminded to be generous and grateful.

While we were in Bucharest, we visited the people who are living on the streets. Some of them live in abandoned houses, near construction sites, and even in sewers. We brought them sandwiches & drinks and they were so thankful. We tried to talk them, through translators, and even played a little soccer. The missionaries there are building relationships with all of the homeless people we visited in order to gain their trust, so they can help them get off the streets and tell them about the hope in Christ.

Going down into the sewer...
People on the streets turn to the sewers, especially in the winter months because it is the only place to keep warm.
The Teen Challenge Center.
This is where the boys/young men come to live for one year to get back on their feet and learn the skills they need for when they start their new life. There are currently 19 at the TC Center and they are in desperate need for more space, so as you can see, they have built a 3rd floor, but it is unfinished due to not enough funds. They are praying that they can finish it soon!
We stayed at the center and the mornings & evenings were beautiful...

During the day, they put us to work! We refinished and repainted some benches and tables...

We took up the old and broken tiles of the front staircase... which was really fun!
Helped put soil down in the new greenhouse...

And even cooked! Cooking for 29 people is just a tad bit different then cooking for 2!
Even though we worked hard, we knew how to take breaks. :) And I learned how to play soccer!

We had such a great time getting to know the the Teen Challenge guys. If you were to meet them, you would never know that they were once on the streets or addicted to drugs or alcohol. That was one of the neatest things for me... just seeing how God had completely changed them and turned their lives around was an amazing thing to witness. Here is one last group picture of all of us before we left.

If you would like to read more about Teen Challenge or make a donation, click here.

Camden Visits the Zooooo!

2009-12-01T19:00:00.001+01:00

Who knew? Basel has a great zoo! The zoo is practically walking distance from our house and has just about every animal you could imagine! It was the perfect place to take Camden.

He even got to pet some animals...
Nate wanted to pet the rhino, but it was just a little too far away!

One of our favorite things was the seal show!

One of my personal favorite animals... lions. They look so gentle here. Kind of makes you want to cuddle with them.

It looked like this bird was trying to escape...

And the same for this bear!

We all had a blast seeing the different animals.. including us adults!

But the next day was sad because the Denney's went off to France for a few days to visit our cousins...
And when they returned, we only had one more day to spend with them. :( So we just hung out it Basel and enjoyed each other's company.
It was so hard to say goodbye, but we had an incredible time with you and we are so glad that you came. Looking forward to seeing you at Christmas!!

You'll never guess!

2009-11-10T14:28:00.005+01:00

You'll never guess where where we went first with my sister's family... the Swiss Alps! Okay, maybe you already guessed it, but come on, they are so beautiful and close, that who wouldn't want to vacation there!?

We took a train ride and Camden absolutely loved it. I lost count of how many times he said "train" and "choo choo" while riding. It was so cute!

Seth and Joy had already visited the Jungfrau region, so we decided to go to St. Moritz. Nate and I also went to St. Moritz when my parents were here. You can take a look and see the difference in the amount of snow! When we arrived in the afternoon, we took a quick lift up and went on a short walk.

On the ride back down, Camden decided to entertain the other passengers by "pole dancing." It was hilarious! Don't know where he picked that up!!

The next morning, we went to a higher place and had an amazing view. Notice Camden in Seth's back pack!

Here we are after hiking up to the very highest point. It was a bit colder at the very top and I don't think Camden liked that! (as you can see in this picture, he is a little upset!)

Our hotel was right next to a beautiful lake, so we just hung out there and fed some ducks! Then went for a walk...

The next morning we took a train ride to Diavolezza.
It is a gorgeous mountain range right next to Italy...

Camden was happy to see all the snow!

This wasn't exactly the safest place for children. Joy is making sure she holds on tight to Camden's hands, so he doesn't slip and fall on the icy snow.
The weather was amazing. Last time Nate and I came here it was a so foggy... you could barely see your hand in front of your face. We were grateful for the clear skies!

Sometimes Seth would run ahead on our hike... you can see him waving back at me and Joy. Is he waving for us to hike up faster?

At the end of our last day, we found an amazing park for Camden to run around and play. It was a little more child-proof. :)
Seth took some good shots of me chasing Camden... and I caught him!

Somebody wants to get on the seesaw...
But when he finally got on, he was a little disinterested or scared... not really sure which one. But Joy and I sure had fun... it went so high! I think it's meant for grown-ups.
After a wonderful and relaxing time together in the Alps, we headed back to Basel to hang out with Nate & Jake (Camden's new buddies)!

Meet the Denney's

2009-11-09T22:00:00.000+01:00

Soon after Nate's parents left, my sister and her family also came to visit us!! Meet the Denney's, Seth and Joy. Being apart from my sister is hard, but not being around the cutest nephew in the world is even harder! Meet Camden. He is looking a little mischievous here in this picture. Don't worry, this is a pedestrian-only street! We didn't let him run around on the main streets... too much. :) On their first full day in Basel, we had beautiful weather. Even though they were a little jet-lagged, they wanted to see the Basel sights. Of course, we had to take them to our favorite fountain/photo-op in Basel! Me and Joy overlooking the Rhine. Good thing Seth and Nate didn't live back in the 13th century because they would have bumped their heads a lot! After walking around awhile, we needed a little coffee break. Or, for those of us who don't drink coffee, an ice cream break! Click on the picture to see little man's mustache. Hanging out in Basel's market square, Marktplatz. Camden was entertained by the trams that went through the square. We're not sure where he picked it up, but he said "tram" in a British accent. We never got tired of that and it made us laugh every time. Camden was also entertained just running around the square and playing keep-away. Camden's eye is on his daddy...

And he doesn't see Nate coming to snatch him up! Apparently, Seth thought it was really funny :)

After a long day, it was time to head back home. For some reason, all the adults were tired, but Camden was still going strong...running to keep up with Uncle Nate!

And that was day one with the Denney's!

Time to Say Goodbye

2009-11-05T19:40:00.001+01:00

The weather during our time in and around Basel was not as nice as it was in the Alps. Here we are posing in front of our favorite Basel fountain under a cloudy sky.

My parents had already visited Switzerland, Germany, and Austria on this trip, but we also decided to take them France. We visited our favorite French town, Colmar.

The sun finally decided to make an appearance!

Of course, we had to take my parents to our favorite French restaurant. It is picturesquely located on the edge of the canal that runs through town. As we waited for our Tarte Flambe to be served, Maria enjoyed some local wine and the view.

It was worth the wait! I consider Tarte Flambe to be the French version of pizza.

After lunch, we strolled through town. Along the way, we ran into a Jack Russell puppy. The puppy wanted to play, but Jake thought the puppy was trying to attack him. Needless to say, our dog has some issues with new dogs!

Unfortunately, it was time for my parents to return home to Raleigh. It was great to spend some time with them and show them our "home away from home." However, being with them reminded me how much I miss them. I think they had a great time as well, because they're already trying to plan a return trip for next year!

The Dierings Visit Jungfrau

2009-11-04T21:37:00.000+01:00

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you know that we enjoy the Swiss Alps. Since my parents had never visited these mountains, I took them to our favorite Alps spot, the Jungfrau region. Unfortunately, Maria was coaching her team in a tennis tournament, so she was unable to come with us.

The best part about visiting the Alps is rarely having to hike uphill. The Swiss have constructed amazing railroads and cable cars, like the one below, that carry you right to the top of the mountains.

Once we arrived at the top, our view was spectacular!

My dad thinks he has found a mountain goat.

That's not a mountain goat, it's Jake! You can tell he's been here before.

But he's never been here with my parents. He was thrilled to be with them.
I was glad to be with my dad.

The next day, we took the Jungfraujoch train to the "top of Europe." The Jungfraujoch train is one of those amazing Swiss trains. It travels to the top of Jungfrau through a four-mile long tunnel inside the mountain. The tunnel is really amazing, especially when you consider that it was completed in 1912. Here we are trying to stay warm in the ice caves, but not really succeeding.

I was glad to be with my mom, especially where it was much warmer.

After warming back up, we hiked across the snow.

As we were hiking, we towered above the Aletsch glacier, the largest glacier in the Alps.

As you can see from all of the pictures, the weather was absolutely perfect during our visit. It was great being able to show my parents the mountains that we have come to love.

Hitler's Lake and Cinderella's Castle

2009-10-30T22:32:00.012+01:00

From Salzburg, Maria drove us to Berchtesgaden, Austria. This town is home to a spectacularly colored lake and was once one of Hitler's favorite places to visit. He formulated his vision of the Third Reich while finishing his memoir, Mein Kampf , in the region. Once he had risen to power, he built his Eagle's Nest retreat on top of a nearby mountain.

We didn't have time to visit the retreat, so we hopped on a boat and cruised around the lake enjoying its gorgeous scenery.
After enjoying God's beautiful creation, we headed back across the German border into Bavaria and visited one of the most spectacular man-made buildings in the world. If this building looks familiar, it's because it was the inspiration for Cinderella's Castle in Disney World.
Neuschwanstein Castle was the dream of "Mad" King Ludwig. It looks really old, but was only constructed in the late 19th century. It was actually built using steel girders and a sandstone veneer. Unfortunately for us, they were performing repairs on an entire side of the castle!
The castle, even though the interior was only a third finished, opened for tours within six weeks after Ludwig's death. We joined the masses and took a tour of the interior. The rooms were lavishly decorated and displayed the King's unhealthy, in my opinion, fascination with the famous opera composer, Richard Wagner. The master bedroom, basically a giant hand-carved wooden room, took over 10 years to complete!
The most recognizable picture of the Castle, the one in which you can see all the scaffolding, is taken from Mary's bridge. The bridge spans the gorge and provides an amazing view of the castle. However, the wood floors moved a little too much for my liking, especially given its height!

We returned to Basel for a day of rest before my parents, Jake, and I visited the Swiss Alps.

The Hills are Alive...

2009-10-27T21:11:00.026+01:00

We're a bit behind on our posting, so we have some work to do to bring you up-to-speed on our latest adventures.

In early September, we were extremely excited to have my parents, the Dierings, come to visit us. After they adjusted to the jet lag, we headed off to Salzburg, Austria. Maria graciously offered to be our chauffeur and she became the first Diering to drive the streets of mainland Europe. Six hours later, we arrived safe and sound!

Salzburg is probably best known for being the city where the Sound of Music was filmed. For a greater appreciation of our trip, watch this video, then browse through our pictures below.

Oh, it's also the birthplace of some guy named Mozart.

He's no Julie Andrews, but he still gets his own statue.

In the 16th century, the Prince-Archbishop decided to build the "Rome of the North." As a result, Salzburg is considered the greatest Baroque city north of the Alps.
The city's most famous Baroque building is its cathedral.

Mozart was baptized here and later became the organist for two years. St. Peter's cemetery, the inspiration for the scene in the SOM where the von Trapp family hid from the Nazis.

As you can see from this picture, the Mirabell Gardens had a spectacular view! Maria is pretending to be Julie Andrews finishing the "do-re-mi" song. I didn't believe her when Maria, my wife, not the one from the movie, claimed that the song ended with this pose. Don't believe her either? Judge for yourself at the end of the video attached above.

The SOM crew danced around this statue in the Gardens at the 3:58 mark in the video above.

They also pranced around this fountain in the Gardens at the 4:45 mark in the video above.

After much dancing of our own, we headed up the cliffs that soar above the city. Yes, this view also made the movie. See the 1:50 mark of the video above.

We ate some schnitzel for lunch at a fantastic restaurant on the cliff's edge, but we first had to pass through the medieval city wall in order to reach it.

The restaurant shares the cliffs with the Hohensalzburg fortress. Since its construction over 1,000 years ago, this fortress was never captured.

The view from the cliffs underneath the fortress.

We took a bike ride along the Salzach river to the Hellbrunn castle.

The von Trapps also enjoyed the city's bike paths. See the 3:00 mark of the video.

After biking for about half an hour, we had a much different view of the fortress.

The "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" gazebo...the real reason we visited Hellbrunn castle. It was so romantic!

After a busy day, we enjoyed one last stroll through the city at night.

What a Year It's Been...

2009-10-26T22:15:00.006+01:00

We've lived in Europe for just over a year now and it has truly been an incredible experience. We have learned a lot, been challenged a lot, and have been able to see a lot of fascinating places. Here are a few of our favorite pictures. Can you identify all of the places? Impress us with your knowledge!

So, if you're up for a challenge, leave a comment and name all of these places! (top to bottom, left to right)

One Year...

2009-09-23T21:21:00.003+02:00

It's hard to believe, but today is the anniversary of our arrival in Switzerland.

What a year it has been! It has been full of challenges, but also many wonderful experiences. We love living in Basel, but definitely miss Raleigh more than ever. We've made many new friends, but miss all of our friends and family back home. We've tried lots of new foods, but still miss some good BBQ, an ice-filled sweet tea, a thick, juicy steak, a Chik-fil-a sandwich, a thick, juicy hamburger, and plenty of other foods. We've experienced many new cultures (Maria has already visited 15 countries...Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, Czech Republic, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Italy, Monaco, Vatican City, England, Ireland, Scotland, and the good old US of A. She'll also visit Romania, Netherlands, and Portugal before 2009 is over!), but we miss the friendly waves of random neighbors on the street.

It has definitely been an adventure and we're looking forward to what another year will hold. We're thankful for this amazing opportunity and we're thankful for all those that have kept in touch, whether it be through visiting, calling, or following our blog.

We're a little behind on our blogging because we've been fairly busy as of late. Last Saturday, my parents left us after a week and a half visit. Then Maria's friend, Beth, arrived for a Swiss whirlwind tour on Monday. She left us on Thursday, but then Maria's sister and her family arrived for a two week visit on Saturday. Maria has been in the Alps for the past few days with the Denneys and will return tomorrow. So, the next blog still may not be posted for a while, but keep checking back for updates.

Basel Makes the NY Times... Twice!

2009-09-18T10:45:00.001+02:00

I should say Basel "made" the NY Times because it was a couple of months ago, but if you are an art lover or just want to know more about where Nate and I live, take a look at either of these: Article One and Article Two

Summer is Officially Gone

2009-09-16T17:14:00.001+02:00

There's a time of year when even before the first leaf falls, you can feel the seasons change. The air is crisp, the summer is gone, and for the first night in a long time, you need a big blanket on your bed. As much as Nate and I love the change of seasons, it is hard to say goodbye to summer. Here are just a few things we will miss...

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Biking to the park, reading a good book, and soaking up some sun.Going on weekend walks in 70 degree weather (this is a field that overlooks Basel).

All of the lush green vines.

This one is outside our kitchen window.

And all the colorful flowers...

The only thing we regret is not swimming in the Rhine. People swim throughout the summer, but we never got around to it. One day, there is a fun swim day and race. We were away on this day, but I found this picture of the event... look at all the people in the water! We might join in next year... we'll see!

We hope that, wherever you are, you enjoyed your summer too.

Ireland's Dingle Peninsula and More Irish Countryside

2009-09-13T17:55:00.002+02:00

We had one full day to see the Dingle Peninsula and due to the weather, we couldn't see much of anything. It was extremely foggy, cloudy, misty, and cold. But despite the bad weather, it was still a beautiful place and we enjoyed every minute of being there.

It was such a picturesque beach. We couldn't believe that people were actually getting in the water because it was freezing!
The cliffs and rocks were gorgeous.

We drove along the coast and jumped out when we saw something worthy of a stop... we stopped a lot. We were happy to be looking out at the Atlantic Ocean. It felt a little closer to home.

This is a famous ramp that the sheep of Dingle go down each summer. From here they are loaded (upside down!) in canoe-like boats and sent to a neighboring island to eat the grass there for the season. Not really sure why they do that. It looked like they had plenty of grass on Dingle to us!
We found someone to take a picture of us!

In addition to Dingle's beautiful scenery, it also contains many historical sights. For example, this church was constructed over 1,300 years ago with no mortar and is still water-tight to this day!

Here is another old church. Its graveyard contains the oldest tombs on the Peninsula.

Within the graveyard, there is a much older Ogham Stone. This stone had already stood here 900 years before the church was built and indicated that this was a pre-Christian holy spot. A hole was later drilled through the top of the stone as a place were people would come to "seal the deal." Standing on the graves of their ancestors and in front of the church, they would "swear to God" by touching thumbs through the stone. People also came here to renew their vows, so that's what we did!

Our last sight to see in Dingle were the ruins of the Minard Castle. It was built by the knights of Kerry in 1551 and later destroyed by Cromwell around 1650. This exact picture (minus Nate) is on the front of our guidebook, so we definitely wanted to see it. The only thing missing is the gorgeous backdrop of the ocean, coast, and cliffs!

The next day, we left Dingle and drove further up the western coast of Ireland. On the way, we visited the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs stretch for over 5 miles and rise as high as 650 feet above the Atlantic!

These pictures hardly capture the enormous size of these cliffs. Click on this picture to see how tiny the people look who are walking along the edge.

There are signs everywhere warning people to stay away from the edge. But, some people want to get as close as possible and as the saying goes... curiosity killed the cat. For over 50 people, these cliffs were the last thing they ever saw.

After leaving the cliffs of death, we headed to the Burren. Basically, it is an empty, 10-square mile limestone plateau. Our guidebook has a great quote about this place, which describes it as, "a savage land, yielding neither water enough to drown a man, nor a tree to hang him, nor soil enough to bury him."

This "mini-Stonehenge" is called the Poulnabrone Dolmen. Over 4,000 years ago it was grave chamber, but now it just looks like an old stone table. It also looked like if the wind blew hard enough, that it would topple over!

After a long day of driving and sight seeing, we spent the night in Galway. The next day, we took one last scenic drive in Ireland. This was our fifth day here and we still had not had a day of blue skies. Our first stop was the Kylemore Abbey located on an idyllic setting on a lake.

This monument in the Doo Lough Valley, memorializes those who died in the valley during the potato famine. They had walked 12 miles hoping to get food from their landlord, but were turned away.

As we've all seen in the movies, Ireland is portrayed as a country with rolling green hills and sheep everywhere. That stereotype was not fulfilled until the last day. As we finished our drive, we saw tons of sheep and beautiful green pastures. I was SO happy!

The clouds even parted and we had blue skies! I just love this picture because THIS is Ireland to me.

It took forever to get all of these posts up from this trip, but we hope you enjoyed following our adventures through England, Scotland, & Ireland!

Ireland: From Dublin to Dingle

2009-09-09T13:18:00.002+02:00

Our previous two nights in Scotland really tired us out and it finally caught up with us. When we arrived in Dublin, we both felt like we were getting sick. We only had one day to spend there, but neither one of us wanted to get out of bed. It was raining anyway, so we justified spending most of the morning in. When we did venture out, we took it easy. We walked around a little, read in a park, went to a museum, and had a great dinner. And that is "taking it easy" for us in cities!

Little tidbit: If you ever go to Ireland or the UK, remember to "Look Right" instead of left when crossing the road. I almost got hit the first time I stepped out into the street.

Trinity College

Shopping street jam packed with people...

The National Museum of IrelandWe weren't allowed to take pictures, but I found this image on the internet. This is a bog mummy that we saw. We had never seen anything like this. Most of the bodies have been preserved in the bog for over 2,000 years and were just discovered around the 19th century. It is unbelievable how well the skin is preserved!
Dublin pub street in the evening. The famous Temple Bar is the first on the left.

Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. It was SO yummy!

The next morning, we drove to the Dingle Peninsula, which is the southeast tip of Ireland. By this time, Nate was an old pro at driving on the left side of the road, but nothing could prepare us for this...

The road was really narrow and to make it worse, we were in a cloud! I had to laugh at this sign... it says, "Turn Back Now," but it only applies to buses and big trucks.

The clouds broke for a bit, so we stopped for a break. It was a gorgeous spot.

Downtown Dingle

We had a late lunch on the road and we weren't too hunger for dinner, so we just bought some popcorn at a festival that was going on and found a nice place to sit on the water... so peaceful.

Sleeping with Strangers in Loch Ness

2009-09-08T18:19:00.005+02:00

Our last night in Scotland was a little unexpected. Our room in Portree was given up (that's a long story, so I'll spare you the details), so the first night we stayed in Portree, we had to sleep in a single room, which means we had to share a single bed, as in, for ONE person. That was not a pleasant night's sleep, especially when you're used to a King sized bed! The next evening we decided to go on to our next destination, hoping that we'd have better luck finding a hotel or b&b on the way there. We had no such luck. We saw the sign, No Vacancies, about 301 times. But we continued on towards Loch Ness and tried to enjoy our evening. We had great views on the road and I even got to drive a little! It was really scary and unnatural to drive on the left side of the road. I didn't last that long because driving just shouldn't take that much concentration! So I handed the driving reins back over to Nate.

I hate this picture, but Nate thinks it's funny...

We stopped to take a few pictures of this castle. The setting was simply beautiful.

Back to the hotel search. We finally found a Holiday Inn and the parking lot was pretty empty... but we soon found out that there were no free rooms there either! The lady at the front desk tried calling around and she said there was nothing available in the area. I explained our situation to her and then asked what we should do... sleep in our car?! It was certainly looking that way until she said... "you know what, I get off in 30 minutes, why don't you come stay with me?" So I went back to the car to tell Nate the situation and he was a little skeptical of staying with strangers, but he agreed and it turned out just fine! They were a sweet family from Latvia, but had been in Scotland for over 5 years. Her 15 year old daughter just loved us (she was texting all her friends that Americans were staying at her house!) We stayed up late hanging out and talking with them. They kept saying how we sounded like actors from the American movies! (Haha) It was such a crazy, fun, and certainly, unexpected experience that we will never forget. It's too bad we forgot to take a picture with them because they were a great family to take us in like that and we were very grateful.

The next day, we went to the famous Loch Ness. You can't go to Scotland and not visit this place! Nate & I had always thought of the Loch Ness monster as a silly myth, but while we were there, we were actually keeping our eyes out for it!

The Castle on Loch Ness

I think I see the monster! Okay, just kidding, I didn't. But I think I made some people actually look where I was pointing.
Me & Nessie
That concludes our Scotland part of the trip. Ireland posts coming soon!

The Isle of Skye: One of our new favorite places on Earth!

2009-09-02T22:14:00.000+02:00

In order to see the beautiful countryside of Scotland, we had to rent a car. It sounded so nice...driving at our own pace, windows rolled down, music on, but... there's one small drawback:
Yes, that's right. We had to drive on the left side of the road. It was weird and scary at first, but once Nate got the hang of it, it was kind of fun! As you can see here, the inside of the car is flip-flopped. That took some getting used to... especially when we hopped in and out of the car. We kept going to the wrong door!

The views from Edinburgh to the Glencoe Valley were amazing.

If you've seen a Harry Potter movie, you probably recognize this bridge. They show it each time Harry travels by train from London to Hogwarts.

This lake appears in the background of the scenes when the train is riding over the bridge.

After driving through Glencoe Valley and the land of Harry Potter, we took a ferry to the Isle of Skye.

Words cannot begin to describe the beauty of the Isle of Skye. As we drove from the ferry to the town of Portree, we were amazed at the island's beauty.

Portree. The main town on the Isle of Skye.
The sunset became even more brilliant later in the evening. I don't think this would be a bad place to own a sail boat!

The next morning, we woke up to this:

Then we headed on a loop of the island. This was our first stop.
Can you find Nate? Hint: He's wearing a blue jacket.

The rock in the distance is called Kilt Rock... because it looks like a kilt!

Everything was SO green!

To break up our trip in the car, we decided to take a recommended hike. When we started, we had beautiful, clear-blue skies.

And then...the clouds rolled in.

It started to rain and my hooded jacket was not exactly water proof!

The rain quickly stopped and we enjoyed the rest of our hike. We had absolutely gorgeous views!

To complete our Scottish experience, we had to see some sheep in the road (like in the movies) and we did! I'm glad I wasn't driving, because I was so excited that I might have veered off of the road.

This was our last stop on our loop. How would you like that white house to be your vacation home?

Nate & I spent a lot of time here just relaxing and taking in the view. We had the ocean, rolling hills, rocks jutting out of the water, old castle remains, sheep, and... each other. Not a bad combination!

Coming soon... our adventures in Inverness & Loch Ness!

Anniversary in Edinburgh

2009-08-30T21:11:00.001+02:00

After a long journey from Bath, we finally arrived in Edinburgh. As we rode the bus from the airport to the hotel, both of us were in awe of how beautiful, and almost magical, the city looked. The buildings were very different from anything else we'd ever seen in Europe. That evening, we enjoyed walking around and getting a feel for the city. It was so laid back and relaxing. While we were out, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a marching band of drummers and bag pipers, was having a dress rehearsal, so we took advantage of a free mini-concert. As they left their rehearsal, we snapped a quick shot. I would not want to be wearing a skirt on such a windy night as this. Excuse me, it is a kilt.

The next morning was our 3 year anniversary! So I woke up and fixed myself really nice for the special day and Nate says... I think we should go for a hike. A hike!? I thought he had lost his mind. But it turned out for the best. There was a perfect hike that led to spectacular views over the city. We found some interesting ruins on our way up.

It was another windy day, but it was gorgeous the way the wind blew the grass.
We made it to the top! The wind made Nate look like he had a mohawk!

It was a breathtaking view!

The hiking trail was over a point called Arthur's Seat. You can really see the trail and the Edinburgh Castle in the distance.

Edinburgh is known for it's Royal Mile, which is a road that stretches a little over a mile from the Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
The Palace of Holyroodhouse. Another one of the Queen's many vacation homes.

At the other end of the Royal Mile is the Edinburgh Castle. We spent the afternoon exploring the castle grounds.
Every August, Edinburgh hosts one of the largest festivals in Europe. We arrived a few days too early, but many performers had arrived early as well and were putting on street shows along the Royal Mile. We were able to watch a juggling act, a bed-of-nails act, and a Houdini-inspired escape act. As you can tell by my face, we really enjoyed watching these shows!
Edinburgh was once the most crowded city in Europe; the result of some of the world's earliest skyscrapers.
As we ate a delicious desert, we watched the sun set over the Royal Mile. It was a great way to conclude a wonderful anniversary day!

Maria & Nate in Bath

2009-08-30T15:00:00.003+02:00

The tour left Stonehenge and brought us to the city of Bath. Since we were spending the night in Bath, we abandoned the tour and explored the city on our own. Our first visit was the site of the Roman baths built over a series of hot springs. When the Romans ruled Britannia during the 1st century, the city was extremely popular because of these baths. So popular in fact, that the city simply became known as Bath. If you don't believe us, click on this picture to see it written in stone.

When the Romans headed back to Rome, the baths silted up and the city lost its appeal. In 1687, Queen Mary bathed here and within 10 months she gave birth to a son. She credited the conception to the healing powers of the waters and, as a result, the town became a popular spa resort for the rich and famous. Most of the buildings in the city, including the site of the Roman baths, were built according to the Georgian style that was popular in the 18th century. These pictures were taken inside the Roman baths:
The Pump Room is an elegant Georgian restaurant that was built above the Roman baths. We stopped and enjoyed a strawberry lemonade made from the water flowing out of the hot springs. The water flows out of the elegant fountain in the background of this picture.
Once put on ice, the drink was really tasty!
The city recently constructed the modern Thermae Bath Spa. Since we were staying in a city famous for its hot springs, we couldn't resist visiting.
There were four different steams rooms with different scents. Each one was so relaxing!
The spa's main heated bath is located on the roof and has commanding views of the city.
After feeling refreshed from the spa and getting a good night's sleep, we walked through the town and enjoyed its unique architecture the next morning.

This famous part of the city is called the Circus because it's a circular area surrounded by these large townhouses. Not surprisingly, the Latin word 'circus' means ring or circle.
Another famous part of the city is the Royal Crescent. This area is a semi-circle of townhouses overlooking the picturesque countryside. Due to its awkward shape, we had difficulty capturing it in a photo. We had to use a borrow and image from someone on the internet, which is why this is the only picture on our post that contains a blue sky.
A beautiful bridge.
Here's an example of the dreary weather. Our hotel was located on the other end of this beautiful park.Our hotel was appropriately named the Parade Park Hotel.
After touring the city, we took a bus to London, the Tube to King's Cross train station, a train to the Luton train station, a bus to the Luton airport, a plane to Edinburgh, and finally, a bus to the Edinburgh city center. We're exhausted just remembering all that traveling, so we need to take a break before we post our Edinburgh blog!

Windsor Castle & Stonehenge

2009-08-30T11:36:00.007+02:00

Our guidebook highly recommended visiting the city of Bath. We also really wanted to see Stonehenge, since it was on the way to Bath. However, reaching Stonehenge by public transportation proved to be nearly impossible, so we purchased a tour that would take us to Bath while stopping at Windsor Castle and Stonehenge. We don't usually take tours, but this seemed like the perfect opportunity. When the tour bus picked us up from our hotel, we were surprised to learn that we would stop at Stonehenge only on the return trip from Bath to London. Since we purchased the tour just so we could see Stonehenge on the way to Bath, we were not pleased. Especially since when we booked the tour, we were repeatedly assured that Stonehenge would be a stop on the way to Bath. After some convincing, one of the tour guides finally agreed to stop at Stonehenge prior to reaching Bath. We were relieved!

Since we booked the tour only because of Stonehenge, we really had no expectations for Windsor Castle. We were pleasantly surprised! The castle is one of the Queen's many vacation homes. It also happens to be the largest inhabited castle in the world, with over 480,000 square feet! Here are some pictures of us exploring the castle grounds:
Although the outside of the castle was spectacular, the inside was even more impressive. We were able to walk through the Royal Staterooms and each room was over-the-top luxurious. The rooms were probably the most finely decorated and exquisitely furnished that we had ever seen.
We then headed to Stonehenge. We were so excited to see it! We've seen many photos of and TV programs about this place, so it was surreal to actually be standing in front of it. It's hard to believe that Stonehenge is older than the Pyramids! The stones themselves are huge, but the entire arrangement is not as large as the pictures would make you think. Regardless, we were still thrilled to have been able to visit Stonehenge.

Lovely London Continued...

2009-08-29T18:25:00.001+02:00

Our itinerary for day two in London was very ambitious. There were still lots of sights to be seen. We started our morning at the Tower of London. Maria really liked this statue: This is where the old meets new. The Tower of London sits in the middle of many modern buildings. It's hard to believe that a 900 year-old building sits right across the street from buildings completed within the past 5 years! We did not tour the Tower, because entrance fees were $35 per person! With so many amazing free sights, we didn't think it would be worth the time or cost.

Fortunately, walking across the Tower Bridge is free!

Can you find me in this picture? Don't forget to click on it to make your search easier.

If you're having trouble finding me in the previous picture, I think I'm easier to spot in this one. We thought this would be a cool picture, so I made Maria run way ahead to capture it. Who am I kidding? I'm the one who had to backtrack! Anything for a great snapshot. As you can probably tell by now, we really enjoyed this bridge. However, we were surprised to learn that this is not THE London Bridge. You know, the one that is falling down. Here is the real London Bridge. Kind of makes you wonder why the song isn't about the Tower Bridge. Here is my favorite graduate with an English degree standing in front of Shakespeare's Globe Theater. It took about 3 hours for Maria to stop talking in olde English after seeing the Globe. Just kidding, she doesn't know how to speak that way because Cliff's Notes are not written in olde English! Oh yes, I went there! Departing the Globe, we headed to Tate Modern. This is a modern art museum and is displayed in a converted warehouse. Admission to this museum was also free! Now I must admit, I'm not a huge fan of modern art. In this picture, you can really see how I'm struggling to understand the artist's inspiration. What are those things lying all over the floor? Is that symbolic poop or something? I'm certainly open to any suggestions. Don't get me wrong, this museum certainly displayed many great pieces, but a few of them just confused me. Overall, we were very glad to have visited and we thought that it was definitely the best modern art collection we'd ever viewed. Here are some of our favorite works, along with some of the more interesting ones. I've left out the really disturbing ones. Don't forget to click the picture to enlarge it!

After leaving Tate Modern, we crossed the Millennium Bridge over the River Thames and walked towards St. Paul's Cathedral.

The unique handrail-looking things on the side of the bridge were actually designed to deflect the wind over the heads of pedestrians. As you can see from this picture, it seems to be working, especially when you compare this picture to the one of Maria on the bridge in our previous blog post. We really wanted to visit both the British Library and the British Museum before leaving London, but both of these sights were closing early, so we decided to only walk by St. Paul's Cathedral. This was a wise decision, because the British Library was one of the most impressive sights that we visited in London. The building itself was nothing special. It was a giant red-brick building and looked like it could have been part of NC State's campus. However, what made the British Library special was its display of rare documents and books. I think it must be the most impressive collection in the entire world. Here is a listing of a few items that we saw:

Shakespeare's First Folio (first printed collection of his plays) (1623)
Composition drafts by Handel (Messiah), Beethoven (6th Symphony), Schubert, Bach, and Mozart.
Captain Robert Falcon Scott's diary from his tragic South Pole expedition (1911-1912)
Gutenberg's Bible (1455)
Original, hand-written version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1862)
1st edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1476)
The Magna Carta (1215)
1st printed edition of the New Testament in English, translation by William Tyndale (1526)
Leonardo da Vinci's notebook (1508 - 15219)
Florence Nightingale's letters describing the conditions during the Crimean War (1854)
Handwritten Beatle's lyrics to Help, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and a few others
Portions of the Codex Sinaiticus (earliest surviving copy of the complete New Testament) (4th century)
Vladimir Lenin's application for a British Museum reader's pass (1902)

Okay, Maria says that I've already listed enough, but I think you have the idea. The extent of the collection is truly amazing. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed, but Maria was able to sneakily snap a photo of the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

In the center of the British Library, there is a display of King George III's book collection, called the King's Library. It reminded us of our collection of old books at our home in Raleigh, but of course, ours is not nearly as impressive or as old!

From the British Library, we hurried over to the British Museum. Our favorite exhibit was the famous Rosetta Stone. This stone was instrumental in unlocking the secrets of ancient hieroglyphic writing. You might have heard of the Rosetta Stone because of the language program that has the same name. We are actually using it to learn German.

The museum is filled with many artifacts from ancient civilizations. What set this museum apart from others for us, was that it allowed photography. As you can see, we took full advantage of this opportunity. After snapping all those photos, we were hungry, but desert before dinner? Only on vacation.
As we were walking down the street, we stumbled upon this... (this is for Maria's mom)
Big Ben! This time at sunset. One of Maria's favorite movies is Notting Hill. Since the suburb of Notting Hill is located just outside of London, I was forced to visit in hopes that Maria would recognize a street or house or something from the movie. She did not. However, all was not lost since the area was really nice, even if the parts that we saw were not in the movie.
Proof that we actually visited Notting Hill and proof of how excited Maria was.
Speaking of movies set in London, we also visited the train platform that was made famous by the Harry Potter movies. It is located in the imressive King's Cross Station.
London was like no other city that we have visited during our time in Europe. It has a similar energy to New York City, but has more historical sights. After two busy days in London, we were ready to see some of the English country side.

Lovely London

2009-08-28T20:39:00.001+02:00

For our final extended trip of 2009, we decided to tour the United Kingdom and Ireland. I (Nate) had previously visited England, but this was Maria's first visit. I was really excited to travel in a part of Europe that was new for Maria, since she had already visited most of the countries that we had been to this summer.

The first stop on our English tour was London. We arrived at night and left our hotel first thing in the morning to see the city. Just when we thought we were out of Switzerland, we stumbled upon was a Swiss monument in the middle of London! The display shows all the symbols of the Swiss cantons and was donated as a goodwill gesture. Our canton's symbol is the black curl (Maria tells me it's a shepherd's staff) on the 2nd from bottom row on the left side. This was definitely not the first site that we were expecting to see!

After our Swiss experience, we headed to the National Gallery.

This was by far the best art museum that either of us had ever visited. There were tons of paintings that we recognized, including works by Monet, Van Gogh, Rubens, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Renoir, Caravaggio, and Botticelli. Just to name a few. The best part of this museum was its admission price... free! Click on the image here to see a sample of our favorites paintings.
We exited the National Gallery and stepped into Trafalgar Square. From here, we were able to catch our first glimpse of our first London icon, Big Ben.

As we walked towards Big Ben, we stopped at the Churchill and Cabinet War Rooms Museum. For those of you who don't know, I'm not flashing peace signs. It's Churchill's famous "V for Victory" sign. Maria thought I should clarify, just in case.

This museum really blew us away. It is located in a series of bunkers underneath an ordinary government building. These bunkers served as the underground headquarters of the British government during the Battle of Britain and throughout World War II. It took over a year to construct the bunkers, including the pouring of a 9-foot concrete slab above them, but somehow the Germans never learned of its existence.

When the War ended, most of the people working in the shelter cleaned off their desks, shut off the lights, and went home, never to return to the bunker. Consequently, many of the rooms still contain the same items that were used during the War. This was one of my favorite items in the bunker. It is a map that was used to track the progress of convoys travelling between the US and England. If you click on the picture, you can see the pin holes that represented convoys leaving the North Carolina coast, some that were probably made as Churchill studied this very map!

Also, the bunkers contain a museum dedicated to the fascinating life of Winston Churchill. Did you know that he escaped from a South African prison camp or that he won a Nobel Prize for literature or that he was not re-elected as Prime Minister even though World War II had not yet ended? Needless to say, after visiting this museum, we definitely have a greater respect for this man.

After emerging back above ground, we headed for some traditional London sites. Here are three classic sites in one picture: the Tube, Parliament, and a red telephone booth. Maria loves to talk on the phone! Big Ben! Apparently, Big Ben refers to the bell inside the tower, not the tower itself. It was a very windy day! God save the Queen! It's Buckingham Palace. I think the area of this gate is about the size of our Basel apartment! When dinner time rolled around, we were extremely hungry, because we ate an early lunch. We were so hungry, that we decided to eat at two restaurants! Our evening started with us splitting a kilo of freshly caught mussels and ended with us sampling sushi from a conveyor belt. Although the UK generally has a poor reputation when it comes to its culinary options, we found the food to be really enjoyable. I have a feeling that you'll be learning more about our other meals in the near future. After dinner, we enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the city. We found that London was the most lively of all the cities that we have visited during our European adventure. There was so much to do and see. Phew! This was just our first day in London. Rest up, because day two was even busier!

In the meantime...

2009-08-27T14:08:00.002+02:00

Believe it or not, Nate actually had to work some this summer. After my parents left, he went back to work and I had a chance to recuperate. I slept in for a couple of days and I think Nate wished he could do the same. It's always nice to come back to our own bed after being gone. For some reason, hotels in Europe don't believe in comfortable beds!
While Nate was working, my friend, Paige came back from L'abri and spent about a week with us (you can go to www.wherelifeishidden.com to read about her journey). A couple of days after she went back to the States, we left for our big adventure to England, Ireland, and Scotland! Nate and I have already picked out our favorite pictures (that's the tough part) so now I just have to blog about it... starting tomorrow. :)

Hiking Through Snow in the Summertime

2009-08-25T18:07:00.000+02:00

For the last part of my parents' visit, we planned a trip with lots of hiking in the Alps. We usually go to the Jungfrau region, because it is the closest to Basel and it is spectacular, but we thought we would go to a new region, St. Moritz. None of us had ever visited this region before, so it was nice to explore together. The hotel we stayed at included unlimited lift tickets and we definitely took advantage of them. The second we had our lift tickets in hand, we went up the nearest lift. The weather was a little ominous; it started to rain as we rode to the top, but once we stepped out of the lift, it stopped, and we saw a beautiful rainbow!

Me & Nate:

In the evening, the sky cleared, so we went for a walk around this lake and the reflection was gorgeous.

The next morning we rode a different lift to a higher peak. It was really fun to be up IN the mountains. In this picture, me, my parents, and even Jake are sitting on the highest rock around...
Much to our surprise, our trail was covered in snow! My dad and Jake led the way and we followed begrudgingly. I wasn't thrilled at the idea of hiking through the snow, but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun!
Around the first corner, we came upon even more snow and the trail was practically non-existent! We just kept hiking down because we knew we would eventually hit some trail... And fortunately, we did find the trail and a beautiful lake.

After we finished that trail, we went up another lift (we really took advantage of the unlimited pass!) and when we got to the top, it looked like a blizzard was going to start... so we decided to take the lift down instead of hiking.

The next morning, we rode on our last lift in St. Moritz. My parents & Jake: (I think my parents missed their Jack Russell, because they gave Jake a lot of love... and he loved it!) Look at the color of this lake... just like the Glacier Freeze flavor of Gatorade!

We started on our hike and the first part of the trail was covered in snow again!

We had beautiful views the whole hike.

Feeling on top of the world... or just on top of the rock!

After a great time in St. Moritz, we headed to Zermatt and we drove over some incredibly beautiful and incredibly scary passes... yes, that is a huge drop off on the right side of the road.

One of my dad's goals is to drive over all the passes in Switzerland. I think he is happy to check another off his list!

When we got to Zermatt, there was a bit of a traffic jam...

Nate had to pick Jake up because he (Jake, not Nate) was scared of all the goats!

When we woke up the next morning, the Matterhorn was completely visible! It was in the clouds the rest of the day, but at least I was able to take a shot of Nate with it in the morning. I think Jake needs doggie sunglasses!

As usual, we took a lift to the top of a peak (no on could pay me to hike this high!) and enjoyed the view before hiking down.

Me & my parents:

Nate & Jake: (Jake is thinking, hurry up and let me off my leash!)

Once again, my dad is leading the way in the snow.

We were quickly out of the snow and on the grassy trail. It was a great hike along the ridge.

My dad & Nate:

We took a little break and everyone, except me, thought it would be refreshing or thrilling to put their feet in an ice-cold stream. It didn't sound as appealing to me. Nate is getting ready...

Then Nate screamed, "Ahhh!" ... I think it was miserably cold, but he can say he did it!

My dad wanted to show that he was even tougher than that, so he jumped (with his full body) into a freezing lake! He's crazy for even wanting to do that!
It was nearing the end of our hike, so we just sat by the lake and enjoyed the view. While we were there, the Zermatt marathon was going on, so we watched all of the exhausted marathoners go by. I can't imagine running up a mountain for the first half of the race, plus it would be extra hard with the thin air! They must have been tired because a lot the "runners" that we saw were actually walking. Click on the picture to see them coming down the trail...

Our last morning in Zermatt, Nate and I were able to take a picture together with the Matterhorn!

We then headed back to Basel and we were all a little tired after traveling for 3 weeks straight, so we took a shortcut by traveling on a train with our car. It's like when you drive your car on a ferry, except we drove it onto a train. It was quite the experience; almost like a ride at Disney World. For most of the time we were in a pitch black tunnel (which was kind of scary) and it was so loud that we couldn't even talk to each other. Our windows were open and we were getting blown away, but my dad finally rolled up the windows toward the end and it wasn't so bad!

Before going back to the States, my parents came to Basel for a couple days. It was great to relax and show them around the city in which we now live. One afternoon, my dad and I played tennis on the Roger Federer Center court in Basel. This is the place where he played when growing up. It was so neat to play there, especially after he had just won his 15th Grand Slam!

It was great having you here, Mom and Dad, and it was sad to see you go. We love you and we're looking forward to being with you again at Christmas!

Visit to My Dad's Homeland, The Czech Republic

2009-08-23T20:39:00.000+02:00

The day after we returned from Monaco, we headed to my dad's original home, the city of Prauge in the Czech Republic. Google map directions estimated that it would take 6 hours to drive to Prague, but it took over 10 with traffic! That was a long time to be in a car, especially if you hadn't been in one since Christmas! When we finally arrived, it was late, so we went straight to bed. The next morning, we went out to see some of the city, but right after we took this picture, it started pouring rain!

Me and my parents with the palace & cathedral in the background...

Due to the rainy weather, our morning sightseeing plans were ruined, but in the afternoon, we went to the airport to pick up a church group from Virginia. My dad was leading this group on a mission trip to Sokolov (about two hours west of Prague) and Nate, my mom, & I came along to be a part of the team. On our way to Sokolov, we made a stop in a famous town called Karlovy Vary. It is known for it's natural hot springs. Two somewhat recent movies were actually filmed here: Last Holiday and Casino Royale. Both really good movies!

Nate and I in front of a hot spring that was shooting up super high!

More natural hot springs that you could drink from... this one, at 72 degrees Celcius, was piping hot!

Nate, walking through the front of the building which served as the casino in Casino Royale.

The colorful square in front of the "casino."

The next day, we went to the church that we worked with during our time in Sokolov. The people were so wonderful and kind. It was a joy to work with them. This is a picture of the mission team and some of the church members.

During the week, we visited classes in the Sokolov area schools to share about American culture and to give the students an opportunity to practice their English. We also invited the students to come to our sports clinics in the afternoon and to English conversation time in the evening.

Nate & I in the classroom.

Growing up, I joined my dad's mission teams a few times, but this was Nate's first time speaking in front of students from another country. He did an excellent job. The students were really engaged when he spoke. They especially liked to hear about American sports and Nate was the perfect person for that!

When we left, some of the students were still waving to us from the window. We were the first American visitors to ever visit their school, so I think the kids thought it was really neat that we came.

Their classrooms look down at this pretty square, which was also in the film, Casino Royale.

The town, Loket, also had a beautiful castle... so of course we had to stop for a quick photo!

It was so picturesque... right next to the river.

In the afternoons, we had a blast playing all kinds of sports with the students... flag football (Nate's area), baseball, lacrosse, and of course, tennis! I was sad that I didn't get to see Nate in action because I was on the tennis court, but I had someone snap a couple pictures for me.

Flag football was a hit!

Tennis was quite popular too! I had a great time teaching and goofing around with them... they would laugh at me whenever I would try to speak Czech!
In the evenings, we had some great time of discussion with the Czech students. Some of their English was phenomenal! We were able to talk with them about their lives and share our faith with them. Most were very receptive and open, which was great. Over the days that we were there, we were able to make some good connections and now we can even keep in touch through Facebook!

After almost a week in Sokolov, it was time to head back to Prague. Here is a picture of Prague from the top of the castle hill.

We walked through beautiful gardens and parks. I'm not sure why my mom is waving. Maybe Nate was videotaping behind me...?

We visited Prague's biggest cathedral, St. Vitus. Construction on this cathedral began in 1344, but the very top of the church was only finished in 1929!
The inside is one of my favorites of all the cathedrals that we have visited across Europe.
The stained-glass windows were beautiful. Click on this picture to see the detailing.
Nate liked this door:

Nate on the Charles Bridge. Supposedly it's good luck to rub this guy, John of Nepomuk... look how the coloring is different from where everyone has rubbed him!

Old Town Square. One day, I would like to take a horse ride... any takers?

Cathedral in Old Town Square.

For dinner, we met my dad's side of the family who lives there. Here I'm with my cousin, Esther, and her two little blonde cuties, Isabella & Beatrice.
Group picture in front of the Old Town Square Clock.

Click on this picture and look at all the people looking up at taking pictures of the clock... crazy!!

They are taking a picture of the 12 disciples moving by the window.

Charles Bridge in the evening.

My mom and Nate on Charles Bridge at night... in the rain.

On our last day in Prague, we took it easy and went to a musical at the Opera house. It didn't really keep my interest and the seats were unbelievably comfortable, so I had the BEST nap. It was hilarious because I honestly had no idea I fell asleep. Here I am all refreshed after my nap! It was so neat to be in the Opera house where Mozart once sat.
The Opera House, all lit up at night.
Last night in the square after an amazing Czech dinner!

The Palace, Cathedral, and The Charles Bridge at night... simply beautiful.