Paris

This is the tomb of the unknown soldier. There was an eternal flame burning since 1921 until a drunken tourist peed on it last year and put it out during the world cup. They should hang him. As you can see, it has been relit.
This is the Louve. This was the former home of King Louis XIII and Napolean Bonaparte.

The Arch de Tumph houses. It was erected by Napolean to celebrate his victories. It houses the unknown soldier tomb.
A view of the Seine River. The Eiffel Tower is in the background to the left.

While in France, do as the french do. We tried the escargot. I let Chance do most of the eating here.

This was our most expensive meal of the trip. The place was beautiful and the food was very good.


This is Notre Dame - where quasimoto lives (in the tower on the left for those of you who were wondering).

OK, last blog from our trip! Paris was beautiful. One problem, though - it was cold and rainy. We did a walking tour of the city. We have found that this is our favorite way to see the city, they are so informative. We went to the Louve, which is such an overwhelming museum. We got to see the Mona Lisa, Napolean's apartment (talk about gaudy) and many other famous statues. We also went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, saw Notre Dame, and the tomb of the unknown soldier at the Arch de Trumph. This place is quite expensive, but we decided to just enjoy ourselves since it was our last stop. The food here is good, but not necessarily better than anywhere else.

We are now safely back in America. God Bless the USA and free toilets! This trip was so fun for us and such a learning experience. We loved hearing your comments. We really looked forward to reading them. We chose to go to Europe when the dollar was at a record low, which means we picked the most expensive time to do foreign travel. But, we don't regret it for one single second! We love you.

Chance & Melissa

PS: This has been so much fun for us that we have decided to continue. We will keep a blog from Savannah. We will update you with the information. If anyone has a blog (besides Jordon & Katie) send us the address.

We're Coming Home!

We will update you with the pictures from Paris when we get home. We have now arrived back in Dublin and will be flying home tomorrow. We don't have access to wifi to get our pictures uploaded. Just wanted to give you a quick update so you would know what was going on.

Munich - Octoberfest - CRAZY

Look how they pile people in these tents

These are some of the people we met here.

This is what people looked like after they spent all day at "the celebration." Look at the attire. People get dressed up in these expensive outfits. It's pretty incredible.

This is part of the parade.
Notice all the liters of beer this barmaid is carrying.

Well, we survived Octoberfest! The city goes from a population of 1.5 million to 7 million people for the biggest beer bash in the world. On opening day there were 14 tents set up, each holding 10,000 people. People get there at 8:00 in the morning just to get a seat. The streets are packed and there is a big parade. The mayor taps the keg and has the first beer at noon, and then all tents start serving the beer. 100 barmaids come busting out of their corners, each carrying about 10 1liter glasses of beer. They are blowing their whistles and police directing traffic. After about 2 hours everyone has gotten served. There is a band in the middle of each tent and the families that own the brewery encourage more and more drinking. It is the craziest thing we have ever seen. Aside from this, we actually met some very interesting people. It was great to hear how different the world is from just what we know. We also did a walking tour of the city and retraced Hitler's steps through Munich. The history is just as fascinating as it was in Berlin.
Today we fly out to Paris, and we'll keep you updated on our Progress - internet sure can be hard to find, and when the screen is all in German, it makes it that much harder.

Madrid

This is the suite we were upgraded to

This is the statue garden the queen had created. The statues were supposed to go on the roof, but she dreamed the roof would cave in under their weight - thus the garden

This is where the crazy soccer fans carried on. There were policemen with rifles standing on the street corners, so no one got too out of hand.

The Royal Palace

OK, we are getting a little behind with our blogs here. Madrid was fast and furious. We did not allow ourselves much time here. The first thing we noticed here was how clean it was. Everything from the trains to the streets. Our hotel was in a prime location, and they messed up the booking so we were upgraded to a suite. We had free wifi, free breakfast and the coolest room. Also, the food here was to die for. We went and visited an art museum with Rembrandt and Rafael paintings- pretty interesting. On the corner outside our hotel, there was a whole slew of college-aged guys there for the world cup (or something soccer related). You have never seen such carrying on in all your life. We sure loved it here. Love you guys.

Barcelona

Barcelona is the only place that I've ever read anything useful on the bathroom wall "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

This is the columbus monument. They say his arm is pointing towards the new world, but if it is, he sailed the LONG way to America

This is part of the Olympic Park.

Does it look like we're at Disney Land?

Can anyone see why Chance wanted to spend so much time on the beach?

This place is awesome. We have decided that we could live here pretty easily. The food has been to die for! And, it has been so cheap. Everyone said this was the most expensive place to eat - not true. We have eaten like royalty here, for less than just about everywhere else. This city has gorgeous architecture. There is also a daily market with just about anything you could ever imagine and it's all FRESH! We stayed at a bed and breakfast without the breakfast :). We rode an open topped tour bus around because this city is very large (over 3 million people). They have meals called Tapas here (nice way to say small portion), but that way you got to try more things. The biggest stadium in the world is here, and guess which sport it's for - Soccer! It holds 100,000 people, so keep on playing Brek & Briston. We saw where the Olympic games were held - pretty amazing city over all, what a nice change from Nice (ha ha).

Nice

Look, Chance has a sail too!

One thing that goes on over here is that you order a fish, and you get the fish - the whole darn thing (head included) This is a sardine, though.

Can you see the butterflies in our stomachs?

This is how we entertained ourselves.

Next stop, NICE, France. It's pronounced niece, and is supposed to be known for its beautiful beaches. As soon as we got into town, we went straight for it. They are beautiful, but they are of little pebbles, and even when you lay on a beach mat you can feel those little stones digging in your back. If any of you decide to come to Europe, we would recommend skipping Nice. We had a good time, but it is very expensive, from the food to the hotels. However, we did find something that was reasonably priced - the parasailing. Neither one of us had ever done this, and this was the last day of the season, so we jumped all over it. We're glad we did, too - it is our best memory of the place. It was very peaceful (if you can so imagine). Smart of us we only spent one night here.
We love hearing your comments - ya'll are pretty entertaining yourselves. We love you.

Cinque Terre, Italy

Look how crystal clear the water is. It was absolutely beautiful. We've never seen anything like it.

This was where we were our first night (see why we couldn't get internet)

This was along one of the hiking trails through the fishing villages.

We got to eat some grapes from the vineyard along the way - I don't know what would have happened if we got caught!

Chance likes it when I'm on top.

This is the hike down to the "nude beach." For the record, the sign said Free Beach, not Nude Beach. Apparently there is no difference.

Cinque Terre....... Ahhhh paradise in Italy. We spent three nights here and loved every second of it. The first night we found out our hostel was actually way up in a little village in the mountains. Nice secluded spot, but not part of the five fishing villages. We moved down to the first village for next two nights. Our first full day here was spent hiking the six mile trek from the first to the last village. We actually went further because we had to make the hour detour almost straight up and down a cliff to visit the nude beach. Melissa insisted. Payed off for her too. Nothing but naked men!! A least now she appreiciates what she has. :) Hiking through the vineyards and cliffs along the sea was a great change of pace for us. The next day was let our legs rest while kayaking, snorkeling in crystal clear water, and lying on the beach. It was hard for us to leave this place.