PARIS!! 7/18/11

Blogged by: Kenzie

We we have just been LOVING the apartment experience with Courtney and her sister&husband. Great to have a sense of home. Ate egg and cheese breakfast burritos when we woke and headed out to get our train ticket reservations from Amsterdam to Paris. Just run in and reserve a seat on the nonstop to Paris- easy enough, right? Thats what we thought,
too!! Well, we had a wait to get to talk to someone and when our number was called we were helped by a zero-nonsense woman who informed us ALL tickets to Paris were booked long ago... Whoops. Soooooo our dreams of "non stop" quickly turned into 5-stop- but anything to get to PARIS!!! Ahhh the land of the Eiffel tower and croissants!!

Courtney ken and I ran around Amsterdam for a while and keni bought a dress at Zara. Can I just take a moment to express my love for Zara?? This is a world class store right here. Somehow we have gone into a Zara in every single European city we've been to. You'ld think we would would know what they have by now, right? Well yes, actually, we do. But that doesn't stop us from going back!!!

A note on european shopping: we have been told that there are sales here twice a year, and we have been lucky (or unlucky?) enough to hit the summer summer sale perfectly!! I mean I've never seen such- 50&70% off everywhere I look. There is a specific skirt I've had my eye on for a while (at Zara of course) and I've seen it drop to €14 since we entered our first Zara in Barcelona. I'll probably cave in Paris and snatch it up :)


We said goodbye to Amsterdam, Courtney, and her sister and headed to the train station for our marathon push to PARIS NORD!

It was so fun to be with friends these past couple days. Keni and I keep talking about how much we have learned to appreciate Christian fellowship since the beginning of this trip. In Dallas its so easy to forget how blessed we are with people around us who spur us on and keep our focus on Christ. We miss that when we're traveling, and it was great to be with friends who encouraged us.

To Paris we go!! Hopefully we are leaving some of this rain behind us. In amsterdam we have been putting our umbrellas to some good use.

Keni knocked out over 200 pages of The Help on the train. I, the slow reader over here, read about 50 pages of The Street Lawyer, the new book I bought at the second hand bookstore in Amsterdam. There's not a huge selection of second hand English books in a Dutch speaking country but its pretty good so far!!





- our little wall of baggage we make on every train ride. We basically take up 4 seats wherever we go... Oopsies, what's a backpacker to do???

Well we got to MC's last night around 10:30 and got the tour of her Paris flat (I love using that word- flat). She is living with a Houston family who has been living in Paris for work. However, the family is on vacation in the states right now so us 3 have the flat to ourselves!! I had a whole room to myself to sleep in and I didn't know what to do!

SOOOO great to see MC. the last time I saw her I was sobbing in college station about to leave college station for good. So crazy that I'm now with her in PARIS!! she is studying at le cordon bleu cooking school for a year- what an adventure!!


This is the view from the Balcony of the flat!! Incredible!!

Xoxo Kenz & keni


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Day 27: Amsterdam in 24 hours

Blogged by Keni
07/17/2011

Court, Kenz & I took on Amsterdam in 24 hours today...

Our first stop we power walked through Red light District which lasted about a total of 5 minutes before we decided to head off to better things...

We walked through the main square where we witnessed some beach soccer and Kenz bought her stylish Longchomp bag.

We then grabbed salads at super market and enjoyed a picnic lunch in the main park.

We discovered the infamous "I Amsterdam" sign and attempted to fight off the numerous tourist in order to snap a shot...





Although we didn't make it into this famous museum in the 1,000 things to do before you die book we did get a picture in front of it!





The best event all day was enjoying the ultimate Heineken experience. We found out the origin of the family business and all the natural ingredient they use and the history. But the best part was our 4D experience where we got brewed. It took Court right back to Disney World...

















After a successful day of taking on Amsterdam and avoiding the rain we headed back to Natalie cute apartment on the canal and relaxed!!





She made delicious lemon chicken pasta and we chatted, played some spades, ate best gelato I've had in at least a week, and watched Americas sad World Cup defeat...all in all a wonderful day! Kenz and I were very surprised by how much we fell in love with this city even in the rain.

Location:Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Amsterdam

Blogged by:Kenzie

Well today we headed to Amsterdam. Really too bad that were going to miss the st gore hunters compete to find the new st gore king(at least thats we think is going on today) but we had a 10:30 train to catch! Our friend Courtney Jasperson's sister and her husband live in Amsterdam for his job, and Courtney is there visiting them, so we're going to stay with them too! From there we will go to Paris and stay with Mary Cameron, so this was our last night in a hostel.

Apparently our train ride was the place to be for bachelor/bachelorette parties. We saw three bachelor parties today and a bachelorette party. We had a bachelor wearing a ballet costume sell us candy. He and his party were wearing lays and told us that apparently that's a tradition in Europe?

On the train ride we watched national lampoons European vacation on kenis phone- quite funny, especially when you're in Europe.

Courtney, Natalie, and John were waiting for us at the train station Starbucks. I mean does it get more homey than a welcome crew AND Starbucks?? They walked us through town to their apartment where we will be staying. So cute!! They live in the top floor of a building that once was a single house. The family who once lived here ran their spice and slave trading out of this top floor. But now there are no spices or slaves and it's just a cute apartment that we are SO Thankful to be staying in. Seriously- their hospitality is blowing keni and I away.

Natalie made us all queso and margs when we arrived, and then started cooking a roast. I mean can you say taste of Texas?? It was raining all night so we hung out at the apartment thankful we were not wet:)

Natalie and John live on a canal, and there's boats right outside their door.

This is so random, but I really appreciated being able to keep my toothbrush next to the sink overnight instead of packing it back in my bag while I slept. Ahh it's all about the little things :)



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Day twenty something I lost count

Blogged by Keni
07/15/2011

Well today is a fantastic day! We decided to take the Rhine River Cruise down the river and see the beautiful views and castles. All the way from St Goar to Rüdesheim. I woke up to go shower in the little shower. We pondered sadly on the fact that this was our last hostel shower probably ever. But quickly we got over it considering I was standing in a pool of water that wasnot draining and water pressure that barely dripped from the shower-head. We had an amazing breakfast included (frei is the one word I have learned in German). We then walked on down to the super market to pick up a piece of fruit and a coke and headed down to the dock! To our relief we asked our lady if there was a student discount and just like that we cut our boat price in half to 10 euros to cruise 3 hrs down to Rüdesheim get off and explore for 3 hours and then a 3 hour trip back. Not a bad deal, especially when we got on to discover an amazing terrace, full restraunt and bar, and the speakers relaxing us with some Norah Jones and John Mayer tunes. Once we got our great seats we both looked at each other and said this is going to be a great day. The first thing we went by was the famous Loreley Rock and we think the German and English translations are a little messed up cuz after the speaker told us what we were going by, they said they would now play the famous Loreley song and John Mayer came on. Nonetheless, we don't hate it. Life is good on the Rhine River.






We continued down the river for 3 hours soaking up some sunshine and enjoying the ride. We finally got to our destination of Rüdesheim which is such a cute town. It famously ha a monument built on top if it that was put there when the French and Germans finally quite fighting. Also right next to it has large amounts of vineyards where they make this very tasty red wine. When we found our "I" in town we asked if we could do a tour of the vineyard but she exclaimed that they were too busy making wine to take people on tours and let them wine taste. So instead we found this little alleyway that apparently is famous and has all these shops and amazing wine gardens with live saxophone, piano, and accordion music. We picked one of them and enjoyed some German food and music.


After lunch we shopped thru the towns and then went to a local wine shop where we tasted the wines produced in the area and bought our favorite. We got back on our boat and cruised back to our little St Goar.



My stomach has been acting up (most likely from the French fries and liters of beer in Munich) so I have been in recoup mode and attempted to tell the Asian lady at Asia Kim that I just wanted some steamed rice cuz eating something bland like that is usually good, but she spoke no english and it was a bit of a struggle when she brought out a fried dish. Dinner was a bit of a struggle, but the rest of the night was one of the better events I have ever witnesses. as we turn the corner (keep in mind this is a town that has one small road with about 10 restaurants, a small supermarket, 2 drug stores, a Wustoff knife store, and a Birkenstock store) we see a huge band dressed in maroon followed by about 40 men dressed in these Forrest green suite and funky fedoras with feathers. Not sure what the heck is goig kn we joint he parade and follow them to he en of the street where they have a stage and band set up with a couple tents sellinng BBQ and beer. The whole town has joined in for a celebration! Obviously Kenz and I have no idea what's going on and no one seems to speak English so of coarse we join them. Words would be spoken and we'd all yell stuff which I still don't know what and cheers with beer and sing. We listened to live music and awards were given. Finally Kenz turned around to ask this little old lady what we were celebrating and is all we got is target sport shooting king. Hmmm...but we did come to find out her and her friends were camping in town (impressive when you see 65 year old women camping with their husbands). Still not sure what is happening, everyone gets up and assembles a circle and begins breaking out it dance. We were determined to get a picture with one of these old men in green before we left so we followed one with a semetric mustache and asked if we could take a picture with him. He grabbed Kenz and I took a poc, but then he exclaimed another one and grabbed me. Whw went ahead and asked him what was goin on because he seemed to speak English better. He tolbus every year in St Goar they have a big festival where all the men dress in their sporting suits and go try to kill the king with bow and arrow. Well apparently the king is some stuffed something but whoever kills the king with bow is king for the next year and gets a metal on their jacket and patch sewed on I mean some of these men had like 50 metals. It's insane. Our little man said he women in 1977 an 1990! When we told him we were from Texas he goes, "TEXAS...that's where all the big, strong men" and we exclaimed you are absolutely right! So Texas men, know that the German men are quite intimidated of y'all and your strength! After the old man apologized for his broken an English and says it would be better if he hadn't just drunken two bottle of wine, we decide to go ahead and move along.






Enjoying random festivals in Munich!!

Location:Rhine River, Germany

St. Gore

Blogged by: Kenzie

Bye Munich!! You were the biggest surprise to me on this trip.

Honestly- didn't Think I would like Munich and it's now on my "return to" list. Didn't get to see the residenze- maybe next time :)

At the train station we were standing on the platform to get on the train- the name was on the platform board and everything! Suddenly the train name disappeared and our departure time came and went, and we were still just standing there waiting! Our train didn't come, so we hopped on another train going to the same place thinking we had solved all our problems. Not so!! We had hopped on some sort of tram system that made stops every 2 minutes and took an hour longer than our original train. Well, we misses our connection train. Thankfully, I'm traveling with a train station expert who took one look at the train time table and somehow rerouted us straight on to St. Gore. How she did it I'm still not sure, but we arrived in St. Gore without any more problems!

Next obstacle: we didn't have the address of our hostel. No worries there!! If Keni and I have learned one thing on this trip it's how to spot the information "i" in any town from a mile away. We just scooted on over to the information desk and got directions to the hostel.

LOVING St. Gore!! Have you ever been to Kubys in Snider Plaza? Well were basically in a town version of it. All the buildings have wooden planks over white stucco. And the castles!!! We can literally see 3 castles from the porch of our hostel.

This area is famous for making Riesling wine, and the woman who works at the hostel told us about a little vineyard about 15 min from our hostel. She told us that the restaurant at the winery would make us say "Ahhhh now THIS is holiday!!" Well of course we had to go!! We headed down the road to the winery and tried the Riesling. Very tasty indeed and we couldn't help but say "AHHH NOW THIS IS HOLIDAY!!!"

We ate dinner at a pizzeria because our stomaches were telling us they needed a break from the heavy German food. We can only eat braughtwurst so many meals in a row:)

Love Germany, Love St. Gore!



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Day 23

Blogged by Keni
07/13/2011

Well today was a little bit different then yesterday. We woke up and got breakfast and waited for our tour of Dachau to begin. As we were waiting, Kenz realized she left her cliff bars in the room. Well as she went up the group left so I went running after her. When we returned, the group was no where to be found. We sprinted to the train sation where we barely made the train with our group. We both loved the tour. It was definitely more emotionally then we thought but were very glad we did it and learned a lot for the guided tour.



When we returned from Dachau we decided we needed a booster for our spirits. So we went shopping. After we were going to go see the residence museum especially because it was frei. Well when we got there apparently we had missed the small font in our book that said they stopped letting people in an hour before they closed. After asking the guard lady if we could just peak our head in, we were rejected saying there are 90 rooms and simply not enough time to them. After coping with the rejection we headed on down to the University area because we were told it was the place to be. When we passed the university we discovered there was sand placed in the middle of the courtyard with umbrellas and lounge chairs as they served snacks and beer. As an Aggie alum, I am going to recommend they apply this German tactic to our campus because LMU (the famous university we went by in munich) produces some of the most brilliant people in Arts and several other fields. So clearly what they got going on works. We then came upon a little Italian Restaurant. We pick our restaurants by recommendations or wherever the most people are. Clearly if it's popular it most be good is our thought process. So we sat down and a elite German woman told us to get the black truffle pasta because our pick of the cheap pizza we apparently not the right choice. So we did just that and ate fresh warm bread.

We then picked one of our Let's Go Europe bar recommendations in the area and headed to go watch Our American women defeat the French. We went to a really great pub like place and to our relief they had the game on a big screen. We ordered some local German appetizers (since clearly splitting a pasta dish does not satisfy our Europe appetite) and drank some Liters of beer (they don't do 12 oz beers over here) and headed back to Wombats.

Location:Munich, Germany

Day 22: Munich, Germany

Blogged by: Kenzie

Today we said goodbye to the country and headed to the city- Munich, Germany!

We hopped on a train to Munich and talked to a couple from Yorkshire, England all the way to Salzburg. We asked about the royal wedding of course, and we
All gawked over Kate middleton. They told me not to worry- I still
Have a chance with Harry.


A note about Zell am See is that about 90% of the tourists there are Arab. Keni and I have been trying to figure out why everyone from the Middle East all decided to come to this one town for holiday. Well, our Yorkshire friends told us that in the Koran it talks about a town with mountains with snow and a lake and so that's why all the Arab people come to Zell am See. Who woulda guessed!!

Everyone thinks keni and I are dutch- we don't know why! On the train a girl came up to us smiling and talking in Dutch- she asked us if we spoke dutch and we said no and then she just kept smiling and started waving at us- very strange situation that we have no explanation for.

Loving Wombats hostel in Munich! Quite the high tech place with fancy shmancy lockers that lock when u press ur key on them- we b livin highhhh classsssss

We threw our stuff down and headed out to see the city and find the meeting spot for Mikes Bike Tour. Have to pat ourselves on the back for deciding to do the tour because in 4 hours a city that was overwhelming and confusing became one we can't wait to explore. I actually like this city wayyyy more than I was expecting! It's walkable and is chalk full of history- the bike tour gave us a bit of an overview on the history which helped because neither of us really had known who exactly Ludwig was or why he has a Castle. On our tour we road through the residenz, the royal gardens (where musicians have to pay €200 and sit in front of judges panel to be allowed to play), marienplaz, the isar river, the yellow brick road, the English garden, and Max Joseph plaza. If we have time I'm dying to take a tour of the Residenz, the palace!






The bike tour stopped for dinner at a beer garden and keni and I were so German in our dinner choice- we shared a huge pretzel, a white brautwirst, potatoes and chicken. probably will be my last brautwirst here, but hey I did it!!

After the tour we went to the most famous beer hall in Munich- the hauffbrau house. It used to be only for Royals, but now us commoners are allowed in. We shared a table with some men from Marseilles (we held our tongues about our Marseilles experience) and ordered our beer. To my surprise they only sell their beer in liters!! I got laughed at when I tried to order less. Our waiter was quite the character- I insulted him though when he told me I look like a German woman. I asked him if that was a compliment or an insult and looked at me shocked and said "a compliment!! Are you INSULTED to look like the women of my country??!" woops.. Then he told us he wanted to leave work and come hang out so he made me get up from the table and kick him in the shin so he could be injured... I didn't quite know how to handle that situation.





The english garden is this awesome park that's 300 acres bigger than central park where all the Munich university students hang out- Keni and I want to go try and fit in there tomorrow.

This is the first place in Europe where I have seen joggers! Everyone rides their bikes around and walks their dogs. I'm telling you- all anyone told me about this city is "beer beer beer," and while I have seen quite a lot of beer there's seriously so much more here!!

Inside the old royal residence there is a courtyard that gives incredible acoustics. Tonight there was a Cuban band playing, and keni and I walked over after the hauffbrau House to see if we could hear the music from the outside. The concert was just getting out, but we did watch the German people walk out all dressed up and we could walk into the hall to just sit and look around.



Great day in Munich!!

Miss you all,
Kenz&keni