Germany

After we saw a lot of what Paris had to offer it was time to rent our car and begin our road trip across Europe.  Our first stop was a small medieval town called Rothenburg. 

It was cute, quaint, and had great food. 

One of my favorite meals of the trip: sausage and homemade noodles.

This is "Dirk" (or so we named him).  He was a fantastic waiter with superman strength. 

Tom's favorite German meal--Sausage!
After Rothenburg we checked out Dachau Concentration Camp.  It was incredibly sobering.  

This is the fence that goes into the camp and it says, "Work will set you free." 

This is the crematorium at Dachau. It's so sad to think about how much tragedy occurred there.

Next was Munich.  We loved Munich and explored it through "Mike's Bike Tour." 

Carly and me on the tour.

This is surfing in a stream at the English Garden in Munich. 

This is Germany in a nutshell: beer and pretzels.  The beer was cheaper than water.  No joke.

The beer was served in liter mugs.  Don't worry. I only had one of these bad boys over the 5 hour stint we hung out at the Augestiner Beer Garden (famous and has 5,000 seats).   We hung out there while watching the World Cup Championship game.

Tom and I at the Hofbrauhaus, a famous Munich beer hall. 

Germany was beautiful and the people were quality.  We both agree that Germany was our favorite country and we'd love to go back sometime in the future.  Next stop...Austria.

Paris

After leaving Prague we took a one way flight to Paris.  To catch our 6AM flight we had to get up at 3AM in order to make it to the airport on time.  Our flight landed at 7:30AM and we got to our hotel around 9AM.  We dropped our bags and immediately hit the streets to take in everything we possible could.  Here is what we saw:

 Notre Dame Cathedral

 Bonnie and I behind Notre Dame.

I can't remember what this building is but it is at the Luxembourg Gardens.

More of the gardens.  Check out Bonnie and MK in the shadows there to get an idea of how much of a pain in the butt that tree trimming job must be.

Arc de Triumph

The girls at the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower at night while sipping on some champagne was a lovely end to our first day in Paris.

Me at the Louvre.

The Louvre, which by the way is ridiculously huge.  You could probably spend a whole day there and not even begin to scratch the surface.

The Wedding Feast at Cana. This painting was set opposite the Mona Lisa and it was huge.  It has sentimental value to Bonnie and I because we put together a puzzle of it while in Korea last year.  The Mona Lisa was actually pretty small and somewhat unimpressive (gasp) in my opinion.  Bonnie really liked it though.

In order to give you a frame of reference for how little I know about art... I know about this statue (the Venus de Milo) because I saw an episode of the Simpson's where Homer eats a gummi Venus. 

The baguette hot dog with cheese was a great post Louvre snack.

Bonnie holding the Eiffel Tower on top of the Sacre Coeur Basilica.  It provided a great view of Paris for a pretty reasonable price.

Our last night in Paris we took a riverboat cruise along the Seine.  It provided some great views of a beautiful city at Bonnie's favorite time of day... dusk.

The next morning we got up rented our car and began our quest for our next destination... Germany.

More on the Church of Bones

We mentioned earlier that we went to see the Church of Bones near Prague.  We have had so many people ask us about this place, so I thought I'd post this video.  After the first 20 seconds Carly and MK explain more about the church.  Note: Carly is not usually British.

 

Warsaw and Prague

On our flight over we had a 4 hour layover in Warsaw Poland because we flew Polish LOT airlines. Bonnie and I have had a long layover in Japan before so we urged our group to leave the airport for a bit and go check out Warsaw. In the end we had about 45 minutes to walk around downtown before we had to head back.

I don't know what anything is otherwise I would caption the pictures. After that brief stop we continued on to Prague. We actually got to blog about Prague while we were there in two previous posts: day 1 and 2, church of bones. Here are some other pictures from our time in Prague:

Our plane to Prague was kind of small.

Bonnie on the Charles Bridge

Changing of the guard at Prague Castle

I thought this was a really cool wood carving in the church at the Prague Castle.

This was a little patch of grape vines at Vysehrad over looking Prague.

This is a Magnum Gold ice cream bar. Maybe the best ice cream bar ever.

This is the view from our hostel window. This street got crazy at night. It would not get quiet until about 5AM. No joke.

The day we went to the Church of Bones this was one of our train stops. I just thought it was a cool picture.

Note to self. European "grilled cheese" is not American grilled cheese.

On our date night Bonnie and I went to the top of the Astronomical clock tower.

The Prague Castle at night was a quite enchanting spectacle.

Next stop Paris.

Europe 2010--The Team

A huge reason our Europe trip was so great was because of the people on the trip.  Here's a picture of Tom and I at the airport getting ready to meet up with our friends.

After leaving Kansas City we met our trip-mates the Osborne's--Adam and Mary Kate, and the Roaches--Matt (aka Tony) and Carly.   Adam and MK are on the right, Carly is in the middle, and Matt is on the left.  In the background of this picture is the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany (think Magic Kingdom). 
But there were other people on this journey with us to, so to speak. 

In addition to the 6 of us one of our most faithful companions was Rick.  (Hey Rickkkk was said on many occasions).   Rick Steves' wrote a great travel guide and he never failed to provide good tips on what to do and where to eat.

Another faithful companion was our GPS, nicknamed Robert.  We would not have made it through Europe in a car without him.

While we were in Florence, Italy, Marcello was a huge help!  He was a friend of a friend's of Mary Kate's and we got to stay at his house.  He was a super nice guy and 100% Italian; he even said his favorite food was spaghetti!  He bought us some American treats while we were there--Pringles, potato chips, apple juice, and he tried to get us peanut butter but the store didn't have any.  Kind of funny that those are the things he thought of when he thought "American."  I really can't say enough about how awesome he was and how much he loved on us while in Florence.  Here is Marcello with the boys:

Other group members (unbeknown to them) include Ashely Ward who gave us stellar advice for Prague.  Sally Lacy, Mary Kate's sister, gave us great tips in Paris.  And Carly's Aunt Sheryl proved to be an all around European guru. 

Many thanks to Rick, Robert, Marcello, Ashley, Sally and Aunt Sheryl. We couldn't have made it through Europe without you. 

the summer inventory

Tom's conversation with himself:
Tom: "Bonnie, how many razors do we have in Korea?"
Tom: "Well, you have four razors in Korea."
Tom: "Bonnie, how much oatmeal do we have in Korea?"
Tom: "We have one box."
Tom: "Bonnie, do we have enough cajun spice in Korea?"
Tom: "Yes, it looks like we have enough."

Then Tom giggles to himself.

Tom had this conversation to himself in front of me to prove the usefulness of his "summer inventory."
Yes, folks, Tom created an inventory of everything we have in Korea before we left our apartment in May.  Everything from kitchen/cooking goods to our toiletries was categorized and numbered.   Now besides the fact that Tom loves excel spreadsheets and is a tad anal at times, he did this because when we're in America we love buying things to take back to Korea and in the past we've had a horrible problem of not remembering what we have in Korea (for example, I think have 4 sticks of deodorant because I just keep thinking I need them).  My husband is wonderful.  And the summer inventory has been beneficial because it's provided me with some laughs but practically it really will help us shop before our trip.  

Back/Recap

We made it back to Kansas City yesterday.  I think our blog plan over the next several weeks will be to post pictures and recap our trip.  We will start in Chicago.  We visited my sister Jill and her husband Eli.  This was the first time that we had seen their new house.  While there Jill took us to a local Korea grocery store.  It was pretty fun to see so many familiar Korea products in America.

The next day we took in a Cubs game.

Jill and Eli.  The hat Eli is wearing came like this:

After the Cubs game we went to the Taste of Chicago.  If you have never been you must go sometime.  It is a truly amazing and belly stuffing event.

The next day we ran a couple pre-trip errands and then hopped on our plan at 9 PM to head to Prague.