They weren't kidding... the hills ARE alive!

I've had the Sound of Music soundtrack running through my head for a solid 72 hours. 

And  I love it :)

It was magical. I seriously felt like Julie Andrews for 4 hours. We learned a ton about the city of Salzburg and it's history, not to mention saw numerous sights from the movie. And we sang the entire day :) I don't even know what to write cause it was so cool. So i'll go with some random facts I learned:

• Edelweiss only grows on the very top of mountains, so in order to show their loves how they were the one for them, young men would have to climb to the top (and many of them died) and bring it back for their sweethearts (how freaking precious is that?) Or it was the mark of a true soldier if they got to the top of a mountain and put it in their breast pocket. But personally I like the first significance better.
• The door on the glass gazebo is locked because twenty years ago, an 85 year old woman broke her hip while skipping across the benches. I'm just gonna put it this way: I hope i'm that cool when I'm 80.
• They still find bombs all over Salzburg from WWII, one just blew up a playground a few years ago (but no kids were hurt!). They call half the city "new town" because it was so destroyed that it had to be rebuilt.
• The lake they used for the backyard in the movie is nowhere near the house they filmed at. The scenes were cropped to make it look like it was in the backyard... but it wasn't :) My movie nerdiness was in full gear during this tour.
• Yes, that's me doing a bell kick in the same row of trees Maria ran down to get to the Von Trapp house (I have confidence in sunshine... I have confidence in rain... etc etc :)
• The dwarf statues in the gardens are actually portraits of real dwarfs that worked at the Mirabell Palace. The one with the glasses and tongue out is the one the children pat on the head during Do-Re-Mi.

Ok that's some randomness I picked up. If i figure out how, I'll post the video of me and Emily Strzlecki jumping up and down the steps in the Mirabell Gardens singing "do so la fa mi do re..." Because it's awesome :) 

I'm so excited for Vienna on Wednesday! I can't wait to get back to Austria! :)

Danke Schon, Heidelberg!

5 girls in a German college town...

you do the math :)

 I have to say I'm an even bigger fan of Germany than France. It's not that the French were all outwardly mean or anything, but there was a general coldness that just wasn't there in Germany. That and we had Emily the German speaking expert to help us out quite a bit. 

We left (as usual) on Friday afternoon, and the train ride to Heidelberg was about 4-5 hours. The last leg was through wine country, right on the river, during sunset... It was just God and grapes. It's just one of those things that doesn't come out on camera (I feel like that happens a lot here... which is frustrating). Upon arrival we discovered a little piece of home on the walk to our hostel... aka WE FOUND A STARBUCKS!!! :) Needless to say it was a moral boost and saved us the next two mornings haha. Our hostel was pretty nice, except for the one bathroom/sink with a glass shower so you had to lock everybody out to shower haha. Our room had cute little windows, however we discovered that the view out of them was not so pleasant haha (see pic above). We all (Me, Emily, Katie, and two Gamma Phi Beta's who we traveled with last weekend named Sarah and Andrea) went out to dinner that night at a great German restaurant right by our hostel. That was really fun, and  we got to know Sarah and Andrea a lot better. 

Saturday we went to the castle in Heidelberg. I know i'll see a lot of castles and probably get really sick of them by the end of this European Vacation... but for now they're still AWESOME. This one was really old, but had a newer part built onto it (kind of a mix of the Middle Ages with Romantic architecture). We all, of course, took a million pictures *note the "christmas card" of me and emily haha*. They also had the biggest keg I have ever seen in my life. The tourist signs said "big vat," and knowing us we had to go find out what that meant haha. We walked into a tunnel and there on our right was "the big vat" so we took some silly pictures and kept walking... only to discover that there was a BIGGER vat (I'm gonna go with 4X the size... about 40 feet high?). So what we thought was the big vat was really like a Medieval "mini keg" :) haha. 

After our castle adventure, we walked around town for a bit. Heidelberg (at least the area we were in) was basically one big 5th avenue with restaurants and shops. It was really cool and quaint. They had street performers and things, as well as plenty of souveneir shops. Then we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner because it was cheap and we were getting broke haha. We went to the bar next door and they played "Born in the U.S.A."- yes. We were obnoxious Americans. But we had to be. It was too perfect :) But it was great cause these guys came up and were like "Are you American?" and we said "of course!"... turns out they were all in the Navy and had just gotten back from Iraq the day before. So we had a great time drinking all night with the Navy boys (GET THIS: one of them went to Pioneer. I was shocked. I didn't believe him, but I tested him and said "I went to Huron... what's my mascot?"... to which he replied "River Rats." and then I believed him haha)

We left pretty early Sunday cause we thought the last train was at 1. We wanted to go to the zoo but we just didn't have time. 

I think next weekend we're going to Salsbourg (even though it's a little far away, we all want to go really bad). 

They're Just a lot Nicer in Germany...

So just got back from Heidelberg, Germany.

I don't think I can say it enough throughout my adventures in Europe: IT. WAS. AWESOME.

This is really just a teaser cause I don't have enough time to write and entire entry right now. BUt know that we had a fabulous time and am already so pumped for next weekend's travels.

Note to Self: Learn French

So this weekend was the first weekend of our European travels! :)

It. Was. Awesome.

We went to Metz, France on Friday night, and then took the train to Strasbourg, France for Sat/Sun to meet up with some Miami friends. All in all, I'd say it was a very successful weekend!

We got to Metz (only about an hour train ride from Lux City), and realized our hostel was a LITTLE farther away from the train station than we thought. It was about a half hour walk (with map securely in Katie's hands... considering if I'd been holding it, we probably would have been lost haha). But the walk was great cause we discovered a beautiful church on the water, with swans (seriously? how awesome is that!?) and saw the city on the way. After settling in to our hostel, we went to go see the gothic cathedral in Metz. The ceilings were sooo sooo high, the picture does nothing to capture how gigantic and haunting the building was. Then we got dinner in a courtyard next to the cathedral (where they only spoke french... hence the name of this post). We wandered the streets for a little afterwards and then happened upon another small cafe by the cathedral where a guy was singing. So we sat outside and listened to French music next to a 600 year old cathedral....so cool.

Saturday morning we checked out, then found a small bakery for breakfast to get out of the pouring rain (with our backpacks). We paid for our pastries,  then sat down and the lady starts yelling at us in French... needless to say we have no idea what we did wrong and definitely don't want to go back into the rain. We think you had to pay more to sit at the tables but she only charged us for "to go"... however we're still not sure what actually happened, haha.

We took another train to Strasbourg (where it was still pouring down rain), finally make it to our VERY NICE hostel, and head back out into the torrential downpour. Seeing as we were tired, wet, and 3 girls... we found a mall :) By the time we got back to the hostel, our other friends had arrived. The rain FINALLY stopped and so we all walked around for a place to eat dinner. The area that all the books said to go to was called "Petite France," so naturally we found a German restaurant called "The Academy of Beer" to eat at, haha. But (Dad, you would be proud of me) I got a typical French dish called tarte flambee... and it was DELICIOUS. It was like thin pizza crust with cheese, onions and bacon. The atmosphere was great though, and they had student prices, so we spent something like 4 hours at dinner. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. Then we went to a discotec that our waiter said was fun, and it was. But it was just one more example of how Europeans need to discover deoderant. 

Sunday we all saw the cathedral in Strasbourg (not quite as amazing as the one in Metz, but still very cool), then took the tram to see the EU Parliament building. It was an interesting time trying to figure out how to get there etc., but I'm really glad we did it cause it was a neat building. Then we found a square to eat lunch in and headed home.

This is probably a really long winded entry, but I'll get better at narrowing down the good stories, haha. 

I also have yet to figure out how to put pictures in the right order/place. So the bottom pics are Metz, and the top are Strasbourg.