A summary of the rest of the trip.

Since my camera quit working, the rest of my trip will have to be described without pictures. If you go on my facebook, you can see all the pictures I was tagged in, but I don't have my own pictures of time in Germany, just Paris and Dachau.

So here goes... I'll summarize the other things we did.

First off, I somehow managed to leave my passport, license, and army pass, on the train home from Paris. I'm still not sure how it all happened, as I was obsessive about making sure I knew where it was at all times. I was surprisingly calm, although certainly embarrassed and scared I would ruin things for the others. Stephanie's parents immediately went to the train station to report it missing. They also called the embassy and put a block on my passport so no one could travel with it. Nothing more could be done that night so we all went to sleep, leaving it to be dealt with the next day.

February 1st - The day after getting home from Paris was Stephanie's 19th birthday. We celebrated with some friends of hers by playing a karaoke game on her Wii. Yes, I actually played, but I would only sing with someone else, not solo. Anyone that knows me knows that that is still a big step :) Usually games that will single me out make me run in the opposite direction. Also, due to my passport ordeal, the day was also spent in the MILITARY POLICE STATION, reporting my army pass as missing. Apparently going in the station is a pretty big deal. I had to be taken back to this room next to the holding cells, where I was questioned for what felt like forever. It wasn't like I was a criminal, but the soldier had to file a report in order for me to get a new pass. As previously said, I got very excited whenever soldiers were around, so you can imagine my excitement (hidden, of course) over this scenario. Anyways, I got a new pass, so that was taken care of at least. Also, when I got my pass the first day, they made a copy of my passport, thank Jesus. We were able to obtain a copy, which was supposed to help me get into Garmisch.

February 2nd - We headed off to Garmisch the next morning. It was a 4 or 5 hour drive and we went through Austria. I was very excited yet nervous that the Austrians would sense I didn't have my passport and kick me out. Our destination was Edelweiss, an American army resort located in Garmisch, right in the middle of the Alps. Even though we had our army passes from Mannheim, we had to get into the Edelweiss system as well, since it was on an army base. That is where my passport copy came in handy. Things went smooth and I was issued into the system successfully. That day we settled in and ate at a restaurant within the resort hotel. Us 4 girls had our own room while Stephanie's mom and 5 siblings were in the room next door.

February 3rd - This day was spent going to Dachau, so the other post will explain all that.

February 4th - Originally this day was supposed to be spent going to Neuschwanstein, the beautiful castle that is said to be the original Disney castle. However, with my passport being lost, our plans were changed. Throughout the last few days, Stephanie's mom and dad had been making all kinds of calls. It was finally discovered that if I had a copy of my birth certificate and I.D. (thankfully had my college I.D. with since my license was lost as well) I could go to the embassy and pay $100 to get an emergency passport. So instead of heading to the castle, Stephanie and I (Katie and Rianne went to the castle by themselves) headed to Munich via train. It was an hour and a half away, but the European trains were so fascinating to me that things went pretty quickly. We had to find a taxi and get ourselves to the embassy by 9:45AM. Apart from a few mishaps (involving us getting scolded by German guards) we made it, and after the most intense security check I've experienced, we made it inside the embassy. The people were very nice and less than an hr later I walked out with a passport. We had over 3 hrs before our train left, so what else could we do but... explore! We walked around, took taxis once we realized we couldn't navigate ourselves, and just enjoyed the day. I ate my most German meal of the trip (sausage, of course) and we shopped and tried on authentic German dresses. We had to race to not miss our train. It was such a fun, perfect day. This is what I wanted the trip to be like. Carefree, spirited, and full of random happenings. I would rather walk around and get the feel for a town, than going to only the known landmarks. I think I got a much better feel for Germany and the German people due to this day. And to think the only reason the day happened is cause I lost my passport... God works in such mysterious ways, and He blesses us through seemingly bad circumstances. This day really showed me that.

February 5th - We headed home from Garmisch, with a stop in Stuttgart on the way back to Mannheim. We also stopped and took a walk around a beautiful lake at the bottom of the Zugspitze, the highest peak in Germany. The Alps are amazing; the air is so fresh and clean. We had a snowball fight, made a snowman, and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

February 6th - Back in Mannheim, we had a full day planned. We were going to take a train (the strauss) to Heidelburgh, a bigger German city less than an hour away. It was the neatest place. We shopped for chocolate and gummy bears, ate at the Hard Rock Cafe there, and explored the pretty city.

February 7th - Our last day in Germany was spent shopping for Superbowl food and getting our stuff together to leave the next day. We also went out for a Greek dinner with two of Stephanie's friend. The Superbowl does, in fact, show over in Germany (at least on the American bases) but it doesn't start until midnight. We tried to stay up until the game was over but only made it to halftime.

February 8th - We had to leave for the airport pretty early that morning. International flights require you to be there a few hours before departure, plus we had to drive an hr to Frankfurt to get to the airport. Saying goodbye was sad, and our flight was pretty rough, but we made it. Due to the time change, we still got back to the States on February 8th. My flights afterwards were a disaster. Delays, turbulence, and noise were plenty on both flights. Finally, at six thirty in the morning on February 9th, I was home.

Dachau Concentration Camp

The only other thing I have pictures from is Dachau. Stephanie let me borrow her camera so I was able to take pictures on my own memory card. We went there on a tour through Garmisch (more on that later) a few days after returning home from Paris. It was... sobering, heartbreaking, hard, among so many other emotions. Dachau was one of the more famous concentration camps, Auschwitz being the most well known. The day was cold and wet, which really added to the whole atmosphere. These pictures get kind of intense, and these aren't even the real graphic ones.

I had seen this sculpture before but never really understood exactly what it was depicting. After standing right below it and looking at it, I realized what it really was. It's showing the prisoners writhing in pain while stuck in barbed wire. This picture can't really show how horrible it really is, but seeing it in person made me gasp in horror and just want to start bawling. The whole barbed wire thing will make more sense after seeing a later picture.

Dachau was rebuilt, meaning that most (if not all) of what you see is not the actual buildings that the prisoners were in. They were rebuilt true to form to show people what things were like.

The Christian memorial

The Jewish memorial

Okay, here's the barbed wire picture I was talking about. The fences were surrounded with 4 or so feet of this barbed wire on the ground. I didn't really understand why at first, then I was told if people tried to escape, climbing up the fence and actually making it over, they would fall upon... this. Makes sense now thinking back to the sculpture in the beginning... horrible, right?

Crematorium

This sign made me sick to my stomach. I was thinking of the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas the whole time I was here. If you've seen it, you know why.

The gas chamber. The minute upon stepping foot in there I felt like I was about to have a panic attack. The air, the feel, the lighting, everything... just horrible.

The spout where poison was released.

So pretty... but so haunting.

A bullet hole

The wall right behind the execution site. We weren't completely sure, but we are assuming this is blood.

They had a museum with sculptures, pictures, videos with more information, and other such information.

And so ended a very intense day. I've always been very interested in World War 2 history so this place was really cool to be able to go to. At the same time, seeing things first hand, where you are unable to close your eyes or deny what happened to these people, is hard to take in. Stephanie has been to Auschwitz as well and said that Dachau looks like a resort compared to Auschwitz. Also, Auschwitz did not rebuild or redo anything. I really want to go there now, although I can't even imagine how horrid that place would be.

PARIS! Day 2

Day 2 started out with me climbing out onto the balcony of the room Stephanie and I shared. We figured out how to get our window open, and out I went. I took this picture and enjoyed the view before getting ready for a busy day number two.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this. It's a bidet, which is, in another works, a contraption used as an alternative to toilet paper (don't ask, I really don't understand the whole thing)

The bathroom was tiny and pretty normal apart from the bidet.

The room was very small. Apparently French people consider two twin beds pushed together a full size/queen size bed. It was a cute little room though.

The hallway was fairly normal, yet everything is so different. Hard to explain

The hallway was super narrow.

The elevator was very very scary. It was tiny and made lots of noise and when it opened, we we were facing the wrong direction and it opened to a brick wall. We nearly started flipping out, but once we turned around we found the exit. Here's Katie and myself on our scary ride.

French breakfast! A croissant, how perfect :)

Our agenda for the day was pretty free except for one scheduled tour, the Louvre! We took what was called a muse tour, on which Americans living in Paris give tours to small groups of people. The tour was 2 hours long and included the main attractions. This elaborate arch is the Arc de Carousel. It was located right by the Louvre (you can see part of it to the left of the Arc)

This picture gives you a pretty good view of the massiveness of the Louvre. I was very ignorant before this and I, embarrassingly enough, used to think the Louvre was within that pyramid. The pyramid was the only thing I ever saw in relation to the Louvre, so I guess I'll blame that. Seeing it in person, I realized how absurd of a thought that was.

Inside the Louvre.

Hammurabi's Code.

A sphinx

The ceiling is this particular gallery was so elaborate it blew me away. Everything was so decadent.

And there she is... the Mona Lisa...! Much smaller than you'd think.

I recognized this painting as one in my house, so I had to take a picture.

Here's our tour guide - Christopher. He was a really nice guy. He was so full of knowledge.

Group snapshot

We had lunch at a food court in the Louvre. I borrowed a French fry and had to snap a picture, eating a FRENCH fry, in FRANCE?! I thought it was a pretty smart idea, haha.

Our tour was over, but our tickets still gave us access, so Stephanie's dad took us on a tour of his own. He took us to Napoleon Bonaparte's apartment, which was so elaborate it was mind blowing. There was a table set up in one of the rooms and my friends joked it was my families dining table. I counted the chairs and sure enough, we'd all (kids included) fit!

Napoleon's bed

I'm not sure what this statue is exactly, but I wanted to have a little fun and imitate it.

The whole tour I kept worrying we wouldn't have time to take pictures in front of the pyramid. For some reason I so badly wanted to do that. My wish came true, can you tell I'm happy?!

Back to the beautiful Eiffel tower.

Anyone that likes to take pictures will not be able to quit taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower. It never gets old!

All those people on the road were rollerblading, it was crazy! Some kind of competition I would guess.

And so ended our time in Paris. It was such an amazing two days, I will never forget them. Ever since I was a little girl I have fantasized about going to Paris. I loved the character Madeline, who lives in Paris, and since my middle name was Madeline, I thought we were certainly kindred spirits and that Paris was calling my name. It's so crazy to look back and see childhood dreams, and then to be in the present moment where the dreams are being fulfilled. Dreams do come true, it sounds completely cheesy but it's so true.

PARIS! Day 1

(these posts are going to have a ton of pictures, but there was no way I could narrow it down to just a few)

We had to get up early to catch a train but the train station just so happened to have a bakery, so we all experienced our first Berliner. Here's me biting into mine. It is a jelly filled donut, which I usually do not like, but European donuts are so amazingly good that I couldn't resist it.

European trains are really neat. We found 4 seats (2 facing 2) with a table in between, which was perfect for our smorgasbord of snacks we brought. Stephanie's dad and little sister were with us also, but in the seats across the aisle. Here's some German countryside from the train window.

We arrived in Paris at 10 or so in the morning. We walked out of the train station and this was our first sighting of Paris. Our hotel was just across the street.

Here's the train station -Gare De L'est

We checked into our hotel right away. We had to get rid of our luggage before galavanting away. We looked out of the window of one of the rooms and this was our view. If you've seen Taken, doesn't it kind of remind of you of the view the daughter sees when looking out the window in Paris across to the other window, where she sees her friend get taken? It freaked us out a little, as people have been very quick to bring up Taken ever since they found out we were going to Paris.

We had a short amount of time in Paris - about 30 hrs, so timing was crucial. We jumped right into sightseeing. First stop? Notre Dame.

It's hard to get a decent picture on the inside because flash is not allowed, so mine all turned out pretty blurry.

They have these set up all over. You can pay a few dollars and light a candle while saying a prayer. Stephanie's dad paid for us to light our own, it was pretty neat.

I couldn't quit taking pictures of this amazing architectural wonder. It has pictures carved all over it, all telling stories. The cathedral is somewhere around 700 years old.

First food in Paris? CREPES! I was thrilled to find a street vendor serving the stereotypical French food. They had all kinds of flavors, but I went for carmel. YUM!

Notre Dame from the back. Looking at it from the front, you wouldn't guess the back would look quite like this. Amazing.

Myself in front of Notre Dame.

After seeing Notre Dame, we took a walk to our next stop, Musee D'orsay (D'orsay Museum)

I LOVE Mini Coopers, and they are EVERYWHERE in Europe, it's crazy! I would get so excited every time I saw one, so I had to snap a shot of this cute little black one.

Musee D'orsay is a museum in Paris that is not as well know as say, The Louvre, but it has some very famous works of art. It's more modern than the Louvre and it was very interesting to explore.

Edgar Degas 'Dancer' I saw a movie about this artist and this sculpture when I was younger, so it was really incredible to see it here.

Vincent Van Gogh is an artist I really like, and this museum had his self portrait. Steph and I really wanted to see it and went on quite the hunt to find it.

To get around Paris, we used an underground train system. It was so handy and actually pretty easy (although her dad was doing most of the navigating) This train station was the most ghetto looking one we saw, usually they weren't quite this sketch.

Elise, myself, and Rianne on one of the trains. This one was a double decker so we were on the top level, pretty neat!

At last, we reached the destination I'd been dreaming of seeing my whole life - The Eiffel Tower! There was a carousel right across the street from it, so cool!

Steph's dad paid for us to take a ride on the carousel. I felt so gleeful and childlike, it was such a perfect moment.

We waited in line for what felt like forever, then we climbed, and climbed, and climbed, up the Eiffel Tower. The elevator line was way too long, and the top of the Eiffel Tower was closed, so we figured we'd just climb up to the first level.

Afterwards we walked to the grassy area across from the Eiffel Tower to get some good pictures.

Can you tell I was excited?!

I had to nerd out a little bit.

The Seine River at night. So pretty. We walked along the river after taking who knows how many pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

We came across this Holocaust monument.

We were all quite hungry, hadn't eaten much since our beloved crepes, so we found a neat Italian restaurant. I ordered some hot chocolate, best I've ever had!

We figured Italian pizza in France would be as close as we get (for now) to authentic Italian pizza, so we had to try some. This was some kind of chicken, and it was pretty good. Different, but good. Also, even though it was an Italian restaurant, it did have a certain French delicacy available that I just had to try. So first, crepes, and then... Escargot! SNAILS! Ahh. They actually were pretty decent, then again they were covered in some rather strong sauce.

After eating we headed over to the Arc de Triomphe. It is surrounded by a ridiculously busy road with seemingly no driving rules. It was nerve wracking to watch but thankfully we did not have to cross the street (I don't think I'd be here today if that was the case) There was an underground tunnel that took us right up to the Arc.

View from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Seeing Paris from above was incredible. I saw Moulin Rouge and a few other famous things we were not able to explore, such as the Champs Elysees.

I wanted to take yet another picture with the Eiffel Tower, from atop the Arc, but you can barely see it. The flash of the camera blacked out the lights of the Eiffel Tower.

If you look at this picture close up, there is a silver arch in the center. That is the modern arch and the city around it is the modern part of Paris. The city wanted to maintain the 'old' feel, so they keep the modern part separate.

I had no idea about this previously, but apparently every hour the Eiffel Tower lights up like CRAZY, and lasts for 15 minutes or something. It started doing that while we were still up on the Arc de Triomphe, so we got a really good view. It looked like pure diamonds, so pretty.

Champ Elysees, the most famous avenue in Paris

Opera de Paris, the Paris Opera house. Home of Phantom of the Opera and I'm sure other famous operas. It is such a beautiful building.

We basically saw all the main things of Paris, besides the Louvre, in 12 hrs, without being rushed at any of our stops. What a day! We went back to the hotel and us girls talked for hours before getting some sleep to prepare for day number two.