More Castle Pictures!

Hohensalzburg:Castle tower....I was really waiting for them to move to get a picture of the tower...but they stood there so darn long, I finally just took a picture of them. Haha.

View over the city:

The Alps! Oh, and me.

Theresa and My World-Wind Tour: Visiting Vincent, Munich, and Salzburg!

After Paris, we headed back to Stuttgart for the night to wash clothes and get ready for out adventure the next day to safer, more familar (for me) territory; Vincent's house! For those of you who don't know, Vincent and I are an item now and this was the first best friend approval meeting. Haha. This was also my opportunity to show Theresa Munich and, my favorite so far, Salzburg, Austria. The first day we were in Prien was time for Theresa to see Prien am Chiemsee and get to know Vincent. We went out to a traditional German restaurant for dinner with Vincent's dad, Marcel, and the whole day was quite lovely.

Day two, we toured Munich. Well, I should say tha we tried to tour Munich. We had a long list of things to show Theresa and things that I hadn't seen either, but most of them were outside activities and the weather had a completely different idea in mind. It rained, hailed, and stormed while we were there. Although we saw the city center, the market place, and got a little shopping in, we ended up going back to Prien early because the weather was just too terrible to see the gardens and fantastic things we had planned. Oh well, another time! But! We had Weißwurst (white sausage), pretzels, and beer for dinner...so the day wasn't a total waste! Haha.

The next day was also awful weather which was really sad because we were planning on going to Herrenchiemsee; the island with a castle on it in the middle of Chiemsee (the lake) that Prien is on. That was sad because that was our only chance to show Theresa Herrenchiemsee. Oh well, she'll just have to come visit again! :P But we spent the day doing things just hanging around together like shopping and cooking....and we even talked Vincent into doing a peeling mask with us! Hahaha.

The next and last day, on the other hand, was totally beautiful! Hooray! We spent the last day touring Salzburg, Austria which is one of my favorite cities that I have ever visited; possibly ever my VERY favorite. Anyway, we did the usual tour that I do when I go there. First, you go thru the beautiful tree park right off the main street from the main train station and into the flower garden with old statues (my personal favorite place in the world). By the way, part of my favorite flower garden was one the the places they filmed Sound of Music. You know, the part where they ran around the fountain singing "Do Re Mi"? Well, being the musical geeks that we are....we did just that! We couldn't help ourselves!

Then on to the old street and house where Mozart was born, the markets, and then the collection of HUGE, lovely churches at the end. Here is Theresa in front of Mozart's house (the yellow one).

Since I have done all those things several times, we also planned something that I had never done before. We visited the castle on the top of the cliff: Hohensalzburg Fortress.

It's a very impressive castle that was started in 1077 and sits atop the cliff overlooking Salzburg. It's rather amazing ot think about all the things that happened there in the close to 1000 years that it's stood it's regal ground. Apparently it's one of the very largest medieval castles in Europe and we toured the whole thing....or at least what you're allowed to go in. There is a cable car that goes straight up the cliff to the castle, but we decided to hike it. (We also made notes-to-selves later to take the cable car next time! Haha. Hey, it's a VERY steep cliff!) Anyway, it was just gorgeous with snow still on the ground and the warm shining all day. The view from the castle of the Alps and over the city was so incredible. Afterwards, we ate Weiner Schnitzel for dinner at a cafe right down the hill from the castle and Theresa got to drink her first Radler (half beer, half lemonade). It was closing time in the cafe and they were so nice to give us all a little dessert for free before we left. Anyway, it was a great visit overall and Theresa gave her best friend approval to Vincent. (Well, that's an easy one...but Vincent still needs the brother approval in July. Good luck Vincent!) Anyway, now I'll hush-up and just show you pictures like you're all dying to see. Haha.

Theresa and me hiking up to the castle. (See? I wasn't kidding! It's steep!):

Vincent and me at the front of the castle, overlooking Salzburg:

Theresa and My World-Wind Tour: Paris!

So, when I decided that I was going to be an au pair back in June/July, one of my best friends, Theresa, decided that she couldn't live without me for a whole year and that she would just have to come visit! As soon as I got here and had my info about vacation times, she bought a ticket to come at right about the six month mark in February. From there, we planned a trip packing in quite a bit into the little time we had. Our first big thing to do was Paris. If you've never been to Europe before, as Theresa had not, what is always on the list? Obviously Paris! So we did just that.

We stayed in the same hostel that I stayed in and had liked so much in August 2007. Well, this time it left a little more to be desired than last time. Let's just say that it wasn't probably the cleanest place you've ever seen, we were a bit scared to use, well, everything in the kitchen, and there was NO hot water to be had. Yeah. That pretty much sums that up! Haha. Oh, and, being February, it was cold as all get out when we were there....but hey, we got to see Paris together! After three days of walking around by foot for 9 hours a day in the freezing cold and no showers, I'll admit, we were pretty happy to be heading on to our next adventure! Although, when we were there, we saw all the things that I saw last time and even squeeze in some things that I didn't have time for last time. So that was really neat. Some new things for me were Sacré-Cœur Basilica, the Opera house, Moulin Rouge and Montmarte district, and eating at a real French café! Oh, and I got to see some things in the Louvre that I had missed last time too!


The most outrageous thing was the French café...let's just say, we lived through it, but I'm not exactly sure how. Haha. Here's the story: We had decided that we would save money by cooking and eating things like pasta in the hostel for every meal....except one. For one meal, we were going to really splurge and eat at a REAL French café! We had heard that a good part of town for "going out" was the Latin district across the river from Notre Dam. We walked around this very cool area for a while and looked at the different cafés; each of which had a different theme, all of which had exactly the same menu...only at different prices. I guess we should have turned back then, but alas, we didn't. We took a while deciding where to eat until we saw one with Escargot on the menu. That was the deciding factor. We were in Paris, we had to try Escargot right? So we went inside. We ordered one meal selection from the 15€ menu to get the Escargot as appetizer and one from the 10€ menu to save a bit of money. As usual, we were going to share everything. On the 15€ menu there was a choice of something that we had never heard of before and we decided, what the heck, let's go for it. We asked the waiter what it was and he just pointed at a picture of it that was indeed to small to actually see, but we went for it anyway. On the other menu we ordered something safe like steak and fries.

After we ordered, I asked where the bathroom was and follwed the directions down this little staircase. I then passed an open room stacked with chairs, crates, and a very strange assortment of other things, turned the corner and passed what look like part of a kitchen, and got to the bathroom that had a table in the hallway where an apple torte was sitting. When I was leaving the bathroom, which had no toilet seat, our first waiter came out at the same time, zipping up his fly and started talking to me. Creepy. Anyway, I went back upstairs as quickly as possible and said to Theresa: "When we get to choosing the desserts, whatever you do, do NOT choose the apple torte!" Haha. Then we had Escargot! It was actually good. Floating in their shells with melted butter and herbs, they tasted much like seafood. A little chewy, but rather yummy! Once again, we should have stopped there. Then the main course was delivered. Theresa was lucky and had a steak sitting in front of her, I on the other hand, at this point said, "Dear Lord Theresa, dinner is staring at me!" Yes, yes it truly was. Whole shrimp including eyeballs and tiny little feet were laying atop a very interesting rice mixture with, literally, hunks of octopus and God only knows what else. But, being the good sport I am, I started eating it anyway. Shrimp and all! Everything was quite...umm....icky honestly, but what really topped the cake was when I ate what I think might have been a fried rubber band. Luckily enough, there were more of them so I forced Theresa to eat one too! Such a good friend I am! Hahaha. Even the steak and wine were icky! Really sad. Anyway, that was our "night out" and we learned a very important lesson: When in Paris, either eat someplace famous and expensive or eat at McDonalds.

Both of us trying Escargo for the very first bite!:

So here goes....a NEW BLOG!!!

I have a lot to fill you guys all in on, so well let's start out by talking about my job here. Being an au pair hasn't been everything I thought it would be. I mean, I shouldn't complain because I get to live in Germany and learn German.....which was one of the main point I guess, but I don't have enough money to travel very much. I'm not complaining really, I'm just saying that mostly I've felt stuck here because I'm so close to all these cool things and I just don't have enough for a train ticket to see them! It's just a little frusterating! Anyway, the kids have gotten much closer to me since the vacation in February. I didn't see them for about 10 days while I was travelling with one of my best friends, Theresa, and they were skiing in the Austrian Alps.. When I got back, I was sincerely suprised and shocked when they ran to the door and fought over who got to hug me first. I was like "Who are these kids and what did they do with the what I left here?" Ever since then, the kids have been overall good and, I can't believe I'm going to say this, actually kind of cute sometimes! So I guess that's been better. But still, saving away and planning very carefully for all the things I want to do while I'm here.

I save almost half of my pocket money every month to put toward my big trips and I'll tell you that is NOT easy! I worked at one of the local schools in Plieningen for a few weeks in November and then a couple weeks again in March as a native English speaker helper. I helped the older students prepare for their final English exams by doing dialogs, correcting their English speeches, and just talking to them in English in general. Many of them are much better than they give themselves credit for and I actually had a lot of fun doing it. And I earned a little extra money that is helping me pay for my REALLY BIG trip this August. (More info on that in just a little bit...I promise!) It seems like I don't blog for a really long time and then suddenly I get this craving to share everything and I spend a whole day posting many blogs...and that's just what I intend to do today!