One Month Down

ONE MONTH DOWN: We have offically been traveling for one month and here are the stats:

1 sketchy host
8 sweet hosts
9 countries
6 curriencies
1 creepy hostel
1 welcoming hostel
1 super small hotel room
1 room in a apt. building-not a hotel but not a hostel- it is called a pension
12 games of phase 10- I, Ashley, am in the lead
3 duck dinners
and multiple packs of these delicious chocolate cookies

So for all of you Rugby fans out there, the World Cup is here in France and is going on right now. So our first host in Paris( we stayed with two hosts in paris) invited us to stay a day longer to watch France vs: England in the Semi-finals. This is a huge game because france and england beat new zealand and austrailia to get to the semi finals which were huge upsets. So we lugged all of our belongs back over to Gilles house-the guy who cooked us duck- but little did we know that Gilles was a bit confused and there wasnt even a game that night....we laughed alot about this. So instead of watching the Rugby we played this board game called Spices from Around the World. It was hilaroius. It was a game of trade, but you actually had to smell different spices and try to figure out what they were. We decided this might be better than Rugby.

We are leaving Paris today and are heading for Portugal. This is going to be a long train ride about 20 hours.....I am not looking forward to it, but I will get alot of reading done and joe and I can play multipe games of Phase 10.

Here are a few pictures to enjoy.

1. The is at the Palace of Versailles in the Gardens. This is where Marie Antoniette lived with Louis the XVI, if you have seen the movie I beleive the Garden scenes were filmed here. The Gardens may be my favorite sight yet.

2. Our second host family, they also had a 9 month old baby-Joseph- but he was in bed. We think they could have walked right out of a JCrew magazine.

3. We had pizza with them one night and it had an egg on top so we had to take a picture to show all of you.

4. And here is our final night in France plying a Spice Game and not watching Rugby.

Paris

1. A warm chocolate covered waffel - our european diet isnt really working.
2. On the Eiffel Tower at night enjoying the view of Paris
3. The Eiffel Tower at lit up at night
4. Gilles our host (who is a professional musician) sitting down to a dinner with us of duck leg; duck breast steak; mushrooms; potatoes; red and white wine; 4 types of cheeses; french bread; salad; and pumpkin soup. We woke up with big bellies.

Pictures of Berlin

1. The Holocaust Memorial: very overwhelming as you walk into the cold; grey; cement-like tombs.
2. Holocaust Memorial
3.Brandenburg Gates
4.Berlin Wall

Berlin in a day and now in Parieee

Okay, so Joe and I both know that Berlin deserves more than one day but that is all we had before our host expected us in Paris. Although we were only there for a day we felt like we made the most of it. We did a three and a half walking tour, it was free too!!!!!!! Then we managed to see the town on our own. Here are a few of the neat sites we saw: Brandenburg Gate, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Holocaust Memorial-this is my fav site so far on the trip, Hitlers Bunker where he commited suicide, Parliment-which was super sweet bc it was built when the wall fell and west and east Germany joined together, and many ww2 historical sites. Oh and we stayed at a clean and cool hostel....brownie points for joe.

Pictures to come.....

Prauge Pictures

The first picture is Joe next to a HUGE church near Parliment.

The second picture is of a famous walking bridge. The Charles bridge, it was built in the 1300's. Our hosts house is only a few blocks from this bridge.

And the third picture is our sleeping quaters right in the middle of Prauge. YES!!!!

Prauge- the coolest

So everyone needs to google Prauge on the internet, bc it is the coolest city ever! We arrived here yesterday and was greeted by our host-who reminds me of my dad-he informed us that he would be leaving for the next 4 days and that we could have his flat all to ourselves. We are right in the middle of the city and are staying in a flat that was built in the 14th century and it even has a wash machine, we are in heaven!!!!!!!! It really couldnt get much better. Prauge is great bc alot of the city was not destroyed in WW2. Prauge is also said to have the best beer in Europe...hmmmm. Today we walked to see parliment and saw the changing of the guards. I think that i like the arlington cemetary changing of the guards better but i may be a bit partial. Tommorrow we are going to the Jewish Quarter of the city, I am very interested to see this part.

Livin' like Hippies

Life on the Road:

Our laundry is long past over due- joe has turned his underware inside out, not once, but twice

we go days without showering

and we have no home,

BUT are enjoying every bit of it.

Here are a few pictures of our time in Bucharest, Romania:
The first picture is of me sleeping in the 6 person train car on our way here. Why joe wanted to post it, I dont know. Tonight when we leave for Prauge we are going to stay in a two person train car, so we will have it all to ourselves.

The second picutre is of "The Peoples House,"( a bit ironic) the dictator that I mentioned in the previous blog built it. It is the second biggest building in the world, right behind the Pentagon. Now it is used for Parliment.

And the thrid picutre is of our hosts. Irina made us a tradational Romanian meal, polenta and cheese. yummy.