Schatz

Home Sweet Texas

I am finally home in Texas. This is my last post. Thanks again to my wonderful host family in Munich, my amazing friends, and my loving family. This experience would have been nothing if it weren't for the poeple God blessed me to share it with. Of course saying good bye to my year abroad was tough, but I am excited to be starting nursing school at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston next month (I am, however, not looking forward to wearing burnt orange scrubs). This experience went beyond my expectations in every way it could and I am forever thankful to have had this opportunity. I am so thankful for these precious memories and relationships that have come out of this. I am better because of it by God's grace. I know I will be back in Munich again one day and thankful that it became a second home to me.

"In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anyting else in all creation, will be able to seperate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. " Romans 8:37-39

The Beautiful Paris

Paris gave the phrase strolling down the street its meaning. What a beatuiful city. It's full of museums and cafes. Just like the movies. Except yes, we had many encouters with very unpleasant French people. But we had enough pleasant encounters as well to counter act it. We had three completely full days of sights in Paris. If you need a sightseeing itinerary, here is ours and it served us well :)

Wednesday: Pantheon, Walking tour, Eiffel Tower, Trocadero and Palais de Challiot, and a boat ride down the Seine River!

We started out in the morning at the Pantheon. (I passed for a 17 year old and got in for free!) It is a really impressive buildling. It used to be a church but is now a burial place for the distingished. We saw Rousseau's tomb in there and several kings.

We split up in the afternoon and I went on a walking tour. A very interesting one about the graphic, gruesome French history. Quite eye opening. These people were sick. But we toured all over and had a great day. It just so happened that another friend from Munich, Cristina, was there at the same time as us so we met up and got to play all day!

Thursday: Saint Chapelle Church, Conciergerie (where Marie Antonette was kept in prison),  the Rodin Museum, shopped and strolled down the Champs Elysees street, went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and a long walk back to the hotel (yes, we walked, for some reason).

Saint Chapelle is the most beautiful stain glass church. The entire place was covered perfectly with biblical stories on colored glass.

We went to this museum just to see the Thinker statue.

 The Champs Elysees Street leads right up to the Arc de Triomphe monument.

 There is a traffic round about of chaos and death that circle it. I wouldn't make it out of that. But the view from the top is really spectacular because several streets come in all at different sides of the circle. It is quite the 360 view.

Friday (Chrunch time): Climb the steps of the Eiffel Tower (a bucket list item, check), Montmarte district and Basillica, Notre Dame, ending at the Louvre.

Where every tourist in Paris goes to. We waited in line only 5 minutes - get there early!

 A gray day, but no rain.

This district is up on a hill top in Paris and is known to be an artist district from past and present.

All the artist have a little stand set up on the street. They were painting and making charicatures. It was really cool. Katy and Aunt Kathy even bought a painting there.

This is one of my most incredible buildings I've ever seen. Inside and out and every side of it is stunning.

And of course we had to go to the Louvre to see all the world famous art. We only had a few hours in there but we got to see a lot; the Mona Lisa of course, 3,000 year old Egyptian works, and endless halls of historical paintings. We stayed until closing at nearly 10pm and had a great time even though it was a little rushed.

This city is amazing! But I'm ready to go home to Texas!

Saturday: Airport.

Ciao Bella

Venice is a city unlike any other. It is known for it's water ways full of gondola singers.  There really aren't any pavement streets or cars (unlike Zermatt that had the little electric cars at least). Just little canals and bridges. Beautiful canals and bridges.  A lot of the alley ways are only big enough for a single file line. The buildings are not too tall and old and rustic looking. This city was designed to get pleasantly lost in. It is like a giant maze.

We had a rough day traveling but finally made it. We arrived just before dinner time on Sunday. We walked for a bit before we ate. Monday morning we headed straight for the main square and up the bell tower. Another beautiful Italian red roofed view. We were even up in the tower when the giant bell went off right above our heads - it was loud and sort of terrifying to be that close to it.

We had the priveldge in the afternoon to tour the Murano Glass Factory. If you have been to Italy, you have seen the Murano glass. It is beautiful! Everything they make is considered one of a kind by the way they blow it. We got to see a few of them in action - they made it look so easy. The two glass blowers made their works of art (a vase and a little horse) in less than ten minutes! It was unbelievable! Then we got to walk through the place a bit - what looked like a glass museum show room of beauty. I would never want to take a small child or a large backpack through here. (However, I did ask our tour guide if I could look at some sort of drink pitcher, and when he picked it up, he dropped the lid of it.. I felt so bad - but I'm so glad it wasn't me.) And not only was that a "must do in Venice" thing, but on our water taxi ride out there, he let me drive the boat :) Check that off the bucket list.

We continued doing the whole tourist thing - walking around, looking at the churches and bridges, taking obnoxious photos, and of course touring the Doges Palace.

And then we toured the Doge's Chapel: St. Mark's. The girls and I were wearing shorts so we had to wrap a cloth around our legs like a toga. It was funny. The entire chruch is a Mosaic. It is completely made up and decorated with little pieces of gold, bronze, and stones. When we were inside, I got to see the Pala d'Oro. It's a jaw dropping altar piece. My friend Jessica told me to go see it because it is incredible, and because one of her history professors at TAMU slept on top of it during WWII (? is that right Jess?) to protect it. I can see why he wanted to protect it. Wow.

A symbol of Venice, we learned, is the winged lion. It has to do with the legend that St. Mark and Venetian Lagoon being his resting place. I was always curious too how such a city came to be about. Why is it all water ways? You could assume it's from fisherman and traders but I never found my answer when we were there. We never got to go on a walking tour or anything which was a big bummer because a city like this I know is full of stories and literary references and artistic settings.




I could never put my camera away because the entire city is like a painting. I have heard rumors of this city being on the verge of sinking. I hope it doesn't becuase it is an amazing place to visit.

And the biggest surprise of all was seeing this guy. Pearce is a friend from Camp Allen who just so happened to be sitting at the table next to me at some random little pizza place. Not planned or anything - it was crazy!

And now on to Paris!



Saturday in Switzerland

Saturday we left Zermatt, the town of no cars, and headed northwest to Lake Geneva. We toured a medieval castle there, the Chillon Castle. It was an informative tour and let me just say that I am so glad I do not live in the medieval times.And so glad we learned about hygiene and don't have to go to the bathroom in a hole in the floor. But the castle was beautiful. Right on the lake built directly into the rocky little island with a beautiful view of the mountains.

Then we drove to Cailler's Chocolate factory in Broc. Yummy! When we started the tour there, it was along the lines of Willy Wonka - I was just waiting for him to pop out from somewhere. Unfortunately he didn't. But it was still really cool to see the machines and hear the story of the company. Switzerland got all the credit for making chocolate such a yummy treat by making milk a key ingrediant. At first, coco was just a drink. And during the Depression, this company merged with Nestle (also a Swiss company) and it saved them from going bankrupt. They are still partners. We got to see the general process of making their famous little chocolates - really cool! And then we ended in everyone's favorite room, the taste testing room.

After there, we drove back to Zurich. Time with the family was fun. We had to say good bye on Saturday night to Aunt Karen, Oma, Travis and his wife, Natalie. They unfortunately couldn't accompany us the rest of the trip. More good byes that I hate to say. But it was so great to have them here! I loved sharing this with everyone and we had such a good time together and made more wonderful memories :) So now it is down to Aunt Cindy, Aunt Kathy, Aunt Carol, Katy, Courtney, Melinda, Reed, and myself touring Venice and Paris!

Today we made it to Venice - after nearly 12 hours of traveling with 6 train transfers, 1 bus ride, and 1 water taxi... Seriously... And we never even were lost. It was a crazy day, but we are here finally and loving the first impressions of the city.

Zermatt

On Tuesday we were at the Jungfraujoch and then on Wednesday the weather wasn't too nice to us. We drove around on some crazy mountain roads, walking through a gorge and saw some waterfalls. On Thursday we drove to Zermatt. This is quite the interesting little town. They do not allow cars. Well real cars. They use electric cars. So you sometimes feel like a giant walking around on the streets with the little things going by. Taxi's have to take you up to a certain point and then you have to transfer to the little things. It was a nail bitting drive up the narrow road. It was quite terrifying for us all. But it was a really pleasant little town once we got there. We went to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn. This mountain can only be seen from this area. It is on the boarder with Italy and you can also see it from the Italian side, but apparently it looks completely different. It was magnificent. So, another train ride up the mountain to see this beauty.

There was a perfect blue sky as her back drop when we arrived. This is the view from our hotel balcony.

With the twins! They're all grown up! This was at the top.

Some idiots wore shorts to the top of a mountain. And other people thought it was funny when we were playing, or if you're Travis, falling in the snow, and took pictures of us as well.

The clouds moved so fast over the mountains.

And the girl cousins were adventurous and hiked part of the way down the mountain back to town. It was nice to have our own private hiking guide with us. Peter is the best family tour guide Switzerland has to offer!



Jungfraujoch Noch Mal

So I got to go up to the Jungfraujoch again (I went in December with my mom) but this time with the summer view. And of course, it was incredible! I already wrote about the Jungfrau region in my other blog, but to sum it up; it is not actually the tallest mountain in Europe but it is the highest railway, it took around 20 years to build, you have to change to 3 different kinds of trains as you go up the mountain, and it is one of the most spectacular places I have ever seen.  Aunt Kathy put it perfectly - there is nothing up there but there is a lot to see. Another of God's masterpieces.

On one side it is completely white with snow and glacier. We were thankful for another beautiful blue sky, but it didn't take long before everything turned completely white inside the clouds.

And the other side was green with a view down to the city. It wasn't near as cold like it was in winter time. It was so cool to see this place in 2 seasons.

We walked through a part of the glacier.

And played in the snow. It wasn't that cold - until we started the snow ball fight.

And one of my favorite things is always the beautiful scenery on the train ride, and the good company :)