Switzerland

I will be blogging soon about Switzerland, but I just wanted to let everyone know that today I flew in a small 2 person glider plane over the Swiss Alps!!! I saw the Matterhorn up close from the air. And let me tell you, it is way cooler than the one at Disneyland. Although much colder, so the one in CA does have something going for it still. It was absolutely amazing! And tomorrow we're going on the Glacier Express to St. Moritz, which is a pretty ritzy town with some expensive shopping. I can't wait to say loudly, "Hmm Yesterday when I was gliding over the Alps I was really wishing I had an extra pair of fur mittens and a lovely new hat... Hmmmyyees." Stay tuned for pictures!!

The Netherlands

Tulips are red, Pottery is Blue, Windmills are turning, Holland I love you!!!

I was so busy seeing the sights in Holland, I didn't have time to write on my blog at all. And I know you've all been dying to hear about my experiences in the Netherlands. Trying to write about all the things I saw and fun I had would be as impossible as sneaking up on someone in a pair of wooden shoes, but I'll do my best to fill you in.

I have a whole bunch of friends in Holland and they are all a total blast to be with. I met a couple of them in New Zealand, Michar and Coen, and the rest in Thailand. Michar's Mom, Loes, was extremely generous to me all week. She welcomed me into her home and took the whole week off to spend time with me and show me around. Not to mention that Michar, his dad Peter, and Loes drove all the way to Brussels to pick me up from the airport at 11:30pm!! Apparently being extremely kind is typical Dutch. Along with pretty much everything else on the planet if you ask Peter... :-)

First of all, there are more bicycles than cars around in Holland. Everyone rides their bikes wherever they possibly can. It's really fun. But I just want to announce to all the Dutch people out there that Americans also know how to ride a bike. Everyone thought they would have to teach me to ride a bike because I wouldn't know how! Silly Dutch people. So Loes and I went for a couple bike rides around Schoonhoven, where they live, and saw some windmills and really cute Dutch scenery. Schoonhoven is known for it's silver, so we shopped in a few silver shops as well. I really enjoyed their little town. It is the cutest town ever!

I spent a day in Utrecht. Loes and I visited a museum about music boxes and organ grinders. It was really fun. Then I spent the rest of the day with my friend Carla. We shopped, both of our favorite sport, saw some of the sights, shopped some more, and then made dinner at Carla's cute little house. The next day Carla was attending a sing-a-long Sound of Music at a theater in Amsterdam. She had a costume and everything. Doesn't that sound super fun? I'm thinking about having a sing-a-long Sound of Music at my house when I get home. If anyone is interested in coming, please let me know!

Amsterdam was pretty fun because it's so famous. Michar and I went to the Van Gogh Museum and I of course know more about Dutch painters than the typical Dutchman, Michar, so when we made a bet about whether or not Van Gogh cut his ear off, I got some free dinner. :-) I also got to see the "I Amsterdam" sign and Dam Square (did I spell that correctly? How embarrassing if not) and some nice streets for shopping if you're a millionaire. We also went on a canal cruise when it got dark out. We got to see the city all lit up and it was quite nice.

Delft was also lovely. Loes and I toured the Delft Blue factory to see how the famous pottery is made. It was really interesting. At the end of the tour we looked around the showroom and our jaws dropped at all the ridiculous prices of the pottery there. Holy Gouda! We left the factory and saw the Old Church, which is leaning. Hopefully you can see it in the pictures that it's visibly not standing straight up. We also saw the old monastery where William of Orange was killed. You can still see the bullet holes in the walls. I fell on the steps where he died in a dramatic reenactment (see photos.) If you want to know what William of Orange was famous for you'll have to look it up or contact Peter Breems because I'm not totally certain I remember the story. Something about religious freedom and Spain and something typical Dutch...and maybe tulips... Anyway, the Dutch people sure liked him before he died on the steps I saw.

The whole group of people that I met in Thailand got together on Saturday for some typical Dutch sport. I got to see Ronny, Maarten, and Coen again, which I was really excited about. (By the way, there is a picture on this blog of me with the spitting image of Paris Hilton, but it's actually Maarten believe it or not.) We had a canoe race and tug-a-war and rolled big barrels across a field. It pretty much reminded me of an Anderson Family Reunion. Except no one was wearing a hat that said "Old Fart." Anyway, it was a ton of fun and of course my team won. And we totally didn't cheat or anything...

We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner to complete our little reunion. It was so good to see that group of people again. I would go on another vacation with them any day! But only if they brought the new additions to the group (their significant others) who I had a blast with and thought were just lovely!

On Sunday we went to church in Amsterdam, which was international and in English. Yay! Then we went to an old fishing village that was protected from the water by a dyke! So exciting! We got to walk on the dyke and everything. And I want everyone to know that had it sprung a leak, I totally would have put my finger in it to save the village.

I timed my trip perfectly for 2 reasons. The first is that the weather was amazing while I was there, but rained both before I got there and after I left. The second is that I got to see Michar's older brother, Giliam, for at least one day before I left. I could not have left the country without seeing the Miffy dance. :-)

We had cheese fondue for dinner on Sunday night and Michar's grandma came over. She gave me a present and everything! She's super sweet! We had a great time at dinner that night and I was extremely sad to leave. Michar's younger brother, Nathan, even got up early to say bye to me the next morning. Holla Nate. :-) Holla in Holla-land. (It's really late at night as I write this.) So as much as I didn't want to leave, I had to wake up and smell the tulips and head off to my next adventure. Thank you to everyone in Holland for making my stay there absolutely wonderful!

Oh, and to everyone in America: Remember that joke about which one is bigger, Holland or the Netherlands? Yeah, I've got some shocking news on that one. They really aren't the same thing. Holland is technically only a region of the Netherlands. So that joke is just not funny. Can you believe that? Oh well, off to Switzerland.

I'm Still Alive

Hi from Holland. This place is so full of tulips, windmills, and wooden shoes that I haven't had any time to write on my blog. I am heading to Switzerland tomorrow. I will write soon!!!

From Russia with Love

Russia has been amazing. My Russian family is wonderful! They are being very good to me.

Russia has changed a lot in the last 5 years. The roads are nicer, there are more green areas with nice parks, they are building nice new apartment buildings and shopping centers, and the economy is better. Much to my disappointment, everything is much more expensive now. When I was here 5 years ago it was so cheap. It was easy to buy food and souvenirs and tickets to events because it was pocket change. I was expecting this to be a nice little break after the horrible prices in Europe. But no! It's just as, if not more, expensive than the United States now. :-( Boo. Stinkin US dollar is not worth much around the world these days...

Oh well, I'm over it now. My Russian family is taking such good care of me and we are having such a great time together that it doesn't matter. I am trying to speak as much Russian as I possibly can and I feel like I have learned a lot already! I can almost have a whole conversation with my Russian Mama! But it pretty much only works if she speaks in Russian to me and I fill in the empty spaces with "da, da, harasho, harasho, no ladna, harasho." It seems to work out pretty well this way.

Another thing I have noticed is that the Russian people seem a bit happier. Last time I was here my Russian friends told me that everyone knew I was an American because I was the only person walking around smiling. But this time it seems as if some Russians have joined me. We were just smiling with an incredibly cute little boy and his family in the subway yesterday. So I think things are looking up.

I've added some more pics to the Russia album. Peterhof was amazing. Peter the Great had way too much money. We also went to see Peter's collection of small deformed children. That may sound disturbing, and it was, but that's how my friend described it to me when she asked if I wanted to go see it. Peter used to collect many things and he put them in museums for the Russians to see free of charge. Unfortunately they are not still following Peter's tradition and of course you have to pay to get in now. But it's still pretty amazing. Peter was fascinated with science and really did a lot to encourage Russians to explore science. He collected medical marvels and among them are a bunch of fetus' (feti?) and small babies that died from medical malformation and are preserved in jars for people to view. Some of them were Siamese twins or born without brains or even had only one leg like a mermaid/merman. It was very sad, very interesting, and upset my stomach at the same time. At this same museum we saw the biggest globe in the world. What does this have to do with small deformed children? Nothing. But it's there. I gained more respect for Peter the Great through this tour though. He called scientists to St. Petersburg to meet and discuss science and really did a lot to make St. Petersburg capitol city material.

Yesterday I went on a helicopter ride over St. Petersburg. It was amazing and super fun. I also made an "American" meal for my Russian family. I wanted to make meat loaf because it's very American. They don't even have loaf pans here because they just don't make it. I couldn't find one in the store. There's also the small fact that I don't eat meat. So instead, I made my Auntie Dawn's Cottage Cheese Loaf. It's a vegetarian meatloaf. I also made glazed cooked carrots and mashed potatoes. They really enjoyed everything and couldn't believe the loaf wasn't made of meat. :-) It was fun and really yummy.

Today is my last full day in Russia and I'm going to be very sad to leave my Russian family after all the fun we've had this last week. But I guess that's part of this trip. I have to leave each place and move on to the next one. Hopefully my bag and I both make it to Holland in one piece.

St.Petersburg, Russia: The first four days

Saturday was an extremely long day of flying. I really don't know why I didn't fly direct. I had to get up at 3:45 am, be at the airport at 4:30, depart at 6:25, fly in the opposite direction of my final destination, sit in the airport in Rome (where I should have been sightseeing) for 3 hours, and then finally arrive in St.Petersburg at 5:30pm, go through customs of course etc etc. All in all over 12 hours of traveling. I think I'll spend the extra $100 next time. (Can you remind me of this experience, Ted?) :-)

Anyway, just so the saga of this around the world experience could continue, they lost my luggage. Go figure! Yeah, I definitely wore the same outfit (sweatpants no less) for about 65 hours. I thought it was so smart of me to just wear the outfit to bed the night before I had to get up at 3:45am. Little did I know, I would be wearing it to bed for two more nights. Needless to say it was a pretty smelly outfit when all was said and done, and I don't plan on wearing those clothes anytime soon. My luggage did reappear on Monday afternoon. Thank goodness!

So far we have walked around downtown St.Petersburg, which is beautiful. We went to the Hermitage and saw some pretty cool stuff. Saw a mummy and the bust of Peter the Great and some Rembrandt and Da Vinci.

We also went to the ballet and saw Swan Lake! It was beautiful. We sat in the balcony at first and then saw that there were seats open in the second row, so we moved down there during intermission and it was amazing. I loved it. Russian ballet is the best!

Yesterday we went to a water park. It was so much fun! They had a ton of slides, including a slide that shot you into a kind of funnel and you twirled around in it a little bit and then went down the hole into a pool of water. I guess I know what my number 2's feel like when they get flushed because it was pretty much like that... was that inappropriate? Sorry. Anyway, moving on. They also had a bunch of Saunas that you could sit in. There were all kinds of them in the styles of different cultures. After you sat in the sauna, you were supposed to jump into a pool of cold water before you went into the next one or back to the water park. It was pretty fun. There was also a Turkish sauna, which was like a steam room. The roof inside was made to look like a starry night sky. It was a pretty cool place. There was also a rock wall that you were supposed to boulder across and if you fell (which I did of course) you landed in a pool of water. Kate and I had a great time there!

Today we are going to Peterhof. It is the mansion estate of Peter the Great and it has a bunch of beautiful fountains and lots of things to see. Should be good! I'll write more about Russia soon.

Belgium

I arrived in Belgium on Sept. 2nd. My friend Annelies picked me up at the train station. Annelies was a foreign exchange student I met in high school. She participated in about every activity there was in high school and we were in the school musical and on the mock trial team together. She has been so wonderful in the planning of this trip! I got a lot of emails from her saying, "Come whenever you want! Just let me know when you've made your final plans!"

So after she picked me up we went to her lovely home and had spaghetti with homemade vegetarian sauce! I'm so impressed with Annelies! She made the sauce with this stuff they only have in Europe called "Quorn." (Joy, wasn't it you who told me I had to try that?) It was delicious! Then we went to rugby practice. :-) Annelies is on the Belgian National Rugby Team. These girls are hard core! I put on athletic clothes just in case there was anything I could join in on. I was just standing around on the field when Annelies yells, "We are running!" Next thing you know I'm doing the whole warm up with them. We were doing up-downs and shuffling to the right and left, forward and backward, and I kept running into people because I don't speak Dutch (which is the language they speak in the north of Belgium.) So Annelies starts yelling "right" and "left" after the coach yells in Dutch and soon the whole team is yelling in English so I know which direction to go. It was really cute. I had a good time. But as soon as they started tackling each other I became a spectator. It's not worth risking a broken bone for the rest of my trip.

The next day we went to Brussels. Saw a lot of beautiful things and the most famous thing in Brussels is called Manneken Pis. It's a statue/fountain of a little boy peeing! Apparently there's some story about a little boy saving the whole town by peeing on a building that was on fire to put the fire out or something like that. Anyway, the Belgians love this statue and they send clothes to dress him up. He has some 300 outfits. It's pretty funny. We also went to the Grand Palace. It is only open the public one month out of every year and it happened to be when I was there! The royal family was away on holiday so we got to see where they work. It was really fun. We also went into a beautiful cathedral and went underneath it to see the remains of a cathedral from the 9th century. Very interesting!

I also had the most amazing waffle of my life! A Belgian Waffle of course! With whipped cream, bananas, chocolate, and powdered sugar. I saved a bunch for later on my face too.

Annelies, her boyfriend Steven, and I also went to the Atomium. It is a huge Atom that they made for the world's fair in 1958 and now it's a museum. You can go up inside the molecules and everything! It was really fun.

Annelies had to study for a test one day, so I went to a city called Brugge. It was absolutely beautiful! Very picturesque city with a lot to see. I bought a visitor's guide for one Euro and it was the best Euro I ever spent! I did all the walking tours of the town they suggested and followed along in the book to get a description of everything I was seeing. I really enjoyed it and walked about 12km or so. Probably the most famous thing I saw was the Madonna and Child by Michelangelo. But I saw a lot of other wonderful things as well and the weather was very nice.

Steven showed me around Leuven a bit and I really enjoyed being there. It's a nice small town, a university town, and it's very cute.

The next day we all went to Antwerp, which is a more metropolitan city. We had a Brussels Waffle with ice cream on it and chocolate sauce. We also did a little shopping and I got a bookmark made of lace, which is pretty traditional here in Belgium. It started to rain pretty hard, so we didn't do a whole lot. We saw an old castle/fortress kind of thing that looked very cool and we of course got some BELGIAN CHOCOLATES!!! The truffles were sooooooo good! :-)

I really enjoyed my time in Belgium with Annelies and Steven. I had a lot of fun with them and enjoyed the Belgian people. They all seemed to speak perfect English with no problems!

More Paris!!!

Today was my major sightseeing day! I got up early for my walking tour of Paris (self-guided.) :-) I got up early and headed to the Arc de Triomphe to see it during the day. I arrived too early to go up to the top of it, but I enjoyed walking right underneath it and seeing it up close. Then I walked down the Champs Elysees, which is known for it's shops (mostly expensive ones) and cute cafes. I went into a shop called Zara, which Sophie recommended, and bought a really cute pink sweater! So now I can say I bought something on the Avenue des Champs Elysees in PARIS!!! :-) Then I walked to the Concorde and took some pictures and also saw the fountain where Andie (Anne Hathaway) tosses her phone at the end of the movie. :-) I met a ton of Americans while I was walking in the touristy spots. Of course we all took pictures for each other. Then I walked along the Seine river back to the Eiffel Tower and the Musee de la Marine to meet Sophie's sister, Helene, for lunch.

We sent to a really cute cafe and chatted about what to do and see in Paris. Helene is the curator for the museum and gets to look at the Eiffel Tower from her office window every day! How cool!

After lunch Helene got me on the right bus and I headed to the Louvre (of course I was going to go there, Justin!) It was really cool just entering in through the pyramid. Then I saw the Mona Lisa (along with a million Japanese Tourists snapping pictures), the Venus de Milo, the Raft of the Medusa, some naked guy by Michelangelo, Rembrandt's self portraits, and some of the other things highlighted on the map of the Louvre I picked up. I only took pictures of the things listed on the map so I can remember the names later.

I had a bit of an embarassing moment in the Louvre. I was looking for the bathroom and my map showed where the bathrooms were located, so I went to the part of the museum that I thought corresponded with my map and there were two doors across from each other that had French words on them. I don't speak French, so I thought maybe it said "bathroom." So I started pulling on one door and it didn't open, so I pulled on the other door and as I was pulling, I hear this yelling from the other side of the big hall. I turn and the museum worker is heading towards me and everyone is staring at me. "Can I help you?" the guy yells. So I am forced to call back, loudly enough so everyone can hear in the entire room, "I'm looking for the bathroom!" In front of an entire hall of Louvre visitors. I was definitely done with the museum after my embarassing bathroom visit.

I walked to the Opera House, which is absolutely gorgeous! They have all these statues of famous composers and musicians decorating the outside of the building as well as many other beautiful things.

Then I went to the Moulin Rouge!!! Tickets for shows there sell for over 100 dollars a person so needless to say I didn't go there. But it was cool just to see it. I wanted to wait until it got dark so I could see the neon lights better, but it was in a pretty shady part of town and I was all alone, so I left while it was still pretty light.

I visited the Eiffel Tower at night and was not dissappointed! After it gets dark, every hour on the hour the tower sparkles with lights. It is really fun too see and really beautiful. And after about 5 minutes it stops sparkling, but glows in the most beautiful shades of blue. None of my pictures do it justice. I could have stared at it all night it was so beautiful. All my absolutely favorite shades of blue.

The next day I went to Le Marais, a trendy district of Paris, and it was great! So cute! I really enjoyed it there. I saw Victor Hugo's mansion, which is on the corner of a really nice park. (He wrote Les Miserables by the way.) I also saw the Bastille, which is the site where a prison used to be before it was raided and destroyed. It's most famous "guest" was the man in the iron mask. Then I went to a museum about the history of Paris. It was free, which was great, but in France they never really label anything in English, only French, so I had no idea what anything was. It was still cool though. I did see a model of what the Bastille looked like before it was destroyed, as well as a bust of Marat, a leader in the French Revolution who I recently read about in a book. Anyway, I'm sure I'm boring you if you don't like museums. I basically walked around a ton and saw a bunch of other cool buildings, parks, and churches. Oh, and statues. You can let me know if you want the details about that stuff, or else I'll bore everyone. I really enjoyed walking around Paris. I probably walked like 8 miles every day. :-) It was great! I had no problems with the map, the subway, the bus (well relatively no problems with the bus), or any kind of communication while there. It was great! Yay Paris!