Europe Photos

Here's some pictures from my trip to Germany, Belgium, and France this summer...

Dusty's Den (authorized personnel only) in the Atlanta airport

Hanging out in Bremen

Along the Elbe River near Hamburg.

Ducks In Action! in Brugge, Belgium.

And we visited Jill in Kandern, Germany right before leaving - here we are creeping on butt soccer in the gym at the Black Forest Academy.

This is die Deutsche Bahn!

Today was a last hurrah in Strasbourg for us all starting out in the morning with a boat tour down the Ill River with Alicia and Molly (two girls from the program who were there with us overlapping 2 days). Then we walked over to the Contemporary Art Museum to see an exhibit called "Instants anonymes" aka anonomous instants which follows the art of amateur photography since the Brownie camera in the early 1900s. It was so fun to see all the silly pictures of people at the beach and the hilarious pictures of kids!

Then following a mad dash back to the hostel to pick up our bags and stopping by a boulangerie to get the most flour-encrusted bread ever, we made it to the train station and caught our TGV to Stuttgart. Julie and I had an hour layover there, so since trains are so lax, we were able to walk out and see the city for about 30 mins before we had to head back and get on our Deutsche Bahn-run train to Ansbach. Since our tickets had our whole trip on them, we had punched them like you're supposed to in France. Then we got lectured by the conductor on our way to Ansbach - hier ist die Deutsche Bahn! Eeep!

Once arriving in Ansbach, we had a little adventure with me buying us tickets for a bus to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (where we would be staying for the next 5 days) and then the bus never coming. Luckily, there was a train-tram combo that would get us there too, but unluckily, the ticket office was closed by the time we realized the bus was never coming! So, we ran up and caught a nice-looking man getting on the train and tried to explain the situation to him. However, my German was so rusty he couldn't really get what I was saying. Finally he asked if we spoke English! Yays! Apparently he thought I was French because of my accent in German! Even better was the fact that the German railway and bus system is the same, so we were able to use our ticket for the train-tram. Once we were in Rothenburg, we had to stop at a hotel to ask for directions, but eventually got to our hostel safely. This was followed by a lovely dinner of muesli, peach rings, trail mix, and petit ecoliers. Mmm.

Diplomatic Travels

Today Julie and I tried to make the most of our last day in Strasbourg. First, we went to the cathedral again because we both wanted to see the astronomical clock with the movie (it was 1 euro to go again), so we bought tickets early and then kind of walked around for a bit stopping into various papeteries to see if she could find a cool fountain pen for her boyfriend. Unfortunately, many papeteries later, our search was still going.

We then went back and saw the movie again at noon, after which, we headed back to the hostel to rent bikes for the afternoon. We then rode over to the EU sector of Strasbourg and saw all the EU buildings (the human rights building was particularly cool). We also found out you can't get tours unless you're with a group of 25 or more. Booo. I did feel very French riding around on my bike that afternoon though. Yay!

Then we tried to find the Orangerie, but the signs kept leading us in circles and when we looked at the map, we should have passed it numerous times, but it wasn't there. Only later did we find out we were about a block away the whole time! So instead, taking our impeccable map-reading skills, we realized we had 2 hours left on our rentals and had done everything we wanted, so why don't we see if we can bike across the Rhine into Germany? And indeed, we did! The ride was a little dubious at the end with all the industrial parks around and us sneaking by the customs booth on the highway, but we made it, took lots of pictures, and then it started to rain. By the time we made it back to the hostel, both of us were significantly less dry and wind-chafed than before we left. But it was worth it; we biked to Germany!