Hello all!

So now that I have been in Germany for almost a week...it has been a very long and exciting week. When we arrived last Friday morning we stayed up until about 10 o'clock Germany time so I was going almost 24 hours with about 2 hours of sleep. I was quite proud of myself. Laura and I visited the next town over and walked around with my cousin and Putzi my aunt and uncle's cute little dog and then went out to dinner. I had flamflugen (i know it is misspelled) it was a type of thin pizza with ham, goat cheese, and onions. It was pretty good. Laura and I crashed that night and woke up at noon on Saturday. We then went to visit a quaint little medieval town where a festival was going on. Very cool! Then we went onward to Heidleburg and walked around the town where another festival was going on and we watched fireworks with the castle in the backgrond.

Sunday was a kind of lazy day. We went to see Harry Potter in English in Frankfurt and walked around Frankfurt in the boiling heat. Then my aunt made dinner for us that night....very yummy.

Monday night Laura and I we flew into Rome at about 11 pm. So we went to bed and got up at 8 on Tuesday and just explored the city. So Tuesday we cramed in the Trevi Fountain, numerous fountains, the lions mouth, colliseum and the ancient ruins. We got a tour guide for the Colliseum and the ruins. Such a great guide for both. Laura and I were total tourists even though she hates to be. We also spent an hour getting lost going back to the hotel...that is when we saw the numerous fountains of Rome!

Wednesday we joined a tour group for the Vatican and it was possibly the best tour guide I have ever had anywhere. He was the same man who did the ancient ruins tour...very knowledable and well worth the moeny! I learned so much about the stories behind the Sistine Chapel and the Last Judgement painting in the Sistine Chapel. How wonderful these were! We then jumped on a tour bus to take us around the city where we could hop on and off at anytime. That allowed us to see things that we might have missed so it was great! Again we got lost going back to the hotel but we were not lost that long! It was an improvement!

So here we are back in Germany where my aunt is making an authentic German dish whose name escapes me at the moment. Then getting a good nights sleep because tomorrow we are off to Switzerland! We are going to a hotel in the mountains where we have to drive to a certain point and then park the car and take cable cars the rest of the way up because it is too steep to drive. Plus we also have to walk about 10-20 minutes to get to our lodging! How cool is that!

I cannot wait to get home and post pictures; I've taken over 300 of them already!!!