Like a Roman Statue...

Ladies and Gentleman!
We had a wonderful fun filled day today. We got on our Big Bus Tour early and took it to the Design Museum. We got to see all our favorite chairs. The ones that we annoyingly point out to our loved ones in awe of their great design.
We ate lunch outside of the museum on the Thames and continued on to Madame Taussaud's wax museum. It was such a show! Famous people everywhere looking their best, plenty of shots were taken.
Melissa then met a really famous person there. He's famous in England and only some people in the US know who he is. She can't tell yet though cause she's waiting to rub it in to her fionce. He's going to go nuts and so will all his guy friends. Man...it's a good secret. She got a picture and an autograph!
This evening we walked through Kensington Gardens and enjoyed the weather. Really warm in the sun and chilly in the shade.
Tomorrow is the Changing of the Guard, some other random sites, and hopefully a show!
We'll post tomorrow night to wrap up our last day =(

Bye Bye for now!

"Look kids Big Ben...Look kids Big Ben..."

Chevy Chase, funny guy.
We all so far, really like London. Today we enjoyed the British Museum for over half of the day. It was nice to be in a museum that wasn't art based. Melissa liked the money room, Andrea liked all the mummies (we saw a 3d show, totally cool), and Holly liked the stuffed birds and rare seashells.
We then got on the Big Bus Tours and rode around the rest of the afternoon and got off at Piccadilly Circus. We had pizza for dinner at a buffet and stuffed our faces which was rather delightful.
Tomorrow we have a busy day planned and we aren't going to be able to fit everything in in two days but we'll try!
Bye everyone, we'll post soon!

I understand...

Something that we can finally say! Today we could have conversations with strangers, order food, and had to be quite talking about people! =) It was hard for us to post the past couple of days because of the short time in the cities we were in so sorry to keep everyone hanging.
Amsterdam was pretty good. It's a nice city and isn't as hooker and potish as you'd think. Yes, you can find those but we tried to stay away from things that take us over budget for the day. We went to the VanGogh museum which was ok but our favorite was the Anne Frank House. Really cool to see it in person.
We travelled the next afternoon after having the best breakfast at Bagel and Beans! We all had our first bagel in quite some time. Brussels was the most modern city we've been to. We enjoyed a Belgium Waffle with ice cream and walked around the city center.
This morning we left Belgium on the 7:40 train to Paris. We arrived at Charles de Gualle 3 hours early for our flight! Since we were early, the flight was delayed. We got off the ground an hour late but they somehow made 1:10 flight into 45 minutes.
We were excited to read our signs in english at Heathrow and found the hostel no problems. It's a pretty dinky hostel but the good news is...it's our last one to complain about!
Tomorrow we're seeing some sites and it's internet cafe city here so we'll make sure to post!

Bye!

Our Butts Hurt

We started the morning with cold milk at breakfast!! It started the day off right for Melissa and Holly. We knew we´d like Germany.
We went to the plaza where Mike´s Bike´s departs and unfortunately we think they went out of business. They were mia. So we rented bikes today but did it on our own and had a wonderful time. We found the Central Park of Munich and had lunch in a beer garden. Melissa had a bratwurst, Holly had schnitzel, and Andrea had the wurst chicken fingers of her life, they had wings.
We biked all afternoon and saw all of Munich. Today is a German Holiday so we didn´t do any shopping. Only restaurants are open. Our butts are not used to this sort of seat but hopefully the night train is cushy or Melissa will stop at the pharmacia to pick up a donut.
Will post soon from the marijuana capitol of the world.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Ja...Deutchland

Hello All!
Thanks for the posts. Venice was spectacular and we did just as we thought, ate and walked around. We took our first night train last night. Rather interesting. We were in a compartment with six chairs and when we boarded we took our claim, closed the door, and turned the lights off. It´s like a game of cat and mouse or who has the guts to open up the curtain. Well there was this one dude from Spain who we named Pedro. He smelled like old mans cologne so we let him in. We managed to keep all others out. But Pedro and us got along just fine and we probably got about 5 hours of sleep last night.
We arrived in Munich this morning and checked into our hostel run by nuns. They´re very nice and this place is so clean! We day triped to Newschwinstein castle (I know this is spelled wrong) but this is the castle that inspired the Disney Castle. It was really cool and was a very scenic train ride. We don´t know exactly what moutain range we were on but we´ll say the Swiss Alps creeped into Germany. They were big. Tomorrow we´re doing a little Mike´s Bike´s tour of Munich and then another night train to Amsterdam!

We´ll post soon. Danke for reading!

Good thing we can swim

Hello all!
Were alive and in Venice! Its a wonderful town and we already debated staying an extra day and since we dont have night train reservations we just might =) Theres murano glass all around and no fishy stinky smells or gross men!
Yesterday, Pompeii was wonderful. The Chinese tourists seem to ruin every site though in their huge groups with their dang photos! We have some lovely new poses you all should try with a state of art digital camera. We didnt have all the time in the world in Pompeii but it was very old, very cool, and had a few stray dogs. We got on the train at 2 and got to Venice at 10. While waiting for our water bus to our hotel we met a person from St. Louis! He lives about 5 min away from Maryville and went to Michigan state. That Cardinals logo is recognizable anywhere!
Just walking around today shopping, eating (the food is good!), and taking lots of photos.

Feeling better in a new city,
Ciao!

Naples.........we are getting out of here

Well we made it to Naples this afternoon and are already ready to leave. This city is very dirty with trash all over the ground everywhere. It seems like only gross men live here as they gather on the corners to gawk. We thought it would be relaxing to find the beach and get a tan, but unfortunately we got on the wrong train to Sorento and ended up wasting 2 hours trying to get back. We saw the Naples ghetto and it reminded us of Tijuana. For dinner, once we returned without ever seeing the beach, we were going to have some pizza since this is the birthplace of it. However, since it is Sunday, everything is closed! We went to the train station and stuffed ourselves with McDonalds instead. Tomorrow morning we are going to Pompei and then getting on a lunchtime train to Venice. Despite all the nastiness of the city, we are still able to laugh at ourselves, and others!

Until tomorrow.....

Ah...A suntan!

Hello all!
Yesterday we waited in line at the Vatican Museum for 1.5 hours to view the Sistine Chapel. The vatican has a huge museum with some great pieces of art but it really is just a mad dash for the sistine chapel when you get into the museum. It was extremely beatiful place where everything looked 3d. We then went inside Vatican City and walked inside St. Peters Basilica. Well its gigantic x10. There was art, Michelangelos Pieta, and the Popes tomb! But we said our respects in a different way because of the line. We basically did everything in Vatican City BUT see the pope. In the evening we saw the Spanish Steps and Trevi fountain. We got back to the hostel early and met one nice traveler that speaks 4 languages!!!! Shes from Germany and never met a Schuessler. We also met two sisters travelling after one had studied in Spain, they were from AZ. Were off to Naples today so well post later!

Ciao Bella!

When in Rome......

We made it to Rome today and have already seen a lot. After walking around awhile looking for our hostel (what's new), we enjoyed some pb&j in the park with some hobos. The first thing we saw was the Colosseum and it was awesome!!!!!!!! (Holly's favorite so far). We got the guided tour and learned a lot about the background of the place. Once again we are enjoying free admissions from culture week! Next, we walked up to the old ruins and explored that area where we saw many cool things including the cell Peter and Paul were imprisoned in back in the day. The Pantheon (real one) was cool too and we took a break at the fountain across the street near McDonalds. Yep, McDonalds is right across from the Pantheon! We were starving by this time so we stopped for some pizza at an outdoor cafe. Unfortunately for Andrea, her pizza was albino (all cheese with no sauce). She may be a little stopped up :) Tomorrow we head to the Vatican! Pope, here we come!

Ciào

Culture! We love culture!!

Hi everyone, it's Andrea posting for the first time. We're still in Florence and we all really love it. It's right up there with Paris in terms of stuff to do. So today we did the Uffizi gallery - they have all the major Renaissance works. We stood in line for 4 hours to get in but it's culture week so the admission was free to all museums! So I guess it was totally worth it. Plus the paintings were great too. That's 8.50 euro saved each - one meal on the road...or half a meal for Holly! The rest of today we walked around town, did some shopping and then walked each of the 463 stairs to the top of the Duomo (cathedral). I took tons of pictures, of course. It was a beautiful day, no rain today. The view from the top was spectacular! We're ready to rest our feet for awhile now - good thing tommorrow we are taking the morning train down to Rome. The gelato was good again the second day in a row. I'm sure there will be more to come.

Ciao!

P.S. For Liz's mom - get well soon. We have you guys in our thoughts and prayers.

Florence!!!!

We made it into Florence today after touring the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Duomo, and Baptistery. We got some good shots of the tower with us trying to push it back up. Florence is much more touristy then our previous cities, but full of shopping and gelato. We walked around today and saw Michelangelos David statue (real and fake). We also toured another cathedral, San Marcos and had gelato for dinner. Yes, that is correct= ice cream for dinner!!!!!!!!! The rain has followed us here as well so we spent a few minutes under the awnings of shops. Tomorrow we plan on going to an art museum to see some masterpieces and the old outdoor market. Keep checking for more!

Ciao

Were in Pisa

We tried to view the Cinque Terre today but the weather didnt cooperate. We did see some cliffs with houses at one train stop and we also had our best food of the trip. Lasagna or Ravioli for us and it was delicious! So we road the train to Pisa, got a hotel in our price range and will view the leaning tower tomorrow. Well post more, just a relaxing day here!
We also want to say happy graduation to all the graduates that we missed. Melissa forgot to post it a few days ago!

Bonjourno!

Well Im sure the greeting is spelled wrong but just sound it out. Were now in italy where the apostrophe cannot be found on the keyboard. Last night we got in, did some laundry and had some gelato. Getting here was kind of funny (to Genova) since we got kicked out of our seat by some physco old people but we sat close by and met a nice american couple. We think they were honeymooning. But weàre about to get kicked offof this computer so got to go. We miss you all and love the posts!

Long time, no blog

Hello all!
We waited a long time to get to this computer with teh right keyboard. Today we arrived at Nice and it was very nice. It was quite a trip to get to hostel. Up a huge hill with horrible directions. We changed and headed to the Cannes film festival and this is where it gets interesting. We stopped at the crowd up people, waited 40 minutes and saw people exiting THE STAR WARS PREMIER! Yup, that's right. We saw George Lucas, Natalie Portman, and Hayden Christensen and darth vader and storm troopers! We hung out with the papperatzi and acted psycho. It was an excellent time. We're now back at hte hostel, which was another event in itself but we cabbed it. It's a younger hostel with beer for 1 euro so Melissa is happy. Tomorrow we're off to Genova after laying out on the rocky clearwater beaches here.
I guess we should tell you about yesterday, we went around with Andrea's friend Lauren to the Sacre Coueur, a big catholic church. Then to the red light district, saw some ladies, and moulin rouge. Overall, kind of disappointing except for the crepes. We tried to go to Jim Morrison's grave but it closed too early and then had dinner at Quick, McDonald's rival and let me tell you, it is a rival.
All is well and we will post soon, keep checking!

French keyboards, ick

Hey everyone
We mqnqged to find a cafe w/no english keyboards. You have to shift for a period here!
On our way to meet Andrea,s friend Lauren then to Montmqrte and a few other places: We,ll post when it,s not this hard.

Hello from Notre Dame!

We're about a block away from Notre Dame by way of the Louvre. We decided we will write a book about how to navigate the Louvre. We did it in about 4 hours this morning! It really helps that all the descriptions are written in French.
As far as yesterday goes, the Eiffel tower was wonderful and we climbed all the way up and got some excellent pictures. We only had to pay 3 euro to go to the top, suckers paid 10 for the tram! No picnic under the tower because all they were serving was ice cream, a little too chilly for that. Dinner was in view of the Arc de Triomphe last night at a cafe on the Champs Elysees. Andrea pointed out McDonalds.
This afternoon we went to Notre Dame which was totally fabulous and we're now headed to the 'student' part of Paris. This evening we don't have much planned and tomorrow we're headed to the Montramarte w/Andrea's friend Lauren. This is where Moulin Rouge is.
A little shout out to Holly's parents. FIGURE OUT HOW TO POST! She misses you =(
We'll post later!

We're here (in London)

Have you ever typed on a tin keyboard? We have! The flight to London went quickly because the sun set and rose in 3 hours. Sorry to Andrea's parents for not calling before we left Chicago. So we're waiting for our flight to Paris and it's the Eiffel Tower today! Will post soon! Keep checking!

We

1 Day till Takeoff!

Hello Everyone!
I just signed off aol for the first time in many many days and Holly and Andrea are busy running errands this morning. At approximately noon today I'll finish packing up and pick up Holly and Andrea to head up to Bloomington. My dad will then take us to O'Hare tomorrow. The backpack I have is sure getting heavy!
Will post soon!
Melissa