Schladming

We arrived in Schladming around 5pm after a beautiful train-ride in. We had a little trouble finding Haus Katherina, but finally arrived. I think we are the only guests in this hotel as well.

We were shown our cute and very traditional Austrian apartment which has a separate bedroom, toilet room, tub room, and a kitchen/living room. It is on the top floor and has very beautiful views.

We found out we could do laundry here! No more laundry in the sink! W got our laundry sorted and then headed out to find some eats. Nearly all the stores were closed, which was weird, but we finally found a cute little place which looked like a circus inside, and got some dinner. It was weird, but I had never been in that restaurant, or even come across it before. The Pizza there was delicious, as well as the salad.

Both of us were exhausted, and so decided to go back to the hotel to finish off our laundry, and relax for the evening. We watched a football game, and then went to bed.

We woke up May 1st at 9:30am. Our host prepared a beauteous breakfast for us, which we really enjoyed. We cleaned ourselves up, and were about to head to town when we heard a marching band right under our window! There ws also a lot of church bell ringing. We headed into town, and again, we found a ghost town. We finally figured out, it must be a holiday! Tauernhof however, was open. We met a nice girl named Monika, who told us that Martin was on holiday. She did however open the bookstore so we could buy a book, and a couple of post cards, and a beauteous necklace, which Martin's wife made.

The rest of the morning we strolled around town, in the rain. We went for lunch at a little cafe near our hotel, and spent the rest of the day, playing cards, and relaxing.

We ventured out to dinner, and thought we would order some salad. That was a nasty mistake. It was a nasty pickley mess! It was shreaded meat, both pink and white, with eggs, tomatoes, pickles, and who knows what else. It was one of the nastiest things I've ever eaten.

A Short Stop in Munich

We arrived at Motel One where we discovered mistake 2 of 3. Instead of being booked for April 29th, we were booked for May 29th. Luckily, they still had a room for us, but this got us thinking and we didcovered mistake 3 of 3. We were scheduled to arrive in Schladming right now! OOPS. After some frantic searching for a phone (they didn't have a phone we could use in the hotel), we headed to the Ost Bahnhof and called Katherina Haus to change our reservation.

Having cleared up the blunders we were able to relax. Out small but cute and modern room was very nice. It had a fireplace channel on the tv, and the comfiest beds yet! So we layed down for a nap. The shower was amazing too, with the showerhead being about as big as a head...Mmmmmm.



Then off to HofBrauhaus for supper. We looked at a map and saw that this restaurant was near Marienplatz and assumed we could find it from there...but we had to ask a guy for directions. He walked us part way there, and we enjoyed a conversation with him.

On the trainride from our hotel to Marianplatz, one stop into our route, an enormous african american man came and sat across from me. He quite deliberately put his grocery bag on the seat beside him. Another man, drunk and trying to have a conversation with the large black man, forced his way onto the seat with the grcery bag, which was across from Troy. The large man moved his bag, and tried to end the conversation with the drunk guy. The drunk guy then, noticed me. He was saying I was super woman, like Madonna, but those were about the only English words he knew. He was almost yelling, trying to get someone to interpret to me, what he was saying, but the black man, was silently discouraging people from doing this. Finally the big guy, got up to leave. I didn't know whether it was our stop or not, turned it out was, but I figured we should get off too...I figured it we stuck close to him, we'd be safe.

When the drunk guy noticed we were getting off, he too got off, and tried to keep us with us, while yelling, "Madonna!", but we were trying to keep up to the black guy. Anyways, we got away. And with a funny story no less.


We were seated with an older gentleman, and started our fantastic dinner. The man was Australlian/Austrian, and was very well travelled and he had actually just visited Calgary about 4 weeks before! When we sat down, he was just finishing up his beer and must have enjoyed our company, because he stayed and talked to us for quite some time. We enjoyed his company as well.

Our dinner started with 2 beers. Troy ordered a pork steak and I bad the bone-in pork knuckle, on the reccommendation of the older man. Both dinners were very very tasty! Then we had some coffee, Kaiserschmarn, my favorite, and some cake thing, covered in vanilla cream sause for Troy.

Along the way we got talking to our waiter Alex. He is Yugoslavian, and speaks 6 languages. We talked about everything from him, to languages, travel, sport, motivation (for him to learn Greek, it was girls), and how it is easy to make anyone an enemy no matter who or what they are but few people choose to make friends. I think he liked us, because he frequently came to our table, but never offered us a bill. We were there about 3 hours.

The next morning, I was so excited about going to Schladming, that I could hardly sleep. We had a Motel One Breakfast buffet, which was cleverly hidden behind a secret wall.

To save some effort, we decided to see if we could find a train to salzburg from Munich Ostbahnhof instead of going back to the HBF. To our delight, we found one and got on!

After 1 1/2 hours the train was stopped longer than normal. We heard loud bangs, like trash cans being emptied, which is not normal for an in-use train. It turns out, this train was about to go back to Munich, and a bus ws required to continue on to Salzburg. But it was so weird, because the train was marked for Salzburg.

We got out in this place where we didn't know where we were, and asked the DB guy to help us get to Salzburg. We had a 1 hour delay, so trekked into the weird little town in the middle of no where, to get some eats.

When we finished our lunch, we turned back to the train station, and went to the platform, where we were told by the DB guy, and where the signs indicated the train would be arriving. It was very confusing, because first of all the train was very late, I think about 40 minutes, and it ended up coming in on a different track. Everyone was very confused, and no one knew what to do. anyway, after some confusion, we did find the right place to get one, and we were on or way to Salzburg.

We switched trains in Salzburg, and were finally on our way. The train car we were in to Schladming, has windows you could open, so I did the entire way, and took lots of photo's. What a great feeling, going to somewhere you love so much. It was so cool as we rode I was thinking about God...and I thought...the God was the same when I first rode this train to this wonderful town, as He is right now... for some reason, that was very cool to me at that time. I couldn't stop smiling.

Castle Town, Schwangau

We arrived in Munich at 6am but not before being served a breakfast of coffee, which I added dwater to, from the sink. I was about to take a sip, when I noticed the "DO NOT DRINK" sign. Boo. The sandwich we got as well, was terrible.

In Munich we bought a couple of Maps and then to Starbucks for a couple of Vanilla Latte's.

Where we discovered 1 of 3 errors which I'd made in planning this leg of our trip. Instead of borrowing a car from Enterprise across the street from the Bahnhof we were at, the Enterprise I rented from, was across town.

Troy was gracious with me and located a route on the metro. We found the enterprise easily and rented a tiny opel, which had just enough room for us, and our bags. We also rented a tomtom - our GPS system which like everything else this far, has been a Godsend.

We drove through the beautiful country of Germany and even got to drive on the Autobahn. The Opel had no problem keeping up, and easily held speed at 170 kph. It is quite something to be passed, while going that fast, especially when it is a mini-van!

We arrived at our hotel Landgasthof 'Zur Post'in Schwangau around 11am, and were greeted not by a person at the front desk, but by a note welcoming us to town, and providing our key and telling us they were on holidays.
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We found our cute room on the 1st floor (which is considered the 2nd floor in North America). We had a HUGE walk-out patio. We showered and got refreshed with clean clothes, and headed off to see the castles!

We drove to the closest parking lot available, and then purchased our tickets to both castles.

We had a bit of time before our tour began and were very hhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifungry. We both got a tasty bevarian sausage and some french fries to share. We then began to climb the massive hill to Hohenschwangau castle. We had a bunch of time to walk around the outside of the castle, before our tour started. What a beautiful place. It overlooked the beautiful Bavarian Countryside. Our tour guide LOVED his job, and it was easy to tell. He chatted a lot with Troy and I, which seemed to annoy some of the other people on our tour, but we had a lot of questions for him, which he was more than happy to answer.

The castle was filled with expensive gifts from dignitaries and famous friends of the Royal Family. Unfortunately they do not allow you to take photo's in the castles.

We took many photo's around the castle, and out windows in the castle, and then walked down the hill, on our way to the next castle.

Neuschwanstein looked magnificent from the valley below, and looked better and better the closer you got to it. We took a horse and carriage ride almost all the way to the top, and we walked the rest of the way.

This castle is really something to behold. It was thought up by King Ludwig II who was said to be crazy. They worked on the castle for 12 years, and by that time, had only completed 1/3 of the work. King Ludwig moved in at this stage, and 2 weeks later, was declared insane. 2 days after that, they found him floating in a lake in Munich. Ever since then, this castle has been a tourist attraction, for obvious reasons. The rest of the castle, has not been completed.

The castle is even more beautiful and elaborate that the first castle. Ludwig even had a secret room, behind his bedroom, which looks like something out of Indiana Jones. Its a cave room/secret passageway, and it honestly looks like you are walking though a cove 1000 miles, inside a mountain. There were stalagmites and different colors everywhere. Very different.

Troy and I tried to find secret passageways in the castle, but didn't find any luck. All the doors were locked, and none of the walls we pushed on moved.

We took many photos here, once again, not allowed inside the castle, but from the windows, and outside, and then we walked around to the bridge behind and above the castle.

We left the castles after trying a delicions donut like treat and another carriage ride down. Our feet, once again, were sore. We got back to our hotel, with still no sign of the owners.

We went to find some eats, after lounging around our hotel room for a bit. We found a local Italian eatery, and a friend. He was a cute old man who could not speak English, but managed to communicate he would be making our breakfast. We entered the restaurant with him, and ordered a shrimp cocktail, pizza's, and wine, and lemonade/coke for Troy. The shrimp cocktail...although not terrible, was something out of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. It was lettuce, cooked, but cold mini-shrimp, with about 1 1/2 bottles of thousand islands dressing on top.

The pizza's however were amazing. I think it was the best I've ever had!

We had a difficult time communicating with the waiter that we would like some dessert, but he did bring us a drink from the cute old man who couldn't stop staring at me. The drink was fairly nasty, but we could not let him know that.

Finally the waiter brought us a bill. I guess he did not want to serve us dessert. We got up to leave, and the cute old guy followed us out. He pointed down the street and told us we should go see "Life Music". We attempted to follow his directions, with no luck, more-so to appease him, than because we actually were super interested.

We couldn't find the life music (live music), but we did find another cute place where we got some Tiramisu, and coffee. Unfortunately we found out after we both started eating that the dessert contained nuts...so Troy couldn't eat it!

We walked back to our hotel in the rain, only to find it locked! Before trying our key, we rang the hotel doorbell, and the owner, who had since arrived, let us in, and told us our key would have worked in the front door. Good to know for next time!

The morning brought rain, so the plans to check out the bobsled, and the crystal spa which we'd discovered were also in Schwangau, were out. Boo.

We got up and ate a lovely traditional breakfast of bread, cheese, meats, yogurt, fruit, jams, etc, and some great coffee.

We then packed up, made a quick stop to the post office to mail our beautious picture, bid farewell to the cute oldie (who we gave the Canadian Pen we'd purchased in the TO airport), and headed off for Dachau.

The drive was beauteous, yet uneventful. It was raining in Dachau. Not hard, but enough to set the mood for a walk through the memories of the past. It seemed very appropriate. It was April 29th, 2008, which is the anniversary of the day that the prisoners of Dachau were liberated.

The Concentration Camp was something neither of us will ever forget, and very graphic. I had a difficult time taking it all in, and about 3/4 of the way through it, I had to stop, it was too much for me. They say that Dachau was not a death camp, because they claim they did not exterminate people there (although they do have extermination chambers). They say it was not an extermination camp, but it certainly was a death camp, because they worked people to death, starved them to death, and beat them to death. It is said about Dachau, that the crematorium burned 24 horus a day, the entire time Dachau was open, and that was not enough time to burn all the bodies of those who died there.

We left Dachau more educated in our world's history, but determined not to let it effect the rest of our day. So naturally, we went to Burger King.

We drove back to Munich, with the help of TomTom, and returned the car, and then were driven to our hotel, Motel One.

A Brief Stop in Vienna

(We grabbed a lovely meal in the dining car, after being laughed at by a bunch of Locals for saying "excuse me" to get by). We arrived in Vienna and Ruth, the friend we made on the train helped point us in the right direction, as our train from Prague was arriving at the Sudbahnhof & we were leaving Vienna for Munich from the west banhoff.

We found it easily, after Ruth departed 1/2 way through our journey. We avoided getting beer spilled on us in the metro by an intoxicated patron, thank goodness.

We arrived at Vienna west Banhnhoff over an hour early and got some snacks, and then waited for the train to arrive. We got to hear a lot of drunk football fans being obnoxious on the platform.

Finally our train arrived!

We easily found our train car, and our friendly attendant showed us to our room. First though, Troy figured he'd see how tough I was, and rammed me in the face with his pack and gave me a nose bleed.

Our room was tiny, but well appointed. Two bunks, one low for Troy, and another super high for me. I needed a ladder to get up and down.

Neither of us slept very well on the train. It was great to have a place to lie down though. We also got rammed by a train joining our train, really hard in the middle of the night. That was a bit scary but par the course I'm sure.

Prague

Beauteous Prague...you're still as beautiful as I remembered you. That's about all I remembered about Prague. We arrived around noon on Saturday by train from Berlin. We stood in a long line at a Relay station to get some Czech currency as change, only to discover they didn't take Euro. We easily found an ATM, but were unsure of how much their currency was worth. We guessed and took out $3000 CZ Monies, which turned out to be a perfect amount.

With troy as our transit navigator, we easily found our hotel, Apart BV, but since it was too early, we were unable to check in. We left our packs at a cost of 30CZ, and took off to find some eats. Its note-worthy at this point, to tell you that I took 2 Gravol on the train, to help with motion sickness, as well as the added benefit or the drowsiness. But wow...I felt like I was as tired as I had ever been. I did no discover that the Gravol had this bad of an effect on me, until our plane ride home, when I again noticed how tired I was, and in addition, noticed my pupils were the size of golf balls.

Anyways. We found some sausages, and sat in Wenceslas Square & admired all the beautiful tulips. I was SO exhausted, so we decided to try to stick around our hotel. We also left our camera in our pack, so couldn't take photo's. We found a McDonald's, for our first and only stop there, and got some fries, and sundae's...to try to get me some energy. No luck, but yummy all the same. Time seemed to move in slow motion.

From there we got a little lost, and stumbled upon an outdoor market full of marionettes, wooden toys, paintings, lace, fruits, and many other fun things. I fell in love with some art work, but we decided to wait to see if we could find something else we liked more.

From the market we headed to our hotel, located at 36 Wenceslas Square. We checked into our hotel which was clean, and comfortable and had a massive window overlooking the square.

Both of us were exhausted...me for more due to the gravol than anything else....and took a nap. 3 hours later we woke up, better rested, yet a tad crabby all the same. We ventured out, and took the metro to Charles Bridge. From there we walked across the crowded but pleasant bridge, stopping to view all the vendors and street artists, including a jazz band, who played along the bridge. We noticed a restaurant which looked nice and was right on the river. We made our way there, funding a funny statue of men peeing on our way.

For dinner, I ordered white wine, Caesar salad and veal schnitzel. Troy ordered water (still) which came in a cool bottle, Caesar salad and the organic chicken on the recommendation of our waitress. The waitress brought us some yummy and yucky bread to start with also. the Caesar salad was very yummy and contained boiled eggs. Our dinners were great, but it cost us $1465 CZ, which we figure is about $80. Go figure. We visit the cheapest city in Europe, and eat in the most expensive restaurant in the city.It was well worth it though, right along the river, with a heat lamp right above it. It was lovely.

After dinner we walked to old town, and spent some time viewing the old town square. We stopped to watch the famous clock on the hour, but were surprised such a sight gained so much fame. We got some ice cream as we left. It was delicious, and after a bit of walking our feet, once again were sore and we retired to our room. Troy rubbed my feet while I finished the finally Harry Potter book. Good Night Beautiful Prague.

This morning we woke up well rested, and happy. We packed up and left our packs for the day and headed off to Prague castle. From the station we walked 2200 meters and arrived. our first stop was the castle cafe for some coffee and apple strudel. Unfortunately it had nuts, so Troy could not partake, because of his allergy.

We walked through the castle grounds, stopping to listen in on some beautiful singing at the cathedral. We saw some great views and easily made our way back into town. We walked over to the Jewish Quarter, thanks to Troy's brilliant Navigational skills, only to find that it was a Jewish Holiday, and the museum as well as the Jewish Synagogue were closed. BUMMER.

We wandered through town and came upon old town once again, not before stopping for some post cards and stamps.

We bought some lunch - Gyro's, but were disappointed with them, and threw most of them out.

We thought briefly of taking a train ridge through the city, but figured we'd get a better tour by foot. And we did. We did purchase a boar ride. A bus took us to the boat port, and we were able to get the last seats on the top deck. Sharing a table with a few older men who turned out to be quite chatty, from Belgium. The boat tour was very enjoyable and we were served colored cake, and gross coffee. It was lovely all the same.

After walking all over town already, we made it easily from the Rive to old town square and then to the market we'd been at the day before. We saw a beautiful picture for 550 CZ and that lady was even willing to give us a 50cz discount. We found a much better price at another booth, for an even more beautiful large picture, and even had enough for 2 small pictures as well. Unfortunately the vendor was unwilling to give us a deal, but the pictures were so beautiful we bought them anyways.

With our beautiful pictures in tow, we walked back and picked up our backpacks and walked to the train. With some help from some locals we purchased some train tickets and boarded a train towards the train station.

With 62 CZ left in our pocket, we arrived at the train station, and purchased a large bottle of iced tea, and 2 8CZ cheese buns. We had 2 CZ to spare! With no problem we found and boarded our train, and even made some friends in our compartment. We are 1/2 way through our trip to Munich now, and they have stooped the train...I wonder if they threw someone off?

We'll soon arrive in Vienna.

Berlin

(written by Troy) "The trip to the airport was not too bad, but the signage for the RER is not as clear as the metro. With some help from some helpful and friendly Parisians, we were directed onto the right train, destined for the Orly Airport.

Easy jet is very cheap, but is it worth the pain of being constantly in a "line"? The check in desk was not open when we arrived but people formed a line before the line. We ignored it. When boarding, you need to be in the front of the line, to get seats together on the plane. Why don't they just assign seats? But the flight was ok, and we arrived on time.

The ticket machine was a little confusing at the Berlin airport, and we got several single use tickets instead of a day pass. But I think it worked to our favor in the long run.

The train ride, was a bit confusing, and the train compartment we were in was LOUD, and obnoxious. About 10 guys got on the train, from Russia, all drunk, and with large bottles of brew in hand. They talked loud, they laughed loud, and some of them even fell asleep, once the train began to move. We felt a bit unsafe in the beginning, but one of them started talked to us, and we found them obnoxious, but harmless. Nearing their stop, one guy, started to wake his sleeping comrades. One of them was completely passed out. He pulled him, off his seat, onto the floor. You can imagine how that went over. In addition, when that guy was sleeping, a German man, boarding the train walked by, and you can imagine the disgust, when he saw this guys dirty feet, on a train seat. Europeans are very protective of their trains, and get quite angry, when people put their feet on the seats.


We found our new home at the Schoenhouse Apartments without incident. And what a wonderful home it was for 3 days. Walking through the cafe into the court yard, and around the corner, was the entrance to our building. Upon opening the door I could immediately detect the scent of a typical German home.

Down the hall and to the right was our apartment which had a relaxing living room (with a TV, that had only BBC News, and CNBC in English, along with MTV Europe, and Spanish game shows), a cute kitchenette and table and our big cozy bed with huge German pillows, and separate duvets for each of us!

After settling in, we ventured into our neighborhood, and sat outside on some long benches at a restaurant for a typical German dinner. (Schnitzel and such). On the way back home we stumbled upon Extra Foods, to stock our kitchen.

German Grocery Highlights:
~Wine as cheap or cheaper than Fanta.
~Sandwich meat, made to look like a Bear.
~Tons of selection in a very small space.

The rest of the evening was spent hand washing our laundry, playing cards, and munching on chips and gummy bears, and of course Fanta (sipping, not munching).

The next day started with a visit to Checkpoint Charlie. After some initial confusion about lineups, entrances, and lockers for the day pack, we were able to check out the museum. I forgot how many crazy schemes people came up with to flee East Berlin. Shara graciously put up with my attempted history lessons.

A short walk down the street and we were tempted by a balloon ride above the city. The view was fantastic, and helpful for orientation. Around another corner, was a long segment of the original Berlin Wall, still standing, and the topography of terror. It probably would have been very educational, but our feet were much too tired to linger, maybe next time.

A few blocks down the street landed us at Potsdamer Platz. Lunch was downstairs, and my donair was big enough for 2, so I shared with Shara, who had a small German Pizza. For dessert we went upstairs, and each ordered Monstrous Gelato Creations. We probably should have shared one.

Trying to make our way to the Brandenburg Gate we were halted by a huge parade of hockey players. Someone tried to cross the street in the middle of the LONG parade, and was harshly reprimanded by the police officer(he yelled at the top of his lungs at him). Continuing onto the gate, we came across an odd, but interesting monument to the holocaust. Cement blocks of various sizes were arranged in rows, each apparently representing a people group, affected by the holocaust. We got this information from another tourist who was admiring the memorial, but he spoke very little, and broken English.

At the gate we found our excited hockey friends again. Shara asked a fan, who was more than happy to tell us that the team had just recently won the German championship.

The Reichstag had line-ups that felt 10X longer than they really were because of our weary feet. The view from the top was worth standing in line for an hour.

While wandering towards home, we thought of taking a boat ride, but the stupid ticket lady kept ignoring us. Grrrrr.

The evening was capped off with foot rubs, a German snack, and a wine bottle, impossibly difficult to open, reading, and some soccer on the tele.

Friday started late, after some much needed rest. We were still Jet Lagging. The First stop was the east side gallery. I tried to imagine that the wall was the only thing separating me from oppressive regime.

The U-Bahn took us next, to the Ku'Damm. The subways are nice enough in Berlin (and often overground), but nobody seems to be able to top the system and security in Paris. To save our tired feet, and maximize sightseeing, we took a double decker sight-seeing bus around the city. We had the back bench all to ourselves, almost the entire back of the bus to be exact. We took lots of photo's, and enjoyed seeing a good portion of the city. It was also raining just a little, so it also kept us dry.

After the bus ride, we made our way to KaDeWe and quickly found the restaurant on the top floor. Having learned NOTHING about sharing large portions, we both had both more than we could eat, but it was yummy. We did a little shopping in the department store, and could not resist getting a German copy of "Settlers of Catan" and shipping it home.

Our feet were tired and we had an early morning the next day, so we went home to do some packing. And then back to Potsdamer Platz to see the U2 3D show. What a great movie. I often felt I should be applauding, (and some audience members did) or that the person ahead of me should sit down (it was actually audience members from the film). "Pride" and "Streets" gave me shivers.

Random Thoughts:
~I love the walk/don't walk guys in Berlin, they are also handy for figuring out which half of the city you were in, as those particular ones, are only found in East Berlin.
~I feel so proud when I can communicate "auf deutsch". One guy at the DB info place, could speak no English, but we both got the message across ok.

Paris

"I write as we make our way by train from Berlin to Prague. We have had a great time so far. We left Toronto on April 20th. A quick stop in Montreal and then off to Paris. It was difficult to sleep on the plane despite purchasing our 3 euro "zoom" blanket & pillow. We arrived in Paris France at 11am and were greated with a friendly border guard who told me it would cost a smile to enter Paris.

We quickly found the correct train, after spending 38 Euro's each for a 3 day transit pass. Expensive, yet we made excellent use of it. It was quite easy to find out hotel "Le Quarter Bastille". We were greated by Vianny (or Fransois". Our hotel on the 6th floor was the smallest hotel room in history, but very cute and comfortable with a balcony opening to the street. The elevator to get to our room was equally small. We barely fit the 2 of us, along with our packs.

We showered and changed into clean clothes before venturing out. Our first stop was the Notre Dame. I suppose first we had to find it, and along the way, found a french version of a hot dog (which was a hot dog/bun, with cheese broiled on the top). It would have been excellent, except the hot dog was cold...oh well.

We came across a beautious building which turned out to be an old prison. Finally we stumbled upon the Norte Dame & Sat down to finish our hot dog where Troy was greeted by a crazy man who insisted Troy feed me the hot dog. The man kept touching Troy and did not understand when Troy told that he did not understand.

Inside the Notre Dame was very beautiful. I thought for sure that the guidebooks suggested viewing the treasury, so we paid the 3 Euro's each. After viewing the treasury, I concluded, the guide books must have said DON'T go see the Treasury, because it was boring and lame.

Our next stop was the romantic Eiffel tower. We made sure we found some kisses in the park and took loads of photo's. We were exhausted from the jet lag, so decided to head back to our hotel, to get some grub.

We soon found out that all restaurants don't open until 8pm, how crazy? We found an open pub, but could not order meals. So we ordered some drinks, and then a cheese platter (when in Paris, do as the French do). We tried each cheese -- Troy nearly barfed. It was a great experience and I discovered my love of Brie Cheese. We stayed until 8pm, and then headed out to find an open restaurant.

We looked for a french looking restaurant, but our tired feet, and jet lagged eyes got lazy and we did with what we could find. Italian.

Troy ordered pizza, with a raw chicken looking meat on it, and I tried to get gnocci with cream sauce, but I got salmon in there too. Dinner was great and the culture even better. Our servers spoke only a little English.

We had a good night's sleep, and then headed for Versaille around noon the following day. Lucky for us we found a vendor selling tickets which allowed you to skip lines. She said that no one ever believed her, and told us there was a ticket office closer to the palace, for when we discovered she was not lying. Once at the palace, we believed her about the waits, and bought tickets. The palace was beautiful as were the gardens. We grabbed a bite to eat in the garden and then headed back to Paris.

Montmare was our next stop & after wandering through a few busy streets we found Sacre Couer. What a beautiful building. We walked the million or so steps to the top for a breathtaking view of Paris & then set off to find the painters.

Many shops and vendors are everywhere, selling anything and everythign you could want. Finally the painters. We circled the painters probably 10 times, looking for the perfect and yet affordable painting. No luck. The most beautiful was 480 Euro's. BOO.

Instead of paintings, we bought crepes, I got a Nuetella/banana one, which was the yummies thing I've ever eaten. Troy had citron.

We made our way to the Arc Du Triumphe, the ceremony of the unknown soldier was going on.

As if you have to pay to walk up 280 steps...only in Paris. We paid the money, and made the circular climb. It was worth all 280 steps. :)

Beautious views greeted us. It is easy to see why everyone loves Paris. We spent quite a while up there, and took loads of photo's.

The Champs Elysse was our next stop, and our feet hurt a lot. We stopped at Quick burger, more-so to rest our feet, but who doesn't want a burger every once in a while. The metro stop was very close, and we decided we were ready to get back to a cozy bed.

The following day, Wednesday, we slept in, and ate a yummy breakfast in the hotel. We departed to Berlin soon after.

Note - beware of people who ask you "Do you speak English". When you tell them yes, they will hand you a note, with an English version of a sob story begging for money. After the first experience of this type, we pretended we did not speak English.

Second Note - When in Paris, making out in public is ok. We didn't, but saw others...loads of others. Maybe we should have given it a whirl."