Last Update

We made it home about 1230 last night central time. When we arrived at the airport in Minneapolis, our flight was late. They announced they would hold our connecting flights since we had to clear customs. Well, we got to the gate with 3 minutes to spare and the plane was still there, but the door was closed. They told us that we could not get on and that our luggage would not make it either. We had to change airlines and run to another terminal to catch a flight leaving to Dallas. We only had 30 minutes to get there and get our tickets. We were also told that our luggage would be routed to Monroe at 11 this morning. We made it on our connection to Dallas then to Shreveport. We were betting 50/50 if our luggage was going to be lost. It had all of our souvenirs, clothes, everything. So 1030 we headed to the Monroe airport and at 1130 all 3 of our checked bags came down the line!! We were very happy and Northwest did a great job handling it! So here we are hanging out with our animals and sorting through laundry, pictures, and tons of gifts! We are glad to be home and the bed felt sooooo good last night. I feel asleep in seconds. It is amazing the little things that we take for granted. We have learned a lot over the past 30 days and do not regret a single second of the whole trip....well maybe we could have done without the raw herring! We can't wait to share our countless stories and answer any and every question everyone has. Now that we are home feel free to ask us anything. We have time to respond over the next few days. Thanks again for following us along!!

Home

We made it!!! We will post more about our journey home tomorrow, but we are going to bed now. Just wanted to let everyone know.

Even More London

Changing of the Guard

Buckingham Palace

We have now finished out last day in Europe and are currently packing to head home. We watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It was pretty funny, because you never knew what was going to happen next. It consisted of about 50 red soldiers marching back and forth in random patterns. At one point they were marching while the band was playing "I Love You Baby". The palace is huge. The picture you see is just the front, it goes back a looong ways. We then headed to Wellington Arch where the WWI memorial is to catch a "tube" to lunch. Thanks Connie!!! Wagamama was awesome. It is this noodle bar with very fresh ingredients. Everything tasted like it was picked right before it was served. We then headed back to the palace so we could see it without so many people around. We tried to get a picture with a guard, but the only ones we could find were inside the palace gate :( We decided to skip a play because we could not find an afternoon performance. We really hated that, but we really needed to pack. Jet, I thought about you at dinner. I went to a Chinese restaurant and had duck...real duck, not chicken Jet. So the cab is meeting us at the hotel at 820 tomorrow morning to fly out of Gatwick at 1230. This has truly been the trip of a lifetime and we really appreciate the comments everyone has left. There is so much more to see and tell and we cannot wait to share it with you guys firsthand. Thanks again and we love you guys!!!

More London

Trafalgar Square

Kensington Palace Gardens (where Princess Diana lived)

Big Ben

Big Ben and House of Parliament

We have managed to continue to stay busy over the last few days. Yesterday, we went to Trafalgar square, which is the largest square here and then ate lunch nearby. We then checked out London's West End which is like NYC's Broadway. We decided to check out Lion King!! It was awesome!! The costumes and music were amazing. For dinner we went to one of those sushi places where everything is on a conveyor belt. It was really good. Today, we began in Hyde Park which is the NYC equivalent to Central Park and saw the Princess Diana memorial Fountain and her former palace. We did not tour it do to being about 25 bucks each. It looked nice from the outside. We then went to the House of Parliament and Big Ben. We were so excited because we got there a few minutes before noon. We were going to get to hear it ring...so we waited...and waited... and 5 minutes after noon we decided it was not going to ring. Still don't know what the deal is with that. We left and headed to Westminster Abbey. We got to see a lot of old kings and queens tombs, poet's corner where a lot of English writers are buried, and the coronation chair. It is the chair used to crown new kings and queens since 1301. I took a picture but flash was not allowed so it is not that great. After lunch of fish and chips we headed back to the hotel for a nap. For some reason it quieter at hotel during the day than at night. Tomorrow we have another big day planned. We will check out Buckingham Palace and possibly another West End show. Tomorrow is our last full day!!! I can't believe it. We are so ready to go home, but yet we don't want the trip to end. Very bittersweet. Anyways, off to bed!

London

Tower Bridge

We got to London at noon local time yesterday. For the 1st time all trip we changed time zones so we are now 6 hours ahead of local time. After we checked in we scoped out a nearby restaurant and ate the traditional fish and chips (french fries). The fish was really good (much better than Captain D's). They had this white creamy sauce on the table to dip it in that was delicious. It was nothing at all like mayo or tartar sauce like back at home. I asked the guy working what it was and it was called garlic mayo. It was incredible. We then headed out to see a few sights. We checked the tower of London, tower bridge, and London bridge. We got to see tower bridge opening for a boat and I could not help to think of Uncle Bill. We walked across both bridges and walked along the Thames for a little while. Today, we are planning on checking out a few more sights and then possibly catching an afternoon performance of The Lion King. We are staying at the Royal Hyde Park hotel here. It has been pretty nice except for the air does not work too well. We are right on the street so it was very noisy all night. Anyways, we only have 3 nights left so we can handle it. Just wanted to post a little to let everyone know we arrived safely. Hope all is well back home!

Brussels Pictures

Peeing Statue

Grand Square in Brussels

A Roman God???...NO, "Muscles from Brussels"

So we had our full day in Brussels today. We took it pretty easy today because there is not a ton to see here. We rode the metro to a park in front of the European Union headquarters. It was pretty nice. We then walked around the "Grand Square" for a little while and went chocolate shopping. The samples were the best part. We ended the day with dinner and then waffles!! Brussels is known pretty much as a business city with both NATO and the European Union stationed here. We have had a few comments asking how the people were in France. When we came on the trip we were expecting the worse, but we had no problems at all with any rude people. If you greeted everyone with a nice "bonjour" and a cheesy smile, everything was great. To be honest we encountered more rude people in Italy than in France. Overall though, most everyone has been friendly and speaks way better English than we do of their language. Tomorrow we are heading to London for the final leg of our trip. It will be our last train ride. Hopefully we will have enough stamina to see everything in London because we are running out of gas a little. We will just drink plenty of coffee in the mornings to hopefully kick start everything. Hope all is good back at home!!

Brussels

We got to Brussels at about 1215 today by the skin of our teeth. We missed our first train because we went to the wrong train station. We were supposed to leave from a different station than we bought the tickets from, but did not know it until about 15 minutes before the train left. We got our train changed and did not have to pay a dime. When we got on the 2nd train (after running through the station to catch it) we were told we did not have the right ticket. He freaked us out saying it may cost about 250 dollars!! We convinced him it was not our fault and he finally let us go without having to pay the fine! So now here we are in Brussels. We have already had a pretty good sampling of Belgian chocolates and waffles and they are both incredible. The waffles are made from a dough and not a batter like at home. Tomorrow we are going to take it easy around town and check out a few sights. We may go to a jazz club tomorrow night. Here is our info for returning back to Monroe so you can track our flights:
We leave London - Gatwick Airport - at 1230 on Northwest flight 43. We arrive in MPLS/St Paul at 325 and head to Memphis Northwest flight 458 at 450. We leave Memphis for Shreveport at 710 on Northwest flight 5910. We finally arrive in Shreveport at 830 PM. All these dates are Wednesday September 19.

Viva La France!!!

View from the Eiffel Tower

1 Billionth attempt at a decent picture

Notre Dame

Notre Dame Stained Glass

View from Notre Dame



A Parisian goddess

We have been in Paris now for 3 days. Where to begin with what all we have done?? We toured Notre Dame Cathedral and climbed the 422 stairs long, steep steps to the top. We felt the burn!! We have been to the Eiffel Tower 3 times - and 1 more to go tonight - to get Laura's perfect picture. We checked out the Arc de Triumph, strolled along the Seine, visited Montemarte...and best of all used a real washing machine again today!! The hotel here has been good. In fact, the resident cat is currently curled up in Laura's lap. Tomorrow we are heading to Brussels for 2 nights and then on to London for the final 4 nights of the trip. I cannot believe we have less than a week left!! It really will be good to be back home and we have enjoyed every minute of our trip thus far.

Interlaken Pictures

Laura Lounging

Ryan Lounging

Ryan Flying

Laura Flying

Paragliding

After Ryan washed his clothes

Before Ryan washed his clothes

Pretty Views

By the river

Sunflower

Lake and Mountain



Here is a few pictures to show how beautiful Interlaken is. We knew before we came to Europe we would be doing something in Interlaken and we decided on paragliding a few days before. It was a compromise between white water rafting and canyoning. It ended up being a pretty good compromise. We are now in Paris for 4 nights -3 left- so we will be posting more about that in the next few days. We are staying at the Hotel Andre in Paris. Keep up the comments and we love all you guys!!

Guess what we did today....

That's right, we went Paragliding!!! We decided not to mention it on the post yesterday because we knew it we knew it would be a race for which Mom would get here first to stop us! Well, we are now on the ground safe and sound and in one piece. It was so awesome and we got some really great views the whole time. We have 12 pictures each of us in the air and I took a bunch with Mom camera. They came out good also. We are leaving this beautiful place tomorrow and heading to Paris where we will be for 4 nights. Until next time...GEAUX Tigers, beat the Hokies...Go Cubs!!!!

Interlaken

We got into our hostel in Interlaken (actually a little town about 5 miles away called Istewald) about 3 PM yesterday.We got here on a night train, which was running about an hour late, but it was much better than the last night train. We slept in couchetes, which are 4 beds in a room. We stayed with a falther/daughter who were from California. This is by far the most beautiful place we have been so far. Laura used the word "grand" to describe it. It is a small town that is known as a very popular vacation spot for a lot of Europe. It is called Interlaken (and yes Jet you pronounced it correctly - Interlocken like you have phlem in your throat) because it is situated between two lakes. We are staying on the lake directly east of town in Istewald. It is a town of about 400 people and is just incredibly beautiful. We have changed our plans slightly and added an extra night here and an extra night in Paris and took away Zurich all together. It is just too expensive and not much to do. We decided to spend the money here instead since it is so beautiful. Interlaken reminds me a little of Breckenridge, Colorado. There is a 13,800 ft mountain looming right out of town. One of the James Bonds was filmed on the mountain. We were going to go up it but it takes five hours for the trip and is almost 100 dollars a person, so we decided it looks just as pretty from the town looking up. We are having to get used to German again. We were in Italy so long I got to where I could read it fairly well (the signs at least, not the newspaper). We are also having to get used to another currency (the Swiss Franc). Unlike the Euro it is a good exchange for us. If something is marked 10 Swiss Francs it is less money in dollars instead of more like the Euro. We ate dinner last night in a little local restaurant and we both agree it was the best food of the trip so far. That is saying a lot after Florence and Venice. I had a piece of fish caught in the lake here (don't know the name) and right before they brought it to me, the chef took it over to the fireplace and lit something on fire. The waitress brought it to me with the bottom still flaming and the fish was sitting on a rack on top of it. Laura got veal which was just awesome also. For lunch today we had cheese fondue. Swiss are supposedly known for there fondue. It was good also. Just to let everyone know, I checked the weather in West Monroe 1030 AM yesterday and it was already 81 degrees. At 1000 here this morning it was 50 degrees. If you want to read about any of the places we have been so far (including info on the towns and lakes here) I have found that wikipedia.org is a really good resource. Just type in whatever you want in the search box and it gives you an article about it. Hope all is good back at home!

Rome Pictures

Coliseum and Laura



Coliseum


Trevi Fountain


Coliseum with Ryan and Laura


Roman Ruins


Inside the Vatican Museum


Spanish Steps


Vatican Garden


Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

Dont' tell anyone we took this picture!


Pantheon (not Partheneon Mark that is in Greece)



















A Roman God


Vatican Entrance

It's my Birthday!!!!!!!!

Ok, this is Laura here and I just want to set the record straight. I do put a lot of input into these blogs, but Ryan types because I cant figure out these darn foreign keybords and the screen is in Italian usually too. So, no pics yet, but heres a little of what we have done in Rome. We went to the Vatican and were herded through like a bunch of cows until we got to the Sistine Chapel. I was so mad, cause when we finaly got there, they didn't let us take pictures. But guess what, I snuck one anyway!!! Then we checked out Trevi fountain that night and again the next day. It was HUGE and beautiful. We went to the Spanish steps, and there was hardly anyone there, so we got lots of pictures. Of course, we went to the Coliseum and the many ruins of ancient Rome. I think it was Ryan's favorite thing so far on the trip. It was amazing. Ok, well we promise to post pictures as soon as we can. Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It's nice to know I'm loved!!!!

We are leaving Rome tonight overnight to Milan for about half a day, then we will be in Interlaken, Switzerland. From what we hear, Interlaken is a beautiful and scenic place...Can't Wait!!!!

We love everyone!!! Thanks again for all of the comments and
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CRYSTAL AND HEATHER!!!!!

When In Rome...

So we made it to Rome about 1100 this morning and made our way to our hotel. It is called M&J Hostel and you can check it out on hostelworld.com. It is the nicest one yet. Very cool and modern. It took us 5 minutes to figure out how to turn the lights on. We went and checked out the Pantheon which was built in 33 B.C. It has the biggest unsupported dome roof in the world and it was built 2040 years ago!!! It was a pretty amazing building. We will post pictures of it later. We have almost 600 pictures so far, so you guys will have a lot to see when we see you. Right now we are getting our clothes washed and not using the sink!!! The first time in two weeks we will have really clean underwear! Guys at work...I ran out of sides to wear. We may try to go to the Spanish steps tonight after the clothes are done if it is not too dark. Last night in Florence we went up to the top of Michelangelo Plaza, which is a really high hill overlooking the city and watched the sun set. It was sooo romantic. We will also post pictures of that later (the sunset not the romance). Hope all is well back at home. Everyone have fun at work on Monday!!

Florence Pictures