Updates finally!

Sorry its taken so long to update! While in Paris the Internet cafes had keyboards that were all backwards so it was difficult to type up everything on them, especially in only half an hour that they allow you. So now was are in Germay but I can tell you all about Paris and Amsterdam first. So we took a night bus from London to Paris which was very interesting to say the least. We drove to the Channel and then loaded onto a Ferry to cross over to France. The Ferry was really nice, it had resturants and a Casino, but we were so exhausted we just sat down and journaled. After that we had to go through customs to enter France and two men on our bus were taken off and arrested for "illegal substances", which was extremely comforting. The two boys sitting next to us spoke french, spanish and english so they translated what everyone was saying for us. From there we got off the bus and searched for our hostel, which ended up being really nice but a good distance away from the center of Paris. We were so exhausted from traveling all night that we made it to Notre Dame and the Pantheon ate and went to sleep. Every meal we had in France was amazing! The next morning we went to the Louvre for several hours, ate lunch/dinner next to a sweet old french couple who now live in Las Vegas. Then we took the metro to the Arc of Triumphe and climbed to the top to watch the sunset over Paris and then took a zillion pictures of the Eiffel tower at night. Our final day in Paris we climbed the Eiffel tower, to the 2nd lookout point (the 3rd/top level was closed, sadly)all 700 steps - took more pictures and then climbed back down. We then ran around the metro and bus station to try and take pictures of everything else we could (the moulin rouge, the place de concorde, the obelisk, etc) before catching the tram to Versailles. We then took a tour around the palace which was huge and absolutely beautiful! The hall of mirrors is under construction so we only saw a portion of it but it was still amazing. We then walked around the acres of beautiful lakes and gardens outside the Palace. We left and returned back to our hostel where we watched CSI and Hero in french. The next morning we had to get up and catch our train to Amsterdam. We arrived in Amsterdam and we were supposed to meet our friends Parrish and Emma at the train station but we missed each other :0(. We got onto the tram and headed to our hotel (which was so expensive that we could only afford to stay one night in Amsterdam). We meet a woman on the bus who showed us exactly how to get there, we still managed to get lost for about an hour but the people of Amsterdam were so wonderful - everywhere we stopped to ask they would get out maps and one owner actually left his resturant to walk us down the street and make sure we knew exactly where to go. I was so surprised by how beautiful Amsterdam. I suppose I thought it being such a liberal city it would be dirty and void of anything cultural but the city overflowed with people of every age and race all extremely energetic and kind (and probably stoned too :0)). So that night we were too chicken to head down to the red light district so we just ate at a nice resturant and walked around safer parts of town. The next morning we woke up early and rented bikes and road through the streets and across the canals. We only had one day so we figured this was the best way to see Amsterdam. We got to see Ann Franks house and the Museum next door and just enjoyed the flower gardens and parks around the city. We finally meet up with Emma and Parrish about 3 hours before our train left for Munich. They were staying at hostel right in the center of Amsterdam so they took us around areas we hadn't seen and we had dinner and then loaded up our huge backpacks to head on the rail to Munich. We slept in the smallest sleeper car imaginable and got in aroudn 730 this morning. We walked from the station to Katie's friends Ryan's apartment. He and Tasha made us an amazing breakfast and are helping us figure out what to do here in Munich as well as letting us wash our clothes (especially our jeans and sweatshirts that we have been wearing for the past 8 days because we have no other warm clothes - ewww). So we are safe and getting ready to head so some of the Museums! Sorry it took so long to update! Hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all!

Lots of love,

mary