Paris

The city of love. That is exactly how it felt this weekend. Paris was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is such a crazy, busy, historical, HUGE city with plenty of wonderful monuments to see. It was almost overwhelming!

I had to be a little silly in some of these pictures. Come on, you know me.


At 10:00 pm a billion of sparkling white lights shimmer throughout the Eiffel Tower. Amazing.


The Arc d' Triumph. Napoleon's arch was built to celebrate battle victories.

The Place De La Concorde. Marie Antoinette was beheaded here in the heart of Paris. The monument was given to Paris from Egypt. The 3,300 year old Obelisk covered with ancient hieroglyphics, dates back to Cleopatra!



The Louvre. The pyramid is only the entrance, but the building surrounding the pyramid is ridiculously huge. We could've spent two days looking through the entire museum. It holds 350,000 objects including the Mona Lisa.



The Mona Lisa. It's much smaller than I thought it would be, but wow what a sight.

The Museum d' Orsay holds many Monet and Van Gogh paintings. This one is Waterlilies by Monet.




Scott is being a kid just like the other children jumping all over the base of the pyramid at the Louvre.

Notre Dame (Our Lady). Pope Alexander III started building this in 1163, but it took 170 years to finish.




We went to the 6:30 pm mass on Saturday. It was entirely in French, but it wasn't much of a problem considering the protocol is the same in all Catholic churches. =)







To view more pictures of Paris click on the link below.

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Uetliburg-Switzerland

Last weekend, Scott and I took a short hike across the top of Uetliburg Mountain. We took the train out of Zurich about 30 minutes to a Cable Car, and then hiked across the Mountain to a beautiful hotel for a glass of yummy wine. Unfortunately, we were stuck in a thunderstorm so the hour and a 45 minute hike, only took us an hour. Oops!

This is the picture of the cable car we took to the top of the mountain.


This looks like the picture on the windows screen.. just with Scott attached!

We worked up a sweat getting across that mountain.

We had our favorite wine at the end of the hike in this beautiful restaurant.

Ballenberg- Switzerland

Ballenberg is an open air museum about an hour and a half from Zurich. It has over 100 original centuries old homes from Switzerland. It sort of reminds me of Greenfield Village in Michigan, but it's all authentic.




I'm sitting in a farmhouse built in the 1500's.

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I think Scott was supposed to be a farmer!

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Of course we had to go to the chocolate maker!

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If you want to see more pictures of Ballenberg, click on the snapfish website below.

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Luzern

The city was much bigger than we expected. It's similar to Zurich, but don't tell anyone from Luzern I said that out loud. It's only one hour from Zurich, and it has many cafes and historical landmarks to keep you interested for days. The Chapel bridge in the middle of the city was built in 1333. The tower on the end of the bridge used to be a dungeon and torture chamber. Scary!

We took a walking tour here as well to learn more about the history of Luzern. There is a castle on top of the hill that overlooks the city. It used to be a hotel, but then it went bankrupt. Michael Jackson asked to buy the castle, however the city did not let him. (Wonder why) Now it may be reopened as a hotel soon. Sleeping Beauty's castle was thought up as this castle. (It's all the way up to the top left of the picture.)

Anywhere you go in Switzerland you will find many outside cafes. We sat down to try some Grappa, a liquor that is "supposed" to be good.



































"Old town" was one of the best places to find yourself on a spring afternoon.

If you want to see more of the pictures of Luzern, click the link below.

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Interlaken

Interlaken is a sleepy town about two hours from Zurich. We borrowed a car from one of Scott's friends and drove there on a Friday morning. We stayed at the Toscana hotel, which was a small family run hotel with great service and clean rooms. Here is a picture of us eating at the hotel's cafe.

We took a train ride to another small sleepy town to ride up four different cable cars to reach the top of Mt. Schilthorn. This mountain was used in one James Bond movie too.

After standing outside in the cold, we had some drinks at the revolving restaurant on top of the mountain. Here I am being silly.

If you want to see more pictures of Interlaken, click the link below.

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=600181211116253856/l=374204473/g=7389791/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Amsterdam

Wow! What a exciting city. Amsterdam had many historical places and artifacts throughout it's city walls. We decided to go on a walking tour to find out as much as we could. New York was originally named New Amsterdam because Amsterdam was, and still is, a very busy city with a huge sea port. As a matter of fact, our sea shipment containing furniture and other items will arrive in Amsterdam's port first before it is put onto a truck and given to us in Zurich. Amsterdam did not originally have many canals, however the city decided to take 100 years to dig the many canals it has today.

Anne Frank's secret annex is also in Amsterdam along one of the canals. Scott and I took the powerful tour of the attic where eight people hid for almost three years until someone, who is still unknown, ratted the family out. We could not take pictures inside the actual annex. All of the furniture was taken out, but a map of Europe with push pins attached to countries that have been taken over by Hitler still hangs in one room.

Of course we had a little fun looking at all of the interesting sights to be seen there as well. =)

We ate at a WONDERFUL Indonesian restaurant called Tempo Doele, and we ordered the rice table which is a bunch of different small bowls of Indonesian food that you put on top of rice. The bowls are arranged from mild to medium to HOT!

Unfortunately, Scott decided to eat the really hot one. Oops!

Here are some more pictures from Amsterdam! Click the link below.

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=765181211116274098/l=374204474/g=7389791/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Zurich- New Home

Hi everyone! Well, we are finally here in Zurich for the next 2 or 3 years. We are still waiting for our furniture to arrive from the states, but so far the rental furniture has been fine. There are always new stories I have each day that revolve around the oddest circumstances. Who knew that laundry would be so different in Switzerland?! Oh well. We are really trying to enjoy this wonderful experience in every way possible.

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Here are more pictures of our home in Zurich. Click the link below.

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Here are more pictures of my first visit to Zurich. Click the link below.

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=540181211116324047/l=374204476/g=7389791/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB