European Vacation

WOW! I think today was the craziest day we’ve had yet. We left Lucerne at 8am and got to our hotel in Innsbruck at 8pm. We stopped only to brave some rapids, have some lunch and conquer an Olympic bobsled track. As you’ve seen, most of our days have similar amounts of action but this one was more physically involved than just walking around snapping photos. I found it funny that one of Austria’s main exports is Red Bull energy drink. It’s like you’re not allowed entry into the country unless you do something extreme. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take many photos on this day, which works out in my benefit because I was screaming a lot. Just kidding I’m hardcore. Less pictures = more writing. Sorry. The rapids were Class 3 and they ran down a river called the Inn. They didn’t tell us too much more than that because this trip is less about history and more about experiencing things, which is great. Although I can’t show you the amazing scenery along the river, the lovely people at Feel...

Our day in Lucerne is a busy one. As usual! I took an insane amount of pictures in Switzerland due to it’s beautiful nature so I’m going to use small pics and then you can click on them. Or not. I don’t care either way because I saw it in person. Booya! Ok we started by heading up Mt.Pilatus. It’s the tallest mountain in the area - we had to take a 20 minute gondola ride up to the peak. Once we got up to the top I ran to the nearest coffee shop because the hotel coffee was awful. You guys must think I’m crazy with the amount of coffee I consume but they are really jamming our days up and I’ve been under the weather. So… After (and partly due to) the double espresso, I went on a picture taking rampage. What follows can only be described as breathtaking. Both for its beauty and the insane amount of stairs I had to climb with very little oxygen in the air. Cute wedding chapel on the mountain. You have to walk there. HA! We eventually descended Mt. Pilatus and had some free time...

Today was mostly a driving day. It was around three hours on the bus in the morning with an hour stop in the afternoon before leaving Germany. I believe it was somewhere in the black forest region but I didn’t get the name of the town because I was sleeping. We took some pics with a cool waterfall and I ate some kind of bratensteinwurst and then we  drove the last few hours to Lucerne. Waterfall action: Ashlee always asks to get in my pictures and then she stands there like I have a gun to her back. She’s so weird. Then we get to Lucerne in the late afternoon and stop at another of Contiki’s partners: Harry’s Swiss Watch Center. They sell Swiss army knives, watches and chocolate at excellent prices. I didn’t take any pictures of this shop because it was boring. Then I went outside to get Swiss Franks out of the ATM since we will be here for a few days and they don’t do the Euro thing. Because they’re independent. Or shady. This was taken near the ATM machine. The girls ask me...

Wooohooo! We are in Switzerland in the town of Lucerne and our hotel actually has internet! We went through some country areas and wifi isn’t always on their list of priorities. I don’t blame them. I've been writing anyways that way I could just click and upload everything once I got the chance. So there should be some posts below if this works right. I am running a day behind at this point but I should be able to get today and tomorrow up before we leave Lucerne. Then we will be in Austria and I'm not sure what their internet situation is - I just know I'm going whitewater rafting and bobsledding in the same day. I just want them to have hospitals. Hospitals are good. If the pics are loading slow or making the page move slow, let me know and i'll shrink them up. Also, if at the bottom of a post it says "READ MORE" then click it and more stuff will show up below it. Some of the days are split because I kept coming back and writing more when I had free time...

Day 3 starts off with us leaving Amsterdam around 9:30. We play another game on the bus where we have to stand up and introduce ourselves, tell what we are looking forward to on the trip, who we would MFK and tell two truths and one lie where everyone had to guess the lie. That killed a lot of time and we had some laughs and got to know each other even more. I think by day seven we will be taking blood oaths or something. We eventually got to Saint Goar in the Rhine Valley for a river cruise which would take us past some of the grape growing areas as well as a ton of castles. The wine from this area is apparently expensive because as you can see their fields are on steep mountain faces and they must do all the harvesting by hand. Here are some of the castles that I snapped with my super zoom (see below). I think there are stories behind most of them but there weren’t any speakers up at the bow so I didn’t hear them. I’m sure something tragic and castley happened at each one of them....

Ok there are a lot of things to do today. First stop is a bike ride through a town called Edam. It was kind of rainy but we had a good time anyways and learned some history. Most of the history involved dikes. It was OK to laugh because dikes is a funny word. Next we went to “Cheese & Clogs” where they make cheese and clogs. We got a good lesson on making Gouda which is actually pronounced Chhkkkowda. Think of a Boston native saying chowder but with something stuck in his throat. Try it for yourself! This is Jamie. We called her the Cheese Maiden because she taught us about cheese. Gabriel was supposed to take a pic of the cheese room with us in front of it, but we look so good that he forgot about the cheese room – it happens. Then we went into the clog-making section. This was really cool to watch and the guy was pretty entertaining. Sweet shoes bro. Then I bought a bunch of cheese and now we are heading back into Amsterdam for a free day. Suggested sights are the Ann...