Being Annoying By Posting Lots of Pretty Europe Pictures

Volterra - Yes, where Bella chased Edward in Twilight

Volterra 2

Volterra 3

Rome - Emperors' private stadium on Palatine Hill

Rome - Roman Forum

Rome - Colosseum

Rome - Colosseum Inside

Rome - Inside St. Peter's Basilica / Lynnea Quick's birthplace and house

Orvieto - Duomo

Orvieto - Gigantic well that a pope had built

Pompeii - Mt. Vesuvius victim from 79 A.D.

Pompeii Streets

Pompeii in a ruined house

Herculaneum

Florence - Secret pocket picture of statue of David (we weren't allowed to have cameras...)

Florence - Duomo from Medicci Family Palace Tower

Dachau Concentration Camp entrance

Munich - Hofbrauhaus - beer place

Munich - Inside Hofbrauhaus (400 yrs of serving beer)

Munich - Glockenspiel

Munich - Hofbrauhaus beer comes in liters

Hohenschwangau Castle in Germany 

Nueschwanstein Castle in Germany

EUROPA!

Americans are dumb, rude, sloppily dressed, and fat.  GO USA!  During our layover in Paris, you could look around the airport and pick out the Americans immediately based on their frumpy clothes, their fat, and their oblivion to the goings ons around them.  I am not saying I am above this at all (I like dressing like crap and being oblivious) but it was just so much more obvious there.


Another thing that became obvious is how difficult simple things become when you don't speak the native language.  In Switzerland, my family annoyed the crap out of our waitress.  She knew a few English phrases like "Hi... Eat?" and then after that we mostly ordered with gestures.  After that, she had to help us get into the parking garage where we left our car because all the doors were locked and we couldn't read the sign that said to punch in your parking ticket number to unlock the door.  After that, she had to call someone to help us get our car out of the parking garage for free because the automatic card reader would not read any of our American credit cards and we didn't have any Swiss Francs yet.  Thanks waitress for going far above and beyond.  She hated us.


I also learned that the Italian word for hot is caldo.  At a gas station I tried to ask for someone to fill my water bottle because they didn't have a drinking fountain.  She said "Ice o caldo?" (did I want ice water or hot water?) and I thought she said "Ice or cold?" (meaning with or without ice but still cold).  I said "cold" because I didn't want to trouble her further for ice.  She heard "caldo" and proceeded to fill my plastic water bottle with scalding water which made the water bottle too hot to even touch and probably melted a layer of hazardous materials off of the inside of the bottle.  I drank the water 4 hours later when it finally stopped boiling, and ingested all sorts of bad plastic stuff!!!  I don't know why hot water was even an option.  It was really hot outside to begin with and the temperature of that water would have scarred my intestines.


Finally, I realized how NOT to communicate with people.  When someone doesn't know English,  my dad's go to way to handle it is to repeatedly shout the same word over and over again at them.  Example: at a toll road, he shouted "Francs!  Francs! Francs! Francs!" at the worker as he shoved money towards him.  This interaction would have been better with no words at all because when he handed him the Swiss Francs, it would have become clear that he was giving him Francs just like every other car that drove through that day and didn't need to tell him.  It would have also been better because the toll guy wouldn't have been afraid for his life.


Ok, here is an obnoxious amount of sweet pics from Grindelwald, Switzerland and the Italian coast (Cinque Terre villages):

Time to Take Europe By Storm

YEP.  I am finally going.  Leaving tomorrow and I don't think I will sleep tonight.
Here are some goals for while I am there:


1) During 2 hr layover in Paris: use my vast French vocabulary that I got from French 3 in high school and my perfect French accent to strike up conversation with some locals and make them hate Americans even more.  I will tell them that I prefer American fries, American kissing, American dressing, American horns and American toast.
2) Ask the Swiss why they are always so neutral and then try to provoke them into some sort of fight to prove they aren't as neutral as they think.
3) Drink Italian wine, eat spaghetti, eat pizza and see stuff.  Then see stuff, eat pizza, eat spaghetti, and drink Italian wine.
4) Drink German beer and don't talk about WWII.  Also shout "PROBST!" (cheers) at everyone and say "Mine lieblingsessen ist brot, Ich pupsin in dein hafferflocken." (My favorite food is bread, I fart in your oatmeal) since this is the extent of my German vocabulary.


AAAAAHHHHHHHH! THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BESSSST!

Doing Every Sport Ever

I want to learn all the sports.  Since I have been mostly running for the past 14 years I have not had a chance to do a lot of other sports.  Now since track is done, I want to do all of them.  I am still going to run but I am also going to do things that require coordination.  Also, I plan to get anybody who has any sort of skill in any sport to teach me how to do that sport.  So far I have tried learning disc golf, swimming, basketball, kickboxing, golf, tennis, rock climbing, and aerobic stepping (not a sport but still exercise) and have had a friend or boyfriend or free wellness center instructor to teach me how.  Tomorrow I will learn soccer.  My friend Hilary played on her college team and wrote me some soccer workouts and it will be awesome.


I still want to learn volleyball, racket ball, hockey, wrestling, ping pong, and everything else except baseball/softball.  I don't care if that is un-american. I have no interest in doing the amount of standing around involved in that sport.  Anyone who wants to teach me stuff let me know!