France

Monday, while Macie, Tessa, and Cael were in school, Melissa, Todd, Gavin, Jemma, and I went into France!  My third country in three days!  We went just across the border to a charming little village called Wissembourg.  I loved it!!!

Our first stop:  the toilette!

Next order of business: Lunch. 

“Nothing says ‘American’ like a big bag of Doritos.” - Todd

 

 Melissa said the shutters are very characteristic of French buildings. I loved them! And took a ton of pictures. J

 

 This church was really cool. It’s the church of Saints Peter and Paul. And I think it must be fairly well-known or historical or something – it shows up on the Wissembourg Wikipedia page.

This building is also on the Wikipedia page, so it must be pretty famous too. It’s apparently really, really old; the roof looks about to collapse!

It was so fascinating to me how the town is made up of all these old, old buildings.  Older than the United States itself!  We turn places that are one or two hundred years old into museums.  They just keep using them.   

As we passed by one particularly intriguing old building, a lady came and opened the gate into a courtyard.  I was intrigued.  She told us how the building was originally an abbey (I think in about the twelfth century), and invited us to come in and see.  “I just leave the door closed because otherwise, we’ll get a bunch of tourists in here.”  She told us we were free to look around, just don’t go into any of the doors to the private apartments.   Then she just went into her own little apartment in an amazing, old, historic French building!  And we got to look around the enchanting courtyard.

Before heading home, we had to stop by patissier for French bread, French croissants, and French éclairs!

Luxembourg

Saturday morning, the day after arriving in Germany, I woke up to the kids coming timidly into my room to tell me, “It’s time to go to Luxembourg!”  That was probably around noon.  (My sleep pattern didn’t improve much over the next week, despite my determination to adjust quickly.)  Todd drove me, Macie, Tessa, and Cael into Luxembourg to see a bit of the city for the day – or what was left of it.  It was beautiful! 

I loved the ornate, European buildings, the picturesque river running down through a lower part of the city, and the rampart ruins with awesome caves which we got to explore!  How awesome to be able to just drive into another country in, well, much less time than it takes to drive through most states!

On the way home, we stopped by a the Luxembourg American Cemetery and I got to see General Patton’s grave.

 A memorable part of the drive was Macy, Tessa, and Cael doing the Harvard baseball team dance routine to “Call Me Maybe” . . . only about a hundred times. J  If you haven’t seen it on YouTube yet, you’d better check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEWVwgDnuzE

First Stop: Germany!

I flew into Germany on May 18 to spend a week with Todd and Melissa Swenson's family before my six week teaching program in Ukraine.  It was so wonderful to get to spend some time with their wonderful family and see some amazing places in that part of Europe!

Here is Todd and Melissa's awesome German home!

This is the neighborhood.  I loved how green Germany is!

And this is my bedroom in Germany!  Well, it's Tessa's room -- thanks for sharing, Tessa!  :)

Grand adventures with Macie, Tessa, Cael, Melissa, Gavin, Jemma, and Todd.  Love them!!