break out!

i guess it's about time to write about my europe trip, especially so i don't forget anything...

mer and i took a loooong flight from LAX to heathrow, and by the time we got there, we were exhausted because neither of us really slept (shocking for me, since i usually fall asleep in any mode of transportation). that didn't stop us from taking advantage of our 8hr layover to ride the tube into london. we visited our old favorite places, including the british museum reading room, covent garden, and trafalgar square, and still made it back to the airport in time for our flight to cologne.




as soon as we got to germany, my aunt and uncle took us to an indian dance show, which would have been awesome if mer and i hadn't been totally delirious from the lack of sleep. but once we got a good night's rest, we were raring to go (contrary to popular belief, it is possible for me to do something other than watch british home improvement shows). my aunt took us to the city museum, we picked manuel up from school (mer did some teacher research there), and we all did a little tour of downtown cologne. very cute. mer soon became a hit with the kids, of course, because she has so much energy. she was the rambunctious playmate, while i preferred quieter activities. manuel liked playing cowboys and indians (how un-PC) with mer, but reading books aloud was my territory.




the next day mer and i took a train to the loreley valley. in that area, there are several little towns on either side of the rhine river, and each one has at least one castle. we got off in bacharach, which seemed like a stereotypically quaint german town (the stores sold leiderhosen), and explored a bit before taking a boat tour up the rhine to view the other towns. that night, matthias got us free tickets to see "we will rock you," the musical based on songs by Queen. it was... well... ROCKING, of course. the dialogue was in german (thankfully mer had seen it in london and could explain what was going on), but we were among the few who could sing along with all the songs.




friday, we took an underground tour of cologne, and wandered a bit more, but we took it easy since the next day we took an early train to amsterdam. once we got to amsterdam and found a hostel, we went to the van gogh museum, some park whose name i can't remember, and wagamama! wagamama is a restaurant that we loved in london, but couldn't go to during our layover because it was closed. how lucky was it that they have one in amsterdam, and that we had a coupon for a free bottle of wine?? so we got dinner there, i managed to choke down a couple glasses of wine, and with that liquid courage, we decided to walk through the red light district. it wasn't as scary as we thought it would be, since it was packed with tourists, and no one really propositioned us besides the occasional drug dealer. but mer and i were still excited and shocked and proud that we made it through.




sunday, we wandered the amsterdam canals on foot and by boat. we also visited the anne frank house, which was a very well-done museum. that night, we took an overnight train to munich. when we arrived, it was too early to go anywhere or to check into a hotel, so we went to the english gardens, where i read and mer explored as much of the gigantic park as she could. on our way to find a hostel, we stopped at marienplatz to watch/hear the glockenspiel in the tower of the new town hall, which has jousting and dancing figures, but is still pretty dull. i thought the glockenspiel sounded out of tune. anyway, after we found a hostel, we did our own little walking tour of munich, stopping in every church we could find, climbing hundreds of stairs, and finally resting in the hofgarten. that night we visited the hofbrauhaus, and after a dinner of beer, pretzels, bavarian meatloaf (which has the taste and texture of a hot dog), and apfelstrudel, we called it an early night and headed back to the hostel (i also hadn't showered for three days and was starting to go insane).




the next morning we took the S-bahn to dachau and took an unnecessarily long walk to the concentration camp that was used there during WWII. it was very solemn and eerie for mer and me, but the effect was ruined a bit by the annoying and rowdy highschoolers who were there on field trips. we then had to rush back to munich (but not before i picked up a gyro, since we all know i get super cranky when i'm hungry) to get back in time for our bike tour. apparently, mike's bike tours usually have groups of about 200 people with 8 guides, but ours was just 12 people with one guide (frankie). i liked it better that way, it was much more manageable and we got to know all the cute people in our group (assman john!). though we had to navigate through traffic and tons of pedestrians, miraculously, no one was injured. and it was really fun, riding a bike again and cruising through the city. we raced through the palace courtyards, saw some nude sunbathing people in the english gardens, and stopped for an hour at the second-largest biergarten in the world.



after the tour, we got our souvenir shopping out of the way, and went to the marketplace to buy a feast of brie, baguette, and strawberries. that was all that we wanted, and we ate it sitting atop a wall looking down on the square. pretty perfect. the next day, we flew back to cologne, but were too exhausted to do any more sightseeing, so we just hung out with my aunt and cousins for the rest of the day. we departed europe the next day, with mer heading back to LA and me going home to virginia for a week.




and that pretty much brings us back to the present time. i haven't done much for the past few days besides sit around the house in virginia and the river house in maryland. but that makes it a fantastic vacation. i'm so glad that everything worked out so that meredith and i could take this trip, and it all turned out perfectly. we got a much-needed break from work/LA, i got to see my family, and we went to a lot of new places that we wouldn't normally think of visiting. it was wonderful. now we should get started planning our next vacation! we're thinking someplace warm, maybe the caribbean? :)

*for a full set of pics, go here.*