Salzburg

So around 7:45 this morning we boarded our Ryan Air flight to Salzburg. We had booked it long in advance as it was only about 40$ per person. It turned out to be a great way to travel.

Arriving in Salzburg was more stressful than London. Most of the people we have met speak English but there are still a handful that don't. So it took us awhile to find out where the bus was, which ticket to buy (which we did wrong), and where our hostel was. Luckily a nice English speaking man helped us out. As we walked from the bus to our hostel we were able to see lots of the streets of Salzburg. So far we love it!

There are tons of little shops and restaurants on every street and it is much more relaxed than London. We definitely loved London - such a cool historic, yet modern, city with tons to do and see. We also loved how friendly everyone was. Yet I think we are finding that we probably enjoy the smaller side of Europe more. We voted against buying the Salzburg pass as we realized that we didn't like the pressure to see tons of sights just so we get our money's worth - and I am glad we did. This day has been by far the most relaxing and we spent most of it simply walking around the city.

We got a cheap lunch at a university cafeteria and also got our first gelato (it was pretty good) then headed towards Old Salzburg. We decided to tour the Mozarts house (the word Mozart is everywhere here as this was his hometown) which ended up falling a little flat. I really thought I would be interested in learning about his life but the museum was boring and simply didn't interest Emily and I. It also didn't help that we were exhausted from little nights sleep (we had to leave really early and got to bed late) so we decided to go take a nap while Mike and Tiffany walked around town for a couple of hours.



We reunited later in the evening and Tiffany was wearing a dress like the ones on Sound of Music. She had bought two and hoped that Emily would buy one. I guess they are normally 300 euros but they got them for 10 each. Em tried it on and I actually really liked it - it looked great on her. So she changed into it and the rest of the night they walked around in their swiss looking dresses. We did Rick Steves walking tour of Salzburg which took us around some famous sites in the city and got us more oriented and then we ate at a place that Rick Steves recommended. It was a small restaurant ran by a couple people and we loved it.


We got Schnitzel and sausage entrees and had apple strudel for dessert. We loved all of it. The town is simply a lot different than any town I have been to in the states - we love the historic laid back feel. We also enjoyed not feeling like we had to see as many sites as we could.

Last Day in London

We started off our day doing a 3 hour bike tour that went all throughout London (free with our London pass). We liked most of it, it was a little long and we saw some things we already saw, but the best part was that it took us throughout the places in London we wouldn’t have seen. There were cool shops and restaurants everywhere. The picture above is us in front of the Westminster Abbey - we didn't end up going in because of time but if we come back to London, that will be the first place we go.


After lunch we went to the Churchill Museum. We all found it interesting to learn about Winston Churchill and his role in World War 2. After that we took another free tour on our pass, a boat ride down the river Thames. We took lots of pictures including the one in front of the London Eye (the large ferris wheel). This helped connect everything in terms of location. We also met some nice people. Throughout this trip we have found ourselves constantly starting up conversations with people almost everywhere we go – it has been fun.

That night we went back to China Town because our bike tour guide said that there was good cheap food. We looked around for awhile and found a buffet for 6.50 pounds. It was the best deal around so we took it. After we got there we realized why it was so cheap compared to all the other stores – they charge you for food that you don’t finish. We didn’t think much of this at first (mistake) and decided to stay there and eat. After one plate full of food we were all still hungry so we went back for more. We ended up getting way too much! As we were finishing we realized our dilemma and had to stuff the food down (we didn’t want to pay more than we had too). It became hard as we didn’t know if we had to finish the shrimp’s shell, all the sauce on the plate, chicken fat, etc. – we were laughing hysterically!



That night we were exhausted yet we still had to catch a train to our bed and breakfast out by Stansted Airport as that is where were flying to Salzburg, Austria. We checked out of our Hostel (pictures included) which we were happy to do – overall it was a pretty cheap hostel and pretty dirty.
Every night there was a new token shirtless guy and the very last night had a guy that snored incredibly loud – it was funny. We got to the Stansted area late but a nice man showed us t
he way which was helpful as it was in the middle of a neighborhood. I had actually been sick that day (not too bad just a little achy and stuffy/runny nose) so I was hoping for a comfortable bed. Luckily it ending up being great, it was in the upstairs of a nice older couples home. It had nice beds, a good bathroom, free breakfast, and free transportation to the airport in the morning - we were in heaven. After living at the Clink 261 hostel in London, this place seemed like a five star hotel.

Wimbledon

Wednesday morning we woke up at 5:00 am to head out towards Wimbledon. This was the main reason we came to London in the first place and we were really excited. It took about an hour to get there and we had to wait in a long line just to get in. Everyday they reserve 500 seats for Center Court, 500 for Court 1, and 500 for Court 2, so we were hoping to get one of those. Well, after waiting in line for 4 hours we barely missed getting tickets to those courts (by like 100 people!), it was kind of frustrating. But we waiting the entire morning in line (about 5 hours) then finally got in and ran to a court to get good seats. The courts are cool there, the whole atmosphere is very different than the US Open – it is much more traditional and all the workers are in shirts and ties and polo attire. As we were waiting for the match on our court to start, we noticed Andy Roddick warming up on the court next to it, so we went over there and snapped some pictures - it was exciting.



We got to see lots of players, but none of the ones that we really want to see so we decided to stand in another long line for centre court, court 1, and court 2, resale. Essentially this means that when people leave one of these courts for the day, they resale the tickets for 5 pounds. We really wanted to see Federer but after waiting for almost 3 hours in line (it was worth it to us) we got Center Court tickets (below) and saw almost all of Djokavic’s win over Tayler Dent. Walking onto Center Court was awesome! It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be but it had a really cool intimate feeling – and it was great seeing Djokavic in person, he is pretty incredible.


During the day we also got strawberries and cream (below) (good but overpriced) and actually

watched the first 20 games of the John Isner match which I am sure everyone heard about. It started that day in the fifth set and so we thought it would be done soon…. 7 hours later, after we had left Wimbledon, it was still going, we couldn’t believe it. But it was cool that it broke tons of records and we saw it! Also, during the Dent/Djokavic match, Dent hit a serve at 149 mph – a record at Wimbledon.

Sightseeing in London

Tuesday was our first full day in London so we tried to see as many sites as we could. We each bought a London pass which included probably over 40 sites you could see. Our first stop was the Tower of London (left). It is a historic castle/fort that housed the monarchs like 1000 years ago. It was really old and cool. We took an hour tour of place that had a funny tourguide and later walked through the actual Tower itself (a large exhibit about knights and castles).

After the site we walked along the Tower Bridge (right) which is a really cool bridge made of two castle towers connected by a high walkway. It goes over the River Thames (the main river through London) and it has some great views. We were able to see how it was built and how it worked. The architecture – like so many buildings in London – was pretty incredible. I have never seen so many cool looking buildings before in my life.

Lots of the sites we saw were either two or three star sites on Rick Steves 3 star scale system. We briefly stopped by the Shakespearean Globe and then walked across the Millennium Bridge (the bridge that breaks in the last Harry Potter movie) to St. Pauls Cathedral. I had never been to a Cathedral before so I was pretty excited. When we were waiting to get in we couldn’t believe how huge it was – and that it was built so long ago. It also crazy how it is right in the middle of the city intermixed with other really modern buildings right next to it. Once we got inside – we couldn’t believe how incredible everything was. So far, we all agree that St. Pauls Cathedral was our favorite site (although inside we couldn’t take pictures). It was HUGE, and not only that, but it seemed like every square foot was decorated with some statue of painting that was built into the walls. The ceilings were huge on most of them they had murals that covered whole rooms. A couple minutes after arriving, a choir composed of children and adults, met in the middle to sing. They were really pretty and the music added to the overall ambiance of the place. We ended up sitting in some chairs near the center and just relaxed looking at everything – we loved it. We then took the staircase up the dome, which ended up being over 400 stairs (it got tiring and very narrow towards the top). But it was worth it as we were at the very top of the dome, outside, overlooking London.

After dinner we headed to Wicked. Mike, Tiffany, and I had all seen it before. We got pretty cheap tickets that were in the very back but Em rented a pair of binoculars so she could see a little better. It was great – in fact I actually liked it better than the show I saw two years ago in New York – the lead singer was amazing.

Arriving in London!

I am currently sitting in a McDonalds pretty close to our hostel as it has free wifi. Everyone else is asleep still (it is around 6 am) but I woke up around 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. I'll try to recap the last 48 hours or so.

I arrived home from NCAR pretty early on Friday morning so we could get some last minute packing done before our departure. We got everything done and left with Mike and Tiffany on Saturday morning around 8:30 am. We spend most of the day in St. George as Mike and Tiffany had a wedding they had to attend. So Em and I got to go to the temple, relax at a park, visit with her aunt, etc - it was great. Em's dad was kind enough to let us borrow his GPS for this trip and we are still in the process of using it. It was pretty hilarious though a couple times when the GPS told us to 'Continue forward for 1.8 miles and turn right' when we were on a dirt road with a mountain in front of us. Another time it told us we had arrived at our destination on the right when we were on the freeway with a drop off cliff on our right... Overall though it has actually been pretty helpful and we are really glad we have it.

Danny and Kris let us stay the night and next morning with them, they were really kind and even fed us a couple of meals. It was great seeing them and catching up with the cousins. We made it to the airport in plenty of time and had no troubles getting on our plane. All four of us each have just one backpack which has made it really nice not to have to haul luggage everywhere.

When we made our connecting flight, we noticed Mike and Tiffany were on the other side of the plane so we asked the couple in front of us if they could switch our friends spots and they gladly let us! It turned out that they were both from Salt Lake (pictured above) which was interesting as we were in Minneapolis. We actually got to know them pretty well and they gave us some travel tips and showed us around the airport when we arrived in London. There was a couple of other people around us that we all became friends with - including one lady, Jane, from London who showed us which train to take to get to our hostel.

When we arrived in London we got our money from an ATM and with the help of a couple people (including James, a really nice information guy that helped us get around the tube station - pictured in blue) found our way to the Tube. Fortunately it was a pretty direct shot to Kings Cross Station which is essentially where our hostel was. Fighting jet lag actually wasn't too bad despite the poor sleep we got on the train. We followed Rick Steves guidebook saying to immediately switch your watches, and your minds, to London time. Kings Cross Station (for those that haven't read Harry Potter) is where Harry would take the train to Hogwarts so it is also where platform 9 and 3/4 is - although we haven't found it yet.

After getting off the Tube we were all anxious to get out from the underground and see London! As we were walking up the steps we were talking about how this would be our first real view of London and as we got to the top of the steps there was a construction zone and lots of dumpsters - it was pretty funny. Then the first clock Tiffany saw (as there are a lot here) she said 'Is that Big Ben!' I was dying - it was probably a 20th the size of Big Ben. We were still pretty lost (a constant theme throughout this trip) but found another backpacker with a map and asked him where he was going. It turned out he was a University of Utah graduate from Salt Lake backpacking around by himself. So we walked with him a big and finally found our hostel - the Clink 261. The area around us looks much like New York, just lots of people, kind of dirty, yet exciting. When I walked in the Hostel there was probably 40-50 little french kids (pictured) with their head mistress all talking and laughing really loud - my first thought was 'Please don't put us in a room with all those kids!' We ended up getting a room with 18 beds, it is pretty small and made us feel a little uneasy at first (and a little bit still). I guess you get what you pay for! There is one bathroom per gender, and two showers per gender. Our room has guys and girls in it and so far everyone has been very nice.

We locked up our stuff in some lockers (free with your own lock so we bought some) and took off towards downtown London. It was a great walk. We walked through Garden Park and arrived at Buckingham Palace (pictured), which was neat. It was a huge round about with cars and people buzzing by. Around that area we followed a path that led us to more parliament buildings and got some pictures with the British guards. I am sure eventually the buildings won't impress me so much but so far I have found the architecture pretty amazing. Everything just looks more historic here.

We did Rick Steves walking London tour backwards (not intentionally) but it worked. So we stared near Trafalgar Square where the National Gallery was. There were TONS of people everywhere, stores everywhere, etc. We stood in the middle of it all and just watched everyone for a little while. By this point we were all feeling a little tired but still decided to go to the National Gallery as it was free and we probably wouldn't be back there. I was a little nervous beforehand about how I would handle art museums. I am extremely grateful that I took History of Creativity at BYU last year as most it was about art and it really helped at the National Gallery. I was suprised by how much I enjoyed it. It was huge so we only tackled the popular rooms with Rembrandt, Monet, etc. I thought it was cool seeing 'Water Lilies' by Monet in person as the impressionist paintings were the ones I most looked forward too.

We had dinner at a little cafe near Trafalgar Square where I got fish and chips (we figured I should as we were in London afterall) and everyone else got really good sandwiches (better than my fish and chips).

We finished our walking tour at the Westminster Abbey (pictured) and Big Ben. It was awesome. We walked along London bridge and took pictures. I couldn't believe how big and ornate the Abbey was, and along the Thames river it was a pretty cool site.

We finished the day taking a double decker bus back the hostel and going right to sleep. So overall it has been great, we don't have wi fi and there aren't that many plugs so using the computer and other electronics has been a challenge -oh well.

Provo Visit/Europe Planning

Last weekend I flew home for a couple of days. It was only supposed to be home Saturday-Monday but I ended up pushing my flight back til Wednesday as we had a lot to do to get ready for Europe. Two of the nights we were there we met up with Mike and Tiffany to further plan our trip. As we were booking one of our hotels, we realized that Emily's passport said Emily Young instead of Emily Ferguson! So we tried to see if we could change the name on our plane ticket but we couldn't so our only option was to pay a hefty price to expedite it the next day and get a new one.

This is Monterossa al Mare, the fifth of the Cinque Terre cities, we are staying there for 2 nights

The planning has been a lot of fun. I am a big planner and I am grateful that the four of us decided to book all or our hostels, hotels, and train tickets ahead of time. As of last night, we finished booking our last hostel. I have a lot of spreadsheets made up to help us organize all of the information. Here is our itinerary.

London (4 days) - staying in a hostel close to downtown

Salzburg (2 days) - staying in a hostel

Venice (2 days) - staying in a hostel new San Marco square

Florence (2 days) - staying in a hotel close to down town Florence

Rome (3 days) - staying in a hostel

Cinque Terra (3 days) - staying in an apartment first night, hotel the next two nights

Swiss Alps (3 days) - staying in Interlaken the first night in a hostel, Gimmelwald the second night in a family owned place high in the mountains, and back the Interlaken in a hostel the last night

Paris (3 days) - staying in a hostel in the city

Belgium (8 days) - Mike and Tiffany leave the first day then we spend a week alone with Mom and Loel

If anyone has any strong opinions about things to do in any of these places - let us know, any advice is appreciated!

This is Gimmelwald, in the Swiss Alps. Rick Steves ranks it as his second favorite place in all of Europe - second only to Paris.

This is where we are staying in Gimmelwald.

More visits

My time here at NCAR is winding down. I am almost done with the assignment that I was given at the beginning - I will probably finish it my last day here (this upcoming friday). This weekend is my last one here in Boulder and it got down to 50 degrees and rained the whole time. Because my bike is my only means of travel and I am up on a big hill, I stayed in most of the day yesterday. I did get out for a couple hours to exercise and relax at a bookstore.

Two weekends ago Em came out again as we found a pretty cheap flight. We actually weren't planning on her coming out as it was too expensive but the day before she flew out I found a pretty cheap flight on Expedia so we booked it - and we were happy we did. It was memorial day weekend and there were lots of fun things going on in Boulder. Memorial day weekend is HUGE in Boulder - especially because of the Bolder Boulder, the third largest race in America. It is a 10k and people from all over the world run it. On Saturday we went downtown to a huge fair that had hundreds of tents/booths set up and walked around. Pretty much every other booth was giving out free samples such as milk cartons, granola bars, tons of energy drinks, candy, dog food, etc. - I loved it! In fact, we ended up having to get a bag to put all our stuff in. I still have some of the food left over that I am still eating.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day. At church we met another couple close to our age - the husband's name is Scott and he is interning at NCAR this summer also. He is a statistics PhD student at Texas A&M and he and his wife invited us over for dinner. Dinner was a lot of fun, we visited for about 4 hours getting to know each other and learning about A&M. They made a strong case for it as it is a good program, nice area, very cheap housing, etc.

Memorial day was the Bolder Boulder so Em and I went down to check it out. Again there were lots of free samples that were handed out and there were TONS of people. We went in the stadium for a little bit and watched a pretty constant wave of people of all ages cross the finish line. Em and I decided that if I am in Boulder next summer again (a pretty good chance) then we would run it.

The rest of Memorial day we decided to drive up in the canyon to a lake that Sara and John had told us was pretty. The drive was gorgeous and the whole way Em and I played our typical games that we play in the car - Ghost (where you each take turns saying a letter that is part of a word but you can't finish the word or you lose), Numbers (you pick a random high number and you keep adding numbers in some range until one of you gets to the high number in which case you lose), and Categories (you pick a category

and you start taking turns saying objects in that category until one of you runs out of things t

o say). I think Em is better than me at Ghost but I think I am better at Categories. The lake was really pretty and it felt really good to be up in the mountains. We walked around for a little bit then returned home.