Concluding Sentiments

Our trip is at an end now, but it has been an experience we will never forget.  It has been an amazing journey as we've traveled through roughly 25 cities and 12 countries in the past 8 weeks.  It has truly been a chance to see the history of modern civilization and enjoy the culture of so many diverse people.

Some of the amazing things we've seen on our trip include:
Stone age burial chambers and ring forts in Ireland
Ruins of the Roman empire and foundations of western civilization in Rome
Medieval castles throughout Great Britain and Ireland
The Sistine chapel and a chronicle of ancient art in the Vatican
Incredible Gothic churches built to display the glory of God
Renaissance art that pulled Europe out of the dark ages
Palace of Versailles where so many kings have reigned and historical documents have been signed
The seat of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Vienna
The depths of human depravity in concentration camps and the global history of genocideRebuilt architecture of cities destroyed in World War II bombings
Nuclear bunkers from the cold war
The streets of communist protests and oppression in Prague
The struggle for independence and the rise and fall of empires
The instruments and performance halls of musical geniuses
Beautiful mountain views and local cheeses in Switzerland
The Dutch attitude toward tolerance and the beer culture of Munich
Delicious local cuisines in twelve different countries
National pride everywhere that we go
The incredible efforts taken to preserve the past and keep local traditions alive
And the preparation for the 2012 Olympic games in London

It felt very fitting to end our trip during the Olympics, as they represent the decision to compete in sports rather than in war.  We were fortunate to see much of the games from hotels or pubs during the last week of our trip and are watching the closing ceremonies as I type this post.  We look forward to sharing more of our trip with everyone, and we plan to continue using this blog for exciting events in our life.


Thanks for reading!
Marty and Shawna

Journey Home

After 2 long flights and a very long drive we have made it home.  We flew to San Francisco to pick up our pets Bozeman and Casy, who were staying with grandma and grandpa.  It was a happy reunion but Bozeboy got a bit too excited and strained his back.  He's doing better now.

Look at this weary traveler.  I think she is tired after travelling thousands of miles all over Europe, but she is beautiful even when she is sleeping.  Shawna has been an amazing traveler and the best partner I could have to travel Europe.  Whether she is waking me up in the morning, grabbing money that I dropped out of the money belt, or telling me not to stick my head out the train window, she is always looking out for me.  I'm sure I wouldn't have made it back without her.

Marty

When Marty and I first starting dating we talked about traveling as one of our life goals that we shared. As I look back on the past four years of my life with an amazing man I am so blessed. We have discovered and learned so many things about each other and others on this trip to Europe. I love Marty and am thankful for him everyday. Throughout our trip he comforted me when I was stressed, navigated us around Europe by trains, buses, planes, cars, bikes, and our feet (most of this navigating was only done using paper maps since we didn't have a phone plan), carried my camera bag a lot, quizzed me on the many languages we were learning, encouraged me to be myself even though I felt like I had to put my guard up, and made me laugh and smile everyday.  

 

Trains

Before our trip, we debated whether or not to get a Eurail pass, but in the end we decided to get one and it was an excellent decision.  On the trains we were able to research the next city we were traveling to, sleep (which Shawna did on just about every train), take in the views, reflect on our experiences, and play Carcassonne with picnic lunches.

We had great experiences on almost all of our inter-country trains.  I thought at the beginning of our trip it would be fun to rank each of the metro train systems in cities that have a metro, but I got lazy.  I think I could sum up our sentiments though by saying that Lausanne's metro was super-fast, Berlin's trains were expansive and well organized, Rome's stations were surprisingly upscale, London's Underground was awesome all around, and Paris' metro smelled like pee and poo.

Here is our very well worn Eurail Pass.  This thing has been through a long journey in my money belt.  Our Eurail pass allowed us to travel 15 different days within a 2 month period and also entitled us to first class accomodations on all the trains that had first class cars.

We took this colorfully decorated train into Slovenia.  I think some countries just let people graffiti their trains to spice up the ride a little bit.

Shawna lounging in the retro-feeling Slovenian rail car.

This was our second (and much improved) sleeper car that we took.  It carried us comfortably from Krakow to Prague.  There was even a personal sink under the desk in the corner.  Our only regret was that it arrived too soon, interrupting our sleep.

This little cup was made available to us in the sleeper car.  I'm not quite sure what the top of it means when it says "for your morning toilet", but we just used it to brush our teeth.

This was our meal on our train out of Paris.  Being France, we thought that the train food might be really good, but this was actually the most disgusting meal of our entire trip.  The chicken was freezing cold, the biscuit was rock hard, and I don't even want to know what that stuff in the lower left corner is.  The only thing worth consuming was the wine and brownie.

Nice view out the back of our panorama train in Switzerland

It was a bittersweet moment when we took our final train ride.  It's a fine way to travel around and makes me wish that Amtrak was more expansive and more affordable.

Funny Sights across Europe

It may not be immediately clear what marvel of modern engineering in Amsterdam is, so I will tell you it is a pee deflector.  It is designed to deflect urine back at your knees if you pee on it and intended to reduce public urination on buildings.  In the 1980s, these deflectors were even given an electric charge for a nasty surprise to those that tried to outwit the pee deflector.

Who could forget the ridiculously expensive hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson dangled baby Blanket from the balcony.

We saw a lot of interesting bathrooms and toilets in all the countries we visited, or I guess I should call them water closets.  If you need a toilet in Europe, you need to look for the WC sign.  Some I didn't feel right posting pictures of here, but these two are pretty good.  The first is a particularly organic approach to freshening the bathroom.  The second is a toilet from a train we rode, in which the waste is dumped directly on the track beneath you.  You can see a bit of the track beneath.  This is surprisingly common on the trains that we took throughout Europe.

I wasn't really sure what to make of this warning in a train WC.  It seems to be a warning to all of you who would be tempted to flush an apple core or soda cup down the toilet.

We saw a lot of funny signs around Europe, here are just a few examples.  It took me a while to figure out what the green sign below means, it feels like some sort of puzzle you have to decode, but it really just points to the exit.  They never use the word exit in their signs, but I prefer the ones that simply say "Way Out".

I'm glad they give us the warning before crossing the road.  It really is hard to remember, though not as hard as it is to drive in Ireland.

There are many different ways to communicate the same message, but I like the way they do it in Ireland

Bolshevik crossing lights - there was actually a court battle over whether these crossing lights in east Berlin should be changed, but the people had grown attached to them so they stayed.

I loved this advertisement for the Museum of Communism.

Various Photos

Here is a collection of pictures that we haven't posted yet but I thought were worth putting here.


On our Sound of Music tour in Austria, we had the opportunity to go on a summer luge.  It is a little cart that you ride down a luge course.

We took a walk on our first night in London and came across this statue of Hodge, the cat.  His owner decided to have this monument and plaque made for Hodge after he passed away.

Some pictures of food in Europe: Amsterdam isn't exactly known for a unique cuisine, but one unique thing we saw there was hamburgers in vending machines.  Evidently the food in the vending machine is fresh though.  The cheese is from Amsterdam.  We found a store devoted only to cheese while walking around.  We probably tasted about 25 different cheeses before deciding to buy some old goat cheese.

Many of the cities we visited were very pet friendly.  One of my favorite instances of this was when they had a dog bowl outside the public bathrooms.  The attention to detail for pets is even funnier if you know that this was the same bathroom that provided no more than a hole in the ground for women to use (Shawna took a picture but I omitted it here for the cleanliness of this blog).

I think Shawna was really missing Bozeman and Casy, because she insisted on petting and taking photos of every dog we passed while walking.  We saw a lot of Dachsund mixed breeds, like this shaggy one.

In Rome, we went to the Villa Borghese park and rode a two-seater bicycle around.

Ireland Part 2

We were able to start our trip in this beautiful country and end our trip here too. This time we were able to see some of the southern sights.

After Marty drove the first part of our trip in Ireland, I deiced to give it a try and this lasted about 15 minutes. 

Newgrange is the oldest monument we saw on our Europe trip. It is about 5,000 years old and was used as spiritual passage chamber.  Though the mound looks very large, the tunnel inside is pretty small.  The native inhabitants stored the remains of their leaders here.

As we were driving I quickly told Marty to turn the car around. As we got closer he was not as enthusiastic as I was to see a mama pig with her piglets. They were all so cute.  

We were able to see one of the many caves in southern Ireland.

In the city of Cork we actually went to the movies but here is a nice picture as we walked to the theater.

Blarney Castle and the surrounding area of the castle was so much fun! We kissed the blarney stone but we haven't noticed anything different yet or maybe I'm speaking blarney. We walked along a trail and found a place for Marty to test out his climbing. Can you spot Marty hiding in the tree roots? This waterfall didn't have a path above ground but the water was coming through the rocks. 

Edinburgh

We can't claim to have seen much of Scotland, since we were only there for a day and 2 nights, but we did have an excellent stay there.  The cool thing about Edinburgh is that the whole city looks like a castle.  Our stay happened to coincide with a huge festival they have called Fringe, as well as a 4 week concert\performance put on by the military nightly.

Tattoo Military Concert in front of Edinburgh Castle

 

At Greyfriars churchyard, we saw the grave of John Gray.  John Gray was a former constable in Edinburgh who took a Skye Terrier, named Bobby, as his watchdog.  When John Gray passed away, he was buried here in Greyfriars Kirkyard.  Bobby was so attached to his owner that he loyally continued to guard this grave for 14 years!  When he passed away in 1872, he was also buried near here.

The Elephant House - Birthplace of Harry Potter

Belgium

Bruges is a scenic town and great for walking.  They have great food and incredible beer.

Bruges has some beautiful canals too, but not nearly as many as Amsterdam

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We went to a market in the Bruges town center that had just about everything you could want: many varieties of cheese, meat, and fruits.

Many people think french fries were invented in France, but it was actually Belgium.  The "French" simply refers to the way the potatoes are cut.  In Belgium they eat their fries with mayonnaise, but I still prefer ketchup.

We learned all about the history and production of chocolate at the Chocostory museum, as well as a live demo.  This picture begs the question: If you were made of chocolate, would you eat yourself?

Nice view of the city from the top of De Halve Maan brewery.

A Madonna and Child by Michelangelo, one of his rare works to leave Italy.

Nice view of the Bruges Belfry which rises above the Market square

Here's Shawna in front a windmill near our hostel.

We had to enjoy some waffles while in Belgium.

This is the Atomium monument built for the 1958 World Fair.  It is in the shape of a Iron (Fe) crystal, magnified 165 billion times.