Swiss Chocolate and Gelato

This morning we finally got to tour the Palace of Nations, which was super awesome! We saw a couple of rooms where representatives from all 193 member countries would sit and discuss issues. An interesting fact I learned was that although the representatives sit alphabetically by country, the order changes depending on whether the host language for the conference is English or French. So, for example, if the conference is in English, the US goes under U (obviously). But the French name for the United States is États-Unis, so if the conference is French we’re in a totally different place. It sounds like the main language of the conference will only be either of those two, but most delegates can still converse in their own tongues. And, as our guide pointed out, you couldn’t order the countries in, say, Chinese, because they don’t have an alphabet.

Before boarding our train, we stopped in a little Swiss chocolate shop (I mean, really, that was kind of essential) where I basically wanted to buy everything in the room. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that much money- Swiss chocolate is delicious, but expensive!

Once aboard the train, we passed the time taking gazillions of pictures of beautiful snow-capped mountains that make me feel like Heidi. We were later joined by a couple from Salt Lake City to whom we enjoyed speaking very much. They were well-traveled and interested in many of the same franchises as we were, and we had a great time talking about places we had each been or sharing stories from places the others hadn't been. It was a lot of fun, probably more so than if we had just stuck to our own devices for the rest of the trip.

We made it to Milan, whereupon we checked into our hotel. We soon ventured out for dinner, finding a trattoria with lots of pasta. Then for dessert we achieved an important milestone: Our first Italian gelato. Needless to say, it was extremely tasty!

It's too bad we don't have more time here, but we're getting up early tomorrow to fit in an extra excursion before we're off to Venice.

GUYS THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. They have real live peacocks at the UN!

The Swiss chocolate shop... yummmmmmm.

My first Italian gelato!

And Then Suddenly, Switzerland!

This morning was a rush to pack up and head to the train station to board our ride to Geneva. During the three-hour tour, Heather and I watched The Aristocats and Ratatouille (unfinished business from Paris) while taking pictures of scenic Swiss views... when they weren't blocked by the ridiculous amount of trees we saw along the way.

Checking into our hotel room, we found it to be the most luxurious and spacious yet! Nevertheless, we hurried right off to tour the United Nations headquarters... which quickly came to a halt when Heather and I didn't have our passports on us. We got back before the next tour (the last one of the day), but it had already filled up! Oh well. Our initial plan was to go tomorrow anyway, so nothing has really changed. It was still a nice day for taking pictures, so we spent some time doing that before returning to the hotel.

For dinner, we kept up our Friday night pizza tradition by finding a pizzeria. The pizza was great, but I found it funny that we were speaking French in an Italian restaurant. (Although Italian is an official language of Switzerland, it seems that Geneva likes French the best!) I guess I'll just have to wait till tomorrow to break out the Italian. It's too bad- I've got my family pretty well trained to say hello, thank you, and goodbye in French. Now they'll have to pick up some new words...

The one thing we really need to do that we haven't yet is get our hands on some good Swiss chocolate. Fortunately, our plans for tomorrow include such a stop.

Just your typical Swiss countryside...

The Parade of Flags outside the UN headquarters.

There Goes the Baker With His Tray, Like Always...

Disneyland truly is the most magical place on Earth. Only in a Disney park can you walk in and feel like you've never left home- it had exactly the same atmosphere and many of the same attractions (except that the signs were in French). From the first ride (Peter Pan's Flight), I felt like a little girl again, and that was a magic that kept up all day! We progressed through rides like It's a Small World (which was awesome because it was really similar to the one back home, but with even more countries/regions), a Pinocchio ride, and a Snow White ride. Most of the lines actually weren't too bad, but Heather and I passed the time singing Disney songs in the voices of Roz (me) and Goofy (her). Her Goofy voice is surprisingly good!

We also visited the animation studio, where my dad showed up all the other artists in the drawing class with his drawing of Mushu. Of course, we stopped in a couple of stores (including the Christmas shop in Sleeping Beauty's castle) to get some neat souvenirs, among them our Disney shirts for the trip and this year's Christmas ornaments.

As the park was closing, we stayed for the Disney Dreams show, where montages from various Disney movies were projected onto the castle along with songs from the movie. It was really neat, because sometimes the songs were in French and sometimes in English, but everyone was able to sing along in their own language. It's moments like these when I really appreciate being a student of languages!

After three straight days of heavy sightseeing, we are totally wiped out and will be glad to have a long train ride to Geneva tomorrow.

Au revoir, Paris. It's been grand!

Welcome to Disneyland Paris!

My favorite part of It's a Small World.

The end of the Disney Dreams show.

Priceless Works of Art... Hold the Pancreas

After seeing a picture of the cathedral on a sign last night, we decided to make Sainte-Chapelle our first stop. It has the most stained glass I've ever seen in one place and is positively gorgeous! Naturally, they were renovating (like practically everywhere in Paris... you'd think we were back on Ohio State's main campus!), but we still managed to get some impressive pictures around the scaffolding. I'm definitely glad we detoured.

Following our surprise addition, we headed off to the Musée d'Orsay as planned. Heather and I were enthralled by the Doctor Who scenery and hurried off to the Van Gogh exhibit (yes, the single solitary reason we wanted to visit the museum). Although there were many famous and recognizable paintings, two of those we were most hoping to see (Starry Night and Sunflowers) are apparently currently in New York and London. Still, we got to see lots of cool paintings by people we've heard of, so Heather could pick up some trivia for In The Know.

Afterwards, we paid the Louvre a visit, where we got to see such exciting pieces as the Mona Lisa and the Vénus de Milo. Let me tell you, waiting to see the Mona Lisa gave a new meaning to the word squished. More like I have never been so squashed next to all these random people in the entirety of my existence. I pictured a nice neat line where you filed past, got to see the Mona Lisa for a few seconds, took your pictures, and moved right along. This was not the case- it was sort of a free-for-all as everyone crowded closer (behind the ribbon of course). There are several types of shovers: Those who inevitably bump into you and apologize, those who just accept that random squishing is going to happen and deal with it, saying nothing, and those who defy everyone, push their way to the front (forcing you into innocent bystanders), and take up copious amounts of space as they strain to get selfies with the Mona Lisa. These folks were quite common, but I finally made my way to the front of the crowd to get a few good pictures. I'm glad I did, but let me tell you, claustrophobia will never be a thing again.

Although our feet were killing us, we trudged around to see other famous paintings (or, at least, famous artists). This is where the Vénus de Milo came in, along with many other limbless works. We decided, after all this time taking in art, that we were pretty much done for the day- we were sore all over, and we'll have to do a ton of walking tomorrow. We headed back to the hotel to drop off our things before finding dinner, which ended up being at a restaurant where our waiter spoke almost no English! Fortunately, he was really good about understanding my French (and also pretty good at charades when I didn't know what something meant). We even had more vanilla ice cream for dessert.

It's nice to have some downtime in the hotel now, because tomorrow we'll be out all day at Disneyland Paris!

Sainte-Chapelle Cathedral. Tell me that's not beautiful!

The Musée d'Orsay.

The Louvre.

And here she is... the Mona Lisa, from the front row!

Le Tour de France

It's hard to have a bad day when you start if off with croissants, baguettes, and chocolate. Indeed, our day was wonderful, but extremely busy!

After breakfast, our first stop was Versailles, where we passed the time waiting in a long line by taking pictures of the gorgeous exterior. The line moved pretty quickly, and before too long we were inside, photographing everything we could see. The first part of our experience was mainly looking through galleries of the history of Versailles, which, although interesting, were considerably less beautiful than the palace rooms we explored next. Heather and I were disappointed that we didn't get to see the room featured in the Doctor Who episode set in Versailles, but that's okay. We'll be on set tomorrow at the Musée d'Orsay.

Following Versailles, we took the metro (we were extremely good at metroing by the end of the day) to Notre Dame. Indeed, it was magnificent, especially inside with all the stained glass windows. Since the rest of the church was very stark, they made all the difference! I couldn't help but envision Quasimodo when we heard the bells chime.

Next up was the Eiffel Tower! It was far more impressive than the one at King's Island. We didn't go up to the top, but we got some cool pictures anyway. My dad, who was the only one of us who had been to Paris before, showed us where to stand to get the best shots. I wish we could have seen it all lit up at night, but we were pretty tired by the end of the day!

Finally, we got to the Champs-Élysées, where I had been promised dinner on the most famous street in Paris. We found a good restaurant where my French came in handy again (though most of the time I just get to ask for directions and stuff), where we had a delicious meal. Again at my dad's suggestion, we tried the French vanilla ice cream for dessert, which was amazing! I'll definitely have to have some more before we go.

We continued to stroll down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe. The sun was beginning to set, making for some really nice pictures! After photographing the monument to death, we realized there were people under it- well, naturally we had to get under there too! After much looking around, we finally located the tunnel that would take us up. More pictures ensued. Finally, cultured but exhausted, we returned to our hotel.

As promised, here are the über-touristy results of our day!

Le Château de Versailles.

Notre Dame.

Me and Heather at La Tour Eiffel.

Sunset on the Champs-Élysées.

L'Arc de Triomphe.

Adiós Barcelona, Bonjour Paris

It was storming when we woke up in Barcelona, which sort of put a damper (ha ha) on our plans to stroll about, but it had reduced to a drizzle by the time we were ready to go. Umbrellas in hand, we found somewhere to eat breakfast where I could practice my Spanish one last time before we went.

Then it was on to the train station, where we boarded a comfortable vessel for a 6 1/2-hour ride to Paris! It was 8 o'clock when we got here and almost 9 by the time we were checked in at the hotel, so we haven't gotten to do any sightseeing yet. We found an open place for dinner, where they were apparently almost out of food for the day. Still, we got chocolate mousse for dessert, so all was not lost.

Tomorrow I'll post cool pictures of French things you will recognize, but for now here are some pictures from our train ride!

You can see the mountains!

The Mediterranean.

One of my better landscape shots.

¡Barcelona!

We survived the flight! Overall it really wasn't too bad, but I think we were all quite glad to be off the plane and back on the ground again. All of our luggage made it, so we collected our bags and got a cab to the hotel. We were actually able to go to our room right away, which was really nice as we could leave everything there before we went sightseeing.

Tired though we were, we went for a stroll through the streets somewhat near our hotel. Our map was totally not helpful and we usually had no idea where we were going, but we saw some really cool buildings and lots of pigeons and trees. I think my favorite place we stopped was the huge Gothic cathedral- there was a mass going on, but we still got to come in and take pictures. What surprised me the most was the amount of Catalan in the city! I knew it was spoken in Barcelona, but I assumed it was sort of a side dialect with Spanish still being the primary language. So imagine my surprise when most of the signs were written in Catalan! It's fun to figure out what the signs say (it looks similar to Spanish), but I wish I spoke some.

We knew today was going to be tough to get through, so we eventually just decided to go back to the hotel and take a power nap. When we awoke (still tired), we went off in search of dinner, which is harder than it sounds on a Sunday evening. We found a really good place with friendly service where I got to practice my Spanish. The food was delicious, and in spite of none of us really being that hungry, we managed to enjoy it anyway.

We're back at the hotel now, so we'll probably wind down and watch a movie or something. Tomorrow we have a few hours left here, and then it's a train ride to Paris!

The view from our hotel room.

A proud rooster on a pedestal. (One of Heather's and my favorite sights!)

La Catedral de Barcelona.

Benvenuto!

Welcome to my blog! Thank you for sharing my amazing experience with me. Today we embark on our grand voyage, flying first to the exotic destination of Philadelphia before heading out to Barcelona tonight. Therefore, this post is not going to be particularly interesting in comparison to those that follow.

It's crazy how quickly this day has come! My last trip to Europe (my senior year of high school with the orchestra) involved five years of waiting, and all of this came together in only seven months. In those seven months, we planned flights, destinations, and activities to make this trip utterly awesome.

When I set up my major so that I studied Spanish, French, and Italian, I never questioned that order. That's the order they've always been in my head, the order in which I started studying them. But early in my first semester of Italian, things began to change. I realized that, if I kept Italian as my tertiary language, I would only need to study three semesters' worth (what I have now). I wanted to speak it as well as Spanish and French, so I switched it to my primary language to get more experience. Sometimes I think I'm crazy for deciding that I'm ready to go to school in Rome after only a year and a half studying Italian, but I really felt that God was calling me there instead of to Spain like I had originally imagined. He gave me a passion for languages and the gift to learn them well, and I know He wouldn't have brought me to this path if He didn't think I was ready!

I am so unbelievably excited to start this new adventure, and I can't wait to share it with everyone. Thank you all for your continued support. Enjoy the blog, and I'll see you in a couple of months!