Paris, France

After dragging my feet, I finally agreed to go to Paris.  Maybe its the French-German enmity I have always heard about, but ever since I started studying German in high school, I have always been weary of visiting France, Paris in particular. 

It was an extremely brief visit, but we managed to see a good number of sites and now I want to go back so that I can experience it in more detail.  Like Prague, I found it very enjoyable to walk around in this city.  If only it weren't so cold and rainy/snowy the whole time.  We wanted street-side cafes and sunny parks.  Perhaps next time.

No Quasimodo sightings.

But we did find a hockey team practing on the ice in front of Hotel de Ville.

So pretty at night.

We also befriended some German tourists who took this photo for us.

The romance of this shot is lost when I see the earbud in my ear and remember that it was taken while on a tour bus.

Pastry breakfast in Paris.  Its a good thing we walked so much.

We went in, but couldn't afford to really do any shopping so...

we just looked at the pretty Christmas decorations.

Arc de Triomphe.

L'Eglise des Invalides.  I think we heard at least four times that this is where Napolean's ashes have been laid to rest.

 Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge over the river Seine in Paris.

Bonn, Germany

Haribo brand gummy bears cannot be beat.  The insane variety you find here in Germany is truly amazing, espeically when compared to what I am used to seeing in the US. 

I took a trip to Bonn with some friends of the fellowship (including my little best friend here) and we had a blast filling up giant bags with every variety of gummy you can imagine. If you ever get the chance to go to Bonn and want to stock up on cheap candy, I recommend going to the Haribo warehouse located near the orignal plant. The name "Haribo" comes from the first two letters of inventor's first and last names (Hans Riegel) being combined with where the candy was invented (Bonn).

This traffic light was getting in our way!  Do we have to wait until the light is green?

Entrance to the original factory.

Who is more excited?  Me?

Or her?

Around the corner was the chocolate river.

Thought these were super cute and creepily real-looking.

The BEST flavor, no contest!

A thank you note from Governor Schwarzenegger after Haribo sent him his likeness in gummy form.

A famous gummy called "Arsch mit Ohren," which means "Ass with Ears."  We definitely don't have those in the US.

Candy and free rides in the same day!

Mom and daughter in the kids section.  Electronic games are the one thing that could distract a 5 year old from all of the candy. 

The rest of the day she insisted on carrying our Gummibär loot, eventhough it was waaaay too heavy for her.

We also did some more mature sight-seeing and went to downtown Bonn.

Found many Beethoven statues.

And went to visit Beethoven's birthhouse, which currently holds a museum.

On display we found little models of the birthhouse made by local students.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside so this is all you get.

Barcelona, Spain

The day after Christmas, we managed to sneak away to both Barcelona and Paris.  We spent two nights in Barcelona and one in Paris.  We had to make the trips much shorter than I would have prefered and therefore saw less, but we decided to take advantage of how easy it is to country-hop in Europe with our visitors.

Look, no snow!

View from the top of La Sagrada Familia.

My favorite thing about Barcelona besides the weather was the architecture.  The number one thing I wanted to see while I was in Barcelona was La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral designed by the architect Gaudi.  Gaudi is a local sensation and one can enjoy his buildings all over Barcelona.  The city of Barcelona has been building this cathedral since 1882 and it is still about 15 years from completion.

Its facade looks like a mountain climbing out of the middle of the city.

It wouldn't all fit in one photo.

Construction cranes be gone!

The passion facade.

Completely different styling from the other facade.

Inspired by nature.

La Sagrada Famila was consecrated just this last Nov.

Nave with tree-like columns.

Casa Batlló, more Gaudi.

The other highlight of Barcelona was the food and wine.  Our goal was to eat tapas and pallella in Spain, which we did, but the real star of our culinary experience was Spanish sausage and wine.  After sightseeing all day we ended up in a standing room only, hole-in-the-wall restaurant and stuffed ourselves silly with delicious food while only spending about 10 Euro each.

Sangria!

Notice the yummy pile of undisolved sugar at the bottom of his glass.

Delicious dinner at Can Paixano. 

Dripping deliciousness.

We orded one of almost every kind of sausage they had on this menu.

Trying not to spill our wine in the standing room only venue was a challenge.

Later on that day, Paella and even more sangria.

Does this look like a cat being grilled to anyone else?

And because it was so weird and unexpected, here's a video of a boat we saw while walking around the water.