Paris - Avignon, France

Today we got up early, checking out of our Airbnb because the station we leave from later today is in the south side of the city. We grab a simple but delicious breakfast of pastries from a patisserie near the Louvre and then I get positioned to hang out with the bags right beside the big fountain in the park with the Arc d’Triomphe and top of the Eiffel Tower in view out in the distance. Pretty solid place to hang out other than being a little chilly. The boys regroup and we head to pick up a few gifts and grab McDonald’s before we make our way to Gare de Lyon for our train to Avignon.

Our train ride is uneventful, on and off sleep for me while two of the guys are knocked out and I talk with a family from Paris headed to Marseilles for holiday. We arrive at Avignon TGV station and search for the train to the Centre station only to find out that the train won’t run today because of the SNCF (France’s national trainline) workers are on strike! We board a bus that takes to the Centre station (about 20 minutes by bus) and then start to make our way to our Airbnb for the night. The city is super cool, it is surrounded by a 14th century wall which from the outside looks somewhat like a post-war or middle eastern country (or at least what I am image it to look like) with construction and rubble in the entrance and around the wall. We have an awesome Airbnb in this second story flat which has a window that looks out on the small cobbled street and square below. For dinner we have some of the best pizza I have had in a long time while sitting at a table right next to another small cobbled street as mopeds and a few cars make their way by. After exploring the streets a little more, and grabbing some groceries we call it a night and head to bed knowing that we have an early train to catch in the morning.

Avignon - Barcelona

Today is our longest train ride yet so we are up early to grab some bread from the bakery right down the street for breakfast and lunch and then off to catch the train. According to the handy “these are the days we will be on strike” calendar posted online by the SNCF employees union we were supposed to be good and we were! We board the train, a regional one with 22 stops before we arrive at Port Bou, Spain and have an hour or so layover. The train ride is much better than we expect, not seeming too long and with a view here and there of some beautiful country and the Mediterranean. We eat our lunch, guess what? bread and cheese again! (Plus some knockoff Nutella I bought for less than €2,00 at a grocery in Holland that has come in handy). The second train takes us to Barcelona, a total trip time of about 7.5 hours with about 50 intermediate stops but really one of my favorite rides so far. We had our coach to ourselves for the first portion of the second train.

Arriving in Barcelona we once again find WiFi at trusty McDonald’s and research the public transit and a place to eat an early dinner. We are going to be experts on public transit all across the EU by the end of this trip 🤣🧐😴 (note to self, plan Airbnb’s bear center city as much as possible in the future). We enjoy dinner at this interesting little cafe (Dam and I having this delicious goat cheese and blueberry jam burger 🍔). After we check into our Airbnb which is two rather small rooms (two beds each) and use of the kitchen and living room with a lady named Lesly and a family from Peru who is friends with her who the husband is studying here. We decide to take the evening off and get a little taste of home by going to see the New Avengers movie in theater. The first theater we get to is showing Vengadores, the Spanish version of the movie, only. The guy at the ticket booth tells us of of a theater which shows movies in English and we quickly make our way there thanks to the trusty offline google maps, TMB Metro 🚇 \240station maps, and about 5 transfers we arrive! The movie was a treat (I didn’t realize how much I was already missing English) as was the pastries we picked up from a bakery on the way, 3/€1,00. The city was really pretty at night as we made our way back to the Airbnb and headed straight for bed! 🛏

Barcelona - El Classico Day

Today is the Sabbath and we take the opportunity to rest with open arms, sleeping until 12:00. Joseph goes to church and when he gets back he and I go to the grocery down the street to grab some stuff for lunch (finishing off the second box of gluten free pasta we bought on accident in Paris). The big Barcelona vs. Real Madrid El Classico match is tonight so we decide to explore the stadium (which is only 5 minutes from our Airbnb!) and then take the metro 🚇 down to the old part of the city called the Gothic Square or Barrio Gotic in Catalan. After checking a few more items off my little gift list and seeing some cool old churches and squares. Oh I almost forgot one of my favorite moments on the trip so far! One of the smaller (still pretty big) gothic cathedrals in the area has free admission so of course we choose that one ☺️ only to discover that a Spanish choir is performing a concert of english hymns/worship songs. We sat in the pews for about 30 minutes taking in and worshipping along with the beautiful Spanish voices singing songs like His Eye is on the Sparrow and Shout to the Lord (this one was so beautiful!). This is the first church ⛪ we have seen in Europe that has had anything going on unit other than museum.

After this little refreshing treat its getting to be that time to find a place to watch the match! Mark found online this bar in the Gothic Quarter that had a bunch of TV’s and we hit it at just the right time (well maybe a little earlier would have been good) because when Sam and Go out about 15 minutes later to see if there are any other options they have started charging a cover charge to enter. The place is pretty full when we got there and getsmore and more packed as it leads up to the match. The match ends in a tie but it is pretty cool to be apart of the Barcelona Song that everyone joins in singing and of course hooping and hollaring when Messi and Suarez score and whenever Real Madrid fouls. As we exit our metro station on the way back to our place for the night we are greeted by a sea of blue and yellow striped FCB clad fans going every direction!

Barcelona

Today we want to see some of the great sites this city has to offer so what better way to do that than by bike! We rent bikes through this recent start-up international bike share program called Donkey Republic.

Our first stop is the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Park (which interestingly was built mostly in 1936 but was not able to be used then because of difficult political situations in the country at that time). This is on the way up to a old (maybe 17th century) fort called Montjuic. From the fort you can see the whole city which kind of reminds me San Francisco in that it expands over a large portion of the sea/bay and then goes up into hills/mountains. We head down to the Gothic Quarter again to grab lunch at this place which serves traditional Catalonian food. We felt pretty underdressed but the prices weren’t crazy! As we sit down we realize that two of the bikes have to be returned and renewed so Joseph and I go on a 20-30 minute adventure of finding a drop off location and tracking down new bikes that weren’t broken, missing seats, etc. The ones we got still had flat tires 😔. Mark and Sam stalled the waitstaff until we got back and our food came soon after. Joseph and I shared negro arroz paella 🥘 (it is a traditional Catalonian dish served family style in a pot, the rice is colored with squid ink and has seafood in it, ours had cuttlefish, whatever that is!). It was good but definitely not our favorite thing we’ve eaten. After lunch we head to one of Barca’s beaches, it’s covered with people getting toasted crispy but looks out into the bluish-clear water of the Mediterranean. It’s late in the afternoon now and we have two more stops, the first is the Basilica La Sagrada Famíla. It is the largest church in Europe (I think) and is still under constructed to this day. We only spend about 15 minutes here, the architecture of the building is unlike anything I’ve seems before, it kind of made me think of a sandcastle when you get wet sand and drip it on it, it was definitely overwhelming! Our last stop is a thrift store, Joseph has wanted to hit one since we got to Europe. After having a frustrating time returning the bikes 🚲 we hit the store which turns out to be called “Texas Thrift Store” and is filled with mostly jeans and other stuff the two European girls running it considered to be Texas apparel haha 😂! We grab dinner at KFC because it was easy, we were really tired from the day, and cheap, only €5,00.

Thanks for the solid day Barcelona!

Barcelona - Bern

Last night as we are making plans for our flight this morning Joseph realizes that he never booked the flight! He stays up till around 04:00 trying to find some adventurous alternative but ends up booking a later flight to Geneva later in the day.

04:20 rolls around and we are up and geBng ready to catch the earliest metro 🚇 to the airport at 05:00. The metro takes about 30 minutes and then we walk as fast as we can for what had to be 15 minutes to the farthest part of the terminal where we are to check in. Our gate closes at 06:10 and we walk into the baggage check line at 05:50. We make it up to the counter and the lady says, “this gate has already closed... take all your bags with you and run to the gate”. Security is a breeze except for the fact that I had to forfeit my limón Fanta and another gift that was just liquid enough to be not passable because it is technically a carry on at this point. We make it to the gate and they let us on, thank you for answered prayer God! The flight is quick, only about a quarter of the plane ✈ is full, and we get moved to seats with more legroom and are instructed to open the hatch right beside me in case of emergency 🚨 !

We arrive in Geneva and Mark and Sam take the train 🚂 to Bern while I stay in Geneva to visit the International museum of the Reformation. The city is pretty and relatively small but crazy expensive (I saw a sign for a Double Cheeseburger 🍔 at McDonald’s for 8,60 Swiss Francs). I spend about two hours at the museum and St. Pierre Cathedral right next door. Definitely worth the 8,00 Swiss franc ticket! I found it interesting to learn more about how the reformation developed in the minds, hearts, and cities of Europe and to begin to understand how much of the reformation involved and influenced politics, war, and western civilization, economics, and government. I enjoyed being on my own for a bit and overall this is one of my favorite parts of the trip so far! I go to the post office and the guy eventually gives me the postage for free because they didn’t accept Visa and I didn’t have any Swiss Francs. After this I head for I think to the station to leave for Bern and after walking for about 15 minutes start seeing some sketchy dudes hanging out on the porches of buildings and realize I am not where I am supposed to be so I pull out my handy and trusty offline google maps and realize that I have headed a total wrong direction! After recovering from a moment of hurt to my directional prowess pride I start making my way to the station, this time the correct way. After about 45 minutes of walking & and snapping some selfies 📷 I finally make it to the station. I enjoy a hearty lunch of water and Haribo gummies I had picked up in Barcelona while I wait for the train. The train ride to Bern is an hour and a half of beautiful country and sets me up well for what I am about to experience in Bern. I meet up with Mark and Sam and we grab a collection of pre-made sandwiches and such from the grocery store (Migros of Coop I can’t remember which) for dinner. It’s a satisfying meal, as I haven’t eaten anything since KFC last night.

After dinner we go out on a walking tour our Airbnb host left us of the major sites of Bern. The old town area isn’t big so we cover the good majority of it on our walk in about 2 hours (plenty of picture taking time included). This city is the most beautiful I have seen! The combination of the landscape (blue water river, green grass and trees, and just general liveliness of the nature) and the simplicity, elegance, and natural colors of the human architecture (red tiled roofs, natural dark colored clean stone buildings, streets, and bridges, and flower boxes with red flowers 🌺 abloom across the city) create a wonderful little valley of beauty. I just try to take it in because a picture can’t fully capture the elegance (though we certainly try to capture it;)

Well, bye bye city of the bear 🐻, we wish we could stay longer but our itinerary and weary wallets won’t allow us! You won’t be soon forgotten!

Bern - Trieste

This morning we awake well rested from the night in what Mark and Joseph have deemed our “Booji Airbnb in this Booji city”. We have a quick breakfast at our place before we head to to the train station 🚊. We are on the train today for around 8 hours (with a few stopovers ). We have lunch at the train station in Domodossola, right across the border in Italy. Mark and Sam bought stuff for lunch in Bern and Mark had cooked bacon 🥓 and made BLTCs (minus the T 🍅 for me). Its a nice treat to have a well-made sandwich to add to our usual diet of bread and cheese 🥖 🧀. We have a quick stopover at Milano Centrale station and are on our way to Venice. We arrive in Venice and almost immediately realize that this is not our kind of place! Don’t get me wrong, it was cool to walk out and see the canals (and not have to worry about getting hit by cars or buses or mopeds 😂) and the pretty architecture of the buildings. But... there are so many people! I bet you would be hard pressed to find someone habitating on this little island who is not a tourist or works a job that serves tourists. We walk around for a bit and finally decide to grab some Italian pizza 🍕 before we head to Trieste, this is the start of a bad decision. After finding out that the water is €4 we decide to just stick with the cheapest item on the menu, the €6,50 margarhetta pizza (the first sign that we had made a mistake). They bring us out some cheap, kind of nasty tasting pink wine (more orange than pink) and packaged breadsticks that resemble the little sticks you get in the little packs with the dipping cheese when you are a kid. These are “on the house” they say. Our pizza comes out pretty quick but it has a lot more on it than we asked for. It turns out the waiter heard is wrong but got upset at us about it so we just decide to eat what we have. The pizza was decent, but nothing to write home about (ironic, because I am writing home about it, but not for good reasons;). All of the sudden we realize that our train leaves in 15 minutes so we ask for the bill and eat the rest of the pizza as fast as we can. The bill we originally expected to be €26,00 comes to €49,50 but we don’t have time to figure it out so we leave a 50 on the plate and walk and weave through all the tourists as fast as we can to the station (something we are becoming very god at doing). The train is uneventful but when we arrive at Trieste Dan and Becky Rogerson are waiting to pick us up.

Explanation #1: Dan and Becky are the sister and brother-in-law of Joseph’s pastor who are church-planters/missionaries in Trieste.

Explanation #2: Trieste is a medium sized Italian city situated on the Adriatic Sea 🌊 right near the Croatian 🇭🇷 and Slovenian 🇸🇮 border - about a 2 hour train 🚂 from Venice.

They show us around the city a little and we grab some real Italian gelato for the first time! I got coffee and dark chocolate and it is exquisite (sorry Blue Bell and Breyers, I still love you but Marco Gelato has won my heart ♥️). We hardback to their apartment and head to bed pretty soon, pretty thankful for the day and ever so excited to be in a family home!

Oh I almost forgot, we tell the Rogerson’s about our Venice Pizza ordeal and they let us in on a few secrets. First, we were charged a service fee to sit at a table, another for sitting outside (ah-ha, that’s why the one Italian family at the restaurant was sitting inside), and to top it all off, we were most likely served frozen pizza with some toppings added to it 😂🤨🤔🤗

Quote From the Day:

“We took three small steps towards the train and one giant leap toward European-ness” \240 \240 \240 \240- M.J. Gossage

Trieste

This morning we awoke well rested (at 11:00) and feeling almost at home. Ms. Becky has set out a delightful little breakfast for us of croissants 🥐, yogurt, cereal, strawberries, breakfast cookies, jam and Nutella, and caffe. It was such a treat to have a sit down, thought out breakfast in a home. Finally around 14:00 we decide to go do some stuff.

Mark and Joseph go to see a castle and Sam and I hit up the Trieste Caffe ☕️ Tour. Trieste is the coffee capital of Italy, so we have learned 😏😋! The tour is only €5,00 per person which gives you a little booklet with six tickets for your choice of either an espresso or a cappuccino at one of the seven noteworthy coffee bars or lounges around the city. It is one of my favorite ways to have spent an afternoon so far. Tasting some quality espresso, getting to enjoy the surprise of how each place serves a little differently (some with a small cookie, one filled with jam, and another with a shot of cold chocolate drink that we mixed with our cappuccino but are pretty sure we should have waited to down after our caffe), and having good conversation with Sam, all while enjoying the elegant architecture of the rather small downtown area of Trieste.

Explanation: The architecture of Trieste is a mix of Italian and Austrian for it was under the rule of the Austrian-Hungarian for a long time. I find the combination to be marvelous, some of my favorite on the trip so far, with the way the elegance and formality of the Austrian architecture combines with the more Mediterranean natural beauty of the Italian/Adriatic Sea landscape and architecture.

Moving on, Sam and I sit for awhile on the stairs of one of the large churches in the city and I buy a leather bracelet from this guy who is an immigrant (maybe refugee) from Senegal 🇸🇳 names Bamba. I just enjoyed talking with him and I appreciated his style of non-pushy salesmanship.

We meet up with Joseph and Mark and head to this museum not far away to listen to this string quartet 🎻 🎻 🎻 🎻. It lasts a little longer than we expect (not starting until 30 minutes late and then lasting for about two hours with two intermissions for the Director, who had a kind of nasally voice, to give 15 minute discourses explaining the each piece of the instruments and what must be the life story of of each composer who the quartet played, and all this in Italian!). It was really good music though and I got to work on a few things while sitting there. It is at this point though that Sam and I realize what we have done! We have just consumed 5 espressos (the equivalent of 5 8oz cups of coffee, or more, in less than 2 hours ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ 🤔🤣🤪). We are certainly feeling the caffeine take its toll on our bodies!

We grab dinner at this place called Bella Napoli, a real-deal Pizza 🍕 joint recommended by the Rogerson’s, and it becomes immediately clear that what we had in Venice was a joke, this is the real deal! We order a pizza to share and each get lasagna as well. This place is great, they even gave a free tap water (Score 🤩)

The Rogerson’s are holding a Bible study in their apartment that is the starting point \240of the new church plant they are working on along with one other new missionary couple and a few others, but only one other Triestene believer. We catch the end of the fellowship time and get some cake 🎂 that they made for a few birthdays in the group including Sam’s which is today. We end the evening by sitting with them in their living room,along with a girl named Amy who is doing a semester abroad from Junea, Alaska, talking with them about their life.

Trieste - Vienna

\240 \240 We have one more partial day in this lovely little city and home, I will hate to leave but have been thankful for the respite we enjoyed here.

\240 \240 We awake a little earlier today and have breakfast with the Rogerson’s and then sit around the table talking with them for awhile after. Our plan is to have Ms. Becky drive is to Duino, a small town on the sea up the coast towards Venice, to go swimming a bit and explore some ruins there. During lunch though Sam starts to feel lightheaded and nauseous and so we decide to spend the day at the house instead so that he can rest until our train out of Venice later this evening.

\240 \240 Lunch was delicious though, homemade penne pasta with white sauce and meat with some delicious olive bread. An interesting note on Italian dining customs, the main course is eaten first and the salad served after the main dish is finished. Supposedly it is better for digestion. They also never drink their caffe with any part of the meal, once you drink caffe you don’t eat anything else, although we drink our caffe with our desert cake for this meal 😉

\240 \240 Joseph and Mark head up to Venice a little early to see and pick up a few things and Sam and I hang around for a later train. We say our goodbyes with the Rogerson’s and Sam and can’t bear the thought of leaving before grabbing a little more Gelato, I get Tiramisu and Nutella, so real-tasting and delicious, before we leave Italy.

\240 \240 We have a little scare with the timing of our overnight train, I think it departs at 21:46 for some reason when it is actually scheduled to leave at 21:16, only 8 minutes after our train from Trieste arrive to Venice! But don’t freak out (something I am working on and asking the Lord to teach myself) the trains in Italy are on Italian time so ours arrives 10 minutes late but the overnight train ends up being an hour late so we have plenty of time. We enjoy our packed sandwiches on the platform while we wait.

\240 \240 We board the train and it appears that this is going to be a mad house! People with luggage are trying to go in every direction down small corridors while those already in their berths sit with the doors opened, because it is so hot, just staring at us! When we finally find our compartment there are already 4 or 5 Chinese people already in there so we talk to one of the agents and he gets us situated. Somehow we got moved to a coach that was much cooler in temperature and only have the four of us in the compartment rather than 2 extras as we should have! Situated inside our compartment I now feel a deep connection with Mr. Bean and all things European 🤣! The top bunk I claim is a little small but works if you kind of sleep diagonally. Hopefully we will awake rested in Vienna tomorrow!

Vienna

We awake this morning to our train agent bringing us breakfast! The breakfast is simple, just two rolls with butter and some kind of jam, which is kind of weird tasting, and coffee (no longer that good Italian espresso 😕) but a nice unexpected treat!

About 45 minutes later we arrive at the Vienna main station. Our Airbnb host has an extra flat which he allows us to drop our bags in until check-in later in the day. Joseph has researched this castle on the outskirts of the north part of Vienna called Kreuzenstein. We make our way up there in about an hour and a half via a mix of public transit and a good bit of walking through the city and this suburb called Leobendorf. We get lucky at the castle and score an English tour with this girl who was working her first day as a tour guide and who knew English (she had also done an exchange program in Biloxi Mississippi of all paces haha). She is funny and knows a good bit, the castle is cool, rather small but the Duke who owned it and now his family have one of the biggest collections of Middle Ages artifacts (maybe in Europe, maybe in Austria, I can’t remember but they have a good bit of stuff!)

We make it back to the city and our Airbnb, check in and then crash for a little while. By crash I mean some of us take a bath (no shower in this place), some of us read, and some of us spend awhile on using valuable WiFi to find good food and places to explore for the evening. This is one thing I am looking forward to back in the states, not having to do research every time we want to get a good meal, though it has been amazing how much the internet has helped us with making good decisions on food.

After awhile we head out to this place Mark found not too far from our Airbnb to get some Wiener Schnitzel! The schnitzel is huge, two big pieces of basically flattened fried meat (I think ours was pork, the real thing that is more expensive is made from veal I think). They serve it with a lemon slice on top and you eat it just like that! It is pretty good and very filling but I can’t say it is my favorite thing I have eaten on the trip. We head out from the restaurant and stumble upon an outdoor concert out on by the Vienna Symphony in a large courtyard in the Museum Quarter of the city. These people take their classic musical seriously as the entire fairly massive courtyard is filled to standing room only. We leave the concert right before the massive crowd starts to depart. The Vienna Orchestra is supposedly world famous and it is nice to be a part of everyday with other people for a little while. On this trip is has often felt that we operate outside the realm of everyday society, often forgetting what day it is and not having any real responsibilities or commitments outside of travel and to the boys, and I am beginning to long for being a real regular citizen again!

Sam and Mark had left the concert a little early so Joseph and take a stroll around the City Hall area of town before meeting them back at the AirBnb. This area is amazing, every corner you turn their is another grand and elegant building. I think the architecture of Vienna is my favorite so far (I may have said the same about Trieste, they have a lot of the same influences). Most of it is 18th century built, Austrian-Hungarian Empire style. One of my favorite parts is how many of the buildings, which in a way remind me of 18th century Parisian architecture, take up three sides, encompassing an area and creating many different plazas or courtyards. Standing in the plazas give you a beautiful view of the buildings which in a way few like they surround you and provide a lot of public spaces in the city.

Well done Vienna and the Austrian-Hungarian empire, well done!

Vienna - Salzburg

Today is another early start because we are headed for the hills, rather big hills, the Austrian Alps to be exact. On our way to the train we grab what has become our favorite and traditional breakfast, pastries! I get this amazing looking and tasting pudding filled donut. I have been wishing for another one since I took the last bite 😃😢

The train ride is very enjoyable (we ride on a train operated by a smaller company called Westbahn). Austrians really know how to do trains, and food, and architecture, and... well you get the point, I would say all around they are on top of it here.

Arriving in Salzburg we start our self/google maps-guided Sound of Music tour! We first head to Miramar Palace where the fountain is that the children 👶 in the movie run/skip 🏃‍♀️ 🏃 around during “Do Re Me”. Next we take a little detour and grab some lunch, something I have been looking forward to since we arrived in Austria, sausages from a street stand! They are properly known as Würstls (I am like 95% sure) and there are many varieties. We all grab a Bosna which you can see pictures below. The bosna is two skinny sausages (kind of look like American breakfast sausage links) in a bun with mustard, cooked onions, and curry 🍛 powder. We also get some potato 🥔 wedges with this sour cream dip on top!

Now that we are good and nourished by some Austrian health food (probably not the most accurate description), we head up a big hill to the Hohersalzbug Castle or Fortress. The castle is one of the biggest in Europe and looks out over the city and Alps. Descending now down the hillside we make our way to a few other SoM sites. The backside of the one of the houses used interchangeably movie (it is now a hote so you can’t actually get up to it), another house with the famous gates (it is now a Mozart prep school for young children 👶, or so Joseph told us), and finally down to Hellbrunn Palace to see the iconic gazebo of “Sixteen going on Seventeen”. All in all we have walked around 12 miles from the time we got up this morning. We have also made good use of our Eurail passes today, back and forth from Vienna and Salzburg and a train from the far side of Salzburg where we walked to back to the main station, all with no reservations and no cost to us, thanks Austria and Eurail!

We make it back to Vienna and we The Bosna has long been waning in filling our stomachs. Sam grabs some MickeyD’s from the station and Mark and I are on the hunt for another variety of Würstl. On the way our big stomachs and eyes 👀 convince us to grab two €1 Burger King burgers 🍔 to supplement our anticipated sausage dinner. At our metro stop we find a würstl stand but our lack of knowledge and decisiveness lead to an unexpected outcome. As we are peering over the menu, the guys inside the stand starts talking to us in German, maybe English, I don’t know. All I know is that next thing we know we have two Durum Döner Kebaps in hand! We are a little shocked and disappointed as we walk away but soon after become thankful for the man after all his years of experience knew what we didn’t even know we wanted haha! These things aren’t really kebabs, they are more like extremely delicious, somewhat spicy, burrito look-alike, gyros. For only €3,50 a piece we got a special little unexpected treat tonight.

We make it back to our Airbnb, eat the rest of our little street food feast, call our Momma’s for Morher’s Day and because we love them a lot, and watch one of the Mr. Bean movies 🎥 on Netflix before heading to bed 🛏.

The Hills were calling with the Sound of Music and we answered, can’t say I will ever need to go back again To Salzburg but I am thankful for the opportunity and time with the Boys. Vienna (Wien), you elegant city, you hold the place of my favorite Austrian 🇦🇹 City and one of the beauties of this trip in my mind!

Vienna - Budapest

What I said yesterday about Austrian train lines being the bomb has been confirmed! This morning we we missed our train 🚂 by a few minutes so we head over to the ticket office to buy a new reservation but the lady informs us that we actually don’t need one! With that bit of excitement and about an hour now before our train leaves we find a place to sit down and enjoy our Aldi pastries we had picked up on the way and the reason we were late:)

Arriving in Budapest we drop our backpacks 🎒 at the Airbnb and head out to explore a little. Budapest is a fairly large city but because of the way the central part of the city is laid out silt is pretty walkable, most everything is walkable in 20, maybe 30 minutes. We don’t really know where we are headed, I think we have gotten to the point where are enjoying not having a plan but just exploring. We end up across the Danube River at the Citadel, which is on top of a high hill and overlooks the city. We descend the hill and locate a coffee shop where we all agree to just spend some time chilling for a few hours, this is so nice!

We head back to the Airbnb and realize that though we may be in Budapest, our Airbnb is the Bouji-best haha! It is an all out IKEA loft set up with big windows and a beautiful kitchen. The kitchen is too beautiful to not cook in, plus staying in for the evening and cooking ourselves sounds extremely relaxing and like a little taste of home and stability/belonging. So we decide to head down to Aldi to grab some ingredients. As a group we choose to do kebabs (actual kebabs like you are thinking of this time:) and rice 🍚 , it’s not my first choice considering we only have a stovetop but it turns out well in the end. The kebabs on the skewers don’t cook very well so we eat one batch and then just combine everything in the pan like a stir fry for the rest. We also enjoy some gelato and our first attempt at making coffee in a moka pot that is here at the Airbnb.

Overall today was such a nice day to not have the pressure to be on the move and just BE for a little while. Cooking dinner was a treat for all of us, plenty of food and as Sam mentioned on the way back from getting groceries, we have only really been able to consume for the past two weeks, it is a good and needed thing to be able to create and contribute something.

Budapest

It’s raining this morning and a little chilly outside so we decide to sleep in a good bit. Once we get up I run down to the grocery store to grab some bread 🥖 for lunch and some pastries for breakfast as well. The food here is very inexpensive as the Hungarian economy is very much growing but still behind the rest of Europe in a lot of ways. This is one of the reasons they still use their own currency, the Hungarian Forint, around 268 Forint equal one U.S. dollar. This has been great for us because we have been able to eat very well! (One interesting thing I have noticed is that even though the economy may be different in parts of Europe, the one brand that’s prices stay about the same in USD is Starbucks!)

After breakfast and fixing lunch we head down to the Great Market Hall which is a rather large indoor meat and fresh food market on the first flooor and a giant, overwhelming, mix and array of souvenir stands on the second floor. After wandering through the Myrtle Beach Strip of Budapest for a little while we head out and down the Danube River towards the Hungarian Parliment Buildings. Sam is really hoping to tour the inside of the Parliment but when we arrive they inform us that the only have Spanish language tours today plus they are already sold out haha! The buildings and the classic courtyard/plaza area that they create are fantastic. Next up for the day is our free communism walking tour! Before we get started though we eat our sandwiches which are delicious! They are filled with all the leftovers from our kebabs the day before and some sour cream type spread I bought at the store. It is kind of like a pot roast sandwich with the meat and all the vegetable inside, overall it is delicious!

Our guide for the Communism tour is named Andor and is a native Hungarian. The tour is rather interesting, he takes us to a few different sites in the downtown area and talks with us about the influences of Communism on the country then and now and what life looked like as a Soviet Member State. Though it is technically free at the end they ask for tips and the tour and his personality were on point but all we have is some Forints for dinner and then Euros 💶 so that’s what we have to go with.

After the tour we walk around the Parliment area a little more and then head towards a special building Andor pointed out on our tour, the American Embassy. We can’t \240get up close to it but we do get a glimpse at the fiirst (and probably last) Chevy Suburban on this trip inside the gate haha! On the way we nab a pic with Ronal Reagan, they have a statue of him in this park, idk?!

We decide to grab dinner (at Easy and cheap KFC) and then head across the Danube to the large palace buildings, they have a Hungarian name but can’t remember them, that overlook the city. We get there just in time to catch the sunset ☀️ and then see the city and bridges light up. Sam said it well, “Budapest is pretty average during the day, but at night it really shines” (that is a bit of a paraphrase from me but it’s close).

On the way back to the Airbnb we grab some groceries for the next day to use up the rest of our Forints. We joked that it kind of felt like being a chuckee-cheese’s counting down how much you can get before you run out of tickets!

Budapest - Prague

We have an early train 🚊 this morning so we get up, pack our things, I go grab some fresh cheap bread from the store for breakfast and lunch, and we assemble our bratwurst sandwiches we cooked last night and then make the trek across town to the station.

We have a reservation for this train, though I’m not sure we really need it. We find our seats in a six seat 💺 sitting compartment. when we arrive there is already an older Hungarian man who speaks little English but tries really hard to engage with us through basic English and google translate. He even offers us some of the strongest mint gum I have ever tasted! From what I understand, he is a professor at a school or university in Lithuania. These little compartments seem cool and they do encourage us to engage in conversation but hey can be a litttle awkward and get really hot ☀️! We have a train transfer at a small station in Breclav, Slovakia 🇸🇰. We hang out and have lunch for about an hour because we missed our planned connecting train by a few minutes due to our first one running late.

Prague is rainy and a little chilly when we arrive but we decide to ditch public transit again and make the walk for the Airbnb. This turns out to be great as we get to see more of the city and it is very walkable (and we save some money 💰!). As we leave the station we walk through a small park area and have to check our eyes 👀 to figure out what we just saw. We observe not one, not two, but three (possibly four, we couldn’t be sure of the final one) people publicaly urinating rigby behind bushes but pretty much in plain sight, all of them within a 2 minute period. First thing when we arrive to the Airbnb I consult google to see if this is a common thing and supposedly we are just the lucky 🍀 visitors today who observed this rarity. Though we observe that Prague is certainly a strange city in many ways, these incidents are not considered common place.

Moving on to better things...! We grab dinner at this pizza place and then head over to this bookstore/coffeeshop Sam found to hangout for awhile. At this point we are all pretty tired and are craving something other than another old church or old town square, we are in need of some down time.

The evening was nice, we hangout till around 22:00, some solid time to do some reading, get caught up on journaling, and talk a little. As we walk back to our place for the evening the three of us talk a little about what this trip has brought to our minds and hearts and what that means for our lives.

We are all exhausted, overwhelmed by all we have seen and still have to see, and are longing for home in many ways, but this evening is a way we are able to find rest and comfort in each other and the Lord who has given us each other! For this I am very thankful.

Prague

We find ourselves sleeping in again this morning, partially out of being tired and partially out of just not having the drive to figure out what to do and see in another new city. \240After a while, as has become the traditional daily (or at least bi-daily) routine we head to the grocery store to grab some pastries for breakfast and bread and cheese and sausage for lunch.

It’s still pretty drizzly and dreary outside so Sam decides he wants a coffee and grabs one from Starbucks so that we can sit inside while we eat breakfast/lunch. We head out after awhile to the Old Square. It is packed with people and we soon depart to go see the just as packed famous Charles Bridge. It would be interesting to know what we would have thought of these two places had we come here at the beginning of the trip. Right now we are just taking it in to say we have and hoping to find places with less tourists.

About this time we head back to the AirBnB to meet up with Joseph who is reconnecting with us after his trip to Frankfurt. We hang out in the Airbnbfor a little while, it’s not the most comfortable place to hang out and it is decorate supposedly by some Prague School of Design students, but it is a little strange. Gaining some motivation and momentum from Joseph we head out to see the square again and find dinner. The square is still full of tourists but more a good bit more enjoyable as the clouds have gone away and it is less dreary. There are also some cool street performers out there, one Asian guy who is doing some dance with a giant ring gathers a rather large crowd and we watch for awhile!

We grab dinner at this place called Baguette 🥖 Boulevard, kind of like a subway and then head for the train station to send Mark off. There is a little sense of satisfaction as I am staying and sending someone else off on a train instead of it being me who is being sent off!

We hit up the grocery again (Albert Supermarket) and grab stuff for tomorrow. For the couple of hours we have before bed we just hang out at the Airbnb, hoping to get to bed early because we have an early train 🚂 \240tomorrow (like 06:20).

Thanks for the visit Praha (Prague in Czechnian) it has been an experience but I am looking forward to Germany 🇩🇪!

Prague - Dresden

I think this morning as we are walking through Prague around 06:00 to catch the train has been the time I have most been able to appreciate the beauty of this city. The sun was still rising a bit and everything was almost quiet (other than the few people still out drunk from last night) and we are just able to take in the city as it is on its own.

We take the train to this small mountain town right over the German border called Rathen. We cross the river on this little cable operated ferry ⛴ boat and then begin our hike. Our destination is this section of natural rock formations that have a rock bridge built into them called Bastei. It is a national park area and the little town at the bottom is one of many scattered up and down the Elbe river which can only be inhabited and make money off of small time tourism. The hike isn’t too strenuous but the views are pretty awesome! This is a type of the European landscape we have not gotten to see before. We meet this older guy named Otto (I am like 95% pretty sure that is his name) who has done a good bit of hiking in the alps as well as this part of the country. He seems really excited to talk with us about everything from Trump (the go to for Europeans talking to American’s it seems) to World War II and how much the US helped Germany to where to visit in the Alps. He tells us goodbye like three times but then keeps thinking of something to talk with us about each time! Each time he tells us goodbye he says “bye!!!” and gives us the ✌️ sign! He was a funny character. We eat lunch on a pretty secluded outcropping of rocks we found overlooking the Bastei Bridge, probably my favorite lunch spot on the trip.

We make it town from the rocks, back over the river, and back onto the train bound for Dresden. We are going to spend the night with one of our friend’s family from CIU named Dominic. When we arrive in Dresden we have about 5-6 hours before we meet up with Dom’s brother Cornelius so we decide to take up refuge in the unofficial American Embassy, McDonald’s. We look for some other local coffee shops and cafes but we know that at McDonald’s we can kind of blend in (as much as you really can with three full-size backpacks haha) and hang out for a few hours.

Around 20:30 we meet up with Cornelius (who we learn goes by Comy, pronounced co-mee) outside of the large Lutheran church in the city. The church, and really the whole city, is interesting because it is built to look old but was really constructed almost form the ground up in the WWII reconstruction era due to the city being nearly completely destroyed by Allied bombing towards the end of the war. This is only the second old style (and really new style as well) Protestant church I have seen on the trip, the other being in Geneva. We are going with Comy to the opening night of this conference put on by this group called the Peace Academy. It turns out to be one of the funniest, most awkward, all around just weird events I have ever been too. It wasn’t so hippie/love Mother Earth 🌏 type feelings but it was just not well put together and often comical services. From the random facts about countries, to the awkward interviews with officials, to the “candlelight dinner” award for winning the game it is something pretty unforgettable and I am pretty sure everyone in the building was totally lost and in shock just as much as we were 🤨🤪🙄😳😂

We finish up at the church around 23:00 and head back to Comy’s family’s house which is about 30 minutes outside of the city. We snack on some frankfurters and bread 🌭 🥖 (solid midnight snack imo) and then head to bed.

It was nice to be in a city that felt more like regular life, getting to spend time with Comy was a really fun time, he did a really good job of hosting us yet being comfortable being himself, and of course getting to take part in the peace conference!!!

Dresden - Stuttgart

We will be traveling almost entirely across Germany today so we have a fairly early start. We have a simple breakfast of rolls, Nutella (always), and coffee and the hot the road. By the time we get everything together and in Comy’s tiny, late model, manual transmission, VW rabbit that he bought from his boss for €50 we have exactly 6 minutes to make it to the station which he has said is 10 minutes away! He takes off down the country roads and we make it to the station right as the train is pulling out so he whips in to the parking area and then hits the road in the opposite direction. We are now hoping to beat the train to the next station! I don’t think I can say I have more fun in a car before, he was determined to get us on that train and I’m pretty sure he wa enjoying just as much as we are! It is all country roads out here and he handles that little car well the whole time, never feeling out of control. We miss the train at the next station by about 2 minutes so he just hangs out with us for the 40 minutes or so until the next train comes.

We bid Comy goodbye and head for Dresden. At Dresden HBF we catch the train to Frankfurt and then Stuttgart which take a good part of the day. We have a 30 minute or so stopover in Frankfurt so we grab lunch, I got some Currywurst and fries.

On the train we have to split up because though you don’t need reservations on trains in Germany, there are often seats 💺 which are reserved. I sit beside this guy named Thomas who was traveling back home to Western Germany from Dresden where he had done some career coaching. He was pretty cool and spoke good English, he had started his Doctorate work in Geneva and then quit because he didn’t like the city or the people and didn’t see it being useful. Now he is working on moving to Australia 🇦🇺.

When we arrive in Stuttgart we take the S-Bahn (local train) out of the city about 30 minutes to where the Tindle’s are living, a little village called Ehningen. Ms. Tina hasn’t arrived yet, it is just Mr. Jack and Mackenzie here right now and they are still waiting on all their furniture to get here. But they have air mattresses all laid out for us in the basement when we arrive which is super nice.

We ride in their car (something we haven’t done much of the past few weeks) to post where Mr. Jack works and then to dinner at this Irish Pub ☘️.

Other than it being a little like an icebox down in our basement quarters it is nice once again to be with a family tonight!

Stuttgart

We are heading to church this morning, my first time at church in quite awhile now I am just now realizing. We eat breakfast at Burger King in the PX on post and Mr. Jack pays for our breakfast which is super nice! He is definitely living the bachelor life, only some bare necessities as far as food at the house supplemented by a small selection of frozen meals.

They haven’t found a home church here yet so we attend the on-post chapel service. I wasn’t sure what to expect exactly but the service and the message were solid and very encouraging and challenging. The Chaplain spoke on Mark 4 where Jesus calms the storm. The title of the sermon was “Why are you afraid” \240and was in a series on some of the best questions Jesus asked during His ministry.

After church we just hang around the house for the rest of the day watching some of the Marvel movies (which German Netflix has a good selection of available), 13 Hours (the movie about the Benghazi attacks), and this Australian show about an Aussie Navy Patrol Ship called Sea Patrol that Mr. Jack found on YouTube.. We cook spaghetti 🍝 for dinner and then just finish out the day hanging out. It was a nice lazy Sunday.

Germans take their Sundays seriously, you will be hard pressed to find an open grocery store or place to do shopping 🛒 on a Sunday, especially in a small village like Ehningen.

Stuttgart

We awake this morning to Sam telling us that it is 11:37! All of the windows on the house have these metal exterior blinds that you close up at night. Talk about some blackout curtains, these things keep it pitch black!

We grab some toast for breakfast and then head for the Ehningen station (about a 10 minute walk through the village). There is a street festival going on and it must be everybody form the village plus the two or three surrounding who has shown up! We take a saunter through the festival area and soon find out that it is basically a local flea market (but with out all the cool stuff a flea market usually has) with some food stands scattered in between.

We head up to the Lidl to grab something a little more substantial to eat but soon find out that just as with Sundays, German’s take all their holidays seriously. Today is Whit Monday (also know as Pentecost Monday) and throughout the day we learn that most places are closed for the day.

After about a 30 minute ride we pop out on the other side of the city near in this little neighborhood where we are going to do a hike/walk I found online.