How much do you think we can see in 10 hours?

May 3-A Whirlwind of Germany: After arriving at the airport (No security guards searched me this time), we picked up the car and started driving towards Koln. Well, as it turns out, driving from central-ish Germany, to Belgium, to northern-ish Germany, and then starting to head south again on one tank of gas is kind of risky. Soo... we were driving on the autobahn, and the car starts flashing that we will soon run out and.. there's no gas station in sight. Enter panic. Haha.. eventually, we found a station, but just in time. To make matters worse, the pump wasn't labeled, and my friend had pulled up to one that was for filling diesel trucks. Well, we were only driving a diesel car, and so the volume of gas that came out at once kicked back and got all over him. I mean, looking back it's kind of funny, but at the time, I was like what the HECK are you doing?

So eventually, it all worked out and we made it to Koln. This was the quickest trip yet. We literally parallel parked, walked to the cathedral, read a little about the history, took some pictures, walked back to the car and left. The short background is that contruction began in 1248, and took more than 600 years to complete, but it has the largest facade of any church in the world. It was hit by something like 12 bombs in WWII, but stayed standing. That's a pretty nifty church.

Our next stop was Bonn, the former capital of Germany. As whirlwinds go, this was also a pretty quick stop. We got to the city and the first thing we visited was Beethoven's house. We didn't have time or money to take the tour, so we checked out the foyer, the courtyard and then jokingly took a picture of a poster so we could tell people we had been inside. Then, we grabbed some quick lunch at a little kiosk. This was another chance for me to prove to Germans that while I have the blond hair and blue eyes, I speak about 5 words of German. None of them enable me to order a bratwurst and beer. From there, we decided to head off to the next city, but discovered a problem. We couldn't find the car. Oyvey. We wandered around for 20 minutes before a stroke of luck led us back to where we had parked.

Then, we had probably my favorite part of the little trip to Germany. We drove along the Rhine river, looking at castles and beautiful forests the whole way. Eventually, we made a bee-line for Trier: the oldest city in Germany. It was founded at the latest in 16 BC. In the first century, it was conquered by Romans, and so most of the architecture there looks pretty similar to my pictures from Italy. The entrance to the city, Porta Nigra, is one great big stinkin' cool arch. There's also roman baths, an old amphitheater, and other ruins that made me question which country I was in. Without overloading you on history, a couple other interesting sites were the Constantine Basilica, the Trier Cathedral, and the Palace of Trier (Don't ask me who the guy on the steps is. I don't know). Finally, it was back to Belgium for me.

Nessie? Is that you? Scotland: Day 2

May 2: Ahh... the morning of my first ever, organized bus tour. I don't know that I'll be taking one again, but it wasn't too bad. Anyways, that's jumping the gun. We booked it online, and had nothing but a confirmation number and the name of a bus stop to meet at... that and some hope that it was all legitimate. Turns out, that's just how they do it there, and we hopped on the bus around 8 in the morning.

I was headed to the Scottish Highlands, and I was going to enjoy every minute of it despite the group of 7 or 8 really loud, obnoxious, chatty, 40-something Italian guys sitting behind me. :) Well, we're riding along hearing about all of the old Scottish folklore, and there are just these amazingly beautiful views. I don't really know how to explain it other than it was beautiful. Well, our first stop (and a few of the others, as it turns out... since we drove right past Stirling Castle.) was not so amazing and historical or breathtaking or anything. It was a coffee shop. On the plus side, I did get to meet Hamish(left) the highland cow. He was the cutest critter I've ever seen. Him, and some more of the thousands and thousands of baby lambs along the country side. Did you know that Scotland has more sheep than people?

Anyways, we continued, and along our path was the William Wallace monument, as well as Doune Castle (the one from Monty Python), and the bridge you have to cross to get there. Well, we continued on past beautiful vistas hearing things about Silkes, Mermaids, and other folklore. Drove through Glen Coe, Loch Lomond, and all of those other fabulously Scottish places. Little language lesson: Loch just means Lake. Glen just means Valley. Who knew? Eventually, we stopped for a restroom break at a place offering about 17 different free samples of Scotch whiskey. Hey, you have to experience the culture, right?

Then, it was off for the last leg up to Loch Ness. Along the way, we stopped at the Hidden Glen. It has some history of a massacre that was partially prevented by a boy having a premonition and telling everyone in his people to flee their city and hide in this glen. (left) But yes, it's true, I had hopes of seeing Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. No such luck. After wandering around it for a while, we all hopped back on the bus, back towards Edinburgh.

On the way, we stopped to just enjoy some of the scenery and took a little hike through some forested area with a small waterfall. Along the way, we saw this absurd bridge. Apparently, it was built right after the collapse of another bridge in Scotland, and they wanted to be extra careful to make sure it would continue standing. The name of the guy who designed the bridge that collapsed? Botch. Ever wonder where we got the expression a Botch-job?

Ok, we were finally back in Edinburgh by around 8pm. We grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the station to catch the last train to the airport. Apparently is was the 40th birthday of someone, so we were "serenaded" for about an hour by a bunch of 40 and 50 year old drunk Scotsmen. There's an experience I won't quickly forget. Finally, we were at the airport, where I managed to sleep for about an hour. Bummer. We took an early flight back to Weeze, or at least that's what they tell me. I fell asleep on the plane before we even got off the ground.

Bagpipes? Scotland: Day 1

May 1: So a very old friend of mine just finished his tour in Iraq and was supposed to be stationed in Germany again. He was, but then got orders to leave for Washington very shortly, so we planned a quick trip to catch up before he left. He drove to Belgium the night before, and then we left this morning at about 5am. We drove to Dusseldorf, Weeze actually, to the airport. This part was actually kind of fun for me because everyone assumed I was German... you know... even when they decided to search me and I had no idea what they were saying. Apparently I had a paper clip in my passport. Jolly good. Oh, and they took my shampoo. Sometimes I hate security checkpoints.

Well from there, we took a quick flight to Glasgow, Scotland, and quickly hopped a train over to Edinburgh. Of course the first thing we see when walking towards the hostel was a guy playing bagpipes. This is really the one country that I've been to where most of the stereotypes we have were proven to be almost true. It was AMAZING.

So we checked in to the hostel and headed off to Edinburgh Castle(top left and right), which had some just breathtaking views. It's built on top of Castle Rock, which is an extinct volcano. Ignoring the fact that it was something like 11 pounds (22 dollars) to get in, it was really interesting. There were something like 30 exhibits throughout the castle going through everything from the Royal Scots museum, to a War Museum. That was pretty interesting as they had recreated some scenes of PoW holdings, and had a lot of artifacts from different wars including weapons, uniforms, etc. The picture on the left is a re-creation of the sleeping quarters for PoWs. You could also go into the oldest part of the castel, a chapel, that dates back to the 12th century.

From the castle, we headed down the "Royal Mile" of Princess Street that pretty much hosts most of the important things in Edinburgh. As we were wandering, we made it to the Scottish Parliament. After seeing someo of the other Parliament buildings throughout Europe this one was less than impressive. It looks like it's either trying to create a plaid motif on the front, or that its decorations are left over from the 70s. From there, we checked out the Queen's Palace. Unfortunately, we could only look from the outside since it wasn't open to visitors any more that day.

Then, it was off to try some Scottish food. We went to a place where they served things like the "William Wallace Burger", but opted for something a little more traditional: Sausage and Mash. :)

Finally, to end the first night in Scotland, we walked down the other side of the city, to get a different view. You could still see the castle, but just from a different perspective, and there were some beautiful gardens along the way. Again, there were quite a few bagpipers along the way, so I insisted on taking another photo with one before heading back to the hostel to catch some sleep before an early morning.

Ardennes

April 26: So let's just establish that when I get stressed and busy, I forget about things like a blog. :) Therefore, you will all get an eyeful as I attempt to catch up on the last month or so. As promised in the last blog I went to the Ardennes! This is the nature-y forest area in southern Belgium (and parts of France, Germany, and Luxembourg) where people tend to go for hiking/camping/weekends away.

So my church was offering a long day trip down there for a conference on ministering to Muslims. I figured what the heck, why not? We went down, had a short lecture, a delicious lunch, another short lecture and then spent the afternoon hiking walking through this quaint little area. It was beaaautiful!