Tag: food

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Montreaux

We got up early before breakfast so we could walk around the town which is really beautiful. I was able to meet with Coco today and it was really great to see and talk to her! She followed us up to the Castle of Chillon where we took a guided tour. The castle has amazing views and has a gorgeous interior as well with the nice dark wood columns and ceilings. Then we took an hour walk next to the lake down to Montreaux, it was a very beautiful walk and then the town was very busy because they were setting up for the Montreaux Jazz Festival, so Coco and I just walked around and talked. It was great and it didn’t feel like it had been 3 years since we saw each other last. We got back to Crans-Montana, ate dinner, and then had our concert. It was definitely our best concert yet, and it was pretty fun because there was such a big crowd of locals. The Swiss really enjoyed our concert and the red band played Stars and Stripes three times.

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Drive To Switzerland

Took off a little after 7 this morning and rode the bus for 12 hours to get to Crans-Montana. Amy and I played Phase 10 which actually took up a lot of time, and for pretty much the rest of the time I was sleeping. Switzerland is a beautifully breathtaking country and everyone’s already fallen in love. There were some locals there greeting us with a sign when we pulled in and it was really cute.

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Eiffel Tower & Louvre

Went to the Eiffel Tower and climbed up to the 2nd floor and saw some great views of the town; there’s this interesting mosque looking building with silver dome top things, but there are also crosses on those so I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it looks cool. It’s definitely different seeing the police and military walking around with huge automatic weapons, but it’s actually pretty comforting and you don’t feel threatened by them at all. Next, we went to the Louvre, but we only had about 45 min there, so we spent half the time looking for the bathroom and the other half at the Mona Lisa, but I’m pretty ok with that because it’s not as interesting to look at all the stuff when you don’t know what it means, and all the plaques were in French. I was thinking yesterday that a French cream puff would probably be very good, and we got one as our dessert with dinner today which made me very happy!

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Paris

Had first French croissant today and it was very good. We went up to Montre-Marte and saw the Sacre-Couer catedral and explored the little village there with cute art; the catedral was cool because on the outside of the windows are gray, but on the inside they were colorful stain glass. Then I had a crepe with strawberry jam on it and we had a sandwich on a baguette. I learned some French phrases like “Can I please have some water” and “Where are the toilets” and I think I’ve gotten my French accent down pretty good; but also last night I asked our waiter where the toilets were in French and he just laughed and pointed while saying (in English) “Downstairs.”

Next we went to Notre Dam which was also gorgeous. I tried my first macaroon and it was so good. At the waiting spot, there was a whole flock of pigeons and Nick and Kat actually got some to land on them! Then we went on a river boat cruise on the Seine and saw the Eiffel Tower.

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Off To Paris

We got up at like 4 o’clock to travel to Paris on the ferry; the drive to the dock took a couple hours (and the dock had a great view of the White Cliffs of Dover) but the ferry ride was only like 45 min and then we had around 6 more hours of driving from Calais to Paris. The traffic here is already very crazy, our driver drove over a median to get around blocked traffic and has honked his horn at least 10x more in our first hour here than he had in all of London.

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Concert & London Eye

We had our first concerts today in the park and a church which took most of the day, and then we went to a pub and got fish and chips, and then went to the London Eye. The Eye was quite fun with a lot of the green bus in the same carriage thing taking lots of pictures.

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London

First English breakfast complete some beans! A tour guide came along with us on our bus and we drove around looking at the city and then got out and walked around.

It’s pretty cool – they are doing a bunch of construction, but they keep the fronts of the old buildings up. Also fun fact, when London hosted the olympics, for every gold medal they won they painted a public post box gold. Another fun fact, the streets are filled with the red double decker buses that we consider a staple of London, but the locals think they’re terrible because there’s too many and very few people are on them at any given time so they just cause traffic.

We walked by Westminster Abbey and a bunch of small castles like for people like the prime minister and the Duke of Wellington, but Big Ben is undergoing construction so all we could see of that was scaffolding. It’s really cool to see and hear all the stories from WWII, especially the smaller stories that you don’t learn a lot about in school but the locals all know about.

Then, we went and saw the changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace. Next, we went to the Tower of London (where we had lunch and experienced our first “crisps”); our tour guide showed us around a little bit and it seems that a lot of murders occurred in there. We saw the Crown Jewels which were very fancy, and in there there is a table salt holder that is literally a tiny castle (that actually isn’t that tiny) and that is so extra I love it. Also in the square was the White Tower which held a bunch of different armor and was really cool to look at; in there was also a giant dragon made out of different armory things which was pretty cool. Then we went out to Dinner at an Indian place before going to see Les Mis which was so amazing. It had a spinning floor and the barracks were superb. And all the marching and deaths looked fantastic. Enjolras (the lead rebel guy) had an amazing death; he flipped over the back of the set around a bar, and then when it rotated around he was just hanging off the barracks with one leg! Finally, to get home we took a cab, which I didn’t realize they had seats facing both ways in the back.

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Our Last Day :(

We did more shopping today and I got cute sandals and bracelets for sponsors. Before dinner we had a while, so we played cards. Freddie’s kid came by and he is so cute! He’s named Antony after Tony! We went to Pollo Compero again for dinner. There were church bells going off all night, but it guess it didn’t matter too much because I wouldn’t have slept very well anyway with dread of going home. (No offense)

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Construction

Today we did construction and it was actually really fun. We raked dirt, shoveled concrete, and tried coffee beans (I didn’t like them very much though). This was all before lunch, and then afterwards we joined the VBS team at a school.

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Antigua>Piquip, Mayan Ruins

Had french toast for breakfast and it was like deep fried french toast and it was the best thing ever! Then we started driving to Piquip and bus rides are always a joy! 2 hours later we stopped at some Mayan Ruins and ate lunch. There was a big hole toilet thing and Rob was like, “Make your mark at the Mayan Temples and poop!” It was so much fun! 2 more hours later we were in Piquip or somewhere around there and we finally got to see some kids! All the girls are in one hostile and we were making sandwiches and we stayed up laughing so hard! We though it was late like 10:00, but it was only 8:30!