Tag: landscape

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Exploring Athens

We had a great breakfast this morning, there was actually normal Greek food instead of just soggy hotel eggs and such. We went up to the Acropolis which was really cool, and we had a great tour guide, Thanos. He was very informative and interesting, and talked a lot about things that weren’t necessarily related to exactly where we were or what we were doing, but more about Greek life and traditions and such. From the Acropolis we could see an ancient theatre which was really huge and cool. We also got to see Mars Hill where Paul gave a speech that’s in the Bible. Thanos took us on a walking and bus tour where we also saw the first modern Olympic stadium, a statue of Harry Truman (thanks to Mrs. King I actually remember the Truman Doctrine), and the grave of the unknown soldier. Our guide was talking about how Lord Byron loved it here and was buried here; this stuck out to me because we visited his castle in Switzerland, and I really enjoy being able to learn about and see these connections across different places. We went out to dinner and got a really delicious cheese ball (reminds me of the hunk a chunka cheese I got in Mexico) and there was a band playing traditional Greek music the whole night. Halfway through dinner a few dancers came out and started folk dancing, and then later they brought up some people (including me) to dance with them. It was a really fun night, and now I can brag to the theatre company about being a part of a real oppa.

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Drive to Rothenburg

On our way to Rothenburg, Germany, we made a stop at the Dachau Concentration Camp. It definitely gives you a different perspective actually being over where the war was fought and seeing the places from it rather than just hearing about it or watching videos in history class. I think I also got something more out of it after learning more about the Holocaust from the play And A Child Shall Lead.

Rothenburg is a really quaint town; it still has its medieval feel to it, especially with its surrounding wall and towers. We took a night watchman tour, and the guy was pretty funny and made it really interesting to learn about the history of the town. Then we walked along the top of the tower wall which was really cool.

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Lichtenstein & Austria

Drove about 3 hours to get to Lichtenstein from Crans-Montana, which is only about 14 miles long and 4 miles across. We had a couple more hours to drive to Austria, but the trip was quite entertaining because, little did we know, the German word for exit is Ausfahrt. The town of Seefeld is very quaint and cute and so we explored it a little before dinner, and after dinner we went to the Olympic sized pool and hung out.

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Matterhorn

We drove and then took a train to the town at the base of the Matterhorn, Zermatt, and then took another little train to the Matterhorn viewing place. It was a very beautiful and a clear day, so the mountain wasn’t covered at all. For dinner everyone got together where we had played our concert and had cheese fondue and some of the locals performed for us. They had a normal little band and classic Swiss dances as well as the classic long horn thing. There is also the tradition that if you drop your bread in the fondue, you have to go around the table and kiss everyone of the opposite gender on the cheek, so that was entertaining because a lot of people had to do it.

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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.