Europe: part 1

Brian and I had talked about it for so long.  We wanted to visit his mission so badly!  We waited to purchase our tickets until we knew where Mom and Dad were going on their mission.  When the day came that they opened their call, we knew we were so smart to buy our tickets after they read their call to Athens, Greece.  Being college students, however, made it really REALLY hard for us to cough up the money to fly all the way to Europe.  We looked and looked for weeks for the cheapest tickets to go to Europe.  Late one night, about 11pm, Brian and I found the cheapest tickets we had set our eyes on.  Delta, flying into Munich, Germany and flying out of Rome, Italy.

Preparation:

Brian and I are so smart that we decided the weekend before we left we would stay up late and slowly change to Europe time.  Brian was good about staying up late.  I just quit and went to bed whenever I wanted, first night’s sleep was from 3 am to 5pm the next day.  Bring it on Marky Parky.  Anyway, it was pretty fun to try and stay up as late as we could to make the transition a little easier when we got to Germany.  Brian did not want to waste any time sleeping in his stompin grounds.  We got to the airport and hopped on our 3 hour flight to Atlanta where I slept the entire way and Brian fought with the air blower thing to get his overheated body a little air.  We had a short layover and got on our flight to Munich.  I fell asleep again for a couple hours then woke up watching movies all the way until we landed in Germany. 

Munich Germany:

We redeemed our train passes at the Munich airport which we could use to travel for 10 days in 3 countries Germany Austria and Italy.  We went down some stairs in the airport and hopped on a train that was sitting there waiting to depart to Central station in Munich.  We hopped on that train and 1 minute later, we were on our way to the Center of Munich!  Brian looked out the window excitedly as he saw his mission field.

 We got to our hostel and dropped our crud off and washed our faces, then headed out to Dachau. Side note, we looked up the weather for the time we would be in Europe, every day was in the 70s except the first day in Munich where it would be much lower, like 45 degrees.  We left our hostel and hit the trains again.  We got to the concentration camp after paying for a bus to get us out to Dachau.  We walked around the camp in the miserable cold.  It was raining and windy.  We didn’t care though. We went into one of the barracks there and saw where the Jews were forced to sleep, go to the bathroom, shower, etc.  We listened in on some group tours and heard that one barrack would be fit to hold 200 people, and by the end of the war, there were up to 2000 Jews in one barrack.

 We also saw the crematory where Jews were taken to the “supposed” showers, then gassed to death, then cremated in the next room.  Looking around the concentration camp made me kind of sick especially because of my wet feet.

 We left there, hopped on a Train to Ulm. It was supposedly a 1 train trip. We got to a town called Notartz where the conductor came on the loud speaker and spoke jibberish.  Brian, who understood the jibberish, said that we needed to get off the train onto a new train and that there was some kind of emergency.  Later on this train, we were kicked off the train and were told to get onto a bus to get to Ulm. The long bus ride finally came to an end, but then we had to get off the bus onto our final train into Ulm. Although we changed trains and busses like 4 times, we were falling asleep the whole time. When we got to Ulm, we took off for the tallest cathedral in the world where we hiked 768 steps to top.

As we were hiking the never ending stairs, a church bell rang and scared us silly.  We reached the top and we were able to look over the city of Ulm, which was beautiful.

      Yes, I spotted an Ikea way up there and it made me really happy.  When we descended down the spiral stairs, I realized how out of shape I was as my legs shook.  I steadied them and was able to get down the staircase.  That night, we had a doner for dinner which is one of Brian’s favorite foods that he had in Germany. We ran back to the train station and hopped on a fast train that got us to Central station in Munich in just under an hour.  We got back to our hostel to check in and the woman at the desk said we owed her everything for the rooms.  We knew though that we paid online through Priceline for this hostel.  Brian was smart and brought all receipts for the hostels we were staying at.  As it turns out, Priceline just ran our card then took the charge off so the hostel in Munich would know that they could run that card when we actually arrived.  After working everything out, we got to our room and hit our pillows instantly.

The dark side of helping others

I love hesring peoples wonderful stories about helping a lonely person in need. Everyone expresses the amazing feeling they have after handing a granola bar to a homeless person outside their car window. Even the occasional coat is handed to one who needs the warmth moreso than you. How about giving someone a ride to wherever they need to go? That sounds pretty Christ-like to me. Honestly, I am not very good at giving things up nor taking time out of my busy schedule to take a person where they need to go or giving money to someone out the window and thinking.. Are you going to use this for drugs? I have wanted to be better and love those experiences shared with me about helping someone in need, but .... Why is the other side of the story never told? Well I am here to tell you, sometimes these amazing spiritual experiences are watching the spirit leave as you have a drunken homeless guy enter your car. As you probably know, Brian is in love with knives. We have about 11 total knives in our car alone. One under the drivers seat is a machete. Anyone who has ridden in the back seat of our car can vouch for me and let you know that yes, in fact, there is a machete under there. Tonight, Brian and I went shopping for groceries and when we were loading up our car, a man who looked confused and mentally challenged came up to us telling us that he needed a dollar or two to help get him back to slc. We don't have cash, we have cards. We sent him on his way. Brian asked if there was something more that we could do and I said we could give him a banana! We drove over to the other side of the parking lot to get to the homeless man. We handed him the banana and he asked for a ride. You give a mouse a cookie, right? Brian said sure and I told Brian as I was getting out of the car to let him in..grab the machete. I got out and we let him in our car. We began to drive and Brian asked if the guy had been drinking. right then it hit me what the smell on him was..he was completely wasted. The man got incredibly....TICKED off at Brian's question. He said we needed to mind our own business. My stomach dropped and all I could think about was that this crazy guy has access to knives back there. I am going to die! He was talking about how he was going to call a lawyer and how he wanted to take this to the next level..whatever that meant. Somehow after Brian apologized we got to talking and the guy told us he was a millionaire and works for ozzy Osborne. He was chomping loudly on his banana and chatting it up with us thanking us so much for giving him a ride. After a mile down the road we asked why he was up in Provo and he was like I don't know it's weird here. It's funny here. I don't like it here. Mutterings and mumblings within the sentences. We were turning the corner to where he wanted us To go when Brian asked if he had run into any Mormons around Provo. wrong question dearie! The guy hit the seat and put his hands on his face like he was totally upset and on the verge of tears. He looked up at me and He started cussing and yelling saying something about being in a place that is populated 99.9 percent of everyone around here is Mormon. He started yelling that he wanted out of the car and wanted to get out of there. he was totally freaking out. Brian pulled over and all I could think about was how he had his face on the other side of the seat right where the knife laid. As soon as Brian pulled over I jumped out of the car and he was muttering and cussing about Mormons and wanting OUT RIGHT NOW. He ran out of the car yelling at us and muttering and yelling. Needless to say..I was scared for my life tonight. I was mad that we would even consider taking someone down the road two miles. Brian did make me feel a lot better when I told him I was terrified about the knife being in reaching distance of that guy. He smiled and grabbed the machete that was rightly his knees the whole time. He said he got my back! Lol the point of this story is..helping ones in need is great, but there are occasionally totally freaky stories where the dude yells at you and wants to kill you cuz you mentioned Mormons. Be careful when you help others. I learned that I am happy to be cautious anytime I try to help someone. The end

Europe

Well, Brian and I are off to Europe on Monday the 23rd.  We are so excited to go!  There are many adventures in store, I am sure of it.  We have been planning on this trip for so long.  We are going to go to Brian's mission in Germany and Austria.  Our first stop will be in Munich.  We will be there for 3 days touring castles and concentration camps.  We will then go to Salzburg for a couple days to see the sound of music sites.  We will then go to another area where Brian served called Landshut.  We get to see the branch president there and they have so kindly said that we could stay the night with them.  The next day will be Sunday and we will go to that branch for church.  On Sunday night, we are going to get on an overnight train to Venice Italy.  After staying there for 24 hours, we will take a train to Milan.  We will tour that city for a couple hours then make our way to the Milan Bergamo airport to CYPRUS!  We will be able to be with my parents for 2 days!  I am excited to get to see them.  We will be flying back to Milan after that.  We wil then be taking a trip by train down the coast of italy.  We are totally pumped!  Finally, we will finish up our trip in Rome seeing the sites there. 

I am writing this at 6 am after staying up all night. vague details, but I just had to write something to stay awake!!  Haha.  :)

Here is a little present brian came home with yesterday...

EURO!!

Do you like Cafe Rio?

Brian and I are really trying to save up our money for Germany, Austria, Italy and Cyprus which is coming up in like 5 weeks.  By saving our money, we try not to go out to eat too much.  It is pretty hard to not have one day of the week to go out to eat!  now its cut down to about once a month, or if i can get brian to go out again, double bonus!!  That sounds bad, but with both Brian and I working and going to school, there aren't a whole lot of days where we even want to cook. One of us usually ends up cooking for the night.

I did, however, just introduce Brian to a nice little restaurant called Cafe Rio.  It is delish.  Have it be, chipotle is of course better, but Cafe Rio is pretty darn good!   I decided for one of our meals last week that I would make cafe rio!  This meal definitely ended up being a joint effort of both of us and here is what it looked like...

Yes, when I go to Cafe rio, I get both black and pinto beans.  Layered with rice and, of course, smothered.  For those Novice cafe rio eaters, this means your burrito is smothered with yummy sauce inside the burrito as well as drizzling over the outside of the burrito.

The burrito is pretty small, but I had two.  Shh, don't tell!!

I dont think Brian really likes when I take pictures at dinner..but he was excited about our cafe rio meal.  :)  Oh, and of course..I need to give him the credit for the smother sauce...he threw into the blender a huge jalapeno, bell peppers, tomato sauce...and a lot of other stuff.  We should have written it down, figuring there is NO way we will ever be able to make it again.  Seems like we do that way too often.  

What the heck is egg plant?

I love my husband!  He is so sweet to me.  The other day in our bountiful basket, we got egg plant.  I have never EVER had egg plant in my life!  Well, when I got it, my first reaction was, what the heck is this weird looking oval object?  I was not about to cut open that thing..So Brian said he would find a recipe where we could use the eggplant.  

Wow, he started making it!!  This is what egg plant looks like...  I was so happy to see Brian doing dinner.

Wait a sec, what is this?  lol..we were a team.  We dipped the slices in egg then cooked the eggplant with some cornflakes on either side.  We then laid the pieces in tomato sauce

At this point, I was fearing what this stuff would taste like....

We topped it with some cheese and cooked it for a while.  We dont have a picture of the final result, but Brian told me after the stuff cooked for a little bit that we needed to make some noodles.  When it came out of the oven, I realized what we had made!  YUMMY eggplant and sauce for spaghetti!  It was DELISH

 Onto Valentines Day.  Again I love my husband, and he loves me...and knows the way to my heart is by CHOCOLATE!!

Yes that is right, CHOCOLATE covered cinnamon bears!  They are delicious!

MMM..Chocolates and a beautiful rose.  I love my hubby  :)

Thanks for Reading!  :)

Hair part 2/Happenings

Here is Part two to my hair post.  Some people wanted pictures of my hair.  This was taken Sunday night after church.  My hair is CURLY!!  :)

I have been feeling really blessed in the last couple months with friends and family.  Anytime Brian and I feel like doing something crazy, our good friends Trever and Mandy are on board! For instance...

 BEAN BAG PARTY!

We really love when our friends come to visit.  Just last night, we had them over for dinner.    Mandy and I experimented with the brussle sprouts, made broccoli and potatoes, and yummy lemon honey chicken.  I think the boys enjoyed their party too...

Playing Halo.  

I cant fully skip over Christmas, now could I?  We got to go spend a week for Christmas at Brian's parents.  It was a lot of fun!  We went to a ward Christmas party.  Santa even came!  He looked way familiar...

 Can you guess why he looked so familiar? :)

The night before Christmas Eve, Jeff and Brian set up a tent.  Jeff's tent is no ordinary tent, it has a stove in it... Yes you heard me.  It was 20 degrees outside, but in the tent it was at least 60 degrees!    Here is a shot of our set up for movie night

 Emily, Jeff and I are ready for Sherlock Holmes

Christmas day was wonderful!  There were SO many presents.  I really loved spending my first Christmas away from my mom and dad with Brian's wonderful family.  

 Mom even gave me a cup of Cocoa!  I love her.  She obviously knows the way to my heart ;)

We got a lot of loot.  Harry Potter 7.2 and then the next gift was Harry Potter 1-7.1! 

 What a great Christmas picture of us!!!  :)  I love that boy next to me.

Notice the big box?  A griddle!  Yay!  

I totally broke my griddle by pushing it off the microwave..long story

Sadly, I couldn't stay any longer than December 26th.  Mom, Jeff, Sam, and Emily decided to come visit us over new years!  We had a lot of fun and even got some shooting in while they were here.  Yeah, not what Jeff would call "ideal", but it was certainly fun!

Gone Shootin' at Cabelas :)

Hair

I have had so many different experiences with my hair throughout the years.  I have to admit, I am not the best at making good decisions when it comes down to my hair.  When I was a Sophomore in High School, I decided I wanted to have curly hair.  Every other girl around had beautiful wavy/curly hair.  I was so envious.  I went to a family friend and asked her if she could perm my hair.  She said she would give me a trial perm because she didn't think my hair would hold any sort of curl.  I went in and got the back and underside of my hair permed.  It stayed for about 48 hours, then fell out!  Yeah, my hair is just that straight guys.
I had a better plan...
My Freshman year of college, I went home and got myself a perm.  When the lady asked me how tight I wanted the curls, I said that my hair wouldn't hold curl so as tight as possible would do.  She decided to do the smallest rings to my hair, then keep the product in twice as long.  Not my smartest decision.  My hair came out fried!  I tied it back all of the time or put it in piggy tails or braided it.  I obviously avoided the camera as well since this is about the only picture I have with that hair.

Oh don't worry, my hair didn't fall out.  I did however have to wait 2 full years for my hair to grow out.  The perm started looking funny about 5 months later.  My hair was straight about 4 inches, then the hair took a 90 degree turn and POOFED into a ball of ugliness, not to mention coloring my hair brown soon after perming my hair.

I learned my lesson

I have always wanted curly hair, and still do wish for a little body every once in a while.  My husband knows how much I love curly hair and for Christmas, He got me THE WAND!

If you know anything about the wand, you know it heats up to 450 degrees and only takes 20 minutes to do your hair.  AMAZING!  I just realized i don't have a picture of my hair done with the wand, but I promise, it looks a lot like this

I love how well this works.  I would have never been a believer in such a product because nothing has ever held curl as well as this thing does, but it really works!  I am pretty excited and happy about that Christmas gift.  I have an amazing husband who got a great gift that i only mentioned once.  :)  He is the best.  I will have to post another picture soon of my curly hair.