Two Spoons When All You Need Is A Fork

Hmmm... So this is my first time blogging without Patty.... that's kind of weird. She doesn't like to travel though. Anyway, 12 hours on a plane and 5000 miles later we made it with almost all of our possessions. (Shay left her coat on the first flight). The punk stewardmen or stewardspeople... whatever you call 'em had it in for me though! I was practically starving to death since I hadn't eaten in like 14 hours. All I had to look forward to was that one tiny bag of generic pretzels. I couldn't sit still when I saw them coming down the aisle. He hands me a tiny cup of mr. pibb and then hands meghan 2 bags of pretzels. I thought it was some kind of dutch joke. Then I realized he was not stopping and I wasn't getting any pretzels. I found the second stewardude and begged him for a bag. But that's not even all... they had more up their sleeves for me. When dinner finally came a million hours later they handed me chicken rice and a salad... and 2 spoons. You can imagine how helpful that was. They probably gave Meghan all the forks she could ask for. It's that darn southern accent... not even fair.

Anyway... Here is our dorm room. I mean it's no Collins, but it gets the job done.

Here is our Jonas Brothers poster that we looove!

Here we are in our new school! Kinda weird that we are the international students now...

Today we went on a crazy underground tunnel maze. They gave us 3 flashlights, some instructions in broken English and sent us into some world war tunnels or mining caves? I never quite understood. Anyway it was like 8 million kilometers (we're on the metric system here duh) of winding cave tunnels 5'8 tall and 3 foot wide. Our claustrophobic team members had some mild panic attacks. They gave us "instructions" but they were extremely confusing. Apparently in the Netherlands right means left and left means right. That's the only conclusion I could come up with. Anyway of the 6 teams competing our team dominated. We came in first in 80 minutes. They are probably still wandering around down there. Here we are with the cave master congratulating us on our victory!

Well all the hype from the cave maze championship has still got me... So I think we are going to go celebrate. Or beat people at other challenges. One or the other.

Oh if you want to mail me something (which is highly encouraged) you can to:

Guesthouse Universiteit Maastricht

PO Box 1253

6201 BG Maastricht

Or just search my name to skype... I'll have it on a lot.

until next time... Proost!

When You're In London Look Behind You, 'Cause That's Where the Queen's Gonna Be

Last weekend was a good weekend my friends. Why, you ask? Because I spent 4 days in the home of the Spice Girls... well at least their home country. We chunneled on over to London while listening to one of my greatest playlists (if I do say so myself). It included, but was not limited to, All Saints, Coldplay, The Beatles, Spice Girls, Fergie's London Bridge, Mr. Brightside, and some Les Miz.

Shay had us wander all over the world to find this mythical restaurant called Wagamama's... I think we asked every single person in London and they all sent us different directions. It's like a big British joke there apparently. When we finally found it, we decided to take a really bizarre looking picture... or maybe it just turned out that way. Seriously though, this is awkward right?

The first night in London we saw Wicked. It was amazing! We had killer seats because London loves us. The jams are pretty much incredible. So yes, Wicked, highly recommended from Katie.

Ok... now I think this is hilarious. We went to the National Portrait Gallery or something like that... and they had this picture up of the queen. Now tell me that is not Walker Texas Ranger. They have to be using the same photographer, costume designer and backdrop. The picture is a little cockeyed because I took this picture illegally... I hope you appreciate the depths I will go to in order to bring you the best stories.

After we saw what a huge Chuck Norris fan the queen was, we decided to pay her a visit. Unfortunately, our timing was a little off because there were all of these goofy looking men running around her house in funny outfits playing all sorts of loud music. I heard someone say that the Texas Ranger was in town and she was having this fancy parade for him. A nice lady, that queen.

She even had some men put on cowboy hats (English cowboy hats are a little bit pointier) and Chuck Norris trench coats and ride around to fight crime. When they got off their horses they started round house kicking... oh man I love England!

After the Chuck Norris parade, we jumped on one of those double decker red buses and hit up all the touristy locations.

Ok... another dumb picture... we asked this man to take a picture of us in front of Big Ben and he told us to squat down. There was absolutely no reason to squat down. You can see Big Ben just fine with us standing normally.... another British joke apparently... they think they're so funny.

We walked on London Bridge... it didn't fall.

Friday night we saw Les Miz... it was sooo good. We didn't buy tickets until like 4 that day... so our seating options were a bit limited. We ended up on the front row... like practically in the orchestra pit. I believe the maestro was even a little bit behind us. It was still pretty tight though. They kept leaning out into the audience at parts and freaked Shay out. One guy kept spitting on us when he talked.... that wasn't cool. But Les Miz over all... was amazing.

Saturday we went to Salisbury Cathedral and the lady that worked there grabbed Meghan and I and gave us a private tour. She was the the greatest. She wore a green sash around like a girl scout... but she didn't have any cookies. I asked. What I wouldn't do for some thin mints right about now... Anyway, she showed us lots of cool things... like ET's tomb apparently it's in Salisbury. I don't know if I believe her... but if there are two things that I love in this world they are girl scouts and ET... so I'm gonna go ahead and give her the benefit of the doubt.

Next we hit up stonehenge and solved that mystery. Contrary to popular belief it was not the semi-nomads who threw the rocks together. It was the crazy English birds!! I understand this might sound preposterous. I would probably be hesitant to believe me too... if I hadn't seen the look in these birds eyes. They were like laughing at us... and doing that mocking chirping thing like they knew what happened thousands of years ago and we didn't. Punk birds... well now their secret is out. A gaggle of Titanis Walleri (kin to the pterodactyl) came to Great Britain around 4000 BC. They were trying to build a giant croquet course but got disrupted by a terrible storm. They relocated somewhere near modern day Istanbul (was Constantinople) and completed the tournament there.

Here is our last night in London... seriously beautiful right?

We also went to the Texas Embassy to get Shay her chips and salsa fix. They have a wall where everyone signs there name on the state of Texas. Tons of Baylor kids were up there. Here is Shay's signature... notice anything strange about it? She claims it was an accident. I think there was some pent up anger about SMoo hiding the remote.

Well that's enough fun for one blog. We are currently planning a birthday extravaganza for Meghan in Paris. That's where we are headed Thursday.

until next time... Cheers!

Crepe Me Baby One More Time

I came to Paris with low expectations, and a rufus playlist. I left an international supermodel and street performer.

On the way to Paris, Lyndsy mentioned someone once told her you could eat a crepe for every meal in Paris. Yeah... she shouldn't have said that in front of me. A new game! I learned my one French saying "avez vous des crepe? tres bon!" or "Do you have any crepes? Awesome!" That's all I needed to know to survive in this city. As soon as we got off the metro I snagged myself crepe #1. Nutella... Heaven... whatever you want to call it!

The next morning I had a lemon and sugar crepe (crepe #2) for breakfast on our way sightseeing. We hit up the Pantheon (which they totally ripped off from our state capital)

and found this gardeny place where we decided to be this naked boy holding his coat & a sword... without the being naked... or a boy... or having a sword. But we totally had jackets, so you get the picture.

As I was strolling through that same park, I noticed Megs had passed out into a giant fire ant bed and was rolling into a giant pit of quick sand!! I immediately ran over to rescue her and as I did the city of Paris erected a statue in my honor. That was fast.

After saving Meghan's life, we set off to find the hunchback.

This is an interesting story... We wanted to take a picture with this random guy with a pink mohawk. Turns out he works for some Paris walking tour, and they were taking pictures for a new bike tour they're starting up. They asked us to be in their photo-shoot... we agreed. So next time you're in Paris look for me. I'm all over billboards, posters, and commercials. They even have huge murals of me on the wall of the subway. The hoodlums of Paris will soon be coloring my teeth black (they still think that's a riot over there).

After making our new friends, we decided to take the walking tour. But first I had to grab a chicken & cheese crepe (crepe #3). The tour was extremely informative. I feel alright putting my seal of approval on it. Here we are with our tour guide.

We saw the Pont Neuf where some king put faces of his drunk friends all over the side... French kings! What are we going to do with them??

After our walking tour, man was I ready for a crepe (#4). Then we went to the Louvre and saw Mona Lisa 83% smiling.

Now Megs' birthday was the next day. We decided she should turn 21 under the eiffel tower with a bottle of wine and a baguet. We couldn't find a baguet at 11:30 though, so we settled on crepes (#5). Every hour on the hour the eiffel tower starts sparkling all over. So that's how we knew it was her birthday. We waited for it to sparkle and then sang the song... you know the one.

The next day I had a birthday crown for her to wear the whole day. It was particularly appropriate because we were heading to Versailles to see the castle. So everyone thought she was dumb for wearing her own crown to a palace. Ha... I found it hilarious. So yes after a breakfast crepe (#6) we hit up Versailles where we met the cast of Beauty and the Beast.

Cogsworth:

Lumiere:

Babette:

Here is the ballroom that Belle and the Beast dance in:

It was snowing hardcore, so I decided to warm up over a nice hamburger crepe (#7).

I just wanted to throw this in here... probably one of my most impressive pictures. I captured a giant bird trying to eat the eiffel tower. I am so selling this to the tabloids!

We got back to Paris and went to dinner for Megs birthday. I got a crepe for dinner (#8) and Megs got one with a candle (#9).

Our last morning in Paris we went to this outdoor market. I inquired as to where I could get a hearty crepe for breakfast. I was sent over to this 87 year old woman that looked like the bird lady from Home Alone 2. She spoke no English and didn't have the normal crepe ingredients on display... In fact their were no ingredients. As we approached she smiled and threw a crepe on her crepe warming machine and wadded it up in a paper towel and handed it to me. Not the tastiest crepe I have ever had, but still a positive experience. She knows Macaulay Culkin! Who cares what her crepes taste like? After I gobbled down crepe #10 we took off to Sacre Coeur.

It was a beautiful day! Sacre Coeur is the highest point in Paris, so we could see the entire city. It was incredible. There was a guy with a mic playing on the steps of Sacre Coeur singing all American songs with his European accent. It was such an interesting experience... the whole European audience singing American pop songs. We sat here for like an hour listening to him and looking over Paris.

At one point he asked if anyone was from the states. Meghan screamed out while the rest of us slowly raised our hands hoping he wouldn't make us come down. Well he did. We got down in front of an unfriendly crowd of Europeans and sang "Baby, One More Time" by Brittney Spears. Apparently I'm the only one up on my Brittney Spears lyrics, which meant I had to carry the group. But dude when that chorus came we were rocking. I think I might have seen someone crowd surf.

After our European debut I grabbed a crepe (#11) for lunch and we went to see Moulin Rouge. Super Shady.

While we hung out in the luggage locker room, waiting for our train... I grabbed a crepe (#12) and then we headed home.

I'm thinking about writing a book on Parisean crepes now. I feel like I'm more than qualified.

Austria's Ballin'

Julie Andrews was crazy... the hills for sure are not alive. They are more completely frozen. And one of my favorite things is a reliable map.

Megs and I went on our own this weekend to Austria. We took a 12 hour train ride through the night which would have been fine if we didn't have to change trains every hour... meaning no sleep. Turns out we had a 2 hour layover somewhere in Germany from 2:00-4:30 A.M. It's 18 degrees outside and for some reason everything was closed. Don't worry, we were able to entertain ourselves.

We spent two hours in the bathroom of the train station because it was the warmest location we could find. We played various forms of running around the sink island games... there were several.

We hid our stuff in different stalls...

We decided how we were going to fix our hair for the ball. Did I mention we were going to a ball in Austria?

Played eeny meeny mini mo with the stalls (closing each door as it was eliminated)... that game got intense!

Honestly... who else could entertain themselves in the bathroom of a German train station at 4 AM? Sometimes I even surprise myself.

Our train finally came and we zoomed right on over to Salzburg... the home of the Von Trapp family. We didn't see any of the childrens... But I swear I heard Liesl singing when were hiking towards Maria's convent.

Salzburg was so frigid and none of their maps made any sense... We kept trying to find the 16 going on 17 pavilion, but I think we ended up in Slovakia. It made me miss Texas and normal streets that are easy to follow... So I decided to show Salzburg what's up...

Despite my navigational frustrations, Salzburg was a beautiful place. Even if the hills weren't actually alive...

I mentioned the Austrian ball earlier... well since we purchased tickets to this ball we didn't have anymore money to spend on this trip. We bought some fruit and bread before we left and every meal consisted of a powdered peanut butter sandwich and either a kiwi or orange. We forgot to bring knives though so we had to find cafes to order drinks and use their silverware. Meghan was very nervous that we would get caught, so we made our contraband sandwiches under the table and would pretend to be reading when waitresses walked by.

We did stumble across one more Sound of Music location... Meghan was convinced the waitresses had discovered what we did and were after us. They let us perform in the concert since it was for the good of Austria, but then they were going to take us in. Please... I can't believe they fell for that one! Of course after our performance we snuck out the back and hid in the Abby!

We decided to hide out in Vienna for a couple nights. After being lost in Salzburg for an entire day we decided not to navigate Vienna on our own. There were some Australian guys in the lobby of our hostel going to the zoo, so we decided to follow them. Apparently Australia does not have pandas because these guys were OBSESSED! Seriously I think we spent over an hour looking at the three panda bears. They took like a million pictures of them too.

After the zoo we made ourselves a powdered peanut butter sandwich of course and grabbed an orange. delicious. Then it was time to get ready for the ball! Probably the single most random thing I have ever done. We saw the Johann Strauss ball advertised online and just bought tickets.

Apparently that's what Vienna is famous for... it's like ball season right now. So how could we go to Vienna and not go to a ball? Unfortunately, I left all my formal dresses back in Texas. I don't know what I was thinking... traveling to Europe without a ball gown? Seriously... So Megs and I had to make our dresses out of the curtains Sound of Music style... or we might have stumbled across some extremely cheap retail store... but the curtains thing seems more appropriate so let's go with that. Not bad for curtains right?

On our way to the ball we went to a cafe and ate something that wasn't powdered peanut butter or fruit (that's why I'm so excited). Vienna is famous for these torts and we didn't want to go to a ball on powdered peanut butter... don't worry we shared it!

The ball was sooo fun though. They started out with this singer and ballet people... then they had like little debutant people dance around. That was hilarious. You could not pay me to do that.

Apparently this Johann Strauss character is like the father, king or president of the waltz... So these Austrian's loved them some waltzing... especially at this particular ball. They also had an upstairs "disco" where they played grease, tutti fruti, time warp, and other classics? They were loving the American pop songs though. It was at the "disco" that we met some friends. They were actually apart of the opening little debutant presentation thing. Still not sure how to pronounce their names so we will just call them our Austrian friends.

We talked with them for a while and then went back downstairs to watch some performance. It turned out to be some weird interpretive dance between a locust and a tulip. It was the oddest thing I have ever seen... but the Austrians loved it! They were all clapping and laughing the whole time.

After the weird insect love story, it was time for the quadrille! What is a quadrille you ask? Yeah we had no idea... but our Austrian friends told us they would teach us. Turns out the quadrille is some historic dance where everyone gets in two lines facing each other... it's like the precursor to square dancing. (I'm in the silver dress right in front of the piano and Megs is across from me)

It was the craziest dance ever... there were like 7 different versions. The guy on the mic would teach them as we went... but he was of course speaking German. We picked the quadrille up pretty fast though... I was impressed. There was a lot of switching partners and grabbing different hands... it was all really fast.

After the quadrille is the gallop... which for all my gilmore girl fans was almost exactly like the run-around... hilarious! Everyone grabs their partner and you literally gallop around the ballroom until he yells something in German and everyone turns and starts running the other way... and then you switch directions again... and then he says something where everyone makes a tunnel, but if you don't get on the tunnel you're running underneath it... no wait now start galloping around the room again! It was madness... and this is not a ball of young people. Most of the people there were pretty old. It was hysterical!

Here we are doing the gallop/ run-around. I love it.

These pictures do not do it justice. I don't think you can feel the sense of urgency out there on the dance floor. It was chaos! I love the Quadrille... and Johann Strauss! Oh speaking of the captain of the waltz... Our friends also taught us how to waltz. I just think there is something so poetic about learning how to waltz in Austria at the Johann Strauss ball on Valentine's Day.

I love Austria.