Hey everyone! I´m in Seville right now with Adam and Gabe for New Years. So far this trip has been extremely interesting in unexpected ways. I´m not going to type some of the major details here (you all can ask me when I get back or email me for details) but in general everything has been intriguing. Lets just say Adam and Gabe are both lifesavers. We spent the first 2 days in Madrid. Madrid was nice, but it was your average European metropolitan center. There were lots of old, pretty things (the Palace, Gran Via, etc.) but Seville (or the [View Full Entry]

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Hey all, Welcome to my travelblog. I like travel writing, so this is my amateur attempt at it that I always do when I travel. This is my preliminary entry before Adam, Gabe, and I take off for Spain next week. If you got a notification email about this entry, you are on my subscribed list. If you came here via Facebook, Myspace, or Livejournal to read this and subscribe yourself, just click the "Subscribe" link at the bottom of the entry. Or, if you're already on it and you don't want to be, just let me know and I'll remove [View Full Entry]

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J'adore Paris! Europe » France » Ile de France » Paris By Tessa May 17th 2007 Tessa MurphyHi all! This isn't a real entry, but I thought I'd write a short blog saying that Angie and I survived 3 days in Paris ok. I'm too tired to write much more, and tomorrow we're going t [View Full Entry]

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I just bought two cuckoo clocks! Ever since I got here I thought it would be cool to get one because they're so neat and distinctly German. So, today Angie took me to a cuckoo clock outlet in Kaiserslautern (called House of Clocks Gifts and Collectables--www.houseofclocks.com) and we looked at the clocks. While looking at the clocks, I learned a lot about them. The store we were at had 3 types. The two more traditional types with all the gears in side that need winding every once in a while are called one day and eight day movement clocks. They sound [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday we went to an American World War II cemetery in St. Avold, France, and Strasbourg! The cemetery was humbling, and going to Strasbourg was really exciting for me; it was my first time to France, and my father's family ancestry comes from the Alsace-Lorraine region (our ancestor came from there when it belonged to Germany). Strasbourg is almost directly on the French-German border. The 2,000 year old city belongs to modern day France, and French is predominantly spoken, but it's adjacent to the Rhine River, and Germany is literally on the other side. Because of the centuries of going [View Full Entry]

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Hello all. Ok--to set matters straight to anyone wondering, Angie's paperwork to get out of the army is INCREDIBLY messed up right now. It's not affecting the trip like we thought it would (luckily they are not trying to make her leave the country now) but it's still messed up. Now, she's in a position called "stoploss" where her company is not allowed to go anywhere because they might get deployed. Even though she's techincally supposed to be out now, her name somehow got on the roster for the stoploss, so it's messed up her paperwork. Just to get her [View Full Entry]

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These past few days have been for relaxing. Angie is running around trying to get all her paperwork done for the army, so if she has some problems with that, you won't be hearing from me for a few days. But I'll start blogging again after they get resolved. In the meantime, I'm babysitting AJ while Angie and her husband run around and take care of some of the paperwork. He's pretty cute. This leads to another first time life experience: the first time I ever changed a diaper was in Germany! I've watched babies before, but never any as [View Full Entry]

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Sprechen sie Englisch? Today's lessons: 1. The autobahn is easy to get lost on. 2. I still need to know more basic German. First time life experience today: 1. Both Angie, AJ, and I got stuck in an elevator for the first time in our lives today. That's what Angie taught me today as we were driving on the autobohn toward Heidelberg. It's useful 'cause I don't know any flippin' German. She also taught me how to pronounce "police" in German (I don't even know how to spell it). She's taken some German classes as part of the training the [View Full Entry]

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Hello peeps. Angie and I are going to start doing stuff tomorrow; today was Sunday and everything here is dead then. But we have created a tenitive itinerary of places to go and when....we realized since we have to optimize the days the days her husband is off work (so he can watch AJ) and the other days have to include trips to close places, we need to plan where we're going and when. So, I share with you all what we are doing until I leave: Tomorrow, May 7th: Castle seeing and Heidelberg Tuesday, May 8th: The Japanese Gardens and [View Full Entry]

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Hello!! My travels have brought me to Germany and Europe for the next few weeks. I have more access to a computer now also than ever before while traveling, so perhaps I'll be able to update this frequently! I'm staying (until May 19th) with my childhood friend, Angie, and her husband and baby AJ on the military base in Kaiserslautern. It's about 6:30pm here right now, and I got here at 7:30am. It was interesting because although French is my forte, I realized on the flight here I don't know any German besides being able to say, "shit," "no," "girl," "thank [View Full Entry]

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