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 Spanish Sevilla) has really captured our hearts. We got to Seville on teh 29th and we traveled by the fast AVE Renfe train. It turned a 6 hour trip into 2 and a half hours. ... read more

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 to Cologne, Aachen, Belgium, and Luxembourg, so sadly I won't be able to probably properly update this until AFTER I get back to the States. But I will, and those I will see will get to hear some good stories.....going to Paris with Ang added a lot to my story quotient! In the meantime, here's some pictures to satiate your curiosi... read more

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 back and forth, it's considered the bridge between France and Germany, and there's a lot of elements of both in the town. The city also has around 650,000 inhabitants. Driving across the border from Germany ... read more

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 young as him (he's 3 months) and never long enough to have to worry about changing them. Luckily it wasn't anything messy! He's napping right now. We didn't do much yesterday. We went into Kaiserslautern ... read more

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 Kaiserslatern Castle (and more of the city) Wednesday and Thursday Angie needs to take care of "getting out of the army" paperwork. Friday, May 11th: What we're calling the "Belgium Circle." We're driving and stopping ... read more