Amber and Preston

1. Always give yourself plenty of time when it comes to flights because something almost always comes up. 2. Brink a book, laptop, or dvd player for flights and layovers. 3. Bring a sweatshirt and wear pants on the plane- it always is cold. 4. Pack lighter- I always over pack. I had like 8 pieces of clothing I never used and never once touched my curling iron. Also, most (but not all) hotels have blow dryers. 5. Good, sturdy shoes are a must. 6. Shoe deoderizer spray is a must. 7. If you want soft towels, bring your own. 8. Always bring a back up camera and memory cards (in case one gets dropped in the river while canoeing). 9. Buy a special adapter for small appliances like battery chargers. 10. Our Rick Steves' book ... read more

Amber's Journal: Today was a pretty lazy day. Our bed here, though not great, is 10 times better than the last two we have had. Needless to say we hadn't had a good night's sleep for the last week and we were exhausted. We slept until almost 9:30 this morning then had a great breakfast. We went to an internet cafe for a bit then walked back to the cathedral area to eat lunch. our lunch wasn't very good, though still much better than last night! After lunch we shopped around for the last of our souvenirs. I have to admit they don't have very cool souvenirs here, or anything they are well-known for as far as I could tell. We walked around old town and the Petite France quarter for awhile and it was so ... read more

Amber's Journal: Today was another beautiful day. We visited three more towns in the Black Forest. First we went to go see Lake Titisee, the largest lake in the region, which is ironic because it is actually very small. The town of Titisee, however, was cute and fun and gave us our first taste of the famous Black Forest craftsmanship. This region is very well-known for their cuckoo clocks, wood carving, and Christmas decorations. We walked through many shops, marveling at everything. I had my heart set on finding a unique hand-carved Nativity set but unfortunately they were quite expensive. Next we went to a town called Furtwangen to go to a clock museum. Preston cracked me up all day because he could never remember the name of Furtwangen or the German name for the Black ... read more

Amber's Journal: Wow! This place is beautiful! We have absolutely loved our time here in the Lauterbrunnen Valley. It helped a lot that the weather was perfect today as well. We started our day by going to Trummelbach Falls. They are huge waterfalls inside the mountain. You go in and ride this giant elevator/funicular thing up into these caves. The water all comes from this huge glacier but it comes raging through these crevices in the mountain. It was pretty cool to see. From there we drove to Stechelburg and rode a gondola up to the town of Murren. From Murren we hiked up a ways, then down through the forest to some more waterfalls. It was called Sprutz Falls and you could walk behind them. It was pretty. Today was a fulfillment of a dream ... read more

Amber's Journal: Well we did it again- went to bed without writing! First I will catch up on yesterday. The first thing we did was take a boat out to the Island of Murano and toured the glass factory. Murano is very well known for its glass. There were some really cool glass candlesticks that I fell in love with but they were so expensive! Like $100 a piece! Next we took a boat to the Island of Lido, which is the island that separates Venice from the ocean. Our purpose was to hang out on the beach, which we did, and it was awesome. The beach we went to was very crowded and unfortunately had a few topless women but the ocean was beautiful, the weather was great, the sand was soft and there were ... read more