Well, my birthday is June 24th and I got to spend a long weekend in my favorite place in the whole world (so far). Where, you ask? Scotland of course! Since Matt didn't get to go on my trip to Scotland last summer with Ali I took him on a "Best Of" tour of Scotland. We flew into Glasgow Prestwick on Thursday evening and stayed at an absolutely wonderful B&B right there in Prestwick for the night...Firhill Bed and Breakfast. It's by far one of the best B&B's I've ever stayed at in Scotland. The room was huge, the bed was comfortable, we had our own bathroom, and breakfast was great. There was only one other person down at breakfast in the morning and he had the enviable job of testing kayaks. He said he had ... read more

We took the ferry over from Tanger to Tarifa, Spain only to discover that we had missed the last bus from Tarifa to Jerez and the next bus the next morning would get us there too late to catch our flight. Matt, Egan, and Anna headed down to see if the rental car place was open while the rest of us transferred our ever growing luggage over to a cafe to sit. They came back without a rental car but with two taxis that had agreed to take us to Jerez for 120 Euros per vehicle, which worked out to 35 Euros a piece...much cheaper than having to rebook our flight!! Once we got into Jerez we were so happy to see our old friend, Hotel Ibis, and decided to stay there for the night. ... read more

We arrived in Marrakech (also spelled Marrakesh in case you're wondering) after our 8 hour train ride and went looking for our hotel. This time we stayed at Hotel Amani. Again, we dumped our bags and headed right out to find food. We took a petit taxi (a small taxi) out to the big market and immediately saw that this was very different than Fez. There were tents with tables and chairs set up with just about any kind of food you could want. There were small children, who should have been in bed, out running around begging for money and huffing paint. There were drunks and many more young people than what we had seen in Fez. Where Fez was traditional and seemed mostly untouched by tourism, Marrakech seemed like the tourist hotspot. We ... read more

My friend Meg came into town for a few days so Matt and I decided to show her (and ourselves) Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This is an intact medieval walled city and was really incredible! I met Meg last summer when Ali and I spent our two weeks in Scotland. Meg and Ali went to high school together and have been friends for ages and Meg and I hit it off immediately. When I found out that she was going to be backpacking through Europe at the same time that Matt and I would be getting here I invited her to come visit and the timing worked out great. I showed her Heidelberg (I won't bore you with more pictures of the same) and we did Rothenburg, which I think was even better than Heidelberg. ... read more

Exploring HeidelbergThe Many Adventures of M&M The original plan for today was to take the train down to Stuttgart for the festival but after getting online and checking out train fare, we decided we'd try for next weekend instead (so we can book ahead and maybe save a little money...last-minute train fare is pricey!). So, not to waste a day sitting around, we took the Straßenbahn into Heidelberg instead. The Straßenbahn is the local train...it's a lot like a subway works and just as affordable but above ground so we get to see Germany as we're traveling through it. Before getting on the train we stopped at a bakery (because we missed the free breakfast at the hotel) and Matt got a huge soft pretzel and I got something wonderful that I can't remember what it's ... read more