The much awaited pictures from Europe

So we finally got to a computer that would allow us to download pictures. We decided to take one picture from each stop for now and post it. Enjoy!

This is us waiting for our flight to London. I guess our excitement did not come until we got there.

Buckingham Palace in London, England

Stonehenge, England

Casey modeling his new outfit with some naked animals in Bath, England. After two days and still no luggage for him we bought him new clothes.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France

The Mona Lisa at the Musee Du Louvre in Paris, France

Our super heavy and always growing backpacks.

The windmills in Bruges, Belgium

Ghent, Belgium

The Berlin Wall in Berlin, Germany

Breakfast time which always consists of bread, jam, yogart, fruit, and juice.

The Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Weimar, Germany

The Fürstnzug wall in Dresden, Germany

Rubbing the statue of St. John of Nepomuktatue in Prague, Czech Republic. Legend has it that if you rub the bronze plaque beneath it you will return to Prague.

Ryanne jumping for joy in Vienna, Austria because the rain stopped for a moment.

Overlooking Salzburg, Austria

The Hohenschwangau Castle in Füssen, Germany

The Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland

Europe - 4 plane tickets and none of them used

We're waiting for a train to take us to Prague, Czech Republic because we missed our flight. Yep, that's right, once again we missed our flight.

Since our last post things have been going really well for us. We visited Paris, Brussels, Brugge, Ghent, Berlin, Weimar (concentration camp), and Dresden without any hiccups. We saw many great sites and took lots of great pictures. Out of these places Brugge was our favorite because the people were nice, the atmostphere was relaxed and the scenery was beautiful.

Then today happened. We woke up on time to catch our 5:54 am train to Frankfurt. Learning from past experiences we asked for directions before leaving the train station. By doing this we found out that we didn't have much time at the Temple but could make it back on time. So we went for it. In hindsight maybe we shouldn't have. When we were done at the Temple a nice member named Matias offered to drive us to the station so we would definitely be on time. And, we were.....thanks to his crazy driving skills (worse than Casey's). We took the only bus to the Frankfurt Hahn Airport which should have arrived with 30 minutes to spare. However along the way the bus driver took a detour because of an accident so we arrived 45 minutes later than the original arrival time. We raced off the bus and got to the counter 5 minutes after the last baggage check-in. We told them what happened and they said, "Sorry, they already drove the bags to the plane. We can't help you." (with a smile on her face) WHAT!!!!!! A few curse words later, another 24 euro bus ticket and an additional 1 hour 45 minute bus ride back to where we started.

We are hoping to catch the 12:45 am night train to get us to Prague and hoping the hostel we missed tonight doesn't charge us.

May your luck be better than ours at the moment.

Europe - weren't we already on this train?

Our first mishap was assuming we could get a connecting train to London Waterloo from London Victoria. We actually had to connect in Cheltenham which meant we had to backtrack and we missed our next train. However, we did eventually make it to Salisbury where we viewed Amesbury, Stonehenge, Old Sacrum, downtown Salisbury, the Salisbury Cathedral and ate at this delicious local pub. Right before leaving Salisbury we called the airline and they had located Casey's luggage - yeah! The best part of this news was that they would reimburse us for any items bought due to lost luggage. No more smelly clothes for Casey. We decided to have them send it to the Glasgow airport so we could pick it up on our way to Paris.

Second mishap, we left Salisbury an hour later than we expected which got us into Bath at 5pm. Didn't seem late until we realized everything shut down at 5. So we got to see the outside of all the famous buildings but maybe next time we'll see the inside of them! We did find a clothing store where Casey bought some shorts, shirts, and socks. And, we found a fish n' chips pub that was open so we got some take out and ate in the beautiful park. We won't have any pictures of this because our camera battery died and the cords were in Casey's luggage. After dinner we moved onto Birmingham which was our final desitnation for the night. We arrived at 12am and got lost on our way to our hostel which was no fun in the cold! We slept for 2 hours before waking up late and running to catch our train.

We thought we finally caught our break because we caught the train on time and arrived to Edinburgh as planned. Edinburgh Castle was beautiful as well as the old town. We ate at this local cafe that served delicous panini's. We left a little bit earlier for Glasgow so we could see some of the sites there however; that never happened.

Third mishap, we decided to go to the airport early to pick up Casey's luggage to find that it took 45 minutes by train to get there. When we arrived they told us that his luggage was at the other airport so we had to backtrack 30 minutes on the train. Luckily the office hadn't closed and we got his luggage.

Fourth mishap, we realized that our hostel was too far from the airport to catch the first train in morning to get us there before check-in. Because of cancellation policies we had to pay for that hostel as well as find a new hostel closer by and pay for it as well. A little ray of sunshine for us, we found a nice quaint hostel that had everything we needed - a shower, internet, and most importantly a printer. We went to bed around 2am which we didn't plan but felt comfortable because we set our alarm.

Fifth mishap, alarm didn't go off and we didn't wake up until 6am. We were supposed to be at the airport at 5:30 am at the very latest. We jumped out of bed and got our clothes on and ran for the train. Keep in mind we didn't shower or even brush our teeth before leaving. We got to the airport only to find out that they stop boarding 40 minutes ahead of departure time. Our only option was to book a new flight and eat the cost of the old one. Our new flight departed for the other airport so back on the train for us.

Now we're waiting to board our new flight which puts us into Paris 8 hours later than expected. Wish us luck on this next leg of our trip!

Europe - Didn't we check 2 bags?

Although we are in the neighboring land of Ireland we haven't found the luck of the Irish just yet. After getting off the plane we found out that Casey's luggage had been lost and that they had no clue where it went. The only answer we received was to check back within a couple hours to see if it had arrived. What a sucky way to start a trip but it didn't stop us. After following the hotel directions we took a 2 hour bus ride, but later found out that we could have taken a 35 minute train ride that was covered by our pre-purchased railpasses. After Ryanne changed into clean clothes we headed off to see the sites of London - Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, The London Eye, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey. We arrived back to the hotel late only to find out that the airport luggage service desk closed at 5pm which meant Casey still had no clean clothes (keep in mind Casey was in the clothes that we left in so at this point he had been in them for 2.5 days - smelly!)

After being in London for 1 day we felt comfortable with how the trains worked - yeah right! This is what started the many mishaps of the events to come.....