Apologies in advance for this insanely long travelogue.
First, I just want to say how grateful I am to my father for taking us on this incredibly fantastic trip. He paid for all of us and planned the entire thing. He is amazing and I'm so proud to call him my dad. We couldn't be with him on Father's Day, but this trip was wonderful just to spend time with him for two weeks! Dad - I love you. Thank you. I know we are all very thankful for all you do for us.
Monday, May 30 - Caught our plane ride straight to Paris. There was a family of women from the Middle East sitting near us. Turns out they live in SLC and were going to their homeland for a vacation, so that was cool. That is the second time I have made the flight. It was pretty painful, but it wasn't like those 14-hour plane rides! 10.5 hours is okay with me. It just hurts my legs and my ankles swell like I'm 9 months prego with triplets. No big.
Tuesday, May 31 - Arrived in Paris, freshened up in the restroom - a man walked in and checked for an available stall... then looked around confused. He looked at me, other women at the sinks, and had the best "oops" expression ever. We all laughed. That's funny in any language. Caught our plane to Prague. I slept most of it. When we arrived in Prague, we got a taxi to our hotel. Prague is gorgeous!! The architecture is amazing, the Charles Bridge... it was all fantastic. We walked to the town square and had dinner. We stopped at a grocery store and bought the most amazing breads/butter/yogurt/cereal/meats/cheeses ever. It was for breakfast the next day, but those sweet pastries were too tempting to wait for. On our way back, my blisters started. They would prove to harden over throughout the rest of the trip and stop bothering me. I had the surgery and was not allowed to do any major exercise. Add that to two weeks in bed, and I was pretty weak. My feet were in major pain for about 90% of the trip. It was worth it.
Wednesday, June 1 - We walked back to the square and caught a tour bus through the city. We toured the major castle complex and a huge cathedral. The parliament still live in the castle complex. We checked out the Jewish section of town and some major swanky shopping streets. We even saw some missionaries waiting for a bus! We decided to head to the train station and check out where we should be for the next day's train ride to Germany. I had booked these train passes months ago through raileurope.com and was unbelievable excited. My first high-speed passenger train!! We got to the station and the board had the list of trains and what platform they depart from. When we saw ours, we were surprised to notice it said "Bus" instead of "Train"... I was confused and checked our tickets. The tickets said both "train" and "bus" next to each other... Okay. We went to an information desk and asked the woman there to help. Her English was not great. We asked if our train was a bus or a train. She looked at the tickets and said, "Is a boos." "No, we see that it says bus... but is that a type of train? It also says train, and these are first-class train tickets with a food cart and drinks and tables. I purposely purchased the first-class tickets for the leg room." She was perplexed. "Is a boos!" I resorted to hand-motions. Flat hand moving forward "Train on rails?" and then both hands steering a horizontal steering wheel "Or bus on streets?" "Is a boos!"
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After about ten more minutes of trying to get her to explain the difference, we determined she really meant it is a bus, like a city bus, taking us along the four-hour bumpy road journey to Nuremberg, Germany. Yay. My jet-lagged body and severely let-down feelings suddenly turned into a "high-speed train" of monster tears and sobbing. Right there in the train station. My poor family. I was inconsolable.
We went to our "platform" which was a bus stop upstairs on the city road.
We saw the buses. I was not happy.
Thursday, June 2 - We got a taxi to take us the few blocks to the train station since we had a LOT of luggage to haul over those cobblestone streets and it was not going to work. We waited at the bus stop. Then, through the midst of sorrow and pain, a beacon shone forth that Thursday morning. The bus pulled up, magnificent in its double-decker height, new paint, sleek design, and non-smoking goodness (a welcome relief in that city). We got on and found our first-class seats, with tables, facing each other, and plenty of leg room. There was food for purchase and drinks, and a bathroom the size of a coffin in the back. That was interesting. Spencer will tell you I had a lot of issues this entire trip with not being able to perform the task at hand any time I found a restroom. They were all sub-par. Metal toilets with no seat and shaped like an octagon, bugs, humidity, heat, wretched smells - the conditions were unfavorable. I couldn't do it. Princess??
The bus ride was smooth and direct to Nuremberg. The four hours went by quickly and we played scrabble on mom's iPad. Mom and dad sat across a table from the only other first-class passengers, a nice couple from South Carolina. They talked the ENTIRE ride and really got along. They talked about their travels, politics, dogs, children, everything. They even told me they took the train yesterday and it was awful - that this bus was way better than the crummy benches they had to sit on. I LOVE them. Bless them. Great couple. They are baptists and asked my parents at the end of the journey if they were Mormon, since we're from Utah. They replied in the affirmative and our friends were actually super surprised. Normal (relatively speaking) people.... = Mormons? Who would have thought?! Dad gave them a business card for his Burnings of the Heart movie about William Tyndale and the English Bible. When the bus arrived in Nuremberg, we retrieved our luggage and caught the subway (hey! a train!) to the airport to pick up our rental car. The SC couple went to catch their train to Munich. We parted ways and wished them a great trip.
We ate lunch at the first restaurant we could find on our road trip... which was literally McDonald's. Let me just say this.... McDonald's is EXPENSIVE and BELOVED over there. That was my first meal in Germany. Sigh.
Spencer got to drive on the Autobahn. I'm pretty sure he was as giddy as a schoolboy. I loved that you get to your destination in half the time you would here... and the roads are perfectly smooth.
We got to Munich and had to wait to check-in to our hotel because they were filming a movie there. Munich 7. We were like... there were SIX other Munich movies?? Land Before Time anyone?
It was Ascension Day, which is a national holiday there. They were dressed in lederhosen, getting wasted, and being true German stereotypes. It was awesome. I was invited by one of the gentlemen to join him at his table, but I reluctantly declined immediately. There were drinking songs and world-cup-like chants booming from every corner. Hysterical. We toured the city square and saw the life-sized cuckoo clock building. So fun.
We stopped to listen to this random street band for a while, when what to my wandering eyes should appear, the SC couple watching the exact same band. I yelled a polite "HEY! WE KNOW YOU!" and then we reunited and talked some more! I like to believe they were the reason behind my booking a bus when I wanted a train.
Friday, June 3 - We went to the BMW Museum and BMW World in Munich. Spencer was in paradise. It was fun and we were all really really tired. They had some pretty sweet displays. Spencer will be back in 15 years to pick up a 7-series, he decided.
We drove to our next destination, Colmberg Castle! This was our hotel as well. Yeah. Princess.
There was a wedding going on and most people staying there were outside partying all night, so we had the castle almost to ourselves. We walked around the castle and looked at the cute deer in the enclosure around the base. We had dinner on site and played cards for a while before bed. Just like the royals did. ?
Saturday, June 4 - We had an amazing castle breakfast and then hit the road for Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This is a completely walled city with adorable shops and cafes. The homes are all original and their roofs slanting. It was amazing and darling. We went to a Christmas store called Kathe Wohlfahrt and I got a couple sweet ornaments. The store has a 10-foot pyramid and Christmas trees all over. Each little room and nook is shaped like a house. It's adorable. We walked along the city wall for a while and through the town.
After our fun visit, we hopped back in the van to drive to our next destination, Zell/Fussen. This is where we caught our first glimpse of the Alps. They are unbelievably gorgeous. Driving through Bavaria was breathtaking. We all were in love. We got to our hotel in Zell, the Baeron, and checked into our own little wing with two rooms and beds for everyone. We took a tour of the hotel and checked out the sauna downstairs. Being Germany, dad warned us that last time they came here, there was a woman showering in front of everyone. We took care and nobody was around. We checked out the gym while there were people using the hot tub. As we left the gym, the people using the hot tub were now using the showers directly in front of the gym. And I saw a man.
YEAH.
Blessedly, he was turned sideways, and the edge of the shower was blocking my view perfectly of anything that should definitely be blocked from view. Gross.
We decided to wait it out in the gym for a while.
Sunday, June 5 - We got ready and headed out to the local church building and branch Sacrament Meeting. The missionaries were there and gave us headsets they translated through. It was so cute. We thought that with how small the branch was, there would be lots of time between testimonies, but there never was. They are so stalwart. They filled the time completely and all spoke on missionary service. They had been fasting for missionary service in their stake. These people love the gospel and they share it with everyone. I want to be more like them. Mom, Heather, and I understood a lot of what was being said in German. We all took it in school and mom grew up with it a bit. She was definitely the best communicator in our family.
After church, we changed our clothes and drove up to the foot of the alps to tour Neuschwanstein. My feet and legs were aching and I was sweating and exhausted, so I told my family they could hike, but I was paying and taking the bus to the castle. They all decided to join me, so it was great! I kept apologizing all trip long for being the family complainer and being so out of shape... but man I was miserable. They were so understanding and wonderful and I tried to be a good sport the rest of the trip. We started at the bridge behind Neuschwanstein and got some amazing photographs. 
After the bridge, we hiked just a little way to the castle itself for the tour. There was this crazy awesome little Asian boy -in the best clothing choices ever- dancing around the waiting area for the tour. He was making us all laugh. Ludwig was freaking crazy and had a cave built in his castle where he would sit and listen to Wagner's operas being performed upstairs in the music hall. There were stalactites and stalagmites and a whole lot of crazy. It was really fun. His throne room, which wasn't completed in his lifetime, was so ornate and gorgeous. Awesome castle. We got some great shots of his other castle and the alps from a balcony.
We walked down the mountain and drove back to Zell. We had an AMAZING dinner at the hotel with these German meat dishes and pastas. We had to watch out for vegetables and in Germany because of the E.Coli outbreak.... and we were okay with eating bread, cheese, meat, and chocolate. We are, after all, Germans. One week down, one to go!
Monday, June 6 - We had an awesome breakfast at the hotel, then headed out to Salzburg for the day. We walked down a great little street where Mozart's birthplace is located, plus several shops and banks. It was adorable! We saw a fountain from Sound of Music and I promised myself I'd come back someday and take the Sound of Music tour. We just didn't have time this trip. We went up to the castle, and once again I was too exhausted to hike up. I said I'd take the funicular and yet again, they all agreed. Great family!! We toured the castle and had some great views of the city.
Afterward, we came back down and I ate an ice cream cone for lunch. That was all I wanted in the humidity. This was no time for a bratwurst, though Spence and dad got some. We drove back to Zell and Heather, mom, and dad hiked up to the castle ruins behind our hotel. Spencer and I were too tired and stayed at the hotel.
Tuesday, June 7 - I woke up early with Heather and dad and hiked to the castle ruins with them this time. The view was amazing. It was awesome!
After getting ready and checking out of the hotel, we began the long drive through the Alps to Venice! We saw an insane waterfall along the way and a lot of green, luscious mountainside! Precious towns, incredible landscapes. When we got to Venice, we parked in the big parking structure outside town and took the water taxi to the Rialto Bridge, near our hotel. I booked this hotel and it was more like a hostel, but we had five single beds and our own bathroom. Breakfast was included and it was very clean and basic. It was cheap for Venice and barely fit in our budget. If you go and want a total budget, basic place that works and is clean and centrally located, check out the Hotel Caneva. No air conditioning, but we requested a fan from the front desk. We also opened the window and they provided an insecticide plug-in that worked great. We walked to the San Marco Square and looked around for a while. We had dinner right by the Rialto Bridge and hello, pricey city!
The couple on the table across from us were driving us crazy. We had more fun people-watching than eating. There are more tourists than residents in Venice and everyone around you speaks English. They were from Oregon and had just become engaged. The girl was sooooo fake, it was like watching The Bachelorette. "I am SO excited about this. The ring is perfaact" ... and the guy didn't say a word for like 1/2 hour until he asked me to take a photo of them. She was marginally hot and he was uber-Bill Gates-y. The convo was so forced. We figured it out when he told us he works for Intel and just spent the last month traveling in China with the girl, then they came to Venice and he proposed. Cha-ching.
I am not kidding when I say she said the following statements, in this order:
I am so excited! You know what? We need to change our facebook statuses today. To engaged!
...And we need to call your mother.
Fun couple. The waiter then fooled my mom into getting the fish because every other table had ordered it that night. A multi-hundred-dollar dinner check later... and we vowed to be more careful. He also squeezed Spencer's arms and called him "Schwarzenegger" - which proved to be a common theme in Venice for Spence.
Wednesday, June 8 - The next day, we went back to the San Marco Square and viewed the basilica which is completely covered in gold inside. It was beautiful and incredible. We walked up and down the street, and these African guys kept trying to sell me handbags. They were obvious knock-offs and I get all my bags in Chinatown - for those who know me. I kept complaining to my family that they totally targeted me and nobody else - like they knew I would be interested. I told them I would not buy a single bag unless it was the Louis Vuitton damier I have been coveting for a while - even a knockoff. They didn't have it, so... I wasn't interested. Dad started just yelling at them "This girl right here wants handbags!!" Psh!
I wore my brand new BR Outlet top and spilled pizza grease all over it. It's still stained. Frown. Any suggestions there? I tried Shout and that just seemed to make the delicate fabric worse. Spence said to soak it in spray 'n' wash overnight and then spritz a bit more before washing it. Stupid grease!
We had gelato and it was grainy and gross. Venice fail. Florence WIN!
After walking around a lot and getting actually pretty bored, we spent the rest of the evening hanging out in our hotel room and venturing out here and there to see a church or the accademia section of town. Venice is gorgeous, but I think one day is sufficient!
Thursday, June 9 - We took the water taxi back to our car outside of town and headed off to Pisa! Heather and I got car sick on this leg, but Heather was much worse off... poor girl! Pisa is awesome and fun, but again - one day is sufficient. Probably more like a couple hours. That's just me, though. We stopped for lunch at a really nice little ristorante outside the city. They recommended the fish. Dad, mom, and Spencer all ordered it. Second time we made that mistake. A multi-hundred dollar check later, and we wished we were smarter about ordering fish! It was, though, the best fish we'd ever had. I don't even like fish and I was eating it. Dad was amazed! He loved it. We also didn't know they charged us for each bread basket they brought out. They didn't ask us if we wanted bread. We thought it was free since they brought it. I asked if there was a "utensil use" charge too, and possibly a "table fee". Man alive.
After Pisa, we drove to Florence and stopped at the Piazzale di Michelangelo for photos and dinner. My favorite restaurant I have been to in Italy is in the Piazzale and has the best Penne Arrabiata ever! I was so happy to eat there again. The restaurant is outdoors and you sit on this hill and look over Florence with a Tuscan sunset. Outstanding.
We drove into town and found our precious B&B. This hotel was my financial contribution to the trip, since nothing in Florence fell into the price range dad gave me - unless we wanted to stay in bug-infested beds and filthy hostels, which I (shocker) did not. I booked it and promised dad he wouldn't have to spend a cent there. Parking in Florence is impossible, so I had emailed the host/hostess to see where we should park. They have a valet service that takes your car from the front of the hotel to a parking garage and it was about 30 euro per night (almost $45), or there was street parking for 2 euros an hour, with anything between 8pm and 8am being free. We drove around the block a couple times and then miraculously got the one street spot closest to the hotel. We kept the car there all evening, night, and morning and spent a fraction of the cost! I felt like George Costanza when he got the great parking spot at the hospital:
George
What about that spot I got?
Jerry
Yeah, that's a great spot.
George
You open the door to the car, boom, you walk right into the hospital. You can't beat that spot. I'm on a roll. I am just willing these great parking spots. In front of my house. In front of Jerry's building. Did I tell you about the spot in front of the post office?
Jerry
Yes.
George
I'm driving to the post office.
Jerry
(INTERRUPTING) George.
George
Maybe the baby would like to see my spot. A positive, uplifting message to start his life out with. You can still get a great space in this town - if you apply yourself.
The hotel was so charming and nice! The hostess gave us a map and then recommended everything we should do on our short time there. She recommended restaurants and told us some funny stories about Michelangelo I had never heard. There was even AIR CONDITIONING. Bless Il Marzocco.
We walked around town and down the Ponte Vecchio. We saw the Duomo and the statues - though the most famous Sabine Women one was under scaffolding. We had fantastic gelato and headed back to the hotel.
Friday, June 10 - Got up and had a fantastic breakfast at the B&B, then walked a couple miles to the museum to see the David and other sculptures. This was my second time there, but it was still absolutely beautiful and incredible! I was completely exhausted and sweaty and couldn't keep up with Spencer, Heather, and Dad on the way back. Mom had stayed at the hotel not feeling well. After packing up and checking out, I ran back into mom and dad's room to use the bathroom. The hostess walked in on me. Yeah. Luckily I was buttoning my pants and fully covered.
We drove up the Italian coast to the Cinque Terre. STUNNING. I don't have photos yet, but will. We stayed in this awesome hotel that was built into the cliffs right on the Mediterranean. Our view was exquisite. We drove up and down these narrow roads (more like bike paths) in our huge van to get to the cities. Dad was freaking out that with all the switchbacks, surely another car would be heading our way and we would ram into each other. It never happened once. There were a couple points on the road where it widened. Each time we hit one of those, a car was coming the opposite direction and neither us of had to move. It was incredible! We were really blessed. We set the GPS to find us a beach we could hang out at for a while. It took us on the windy narrow road for a while, then said "You have reached your destination." We were literally on a cliff hundreds of feet above the water, still on the road. There wasn't even a lookout point. Needless to say, my swimsuit didn't touch water this trip. After driving through one of the small cities in this protected national park, we went back to La Spezia (the big town on the other side of the mountain) for dinner and to look around. We drove through a park and saw a little boy - pants down - peeing - on an electrical box. Awesome. Then we got gelato and walked along the pier.
We went back to the hotel and played cards and hung out for a while, then went to bed. As I went to plug my phone in to charge, suddenly a racing insect came at my toes in the dark. I screamed and jumped and yelled, "SPIDER! SPIDER!" and it crawled under the hide-a-bed Heather had pulled out a bit from under her bed. She yelled at me to not let it get under her bed before I killed it. I grabbed Spencer's shoe, stepped in it, kicked in the hide-a-bed, and smashed the non-spider 1.5-inch-long centipede (
click here for a similar picture). I was hopping around and basically hyperventilating when I had to then pick it up with toilet paper to throw it away. I asked Spencer to do it and he refused. "I'm in bed." I know you are. So was I. Be a man! He wasn't having any of it. He was in the loft above my bed and Heather's bed. Heather was too sick to move and I had to do all the cleanup. Princess Lindsey had to do it all.
I went to turn on the light to the bathroom to get the toilet paper, and lo and behold, another centipede on the wall above the light switch. Now I reallllllly freaked out and couldn't stop audibly crying (no tears, just a lot of squeamish moaning and light screaming). I killed that one too and let it fall to the floor behind the bookshelf. The other one was flushed down the toilet. Let me tell you how easy it was to go to sleep after this fiasco. I laid there with eyes as wide as baseballs and completely covered with my sheet and blanket. I couldn't touch any wall surface or let the blanket fall over the side of the bed toward the floor. Spencer told me centipedes would probably crawl over my face as I slept. Thanks.
I finally managed to fall asleep and then woke up a few hours later to something falling from the ceiling and landing on my neck. I jumped, threw it off my neck, and noticed it was Spencer's water bottle wrapper from the loft. JERK! Heather asked why I was freaking out and I told her... "Spencer's an idiot and threw his wrapper at me." The next morning, Spencer actually swore to me that he didn't do it on purpose, that he sneezed (which I do remember), and the force of the sneeze blew the wrapper off his nightstand. Unreal. Of COURSE that happened on that night.
Saturday, June 11 - We packed up again and walked the 400 steps back up to our car. There was a lizard crawling on the exterior of the hotel, which was cool, but mom and dad showed me the millipede in their shower that prevented them from cleansing that morning. It was literally eating the scum in the shower. Their shower curtain was totally moldy too. I do not recommend this place unless you want a killer view and don't mind large insects or the fact that they don't clean it very well. You even have to bring up your own trash after your stay and lay the linens on the beds. It was still an awesome experience to stay there. Just breathtaking!
We drove back through the Alps into Switzerland. Unbelievably beautiful! We drove through a 16km tunnel that gave me a little anxiety, but was super cool. The chalets and the trees and everything were just amazing. I loved it all! It was a long day of driving, and when we finally got to Lake Luzern, we were all so tired, we didn't even get out. It was, however, the prettiest lake I have ever seen... of course. We drove around for a couple minutes and agreed it was time to just get to our hotel and off the road.
We continued on to Zurich and this was our final destination. We stayed at the Hilton Zurich Airport and it was so nice and welcoming! We drove around to find dinner, but everything was closed. We ended up back at the hotel for their restaurant. We agreed to not order fish ever again and each got cheap menu items that probably drove our waiter nuts. Cheap means 14 dollars for a small bowl of pasta. They didn't even serve all the food they put with it normally because of the E.Coli scare. Pft. Delicious, though!
I had my second breakdown of the trip, realizing I had to return to real life the next day. I wept in our hotel. Spencer jumped on me, and Heather on top of him, and then they tickled me while I couldn't get out from under them. Spencer pretended to wipe a booger on me afterward. Third breakdown.
Sunday, June 12 - We packed and headed to the airport. After a broken computer in the line we were assigned to, we had to rush to our gate and got in a tiny breakfast before boarding. The plane was completely full all the way to Atlanta.
Mom and dad got bumped to first class. Pft!
Heather and Spencer each went up to talk with them and took a turn in the seats.
When I went up, a flight attendant yelled at me, then my parents. Splendid.
The flight wasn't that bad and I watched four movies, plus Modern Family and Office episodes on laptops. In Atlanta, we had to claim our luggage and check it through again since we came internationally and were now flying domestically. The second flight seemed longer than the first and I wasn't looking forward to going back to work the very next morning and being a non-tourist-normal-person again. When we landed, I got a text from Blanch. Sigh. Welcome back.
We got home around 9pm and basically crashed. The dogs had eaten Heather's books - a few hundred dollars worth of damage. Kira was house-sitting and did a fantastic job, but the dogs freaked out the last day. They also tore apart a stuffed animal and pooped on the carpet. Welcome home!!!!
