Killing Time

So I'm chilling in my key boarding final right now waiting for my turn to humiliate myself. The upside is that it is snowing outside AND we are having a Christmas dinner tonight!! so excited. We even have turkey and I'm going to make mashed potatoes. I also get to sing at an Elderly home this afternoon. That should be interesting...

Pretty sure I'm going to be late to my next class because this test is taking forever!!

Oh here's some cool news. I took my friend Madeleine to FHE last night. I'm so happy that she came with me because I really wanted her to see where the building is incase she wants to go back for church or something. She said that she really liked it! I was planning on leaving at 8 15 because thats when the bus came but she said that she wanted to stay and finish the game we were playing (mafia). I was like... OK! So I hope that she felt the spirit and I hope that she can feel how much the Lord loves her and wants her to believe in him. I wish I could be here longer to help her understand better who she is and what this life is all about. Thank goodness for Facebook and it's crazy cool ability to keep people connected! haha

Ok this post has gone on long enough.

Two Weeks to Go!!

Wow this week went by sooo fast. And with only two weeks left here in Freiburg I was thinking they would go by slow. I am so excited to go home... but i'm not gonna let my excitement keep me from enjoying christmas time in such a magical place.

This week I got to go to Weihnachts Markt (white night market) three times! it is so cute. There are booths up everywhere with wooden toys and yummy sweets, gluwein and lots of Christmas lights. Oh it gives me warm fuzzies inside.

So I got to go with a bunch of my favorite girlies who live in my building and we got chocolate covered strawberries and starbucks (I had a steamer with vanilla, it's a beautiful thing). And we sat in Starbucks for over an hour talking about everything. It was so nice to have some girl time. These girls are all form different places too. Greece, Lebanon, Canada, and London! Quite the crowd.

Wow this week went by sooo fast. And with only two weeks left here in Freiburg I was thinking they would go by slow. I am so excited to go home... but i'm not gonna let my excitement keep me from enjoying christmas time in such a magical place.
This week I got to go to Weihnachts Markt (white night market) three times! it is so cute. There are booths up everywhere with wooden toys and yummy sweets, gluwein and lots of Christmas lights. Oh it gives me warm fuzzies inside.
So I got to go with a bunch of my favorite girlies who live in my building and we got chocolate covered strawberries and starbucks (I had a steamer with vanilla, it's a beautiful thing). And we sat in Starbucks for over an hour talking about everything. It was so nice to have some girl time. These girls are all form different places too. Greece, Lebanon, Canada, and London! Quite the crowd.




Yesterday I spent about three hours shopping in town for some boots, but failed to find the perfect pair... I'll find them sometime (hopefully within the next two weeks). But i did get the warmest fleece sweatshirt EVER! I love it and I got to spend time soaking in the beautiful German holiday joy.
When I got back home some other girls in my building were getting ready to have a pizza night! I have two girl friends who are form Italy and they made us all home made Pizza. It was great and I'm definitely getting the recipe and taking it home with me.
After dinner we headed to a local cafe to celebrate Laura's birthday. There were a ton of us which made the night just awesome and filled with A LOT of beer and vodka.... ya I know. I had a lot of fun with my cocacola and Heise Schokolade:)

So it was a fun week and I hope this next one goes by just as fast.

Two Foggy days and a Sunday in London Town

So three weeks ago I got to go to London and visit one of my best friends Laura Bayles for the weekend. Oh I was soooooooo happy to see her. When she met me at the train station we hugged and I just broke down in tears. I guessed I missed my friends more than I realized.

Laura is living the life, studying with BYU’s London study abroad program. There’s like 50 girls all living in the cutest house right next to Kensington Gardens and Notting Hill. So they live in this house and they also have their classes there as well and the professors live there too so it’s like one big happy family. Oh it felt so good to be around so many cute latter day saint girls again. It’s weird meeting people who you know you could totally be best friends with if you lived with them or something… you know? Well that’s how these girls were, so fun and friendly and normal.

So Laura and I just hit all the sights: Big Ben, Parliament buildings, Peter Pan statue, Covent Gardens, Borough Road, The British Museum, Kensington Palace, and Buckingham Palace (even though we couldn’t go inside). And everything was all sparkly and decorated for Christmas it was magical.

And we got to see TWO musicals.

Friday night we went and saw Jersey Boys.

It was really cute and the music was great… but it had a lot of swearing which was not very tasteful. But we really liked it. All the singers and the band were amazing!! They really know how to put on a good show.

And Saturday night, in honor of Laura’s birthday, we grabbed some yummy dinner with some of the other girls and THEN we went and saw The Phantom of the Opera!!

If you are into musicals, let me tell you that this show is absolutely fantastic! After Kristine got done singing Think of Me, Laura and I were both in tears. Haha it’s so powerful. I can’t believe that I got to see this show in London! And the theater was awesome. It’s was the original Phantom theater, meaning the one the show was opened in. It’s called her Majesty’s theater I think. It was small and cozy and had great sound. All of our singers were wonderful. And I was really surprised because usually there’s one person who’s voice doesn’t fit, or who’s annoying, but every cast member was so talented and perfect. Happy Birthday to Laura!!

Sunday night we had a yummy birthday dinner at Laura’s house and we stayed up all night chatting with Rachel Kiene on Skype and waiting for 5:00 to role around so that I could catch my bus to the train to the airport to my train home.

Thanks again Laura for having me!!! I’ll never forget my first trip to London with my best friend!!

All in one Week!

This is the story of a mother and a daughter having entirely too much fun.
Once upon a time there were these magical trains running all over Europe. These magical trains brought my mom and I together on October 23 to begin a new and mysterious adventure.
Days 1, 2, and 3- Paris, France
Paris was EVERYTHING I had imagined Paris to be. The Eiffel Tower was HUGE and overwhelming. After waiting in line forever to get to the tippy top, we finally did it. I told mom we should climb the stairs but she’s a wimp…jk. Notre Dame was also very overwhelming and gorgeous! Regretfully we didn’t climb to the top when we should have. Next time I guess. I guess we should just let it be said that everything in Paris is hug and overwhelming because the Louvre, the Arch De triomph, the Hotel de Infedeles, the Opera House, and the Sacres Coure, were all Magnificent. Even just walking down the street blew us away. We got there just in time for the fall colors to really start catching fire. All in all Paris rocked. 3 days was clearly not enough time to make even a dent in this massive city.

Days 4, 5, and 6- Berlin, Germany
Monday Morning we headed to Berlin. It took us pretty much all day to get there but we deserved a long relaxing train ride after walking for three days straight. Any way, we got to our hotel and it was way bigger and cheaper than our one in Paris. Paris is just way too expensive all together. Tuesday we went on this crazy cool walking tour all through Berlin and saw a lot of amazing historical sites and memorials. Berlin is like a big collage of really old, kinda old, kind of new, and really new stuff. It’s seen so much destruction but the people are so good at just picking things up again. And there is so much history to Germany. In all of Europe really, but those pour litte german school children have to learn so much I bet, haha. Here are some pictures. We had a lot of fun here and would totally recommend it to any travelers.
Day 7 and 9- Munich, Germany
So we got to Munich safe and sound on Thursday afternoon and were all excited to spend the afternoon at Dachau Concentration camp. This was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazi government. I’m so bad at remembering all the facts, but this place was very solemn and just totally unreal. For those of you who have had the opportunity to visit a camp, you know. There isn’t anything quite like it.
Day 8- Day trip to Salzburg, Austria
Can you guess what we did here in the magical town of Salzburg???? You guessed it- The Sound of Music Tour!!!! My mom will probably tell you that this was her favorite part of the week. And It really was pretty great. This tour took us to a bunch of the films actual locations.
It also took us up through the mountains and lake district. It was kinda cloudy and foggy but like we care. The view was still magnificent. The tour guide even played the music while we were cruising through the country side.
When we got back to the center of town we spent a few hours just wlking around to all the shops in Mozart Platz. Yeah Mozart was born here! We went crazy with all the Christmas stuff that they already have set up. This town is so great. Another great travel destination for anyone going to Austria.
Back to Munich for Day 9
So when we first got to Munich the only things we saw were strip clubs, bars, and casinos… we were like what the heck is this this place???!!!
But our first impression was completely wrong. Saturday I got a hold of my dear friend Melanie, who I met at the YSA conference in Augburg, and her and all my other friends form that conference met us in Munich and took us on a quick walk around town.
Munich is beautiful!!! The gardens are incredible, and the building are really just super duper. I can’t believe we didn’t give ourselves another day there or at least planned to be there longer than the three hours we spent walking around. We owe a big thanks to my friends who showed us around.
Saturday night we traveled to Freiburg!! A funny story.
Mom and I usually just sat in the normal seats where there were a lot of people around, but his time we found and empty room and we made ourselves at home. And we came prepared. The day before we bought some face cards to get our game on. So I start killing Mom in California speed and we are just going at it, screaming, and laughing and obviously NOT paying attention to the outside world. I was winning when a conductor guy walked by our door and opened it and looked at us all weird. Come to find out. We had reached the trains last stop! We were so confused but miraculously a train continuing on to Freiburg was right next to our train. So it was all good. That’s the last time I sit in a compartment.
Home again. Its kinda weird thinking of Freiburg as my home, but it is!! Sunday was pretty chill, we got up and went to church, took a lovely nap, and spent the rest of the day walking around and getting mom packed up to go home.

I could not have asked for a better week. Thank you soooo much Mom for going on this adventure with me!!! P.S. I have the greatest mom ever.
Enjoy the pictures. There’s no order to them at all but at least I got them up right?

Coming Soon

So I Just got back from an amazing week with my mom, traveling all over. And I have a lot of pictures I want to put up so I have to figure out how to do a lot of pictures at once. You might just have to look on my face book at them. So yeah. Hope fully I can figure it out soon.

Day Trip to France

Here are few picture from my day trip to Strasbourg, France. We had a really fun time, despite the ever changing weather. We got to go on a boat trip around the city, had an amazing lunch in a cool french restaurant, and we went inside the Münster Cathedral and climbed the münster tower after. I was pretty cold the whole time but climbing the tower warmed me up a bit. Since we were only there for half a day really, I didn't get to fully experience any French culture, but me and Mom will be going to Paris this week so we'll see how that goes. Enjoy the pictures and have a wonderful week!

We started out low













And we were lifted up! cool huh? We had to be raised 4 meters in order to continue down the river.






Scary, giant Geese...





Coolest pulpit ever! I think we need one of these in the Val Vista ward...