Everyone is Always Eating Baguettes Here

We've made it to Paris. It's our last leg of the trip and I am having a very difficult time believing that it is almost time to get home! I am excited to come home to see everyone but I am loving traveling and non-stop time with husband is pretty excellent as well.
We have 8 days here in this romantic city, so we got to have a full day of just exploring the city. We saw the Eiffel Tower, which did not disappoint. It is enormous!!! We are going to go back later this week so we can see it at night!
This church, Sacre Coer, is built on the tallest part of Paris, on a hill called Montemarte and has some of the best views of the city anywhere. Sadly, we went there on a cloudy/rainy day, but it was still amazing. The church is made of gypsum, so it just gets whiter with age. I thought it was sweet!
We climbed over 300 claustrophobic stairs to reach the top of the dome. Eric wasn't even breaking a sweat.
The top of the dome served up 360 degrees of amazing views. You could see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.
We got bored of just standing at the top of the dome, so we decided to go for a little flight. It was breezy.
Paris is a city full of chimneys. It seems like every building has at least a hundred chimneys on top.
We also got to pay the Louvre a visit. It is massive, the biggest museum in the world! We didn't accomplish the whole museum (only about a third of it) but we were in there forever and saw a ton of amazing art.
I was pretty impressed by the giant pyramid.
Yep, we saw Mona...and she's no model or anything, but it was still cool to see.
The crowd around Mona was way more fun to watch. I don't understand why there are constantly hoards of people surrounding Mona taking pictures? Eric and I got a spot to view her at the very front and just stayed there for 4-5 minutes (listening to our dorky audio guides). We got a few dirty looks, but hey...it's MONA!
This was my favorite thing at the Louvre...Winged Victory. The things they can accomplish with stone is sweet!
We had a fun-filled ART day and loved every minute. We went to D'Orsay museum too...it was full of Dega, Monet and Van Gogh. I fell so sophisticated...ooooh la la! ...Katie

My wonderful return to Chamonix

We finally made it to Chamonix. I have been looking forward to this our entire trip. I have actually been looking forward to coming back here since I came in highschool with Mr. Donahue and my Mom and Aunt. It is one of my top 3 favorite places on the planet. Our trip this time was a lot less sunny than our planet. We didn't pack to well for this leg of our journey. We kind of thought that by May everything would be nice and warm in Europe so we didn't worry about packing heavy sweatshirts or heavy jackets. Well we got a very cold surprise when we arrived in Chamonix and it was snowing. Knowing that we would freeze, we decided that we had to go up to the top of Mt. Blanc anyways. There were people at the top wearing full on winter coats.

I love to eat snow. I was more than happy to take a huge bite out of the side of the mountain.

This was a tunnel they had to build down one of the walkways because there was too much snow to just plow it out of the way.
The view looking straight down the side of the mountain off the deck we were standing on. Just sharp cliffs and then you disappear into the abyss.

We also made our way back over to Mer De Glace. It is a beautiful glacier that snakes its way down the mountain. Every year they carve tunnels into it and make a kind of museum of ice sculptures in it. It is pretty cool because they have to make a new one every year due to how much it moves
The S curveKatie enjoying the view
This shows all of the holes from previous years

Mer De Glace from Eric White on Vimeo.

....Eric

Chamonix - Mont Blanc

We are in Chamonix, France at the moment...one of Eric's favorite places in the world! It has been raining off and on the whole time we've been here, but every now and then we get an amazing view of these impressive mountains! Chamonix sits in a little valley and is surrounded on all sides by these crazy, jagged mountains. Right now, there is still a lot of snow and people are still skiing and snowboarding. We are very jealous!
Eric and I had a quick snack in the streets of Chamonix. I had a delicious over-priced mini cake and coffee.
This is on the tram ride up to Mont Blanc! We were headed right into the cloud.
This is what we came up on when we reached the top of the tram! Mont Blanc in all it's glory. It is the tallest peak in France and was stunning. The clouds played tricks on us, but we got to see the face 3 times. Mont Blanc is 15,780 feet tall and makes you feel so tiny.
These are some of the skiiers and snowboarders. Right now, there is only technical riding left and they have to deal with avalanches and slides all the time. They seemed so hard core, they were all wearing harnesses with shovels and beacons...I'm a little too scared to do that!
It's funny to think that 2 months ago, we were dying in over 100 degree heat and now we are dealing with snow and we're freezing. Mont Blanc was incredible. I will never forget it or the feeling I got when the clouds opened up to this amazing mountain face. We have a lot more pics and will be posting them soon. ...Katie

More Fun in Munich...Can't Get Enough!

We had such an amazing time hanging with our friends in Munich, I thought I'd put up a few more pictures. It was so fun hanging out with locals who could show us around town! Anna and Diar are the best hosts in the world!!! Love you guys!!! We had a couple dinner picnics in their apartment...this one is complete with wine, fruit salad and french toast.
Anna and Diar thought it was necessary to show us to a real Bavarian dinner! We had schnitzel and raedler (beer mixed with sprite). It was delicious...I'm thinking about becoming Bavarian.
Just wandering around Freising, Germany (where Anna is from)! It was such a cute town.
Anna and Diar being the best tour guides in the world. They knew everything about Germany...not really, but they made everything sound amazing! We love you guys and we miss you a ton...come visit soon!...Katie

FINALLY THE UPENDO KIDS VIDEO!!!!

So Vimeo finally let me upload the video I made for the kids at Upendo in its full quality. Here it is. I hope you enjoy it. I do.

Untitled from Eric White on Vimeo.

Friends in Munich!!

We have been in Munich for the past week visiting our friends we met in Thailand only two months ago. We have had so much fun Anna and Diar. They have really been showing us how to be true Germans!

They were showing us around this huge park in the middle of the city when all of a sudden we found some people surfing. Check the video below it explains it a little bit. It was really cool to see a bit of a culture I understand for the first time in almost 3 months.

Surfing in Munich? from Eric White on Vimeo.

The girl on my right was Lucia. She is Anna's best friend and joined in with our tour around Munich.

Part of the tour of Germany was getting to know their culture. They were so proud of their beer. Germans love beer all of the time. They were so excited to show us what their beer was like.This was on our first day in Munich. We went out for lunch at about 11:45. It was already going crazy!! It was super fun.

Crazy Germans from Eric White on Vimeo.

Katie and I had not eaten sushi in almost 3 months so we went on a hunt and found a really cool Sushi restaurant in downtown Munich. (Finding one we could afford was the only hard part) This is a short edit of the action that took place there.

Sushi Time in Munich, Germany from Eric White on Vimeo.

One day we took a little field trip to the first ever German concentration camp called Dachau. This was such a wild ride of emotions.
A view from inside one of the Berrics where they would cram over 2000 people into a room meant to fit 200

This is the beds they would sleep on inside these berrics.
A small candle burns in a church set up as a memorial inside the walls of the camp.

This is the smoke stack for the crematorium where thousands of people lost their lives.
Below is where they would shove the bodies of "prisoners" into the burning furnace. In the last few weeks before the liberation they ran out of coal so the bodies of the dead were thrown into mass graves just outside the camp. There were over 7,500 bodies found in this mass grave, which was only one of many.
A memorial set up for everyone who lost their lives here from 1933-1945

This was one of the strangest days of my life. The mix of emotions that I felt was almost overwhelming. Actually walking through the places where terrible acts of torture and other unspeakable evils gave me a way different feeling about the second great war than I have ever felt before. Definitely a day I will never forget.

Sorry this is such a long post. There was just so much that has happened in the last week. It is nice to finally be caught up!!

Venezia - The floating/sinking city

We spent a couple days getting lost in Venice. I usually get pretty frustrated when we get lost all the time in a city, but in Venice, getting lost was a blast. First of all, you can't leave Venice if you get lost...you'll always run into water. Secondly, the coolest alleys and best gelato shops are off the main tracks! We had a great time and were so impressed by the people we met and their hospitality and friendliness. This is from the famous Rialto Bridge at night (one of Eric's famous time-lapses).
I loved being in Venice at night. In Saint Mark's square there are about 4 different dueling orchestras that play all night. They are supposed to be for the restaurant customers, but they play outside so everyone in the square can listen and enjoy. You can just dance from orchestra to orchestra. The way the square is lit up and all the music made for a few romantic, Venician evenings. I got Eric to even dance with me a couple times...magic!
The canals are so cute. They look like flooded roads...it was so strange to us! We loved just watching all the gondolas floating by.
Who decided that it would be a good idea to build a ton of massive buildings on a bunch of tiny, sinking islands? Personally, I think that sounds a bit stupid...but it makes for a beautiful city!
Just some Venician lovin...
It's so strange how the buildings just stop at the water. There aren't sidewalks or anything...you just wake up, step out onto your boat and then float off to work. Crazy.
One of the best parts of Venice was the people we met. We met the coolest family from South Africa... Lissele, Laurette and Andre. They were awesome and we had an amazing day together. Andre and Laurette made a delicious fish dinner and Lissele and I did a great job of chatting and drinking wine. We hope to visit them in Johannesburg in the future! Thanks for a great time friends!!!
The market in Venice was amazing! So colorful and full of energy!
The fish market here reminded me of the Pike's Street market in Seattle. Everyone was throwing fish around and it was so loud. They were selling heaps of octopus and sting rays. We got to try some red fish and shrimp...delicious!
That's one big fish!

Venice Fish market. Daily Blog from Eric White on Vimeo.

The candies and sweets in Venice were humongous and SO tempting!!! They were just a little out of our price range...3 euros = disgusting. I did my share of window shopping though! ...Katie