New Years in Berlin (day 5)

So and update from this morning, we did fall asleep in those little cots the maid had made for us for a good 5 hours. When we woke up at 9 we were ready to go out and start our day to explore Berlin. Right as we were getting our stuff together the maid came to tell us they had a room ready for us (perfect timing once again). We went to get our keys and luggage we had left behind the desk to go to our room. Once again our room just amazes me, because we booked them so long ago we forgot what they looked like! So, this is our room in Berlin. 

Huge wall to wall ceiling to floor window and a huge room all together (even though you can't tell In the photo)  and the bathroom is really nice too but all the white tiles remind me of a scene from saw, scary. 

But after we got settled we headed to the start of our free walking tour. It was a mad house and it was freezing and me and Kody talked about just going to do our own thing, but decided to stay and I'm so happy we did. The tour was amazing and we got to learn a ton of history about berlin right where it happened. These are some of the photos we have from the day.

(Where our tour started the Brandenburg gate)

(The memorial to the murdered Jews)

(The left over of the Berlin Wall, excuse my hat it's kodys and it fits me like a smurfs hat)

There was a ton of other things we learned on the tour, but my camera died so we didn't get them on camera. But after the tour we walked back to our hotel, and saw a man get pickpocketed by a women. Then we watched another local grab her by her collar and basically take her to the ground and drag her to the guy who she stole the wallet from. There was yelling in German, looks of confusion and all madness breaking out. It was crazy. But after that we freshened up had an early dinner! And Kody had some authentic German sausage, and potato salad...I got a cheese burger :) dinner was great...also the most we had spent on a meal our whole trip...soooo. After that we wondered around to get to the gate for New Years (basically their time square) 

It was beautiful  and there were so many people they reached capacity at like 3 pm forget that. So we just wondered around for a while and just enjoyed everyone around us and had a few beers. (You can walk with your drinks and they are sold on the sidewalks!) and then midnight happened....I have never seen something so crazy in my life! We videoed it, but I can't post videos on the blog!!! Well we have an early morning to go on a nazi Berlin tour, So happy new year from the future!!

Love,

Jo and Ko

Day 4 (Amsterdam and trains)

I love amsterdam! It's so pretty and it's weird it's like a city where everyone walks  and there's trams and subways, but it has a very small town feel! We slept in this morning just to catch up on some sleep and then headed out to explore. The canals that circle around amsterdam are so pretty , but I was upset they weren't frozen for us to ice skate on...but still pretty!

My dad would be ashamed, but we were not prepared for our day in amsterdam. We headed to the Anne frank house and didn't buy tickets online so the line was crazy long!! So we just took pictures with it :) 

(It's the one right above Kody's head)

After that we went to Dam square and took some cool pictures, saw an awesome church and a gladiator ha. Then we walked down where all the flower markets were and it was so pretty! I also found a Burger King....it was delicious and I was hungry. After that we headed for the Van Gogh museum, where we found the famous I amsterdam sign! 

And of course a crazy long line to the museum...so we just took pictures in front of it. But then the most exciting thing happened! We found an ice rink by this really cool park for kids! It was so pretty. I ice skated by myself though because Kody didn't want both of us to some how fall down and be really hurt...

So that was a 45 minute adventure. Then we headed to our b&b to get our luggage. The restaurant downstairs wasn't open yet but they let us relax there anyway since it had started to rain and we had no where to go! Then they served us amazing pizza! I highly recommend the la festa b&b to anyone who goes to amsterdam! We then made our way to the train station just to be prepared! And this train station was even crazier than the one in paris, with no departure board. There was just signs outside each platform that changed whenever they want and you just walked around till you saw yours. Which they didn't pop up till about 10 minutes before your train left.  Scary, but me and Kody played speed for a good hour to kill time.  but then we started a new adventure, our train ride....so for starters this was our room.

Basically our train room had 6 beds and there were only 5 of us so we left one of the middle beds folded down so it like made a couch on one side because you couldn't really sit up on your bed.(the thing that I'm sitting on in the picture). Everyone on the train was young and the three guys in our room were two from Brazil backpacking and another from Philippians also backpacking. We talked for like 1.5 hours and were laughing about stuff and then all fell asleep. I obviously had the most room on my bed :)....Kody not so much

Now this train had multiple stops on the way and we had locked our door. Then we woke up to someone like yanking on the door and it was this like creepy looking old guy who didn't speak English so we had to fold his bed up and give him all the crap. And I just rolled over cause he scared me lol. So then in this tiny room he gets naked and has his junk in kodys face and changes to pajamas and he was just so weird and creepy idk so i couldn't sleep well after that lol. After feeling like this creepy guy was staring at me for 1 hour I finally was able to role over and fall sleep. Our train arrived in Berlin at 4:20am. We wondered around for a good 30 minutes, and finally found a taxi. We took the taxi to our hotel and of course our rooms not ready at 5:30 in the morning so they let us chill in the lobby. Then we made ourselves at home in the middle of the lobby and I don't think they liked that. So the maid made us little beds in the hot tub room down stairs so we could nap untilt he first room was available...so this currently is us...

Nighty night!

Jo & Ko 

Our day in Amsterdam

This is the last time we will have internet till we get to our hotel tomorrow in Berlin. And we won't have it till the night time. So don't be alarmed if you don't hear from us tonight! We're off to rent some bikes and ride around Amsterdam, to see  the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank house and then the canals of jordaan. Our train leaves Amsterdam at 7:00pm so noon y'all's time! It's our first train where we are in a cabin with three stacked bunk beds on both walls...this will be interesting! 

Jo and Ko 

Last day in paris

So today was not exactly successful well actually I wouldn't say unsuccessful.  We got up really early to make it to the Eiffel Tower before it opened to beat the crowd. That was a joke we got there at 9:20 and didn't go up the tower till 12:30. We were already late for our check out but our hotel said we could check out at 1. Well when we got to the second floor, with just enough time to take in the view and take a few photos, and we were out! 

Well on our way to the exit it was a huge line to take the elevator down, so we took the stairs....679 steps later we got to the bottom. It was now 1:05 and we had to run to the metro...and of course we missed it. Waited for the next one and got to our hotel and they were totally cool with us being late thank goodness. So we headed up stairs packed our bags and then took our luggage to the holding room. We then headed to the lovers lock bridge. And it was so amazing, I'm happy I got to do this with Kody :) 

I can't wait to get to come back one day and find our lock. After that we had a fun ride back to our hotel where we got all of our luggage to head to the train station! When we got there we couldn't have been more confused ever...their down arrows mean straight and the diagonal ones mean up the stairs? Well we finally got to the floor we needed to get to and watched one of those old timy departure boards flip till about 20 minutes before our train left we got to find our platform! But we so underestimated how far down the platform we needed to go! We walked all the way to our first class seats (yes we could afford 1st class for this one train, it was fantastic!) we had these comfy comfy seats 

And got free wifi :)...we also got dinner but I'm not quite sure what it was so maybe you can figure it out....

But we did manage to get two free cokes each on the train so that was a plus! Well three hours and a nap later we arrived in amsterdam! We didn't really know where to go and there were a ton of people trying to get on the same tram as us and it was so confusing. But, after getting off walking two blocks in the wrong direction and then 4 blocks in the right direction we got to our little bed and breakfast. I freaking love it! The guy was super nice and actually upgraded us to a studio. 

After getting to our room we headed out to the red light district to see amsterdam, while trying not get run over by a bike! We walked all around and found a place to eat! Got some drinks and I had some tomato soup that was really good...

And don't be fooled by what's on kody's plate! It's a giant pancake stuffes with bacon and eggs...but don't get too excited like I did, by bacon they mean ham. Serious let down :( oh well 

And now after we ate dinner we headed back to our room to get some rest and watch teen nice....IN ENGLISH :)!!

Sleep tight!

Jo & Ko 

Paris day two.

Today was kind of crazy. After calling it a night early last night we woke up at 8 and got ready and headed to the palace of Versailles! It was about 45 minutes out there but we got there at the perfect time, there was so huge crowd and no big line! 

We walked around the palace taking a crazy about of photos for about an hour and a half...it's so huge it's amazing! After exploring the palace we decided to go to the royal gardens out back. They're so huge and we wanted to have a good amount of time back in the city so we decided to rent a golf cart to explore the grounds! It was so much easier! See happy.....

Toward the end of our adventure around the gardens and the secret place the king had built for his mistress we decided to get out and take a picture at the huge pond...that's when we realized we ran over a paice of glass somewhere and were losing air big time in our tire. We took it back and they said it was fine so we hurry and left!! BUT on our way out we got a coupon for two Big Macs a drink and fry for 8 euros...and the mc Donald's was right by the train entrance so we got a lovely mc Donald's burger and ate it on the way back to paris! Once we got back to paris we checked out Norte dame and the line was HUGE so...Kody cut...but it's okay there were so many people they didn't notice. We got in and got to walk around the whole downstairs and it was amazing!! After that we wanted to go back to the hotel to get a book that told us everything our paris pass had to offer this is when me and kody almost lost each other for the first time. I had swiped my metro card and was running for the train that was there and about to leave when I realized Kody couldn't get it. I ran back and he finally got in and told me to get on the train I jumped on and he jumped right on behind me with his backpack almost getting stuck in the door...it was a close one!!

After that we decided we needed to go the napoleons tomb and the arc de triomph while are passes were still good! We got to see the tomb right before it closed and before it got I to dark. It's still just as amazingly huge as I remember it from 3 years ago...or as kody likes to put it "you could totally fit a king bed in that thing". But then we moved on and  headed back to the Eiffel Tower and watched its light show. It was so sparkly (not that you can tell in they picture.) 

But then it was off to the arc de triomph!! After walking up and amazing 250 steps we got to the top!

It had become totally dark now and the city looked so beautiful!! Everything all lit up cars everywhere and all the streets leading to the one building we were now standings on top of...250 stairs worth it!

We then had two more things on our list before we called it a night...the Mercedes Benz store where Kody got to see a ton of cool race cars...

And then to the Louis Vuitton store :) it was so pretty and I couldn't touch a thing! Oh well fun to look at! Well then on our way back to the hotel all the little places around us were closed so we had a great dinner at subway across the street:)

Now back in bed and tonight's shows....the Simpsons, and law and order in french :) 

Nighty night!

Jo and ko

Paris day one.

So today was interesting....we landed in Chicago (where it was icy and we got a little squilly when we landed...scary) at 5:00 and had time to get off the plane grab some pretzels and board our next plane! The ride to paris was good but super crammed, definitely upgrading to business class on the way back (two recliner seats together with your own comforter and a 20inch tv). That landing was also scary, apparently not scary enought to wake me up, but landing in 30mph wind didn't sound like it would be fun! After finally getting a ride from the airport we got to our hotel and were lucky to be able to check into a room at 11! We freshened up and headed out to get our paris pass. Since our paris pass included a metro card we didn't want to pay for another to get us to where we needed to get our paris pass, so we decided to walk.  Huge mistake. With a city not being in a grid, and my iPhone not saying you are here was hard :/ took us like 30minutes...and let's be honest it was kody who got us there! When we got there we found out the closest bus stop for the hop on and off tour was at the louvre. So after another 20 minute walk we got there and decided to see the louvre today! 

It was a two hour adventure of getting lost in the sculpture section, being let down by how small the Mona Lisa was, and finding paintings that would probably take up the whole outside wall of my house ( and the people in the painting were bigger than me....well that's not saying much, they were bigger than your average person!!) But, we had a ton of fun and killed our feet all at the same time! We headed to the hop on and off tour, sat on top of the bus and just rode around paris, taking in the beauty of everything....included the 4 story Louis Vuitton that I was not able to go in....today :). We saw the arc de triomph, and the Eiffel Tower, but won't be going to the top of either of those till the next couple of days! After that we decided we were too tired to go on and had a full day ahead of us tomorrow! So we sat down at this small pizza place had dinner and headed back to the hotel! Now I'm cuddled up in bed ready to get a real full night sleep and watch shrek 3....in French. 

More to come tomorrow! Sleep tight, 

Jo and Ko 

Airport security!

Well we made it through security! And now are sooo early for our flight! Whoops! Better safe than sorry! And eating subway (a great last American meal 😳)  :) t-minus 2 hours till we fly to Chicago! We leave Chicago at 5 and will arrive in Paris at 2 am Houston time and 9 Paris time!! We will keep you undated!!! 

Xoxo

Jo, and Ko