Jenuary

So after the new year we settled back into school and montbeliard. Travelling was put on hold because we were totally out of cash money. Although we did get to take one magical trip to spare oom where we constructed a pretty sweet fort to watch scary movies in. So that was a pretty wild saturday night! I've heard that forts are even being constructed in Saint Johns in honour of this fort! Beccys bf, Marcus, was up for another week for her birthday. We took advantage of this learning opportunity as well to learn some dirty words in german. For Beccy's birthday we decorated the apartment and even constructed a pinata for another wild evening. And the month isn't even over yet people!


Last weekend we got to go to Biel Bienne Switzerland for a little skiing and a lot of chocolate! We were off to a bit of a rough start when little Mhairi forgot her passport but we all made it within a few hours. we had to take 3 different trains although we were only about 2 hours away. So we got to do a little exploring on our stopovers. we checked out a fancy beer store that had a lot of canadian beer and even some Simpsons style 'Duff' beer. I even bought a legit swiss army knife! We got a few different kinds of chocolate bars to try and headed out to our hostel. we took a cab and were expecting to go up to this cute little wooden cabin in the hills, but we turned into an industrial park and that was the end of the line. The people in town spoke a mix of french, german and english so communication was sometimes a bit of an issue, until we decided on a language (we're pretty pro at the german now....) we were a little late to do any skiing so we decided to climb up some mountains. We took this cool lift right up a mountain, it was almost like a rollercoaster but just going up! it was pretty impressive so we were standing ona bench to get a view of the city and when we got to the top we got a pretty good scolding for that! the man working there yelled at us for getting the bench 'dirty' then made us wipe it off with our hands! anyway after we got rid of that little jerk we continued our snowy walk up the mountain. we got a really cool view of the city at night and made our way up to a little restaurant called 'fin du monde' which was basically a woman's kitchen, she even came out to shake everyones hand. we had the best hot chocolate ever and then another round! When we got back we found out that our hostel had its own brewery so we had to try that out too. all part of the experience.


The next morning we set out to do some skiing! We took a 50 min train ride through the mountains then took a bus up the hill on a winding road. it was pretty exciting! the ski hill has an elevation of 1500m. look out Brookvale. so we got fitted for some rental skis then I decided the girls were good to go. Mhairi and Rachel had never been before and in hindsight, the could have used a little more practice...so i got on the lift then they went behind me, for about 5 seconds then they were on the ground. the got on again and fell off pretty close to the top so that's where our descent began. well by the time we got to the bottom of the hill again, let's just say that it was over TWO hours later! Rachel was beat and headed into the lodge, Mhairi went down one more time and banged up her shoulder. so i went down a few more times then we headed into the lodge for some much needed hot chocolate. That night and the next morning we did some touring around town and found out that CO-OPs are all the rage in switzerland! ahh and we had the best breakfast ever was of this braided loaf of warm bread and 'heidi' brand chocolate milk!


As you know, we have developed a certain fondess for crepes, so to save a little chedda and have a little fun, we decided to make some of our own. Well, we had some wine while one of our students cooked them for us. However, we soon caught on and were flipping them all over the place. We had quite a spread and I think we may have a new tradition for tuesday, seeing as how Wine Tuesday didn't work out for us!

i'll add some extra pictures in the link on the side.

also grace and monica! how does thai wedding cake compare to confed center wedding cake?

Gay Paris

So from Berlin we took the night train into Paris. Not a big deal? It was definitely more of an adventure than we had imagined! We were in this little room that had 6 seats, like 3 facing 3 with about a foot in between. We were ok because it was only us two and this little boring Indian guy but things changed when we met Mr. Mongolia. He was actually humongous and came into our little car huffing and puffing, with a ton of luggage, when he finally got settled (half on Mary Elizabeth) he offered around some beers, so he was ok. The Indian man kept trying to make conversation with him but there was a definite languate barrier so he kept asking us for french words and we were very into watching 'Hair" at that point. So once we picked up two more girls things were much less comfortable, but Mr. Mongolia knew what was up so he just threw his coat over his face and started snoring (and moaning) away.


So we got into Paris about 9 in the morning and found out hotel, which was near Montmartre. So we couldn't check in until 3 so we set off to see some sights. So the metro was really great for getting around and we really took it a lot that first day. We went to see Cimetiere Pere Lachaise, which is an enormous graveyard where people like Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison are burried. Then we stopped off at "Les Halles" for some shopping and sight seeing. Katie had this girl come up to her with a clipboard to make a donation for some sort of hard of hearing foundation. Then like two more girls swooped down on Mary Elizabeth and they were just pointing to the sheet and acting like they were deaf. So anyway we didn't give them anything then we noticed that they were everywhere! they were even talking to each other (if you can imagine). So Mary Elizabeth tried to trick them by yelling that she'd give them money, but they didn't fall for it, little jerks... so then we took the subway looking for Notre Dame. We ended up walking along the Seine river just checking out some shops and stuff. It was like Paris from a movie. perfect. So we went back to check into the hotel and prepare a little balloon surprise for Mhairi's birthday because she was arriving that night from Scotland.


The next day we set out on a walking tour. Our tour guide Colin, or we call him Col, was pretty entertaining and even did some re enactments during the tour. impressive stuff. So we basically saw all the touristly highlights; Notre Dame, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomph, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and much more. The tour was much better than just going on our own because we learned a lot of interesting tidbits. After the tour we headed over to The Moose, the canadian bar and we had some pricey poutine and moosehead. It was kind of a dive but alright because they had like strong man competitions on the tv! So that night we went on a pubcrawl that the walking tour people put on. So we started off in the Latin Quarter, which is mainly students. So we got to go to an Irish pub, salsa club (which had some sketchy guys in it, if you can imagine) and then we all took the metro to this actually fancy club and we got ushered right to the basement! haha but that was the best part of the night because we really bonded on the metro with all our new Australian friends so we just danced the night away. And we certainly learned some fancy french dance moves too!


The next morning, well afternoon we went up to Monmartre to see Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rouge. It was such a busy area! There were guys in the street doing that whole 'which cup is it under gag' and the streets were like creperie, sex shop, creperie, sex shop! So going up to Sacre Coeur we were like swarmed once again by as they called themselves 'artists of sacre coeur' and they wanted to see us some string...well katie got caught up and they ended up making a bracelet for her for the low low price of 5 euros. what a steal. We went back to the louvre but the line was extra long so he got a crepe and headed back to the hotel. In the evening we headed into the eiffel tower to check it out at night! It was pretty amazing! There were really aggressive people trying to get us to buy little eiffel tower keychains and even those glasses with the mustache attached (tempting...) So we waited in line to take the lift up the tower. It was raining and freezing but still so exciting! We got an awesome view of the city of lights and we even got to watch the light show while we were on the tower! The highlight of the night was yet to come! Taking the metro home katie met a new man! She really got to know him...


On the 31st we had to move hotels and Katie headed back to Montbeliard. Our hotel room was so cute, even though we didn't have a bathroom or shower! but we were out on a balcony and one of those doors where you can opeh just the top! So Mhairi and I spent most of the day in the Louvre. There were so many people! We caught ourselves just people watching, it was crazy! The people in line to take a picture of th mona lisa was out of control! So we also went to check out the inside of Notre Dame. The line was actually crazy so we casually walked almost to the front and got in line with some Asian tourists who were really into picture taking. We were lucky because a man and woman butted right after us and they got booed! So we headed back to our little room to get ready for new years! We need to get a travel corkscrew! We ended up with wine that was packaged like juice boxes, you can imagine how delicious that was and we still had some german champagne. So we went back to the Latin Quarter to the Irish pub and then we were either going to go to the eiffel tower or back to Montmartre. So we made some friends (australian of course) in the pub and we all headed down to Champs Elysees where we had a view of the Eiffel Tower at midnight. It was such a hilarious night! One of our french friends even took us to his kebab shop and they guy behind the counter gave us free pop! We met a lot of crazy people, one in particular is a guy that followed us off the subway (that should have been the first hint eh?) but he is in love with mhairi! After Champs Elysees we went back to the pub and he couldn't get in with his badditude so he waited outside for Mhairi calling her constantly. So when it was finally time to leave Mhairi had to disguise herself in my coat and luckily for her i also had a pink beret! so we walked around town for a bit looking for a falafel then a cab and when neither could be found we got some 6 euro tea and water! then we realized that the metro was starting up again so we raced back to the hotel got our bags and ran to the train station and made it for our 7:11am train back to Montbeliard. Then we promptly fell asleep. And then we woke up to 48 missed calls from Mhairi's #1 fan! So Paris was a huge success!

Berliner Kindl

Hallo!

Sorry it's been awhile but we were too busy exploring Europe...A tough life. As soon as we were done school before the break Sabrina, the German Assistant at Katie's school, and her boyfriend, Phillip, picked us up and we were off to Allemagne (Germany). The car ride to Freibourg was entertaining to say the least. Philip speaks pretty good English and was listening to some sweet tunes. We were exposed to some German rap but also we heard a lot of English rap, well mostly Ice Cube..."Hello, i started this gangsta sh**..." and then he politely asked if he could "pump up the volume", it was a bumpin trip... all we needed were some shocks for the tires Holla!
We stayed the night at Sabrina's house in Freibourg because the full trip to Berlin would be a 9 hour drive. So that night we explored the town and went to the Christmas market, yes there are Christmas markets everywhere in Europe! It was really romantical. We went on a swan/swing ride ( like the swings at Crystal Palace) where we were both covered up with a nice velvet blanket and then we both tried our first German Sausage... YUM! We headed back to Sabrina's (who was really sick so she went straight to bed) and got some sleep for our long journey to Berlin the next morning.
The trip to Berlin was reallllllllyyyy long and by the end of it we knew all the lyrics to all ice cube songs! We met Billy, Mary Elizabeth's cousin at the S-bahn (subway) and he took us to his humble abode to see his kids (Lily and Liam) and wife (Monica). We didn't actually stay at his house seeing as Monica's parents were staying there. We stayed a few blocks away at their friend's house Tamara.
Mary E and I shared the guest room and a bed, well a mattress. The bed frame broke literally 3 times the first night there. So the next night we just pulled the mattress onto the floor and in the morning before Tamara could see we put the mattress back on the bed. It was quite a process every morning.
The first few days we spent exploring the city. Berlin is huge and the transportation there is awesome. It would have been really confusing if it wasn't for Billy and his sweet google maps. He did a lot of cutting and glueing for us, it was much appreciated. Anyways we made our way to Check point Charlie, Brandenbuger Tor, the German Parliament, Sony Centre and the Jewish holocaust memorial. It was a really long day but pretty entertaining. We saw some interesting fashions and al there was this one lady who was asking everyone for money! It was sooo frusterating because she must have asked up 100 000 000 000 0001 times if we spoke English and everytime we acted as though we didn't, get the point lady!
In germany they celebrate Christmas morning Christmas Eve. So we helped Lily decorate the tree before we all sat down to a big dinner, of Fish and veggies but as we all know Katie has small allergy to fish, and so she had BBQed Pork Chops. It was a long supper because right in the middle they stopped and opened presents. Lily went with Billy to deliver presents and when she came back there were all these presents under the tree for her. She was so excited. She opened all the presents and the present from us was opened first. Before she even knew what it was she claimed it to be "What I've always wanted". It was really cute! Also Billy and Monica gave us a little souvenir from Berlin, two bags. Also Mary Elizabeth was pumped for her little package from home. So she was opening it and she pulled out a bib for Liam, a puppet for Lilly, Christmas napkins for the Billy and finally a travel sized scrabble game for Mary Elizabeth (she's not a fan of regular scrabble) It's what she's always wanted!!
So on Christmas day we headed back over to billy's for yummy Christmas dinner. Monica's parents are Romanian so we didn't really have a traditional german christmas meal, but a romanian one. We had Duck, bread ball-thingy's and red cabbage. Katie was not a fan of the duck, but she did try it. Also she couldn't handle the cabbage... so somehow it ended up on the napkin beside her... unfortunatley Katie then had to go to the Bathroom. Then Christmas night we headed into town and saw the movie Avatar in 3D.
The next night we went to a BURLESQUE SHOW. It was really classy, when we got there they had a guy taking pictures like a paparrazzi and then he sold the pictures at intermission. It has to be said that Mary Elizabeth fit right in at the Burlesque show because she ordered a vermouth on the rocks... like a classy old man. Then we went to a club called 40 seconds. It was ont eh 6th flook of a building and had a balcony for the smokers that looked over the entire city. It was really classy.
The next day Billy took us on a tour of the City. He took us to see part of the old Berlin Wall which was pretty neat and he also took us to a quaint little cafe where we had waffles and hot chocolate. The cafe had really old furniture that didn't really match but gave the place character. He also took us to the Ghetto part of Berlin. We wouldn't have been able to see this much of Berlin without him! Although he really wants us to come back in the summer because there's a lot more to do in the summertime.

Main points of Berlin:

• Buddy Bears! They are everywhere. They are these big bears all over the city. There was an exhibition of Buddy Bears a few years ago. There's a bear that represents every country and they are suppose to represent the togetherness of the world. Anyways they were suppsose to only be around for a the exhibition but they decided to keep them up!
• Berliner Kindle. This is a beer that is popular in Berlin. It's basically beer with syrup in it, you can either get raspberry syrup or some sort of green syrup. It's not too shabby.
• Laundry. At Tamara's we asked to do some laundry and she had no problem with it. She doesn't have a ryer which was sort of a bummer because we haven't had the luxury of a dryer in forever... but anyways we were excited about the washing machine, our clothes would actually feel clean... well the washing machine took 2 whole hours!!!! Man, we couldn't believe it!
• Caroline. She's Tamara's little girl and she is adorable. She doesn't speak English so when we were babysitting we just kinda made faces at her and chased her around. And the one time Katie sat on her was awkward because she cried. But she was quickly forgiven.
• Liam and Lily, Billy's kids! Liam is only 3 months but adorable! He loved Mary Elizabeth because he fell right asleep in her arms! And Lily, it took her awhile to arm up to us but she is so sweet. She loved playing Mary And Joseph after going to church and seeing the skit put on by the kids Christmas Eve. She would come up to us asking if there was any room for her because she has a baby on the way! Really funny!

That was our trip to Berlin in a nutshell! It is an amazing city but we had to make our way to La Paris! TCHUSS