Venice

Ah, what a beautiful city. St. Marcs square is breathless; however, the pigeons will attack. We visited the palace, walked the streets and shopped, and we took a boat cruise to three islands: Morano, Burano, and Tercello. Morano is of course known for their glass, Burano has a population of 20, and Tercello is known for their colorful buidings and lace. The excursion was well worth it.

At night, Venice is much quieter and the lights make the city glow. We had an italian dinner, followed by a gondola ride with friends as we listened to our driver sing to us in italian.

Lucern

Weather still not in our favor, we still managed to enjoy what the city had to offer. We took a boat cruise to the bottom of Mt. Pilatus and visited the top of the mountain. The view was cloudy at first but luckily cleared up in time for us to capture the beautiful view of the other mountains and hillsides. The cable car ride down was cool because it was another great view and we could hear the cow bells from below. The city gave us a great chance to do some shopping and relax.

Heidelberg

After a long transfer day on the bus, we arrived in Heidelberg to catch the great view of the city from the castle. We walked and shopped some around the university plaza. Our hotel was 8 miles away and definately gave us a German country feel.

Brussels and Amsterdam

On our way by coach to Amsterdam we stopped in Brussels for a few hours. We saw the famous statue of a little boy taking a wee and ate the most amazying Belgin waffels with strawberries, bananas, and whip cream!

While in Amsterdam we toured the city by canals which was beautiful! We saw the most narrow house in the world, onlý two and a half meters wide!! The most meaningful part of the time spent in Amsterdam was spent at the Anne Frank House, the annex. It was powerful and moving walking through the house and reliving the histry behind the hollocaust and Anne Frank in particular. We were also able to tour a diamond factory and get a lesson in diamond quality and price; colour, cut, clarity, and carot....everything a girl needs to know!

Kelly and Laura

Paris

Paris was the second city of our tour! Although we were sad we were missing Independence Day in the states, we could think of no better place to be than Paris. We took a ride on the ferris wheel, sat outside the Eiffel Tower and at crepes while enjoying the view, rode up in the Eiffel Tower at night to see the amazying view of the city, climbed to the top of the Arc de Triumph, wandered around many shopping areas, went to see Mona Lisa and many other works of art at the Lourve, walked around inside and outside Notre Dame, and took a day trip to Versailles which had the most amazying and outrageous gardens known to man!!

We have seen so much and time is just flying by now!! While in London and Paris we were on the sight of 3 different film takes: National Treasure II, the Prequil to Peter Pan, and the movie Versailles. Cant wait to watch them when we come home!!

Kelly and Laura

London

We met our EF tour group in London on Friday. We will be with them for the remainder of our trip. The three nights in London were quite entertaining as many things were going on including the almost bombing outside Tiger Tiger in Piccadilly Circus, the terrorist attack on Glasgow airport, the Diana Concert, and the Gay Pride Parade.

We toured the Tower Bridge, London Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guards, and Regent's Park. We attended a service at Westminster Abbey Sunday evening. We walked around SoHo/Chinatown and ate most of our meals on Leicester Square (everything is extremely expensive!! A kid's meal at KFC was £2.65 roughly the equivilent of $6 with the exchange rate).

Kelly and Laura

We will post pictures as soon as we are able. We have been having problems uploading them.

Manchester

We took the train to Manchester from Edinburgh and spent four nights there. Laura's associate, Dr. Newman, a professor at the University of Manchester set us up in Day's Hotel near the University. While there we spent much time with a friend we met a few weeks before in Salzburg, Austria. Hokei, a student at Manchester (graduating with his PhD in physics in July), is from Hong Kong and did us a great service by showing us around on our first day. He was also kind enough to throw us an international dinner party with his friends (2 from Germany, 1 from Spain, and 1 from France). He prepared a traditional Chinese dinner, which we very much enjoyed! Dr. Newman took us to lunch and showed us around the University, and we had a wonderful time reflecting in the century old buildings.

We also took a day trip to Liverpool to see the sites of the famous Beatles. We walked down Mathew Street, where the Beatles played in the Cavern almost 300 times. We toured the 'Beatles Experience' museum on Abby Dock before heading back to Manchester.

Laura and Kelly

Edinburgh

We spent three nights in Edinburgh, Scotland (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). While there we took several city bus tours, walked the Royal Mile, visited the Queen's Palace, took in the view of the Edinburgh Castle, walked through the Botanical Garden, and enjoyed spending time with the locals. We stayed right in the middle of town, between the Old and New parts of town, right by Waverly Station on Market Street. We saw our first movie in over a month, Ocean's 13. It was very good, and we were excited for a taste of home! The weather was dreary, cold, windy, and rainy, but we managed to have a great time regardless!

Kelly and Laura