Are all cities similar or do we like the same thing in each city?

We've had a wonderful time in Paris and Germany so far...but this morning at breakfast we were chatting about the similarities and differences among cities so far. At night we always find ourselves at a bar enjoying beer or wine and watching the world cup...in every single city. And we like it..and so do the locals...so well pretend were locals.

We've tried so hard not to be typical tourists..but there are touristy sights and things we should do - we get it. But then we walk around with locals, stay with locals and eat with locals and We find ourselves doing what we did in Charlottesville- walking around downtown shopping then finding a cozy bar to enjoy a drink. So I'm frustrated... Are all cities the same in what the locals do or are we not looking hard enough?

On another note: we've been happily surprised with everything that has turned out this week. We found a ride to Cologne, Germany on BlaBlaCar.com (our hosts in France told us about it-its a ride sharing service) and we rode with a German born lady who lives in Paris, Germany, and Switzerland! Our other passenger is from Iran and lives in Cologne but was visiting his wife in Paris. We had a place to stay that night in Cologne but he offered for us to stay with him that night since we were getting back so late. Perfect! (We found his couch surfing profile on the ride to make sure everything checked out-dont worry) He then offered to let us stay Sunday night with Emily :) After finding the wonderful Emily Knollenberg in Germany (wohoo!) We walked around the cathedral and then met up with another couch surfing local who offered to show us around (personal tour guide..score! Thanks Kim!) So he told us we could climb all the way to the top of the Cologne chapel-which we would have never known about. After a hearty workout we were rewarded with amazing views. He showed us around the old a new market then translated for us at the bar and drove us to the Chocolate Factory!

After all of this positive energy and people with their giving over and over we were feeling pretty lucky..but then we were blessed all over again. We got word from a couch surfing family in Baden Baden Germany that we could stay with them, and they would even pick us up from the train station. But not only that they offered to let us go with them and their family and friends to a cabin in the Black Forest this weekend for a relaxing weekend with cookouts. Its amazing how God provides and how simple people can give so much to complete strangers. We have to figure out how to give back! Here and back in the states.

Real Coffee.

Yesterday I had real, delicious, simple filter coffee at Starbucks. I tried to accept the coffee culture in France...and I failed. But I had some damn delicious coffee! That is all.

Working For Yourself

As we're sitting here in a cafe, waiting for our train..I (Stephanie) wonder...do the French have it right? We've gotten so frustrated with the French over the last three weeks...mainly because shops,cafes, and restaurants are barely open. There's been multiple times weve walked to a cafe only to find it closed..and even in a touristy town of St Malo we walked for about 25 minutes to find just 3 cafes open and passed by about 20.

But do the French have it right? Should we work for ourselves so we can open and close as we please, and enjoy the French scenery and beaches because you made just enough money from the tourist this morning to pay for your wine at the beach?

This is the first true culture shock/change I think we've seen so far on the trip. It took a bit to get used to...but it made me think...do they have it right?

Mont Saint Michel... Take Two

Well, we finally got to Mont St Michel! And how beautiful is it? Absolutely stunning, breathtaking and magical. We ended up taking the bus here, since the trains still aren't running but that let us spend a night in Granville. We would absolutely recommend a day trip to Granville if you're in the area, just a ten minute walk from the bus/train station is the city center (most of Europe calls their downtowns "city center/Centre") Everything is right next to the water, so that's a plus. Once we arrived we walked to the hostel and found there were no open beds...so we called the place they recommended..no open beds. Needless to say we called five other places and finally found one bed, needless to say its a popular place (not to mention walking into a hospital asking for " a room for two tonight? " then being laughed at as you found out it was a hospital. Yes my UVA friends, other nurses have views of the St Michel Bay on their work days) So, after settling into our newly shared twin bed...we found a bar with tapas and the football game so life was good.

After downing tons of pan au chocolats, cracking a raw egg onto my plate (thinking it was hardboiled), and coffee we got on a bus to Mont St Michel. The visitor center offered free lockers to store our packs, we hopped onto the free shuttle and made our way. Once walking in you felt like you stepped back into mid evil times with stone walls and German style store fronts- we scoped out the perimeter and found where we wanted to eat after touring the Abby. (Obviously picked a place with the stunning view) you don't need to pay to walk through MSM, just the Abby. Since were young we paid half price (score!) And then paid a bit extra to have an audioguide. The Abbey was absolutely stunning, as we made our way down the funnel shaped building we learned how genius the architects were to keep everything structurally sound (even through all the wars and stress of time)

One bit of advice for MSM-really plan your trip timeline. We didn't get to see the tide come in because we arrived during the few days it doesn't reach MSM (first world problem) and we missed the free guided tour from the Abbey back down by 15 minutes. Then missed the guided tour out to the bay by 30 minutes because  we forgot to allot 2 hours for French standard time lunch. Don't get us wrong, still an awesome trip but as much as we researched we didn't think specific times would matter. We also decided to venture out into the bay by ourselves (despite all the signs saying it's to dangerous without a guide due to the tides and quick sand) and you should definitely get a tour guide to enjoy it. But we made it by following foot prints from guided tours so it was a win.

So- after sending off some postcards and grabbing lunch. We decided to walk back instead of the shuttle, grab some food from the market for a picnic. We met in the wine section "Shane I found wine for 2 euros" "Awesome" then in unison "Should we get two?" We guzzled one down at lunch and the other is in the fridge waiting to be guzzled...maybe breakfast.

Our B&B hosts picked us up at MSM (awesome!) and welcomed us with tea and a suggestion of where to see the world cup game. We have since decided we want to open a B&B at some point, you get to meet so many people and get full time pau for part time work! After dinner we visited the local watering hole, which happened to be a English pub with €2 beers! Tomorrow we head to St. Malo and supposedly a music festival so it should be a good weekend.
Cheers,
Shane & Stephanie

Trains, Cycling, and Tea

Well, if it isn't obvious now that we don't keep up with blogging I don't know when it will be! Stephanie writes daily experiences in her journal so no worries that well forget stuff. 

So we've been in Angioville, Normandy,France for the past 1.5 weeks. It's beautiful out here! A very small village with one church, a town hall and a restaurant (that never seems to be open)! We can cycle (in Europe they don't say "biking, or bike into town; rather " cycle") into two slightly bigger towns, Lessay and Le Haye de Puites.  I always say "Puites" wrong so that's a fail when I go into town. But apparently I pronounce Bonjour wrong too..and also recently said Gracias to the bartender here...so that was embarrassing. We did however make it to town in time for D Day,  which was awesome! We didn't see Obama or the Queen but we did see some very cool reenactments and learned a lot about the invasion.

We've both tried to learn french while were here. Shane is better with his 3 years of French under his belt...I've learned "I don't speak French..I'm sorry...do you speak English?" If they don't we just mime at each other and point at things...I was trying to figure out a way to act out a bus and a train. That didn't work out. Moral of the story? Google translate is awesome.

Our host family is great! Gary and Nicola treat us like family! They have an interesting story too. They moved to France ten years ago to have a slower paced life than they did in England. A year later they bought a house from the 1400's that was split into two houses. Theve turned one side into their house and the other into a B&B. The pictures of before and after are amazing! Apparently the French love wallpapering everything! Garry and Nicola are also in the proccess of building a new house from scratch which is a very daunting task. We helped a little with installing some of the installation but work is slow as its hard to find time to head out to the new house. If anyone wants to help with any part of the house Garry and Nicola would love to host you. 

We've done some work with the goats. We've both learned how to milk Dorothy the goat. Its very hard! We always need Nicola to help us. We've also mucked out all their stalls (clean out all the hay laid down in their beds over the winter which is saturated in pee and poo.) So that was gross. Actually disgusting. We had said before this trip we wanted to have a few goats..we've gotten the true experience of what its like...we haven't discussed since if we still want goats. ;) It has been very cool to get to know the goats, they all have a very unique personallity and are very entertaining. 

After finishing up the goats stalls we've been takling the weeds in the gardens. Crabgrass is over here too..and its just as horrible. But there's also these plants called Stinging Nettle..if they touch any part of you there's small needles that come off and sting you. We had them all over our arms..couldn't find anything to help the sting. So we slept like that, woke up the next morning and did some more weeding...only then to find out the plant that grows next to the stinging nettle is the "antidote"! We quickly rubbed the leaves all over our arms and immediate relief! Amazing what God put in nature to protect us...if only we took the time to learn about Mother Nature.

We tried to go into Brittany over the weekend and see Mont Saint Michel but the nations rail systeam is down due to strikes, so whenever the trains start running again we will make another attempt. Hopefully the strike ends soon as we hope to head to Paris in a week or so!