I needed a little time to process my weekend in Stuttgart before writing the blog entry, so while the dates are accurate in documenting when I was there, the post is actually well over a week late. Before coming to Europe I decided that one of the things I was not going to miss out on was the Oktoberfest experience. Unfortunately, traveling from Lyon to Munich for a weekend by train was just not possible- the ride would have been 12 hours each way- but I was to...

Today I went to Marseille in the South of France and it was absolutely beautiful. Since Southern France is a pretty mountainous place- more so than it looks, as you will find if you climb to the tops of the "hills"- we saw some exceptional views of the Mediterranean and the city from pretty high up. Because of the hilly terrain, the shore in Marseille was nothing like the ones at home; the only actual beach I saw was about 100 yards long and maybe 60 fe...

OK, so I haven't been too great about updating the blog over the last week, but things have been relatively slow around le France. I'll condense all of the week into one entry so that it sounds like I did a few things… but really, not so much. On Wednesday, Sharon and Paul organized a cheese-tasting night at their local Fromagerie. For €5 we got to taste 12 of the shop owner's favorite cheeses and a white or red wine that complimented each one. Until...

BARCELONA, PART 2 Sunday has been christened "Gaudí Day". Most of what we did on Sunday had something to do with Antoni Gaudí, the Spanish architect who's famously unique work can be found all over Barcelona. We started with a bus ride to Park Güell, a fantastic park designed entirely by Gaudí which boasts impressive sights such as buildings that look like gingerbread houses, the longest park bench in the world and ceramic-tile mosa...

Barcelona was AMAZING. I had high expectations for Spain because I've always wanted to go there- Barcelona did not let me down. I'll blog about my weekend in two sections so that it is a little more manageable… I'll start with Friday and Saturday. BARCELONA, PART 1 Izzy, James and I got in late on Friday, dropped our stuff at our hostel and went searching for food. We ended up at this amazing restaurant on La Rambla- the main shopping street in the city- ...