We are in Davenport now, we went from Peter’s parents to Terra’s parents! It is so nice of both families to take us in. We arrived last night (Wednesday) it was a nice drive and fun to see the calming colors of Iowa. I thought that I would talk a little bit about our last couple days in Amsterdam…

We ended up meeting with Dave and Laurie which was so much fun, it felt so weird to be with them in a different country… so cool! We went out to eat that night then parted our ways to get sleep so we could meet with them the next day. The next morning we met them and Genevieve, who is Dave’s first cousin who he has only met once, so we were all pretty much meeting for the first time. Genevieve was so much fun! She showed us so many things that we didn’t even know were there, a totally different part of Amsterdam. Even parts that we walked past everyday had some kind of history to it… like the first church in Amsterdam, beautiful. So we hung out all day and walked around hearing the history of Amsterdam, then we went to a cafe and got something to eat which is where we met Genevieve’s partner Bart. Bart is from Amsterdam so he was a lot of fun to talk to about the area, so we ate then walked to their apartment and looked at Genevieve’s art. She is an amazing painter, we all really enjoyed looking at all of her work because she is so talented. If you want to see her work we will be attaching her site but for now you can just go to www.genevieveart.nl it is well worth your time. We were so privileged to spend time with Genevieve and Bart, Bart as even nice enough to let us try his herring! (egh! haha) We all had a lot of fun. Later that evening Dave, Laurie, Peter, Jonah, Eric and I all went on a canal tour that took us all around Amsterdam it was really nice to see the city from that perspective, and it was a nice way to celebrate Dave and Laurie’s 28th wedding anniversary! After the the ride we split ways got a bite to eat, then on our way back to our hostel we walked through the “red light district” boy was that an experience… but now we can say we’ve seen it right? It was a very fun last night in Amsterdam… or last night in Europe, it will be interesting trying to settle in and find jobs and a place to live. So our plan for today is to try and figure out how to get some pictures on here…. so stay updated because we promise they will be up soon! Love and Peace to everyone and thank you so much for all of your love and support, this has been a lot of fun!

Terra

We woke up very early this morning, 6.00 Amsterdam time, and went out to the airport so we could fly home. My father acidentally listed me twice for the flight and didn’t list Terra at all. It took us about an hour to sort it out, and it still wasn’t solved. We got through security just fine, so we could deal with the problem at the gate. All six of us, the four entrepid travellers and two parents, got onto the same flight. Five of us in first class too! Jonah took the coach seat to save a little bit more money, smart of him, but I wanted the luxury. The flight left at 10.00 Amsterdam, was an eight hour flight and we got in 12.00 Minneapolis. So in Amsterdam right now, it is 2.00 in the morning on Monday, in four hours we will have been up for 24 hours. It has been a long day. I just wanted to let everyone know that we made it back to the states safely and to say thank you for reading and posting comments, it was a lot of fun. Now, we all have a very different outlook on life then when we left, and Terra and I are determined to make everyday an adventure. Right now that is easy snce we don’t have jobs or a place to live and are moving five hours away from everything that was stable before we went off gallavanting in Europe. I’ve quite enjoyed being homeless and unemployed for the past month, not sure if I’m ready to give it up…but it is a new adventure. Within the next few days we will start to put up pictures, if you want to be amazed, check back soon. Thank you all for traveling with us, it’s been a blast. Cheers! Prost! Yamas!

Much Love,

Pete

Hello Hello Hello!  Boy what a trip it’s been!  We just arrived in Amsterdam about a half hour to an hour ago and it is nice and rainy…. which is funny because that is exactly how the weather was the first time we arrived in Amsterdam, how time flies by!  We weren’t able to really get to internet the past few days, but I will tell you right now they were my favorite few days of the trip… which is hard to say.  We took a couple trains from Rome to Berlin and I have never been so impressed.  First of all it was an AWESOME train ride, Second of all Berlin is the coolest place ever!  We had so much fun!  I learned so much when I was there and that was the first place where all four of us agreed that we weren’t ready to leave.  There is so much to do in Berlin, so many museums, so many parks, everything.  Did you know that there are NUDE PARKS?!  I didn’t until we were playing frisbee and some older man is just strollin through the park buck naked… it was hilarous and quite alarming.  Peter was able to find us an amazing hostel Naturfreundehaus  (Which is Nature Friend House in English) it was a great hostel and was only 13 Euro a night with a shower and including breakfast!  Ohhhh they have such good cheese for breakfast!  This hostel is in a smaller town outside of Berlin so it was great to get to know some of the locals, we met a lot of great people.  I think it was two nights ago we were walking around the outskirts of Berlin where we heard there were supposed to be some good Jazz clubs, we didn’t find any jazz (a lot of overly priced food though) but we did end up meeting some cool guys Jonathen and Ben that are from North Italy and are traveling to Sweden for a month, they were around Eric and Jonah’s age so we all got along great… we ended up staying out late and when we went to catch our train before our pass ran out we saw that the gate was closed (I guess even if the train runs through they still close the gate???) So we walked to a few different gates…. ended up walking around and hanging out and finally catching a train in the morning and got to our hostel around 5:30-6:00 in the morning.  It was such a fun night and we got such good sleep that whole day!  I thought it would be scary being out that late at night but in Berlin nothing really opens up till around 10 or midnight so they have a great night life for all ages… it was a lot of fun.  So now that we are caught up on sleep and are in Amsterdam we are trying to find a place to stay and we are going to be meeting up with Dave and Laurie tonight!  (my parents…. in law..  hehe)  So we are excited to see  familar faces.   Anyway that is the story and we will be flying home of Sunday!  We will then be able to post pictures and everything like that… and hopefully find a place to live and work!  Love you all very much.  Thank you again for all the love and support, it’s so fun hearing from you!  Take care and God bless!

Love and Peace,

  Terra

We have arrived in Amsterdam for the second time now. And at this point, we don’t have a place to sleep. I think my mother is already here, and my father is very close, if he made the flight. We have to find their hotel and a place for us within the nest hour. Not the easiest task, but we’ve accomplished harder. We just came from Berlin and it was my favorite city. We wanted to find really cool Germany tshirts and there were no tacky tourist shops anywhere. Which sucked since we wanted a shirt, but cool since every other city we’ve been to has been overloaded with crap. I was especially happy since the first time I went to Berlin I didn’t really care for it. But this time it was awesome! It felt really good, so I think Terra and I have to move there for a little bit. We will see. We spent three days there and did not find internet either, so sorry for our absence. We are all together and alive. Which helps for traveling. It is weird to think that we will be seeing my parents tonight and that we come home Sunday. Totally and completely weird. I don’t know how ready for it any of us are. There are so many things to look forward to when we come home, but so many things we are then leaving behind. But you always need a reason to come back. I don’t know if we will make it to the internet again before we leave Amsterdam, so we will tell you about our last few days when we are home. Now that we didn’t write about Berlin I don’t even know what to say. We walked a lot. We saw the Wall and Checkpoint Charlie, the Jewish Museum and various other recent and not recent historical sites. It was very cool to see so much recent history. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the year Eric was born! 18 years ago! That is crazy to think about. So, now I think it is time for us to go and find a bed to sleep in for the next two nights, thank you for all taking this trip with us, it sure has been fun.
Much Love,
Pete

I have to say that I really enjoy eating bread and cheese all day because when we actually go out to spend money on a meal it is sooooooo good.  MAN this is so much fun!

I really like it when I write after Peter because he makes so much sense… I get to scattered with trying to explain so many things!  So We are in Rome and I can say that it is like nothing I have ever imagined.  Everything here is perfect!  No matter where you turn or what street you take you will not be let down.  This whole city is full of ruins and beautiful statues, I cant wait to share pictures with all of you!  We will get them up when we get home.  So far my favorite part of Rome (besides saying “When in Rome…” before everything I do) is St. Peters Basilica.  Ohhhhhhhhhh!!!!  It makes your eyes fill with tears when you stand up front close to the alter and look up into the dome while a choir fills the entire building with their voices.  If you ever are planning a trip and dont know where to go, come to Rome and visit St.Peters.  So we spent quite a few hours in there which I think you have to do because if you dont observe every little detail then you are missing it all.  Peter and I walked around a bit and took hundreds of pictures and he explained eveything, what statues Michaelangelo did, where it was that Peter was crucified, he is a very helpful tour guide… plus we have this awesome book, if you are traveling look up books done by Rick Steves  because he knows his stuff.  So I am proud to say that it felt so good to be overwhelmed in such a large church and to talk about religion, it really has made me want to do some studying and researching.  Peter and I both rubbed St. Peters foot, it is just such a cool place.  Unfortunately we were all so tired so we didnt walk up to the dome because of the huge line, but we did walk down to see all of the Popes catacombs.  It was pretty interesting espically seeing the most recent pope, there are some people that were very emotional and it really helps you see how real all of this is.  Anyway!   See this is why I cant write about more then 2 things!  Oh so today, I think Jonah wrote about this, but we were walking out of a museum that we were all pretty disappointed with and we were pulling out our bananas and Nutella when we see this pretty big lady bent over (we were so fortunate to be on the back side…… gross!) with her skirt up peeing in the middle of the day right off the side walk onto a parking lot…. you would think whe would atleast go over to the tree!  She then proceded to wipe with a newspaper and throw it on the ground… (I now have stopped picking up paper off the ground) we laughed for probably 10 straight minutes.  It was soooo funny…. disgusting, but funny.  So we are all having a blast, we are such a good group to travel with, very easy going and that is really nice.  We have been meeting a lot of great people, espically when we wear our Waldo shirts, you are going to LOVE those pictures!  We even got a mime that was wearing a red and white stripe shirt to pose with us while we were in Venice!  So cool.  Alright well I think we are going to go eat now and then some more walking!  Boy are we strong!  I want to thank all of you again for leaving us the posts, it does more then you know… and we all think its pretty cool that so many people support us.  Alright well take care and we will hopefully get to the internet soon to write again… we just want to share it all!  Take care everyone!  Love and Peace,

Terra

Well, it’s been a little bit since we’ve written. We arrived in Rome two nights ago. We found our hostel with no problem, even though when we first got in, I hadn’t written down the name or directions there so we had to go to the internet. While I was figuring out where we were going, we were told by two travelers that the hostel we were going to was really shady. But when we got there, the guy was cool and the people we were sharing a room with were really nice and we have yet to think that it is a shady place. We went to have a fancy Italian meal for our first night and went all out. Pizza and pasta, the best we’ve ever had, and then an order of clams and oysters fresh from the sea, and for dessert we had fresh cut pineapple and peaches with wine. It was amazing. And the best part was we were planning on an expensive meal and it was only €40 for all of us! That’s so cheap! The next morning we went to Vatican City and got in line for the Vatican Museum, but it closes early on Saturdays. So we had two hours before the museum closed and we were a long way away from the doors. We decided to come back on Monday to see the museum so we could take our time, and headed to the biggest and most impressive church in the world (it’s free too). St. Peter’s Basilica was even more amazing then I remember it. We spent three hours wandering around it in awe. After that we were quite hungry and went off to find some lunch. We found a cute little shop and sat down and all ordered some pasta. It was pretty good, but seemed to get worse the more we ate. Then we looked at our placemats and saw that they served us frozen dinners. They had fancy silverware and plastic plates. But the food was frozen dinners! We ate some gelato, that was ok, but definetly not what it was in Venice, and when we left they charged us €60! €60 for crap! We were so upset. We had to take a long walk to try and calm ourselves down and not get too riled up over it. We are in Rome and you have to get ripped off in Rome, I’m just glad that it happened then and now we are on gaurd for it. We strolled to the Pantheon, and then walked to Trevi Fountain and made our way to the Spanish Steps. There, some people were filming an art film, so we kept getting into the back shots of their film. (I’m not sure if weìve mentioned this, but we all red and white striped Waldo shirts and we wear them on the same day and try to get into peoples pictures in the background so when they get them they go, “Hey! There’s Waldo!” But in every country, they have a different name for him. In Germany it is Walter, and in France it is Charlie. We know that because we met some French people yesterday who were asking if we were Charlie, and it got really confusing, but we figured it out and then posed for pictures with them. So we were all decked out in Waldo getting in the background of an art film. Pretty cool.) We then sat on the steps for about an hour as the sun went down and we drew and wrote about our day. Then we walked back to our hostel and found an amazing pizza place on the way. Got back and after walking the complete length of Rome, we were ready for bed. This morning we got up and went to a very disappointing musuem, which was too bad, but how do you know? So now we are off to see the coluseum for the afternoon. We will try to keep this a little more updated since we only have about one week left, and only five until we meet up with my parents in Amsterdam before we all fly home. We are all very much enjoying Rome so far, it is the best for sight seeing.

Much Love,

Pete

Today we saw an old lady peeing on the side of the street and naturally it was awesome. We went to a museum that let me down a little because it was super pedantic and overly scholarly, like im supposed to know roman history and individual names of cats who noobdy knows about. I would like to say I really miss my sister Jaz and my neice Audrey right now because I read their comment on my page. and in response to their comment i would like to say it is easy to draw me. imagine an American traveler (tan khaki shorts, calve socks, birkenstocks, waldo shirt) and add a shaved head.

Thats right! I shaved my head! I’ll let you be the judge but its awesome. We cut the hair to an old man style for about 30 mintues and i walked into a bar and (cried because it hurt) sat with my old man sweater on. Great pictures.

 Ciao, Bella’s and dudes!

-Jonah-