Germans in their "sexy tight leather pants"

     (S) Well this is the first blog post that Tim isn't part of, but since I went on this extraordinary trip with Laci I had to post it! For those of you who don't know, Laci has been studying abroad in Europe last summer so we arranged for me to fly out to Frankfurt to pick her up and we'd have a fun weekend in the city! Side note: if you were wondering the title of this post? Last time I was in Germany I was in a classroom and they asked me what stereotypes Americans had about Germans. I couldn't think of any, so one guy shouted out "Don't you think about how all German men dress in sexy tight leather pants?!?" Well my mom loved that so much that when I went this time she was bringing that up and telling me to watch for the sexy leather pants, and NO JOKE while waiting in the airport I saw two people in tight leather pants. Hilarious.
     Anyways, to be quite honest Laci and I were quite the lame college-age travelers. We didn't get crazy and drink all the time or go to any crazy bars. We spent our time eating amazing food, and walking around the city. The first night we went to a local pub to drink some beer and watch one of  the world cup games. It was packed and I decided that during my time in Germany I wouldn't try any beer that I had heard of the name of before. I chose to drink a "radler" beer that was actually a combination of a beer and sprite. Interesting, but good! Laci got bangers and mash (aka sausages and mashed potatoes) and I had fish and chips. The fish was one huge filet that was the size of a whole fish! I was praying the whole time that I wouldn't accidentally eat a fish head but it was all good. The next morning we got up around 8 and wandered down to the free breakfast. After that we wandered into town following our map. We were looking for Zeil which is a huge shopping center, but on the way we ran into a festival going on! It had a bunch of various vendors with different foods from around the world. We chose to drink some of the local Apfelwein which tastes like the cider we drink in the states. We also shared some fries that were made by a drill. Note the picture below, but it spun around and spiral cut the potato. Awesome. We continued walking through town and came across some street performers. Well, if you don't know me, I LOVE street performers of all kinds. We stopped to check them out and suddenly they starting walking forward down the street. We looked down the road, and realized we had wandered into a parade! Quickly we ran through town as far up as possible so we could see more of the parade. It was called "Parade of the World" (translated by Laci aka made up by Laci) and had tons of different countries and cultures represented. It was so fun seeing all of the costumes and dances! We then checked out an old area of Frankfurt called Rothenburg and bought tons of souvenirs for our friends and family back home. We went through an old church, and walked into a park, and ended the evening going to the top of the Main Tower. It is one of the tallest buildings in the city and had an observatory on the top. B-E-A-utiful! We being the lame-o people that we were, fell asleep by 9 that night! Haha.
     The next day we went on a boat tour down the main river, walked around more of the town, and ended our night on a romantic sister date at a Greek restaurant. I know i know, Tim already gave me a hard time for going to Greek food in Germany, but it was delicious so I don't even mind. But anyways, that's all! We flew back and were happy to be home. It was the perfect amount of time to see the city. Here are a few of the pictures and there are more on my facebook!

Potato maker!

Pizza Restaurant we went to. Delicious!

Part of the parade. Adorable Swedish (?) dancers

My hat I bought! It says "Deutschland." I got Tim one as well, his says "Frankfurt". He loves it.

Sweet beer mugs, that cost an arm and a leg, hence me NOT buying one, but I wanted one so bad!

Part of Rothenburg, beautiful right?

Laci checking out part of the Dom church

KEG BIKE!!! Coolest thing we have EVER seen in life.

Laci on top of the Main Tower

View of Frankfurt

Part of the Frankfurt skyline

We went to a communication museum and they had these phone sheep to welcome us in! Their bodies were made of phone cords, their heads were phones, and their fee were little phones!

Part of the museum and a teacher's dream room. It was all about cheaters in school! Here was one of the images and they had tons of real examples of how students have been busted cheated. In this picture there is a ruler, notes on the wrist,  in a pencil sharpener, carved into CHOCOLATE, etc. It was a room full of cheating ways around the world.

Sister date night

Date Day Up North!

     (S) With keeping up my goal of updating the blog quicker after an event I thought I should do this now rather than later. So....last Saturday Tim and I both lucked out with having the day off. Being the AMAZING girlfriend I am ;) I planned a date day for us. Since Tim has never been to northern AZ I took him up to see the sights! While planning, I had to take into account that I was dog sitting two pups so we had to do things that we could take them with.

     We took off early Saturday morning and headed up to Jerome, AZ. For those of you unfamiliar, Jerome is an old ghost mining town. Now is houses tons of quaint little shops that go up the mountain and you can check out some of the historic older buildings. Unfortunately, they were doing maintenance and construction in the old mining area so we couldn't check that out, but we did go through all of the shops and enjoy the town. Since we had the two dogs we would take turns sitting outside with them while the other person was shopping in the little shops. I completely scored at around 11am because there was an adorable winery that I wanted to check out. I went inside hoping to buy a bottle and what do ya know! They were doing a wine tasting. So I hung out and listened to them explain the different wines and got to try about 4-5 wines (hey, it was 5 o'clock somewhere!). Unfortunately, none of them "sold" me so I didn't buy one, but it was fun to try them all. The last shop we went into was a christmas store. Tim watched the dogs while I ran in and it was FULL wall to wall with Christmas ornaments. It was my idea to start collecting ornaments from everywhere we visit so we can have a christmas tree to show all of our adventures, so I bought a brass Christmas bell that said "Jerome, AZ" on it. It was fabulous in my opinion.

     After Jerome, our adventures led us to the Red Rock State Park. Unfortunately, the pups weren't allowed inside so instead we went to a park right up the road where they were allowed. We had a picinic lunch there and then walked along a trail that follwed Oak Creek. About halfway into our walk we went to the water and tried to get the dogs to go in. James, a Boston Terrier was stoked to go in and was instantly as deep in the water as he could get while still standing. Baja was a little more anxious. He would get in up to his lower belly, and then decided he didn't want to be in and would just back onto dry land. Then he would get back in....and jump back out! That repeated multiple times over until Tim and I were soaked from them. We finished our hike and decided into town. By this time, the dogs were getting tired but Tim and I kept dragging them along. We went to downtown Sedona and walked through all of the shops down there. By the end of the walk we were practically dragging the dogs along. Whenever Tim or I went into a store the dogs instantly laid down outside to rest. What bums!

     Eventually we got back to the car and drove to a small restaurant my parents recommended to me which is called the Hideaway. It had an outdoor patio so we could take the dogs to sit with us while we ate. The second we sat down the dogs were instantly passed out. No joke. Tim and I ordered the Dieter's Demise pizza which was ironic because I broke my diet to eat it. haha! But it was basically a supreme pizza that was chock full of delicious-ness. After dinner we drove back (dogs slept the whole way) and went to Toy Story 3. Which I highly recommend to all! Overall, it was a great trip. I loved it. Tim loved it. And the pups did too!

Part of Jerome

James and I on our way up the steps to the next set of stores!

Tim the dog whisperer

There were these stacked rocks EVERYWHERE on the trail

Part of the gorgeous view as we drove into town

Church up on the rocks (bad...but i forgot what it was called!)

The pups! James and Baja

This was at the Hideaway restaurant with the amazing view of Sedona

Graduation Trip with the ladies!

(S) My new goal for this blog? Learning how to update it more recent than WEEKS after the event occurs :) Instead I think I blog right before another event happens. Oh well! So about a week after graduation the girls (Denica, Kate, Mandi, Chrissy, and myself) went on a road trip so Santa Monica. It was our last hoorah together since Chrissy is moving back to the east coast and Kate is going to an Ad school in the fall. Denica is contemplating moving to the east coast or sticking around, Mandi is staying, and who knows where I am going to end up!!

So we road tripped all the way to Cali in two cars since we couldn't fit 5 girls and all of our stuff in one vehicle. Ride was easy, quick, painless (I slept the whole way). When we were getting close to the exit for Santa Monica we took the wrong exit and ended up in some random ol town in who knows where. Best part? They had easily at least 5 donut shops in the 5 miles of town we went through. Why why why would you ever need so many donut shops?

Anyways, finally made it to our hotel which was AMAZING. Props to Chrissy for finding such a bomb.com place. We immediately decided to walk down the 3rd street promenade which was right down the road for some food and beer. We found a sweet place that offered beer and pool so we chilled there. Then we just walked around and watched the street performers. Ok, if you know me at all, you know that I love love LOVE street performers of all kind. I love watching the acts and I made the girls stop every single time so I could see  them. The next morning we woke up and went to the beach which was right across the street from us. Amazing. We were there all morning and I swear that I use multiple layers of sunscreen! Alas, my Norweigan genes didn't care for the sunscreen and I burned anyways. Pain! Mandi also burned so we were lathering ourselves in aloe the rest of the trip.

Basically, every single day consisted of 3rd street promenade, beach time, and food. I couldn't imagine anything better. We did spend one afternoon walking down Hollywood Boulevard and that was fun checking out the stars. Overall, AWESOME trip. We loved it and were so enthralled with it all. Ladies....I love you!

Beach Babes

Thai food for dinner

Marilyn is that you?

Some of the stars on the strip

Our facials we did before going out one night

Chrissy....pre-gaming?

Kids at heart!

Direct your attention to the bird in the top corner. Cool eh?

I loved the Pier!

Our last dinner out in Cali