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Hamburg: Model Trains and Delicious Churros

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Jacob Here:   Ever since I was a child I have loved trains. My favorite activity was playing with the wooden trains at my nana’s house. My favorite ride at Disneyland was big thunder mountain which has a rollercoaster train, and I watched Thomas the Tank engine. So when I got to visiting Hamburg I had to come and visit the worlds largest model train set. This place was massive and went through three floors of two building that were separated by a canal in between. It wasn’t just a long train track, as it included many scenes from around the world including a bunch of different countries in Europe, the United State, Brazil, Antarctica, and much more. Fully decorated scenes with buttons activated special features in each of the lands. If that’s not cool enough every 15 minutes it would turn from day into night and the sets would light up and come to life, and the coolest was a giant model volcano which spewed lava down its side in the Pompeii section of Italy. It was truly a unique exper
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The Netherlands: Delft Blue. Amsterdam Green.

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Josh here: During our visit to the Netherlands Jake and I stayed in Rotterdam. Like many cities during WWII, Rotterdam was largely destroyed during bombing raids and has been rebuilt since. It still shares the familiar canal systems of many Dutch cities, but also boasts some quite modern buildings. One example is the “Markthal,” a functional public/private building with an interior multistory shopping mall and food hall, surrounded by an entire series of apartments with windows facing both into and away from the central hall.  In Amsterdam, we met up with Bella, a friend of ours from college who shared an afternoon showing us around the city. The flower markets along a few of the canals were among our favorite sites. A country known largely for its tulip production, we visited a tulip museum. From their origin in the mountains of Central Asia, to their introduction to many European states through diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire, and beyond into current modes of production
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We’re Back: Belgium and Beyond

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Hello again! We have been having so much fun traveling around that we got behind on our regular updates. We will be posting lots over the next couple weeks to get you all caught up on our adventures.  Jake here: Bruges was probably one of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited. It has a large bell tower, the belfry, that chimes with beautiful music every 15 minutes. Josh and I climbed to the top and had a great view of the city. We listened to the music from the bells at the top of the tower which cut through to your soul like a knife and drowned your ears with earth shattering beautiful noise. One evening we listened to a concert where the belfry was played like an instrument using a keyboard attached to the bells. All of the bells are connected mechanically to the worlds largest bass drum it is a truly ginormous musical instrument. ( This video can give you an idea of what they sound like ). Just below the bell tower, the town square turns into a farmers market with local produce, veget
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The 3 P’s of Disney: Planning, Power Walking, and Plenty of fun

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Jacob Here!   For those who don’t know I am a major Disney fan, I have been going to the Disney Parks since I was less than a year old. I even worked at Disney World as an intern in the Disney College Program at Tommorowland Speedway. The experience of Disneyland Paris was very unique to the domestic parks in the U.S. For this blog I will tell you about my experiences since that’s what most people want to hear. Then I’ll give a more in depth analysis for those who want to know the deeper comparisons between the U.S Parks and Disneyland Paris.  Disney days are among the few days a year that I spring out of bed without a second of delay. I hurried to get my clothes on and off we went to ride the train down to Disneyland Paris. I felt light as a feather walking down to the train station and we rode for a while waiting for the stop with the mouse ears next to the name. When we arrived I had already spent the previous day strategizing on where to go. I choose Walt Disney Studio Park as the
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I’ve seen London, I’ve seen France, I’ve seen Statues with No Pants

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 Jacob Here!  The city of lights, the city of love, these are some of the nicknames given to our next location. Sadly my lovely girlfriend is unable to be with me in this romantic city so I am with Josh instead. When we took the train from Caen to Paris, we were on a rather full car and we stood until a seat opened up for us that’s when I spotted a young French girl and her mom talking with a couple of old ladies. My mom had given me some activities to do while I was away one of which was scratch paper that you have a special stylus that when you scrap the paper it reveals colors underneath. So I took out my bag and got a piece along with a stylus and gave it to the girl and although she spoke no English she was thrilled. I drew a smiley face to show her how the paper worked and walked back to my seat as she spent the next hour drawing all sorts of pictures of dinosaurs, trains, and many other things and just before they got off the little girl walked back over and handed me the drawin
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Normandy: D-Day Beaches & UNESCO’s Finest Tapestry

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Jacob Here Our next adventure brought us to the wonderful city of Caen, in Normandy France. We traveled via high speed train to Paris then walked across Paris to get to the next station to head to Caen. That evening we walked around the city to get acquainted with the city and stumbled across a castle which turned out to be free to go and explore, which Josh and I climbed all around looking at the beautiful city. While Josh mostly was stunned by the amount of churches, I was busy day dreaming of the castle being stormed while I pretended to launch arrows from the ramparts onto random people down on the street. I won the battle against the invading pedestrians, and came down victorious in my own mind celebrated the victory with the finest chicken feast I could afford. (KFC and yes I was surprised to find one here) The next day we woke up and went to the Caen D Day Museum which is housed on top of the Nazi Bunker of the general in charge of defending the beaches. This was an incredible m
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London: Pilgrims and Priests and Monarchs! Oh My!

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Jake here!  We successfully made it to London, and I must say we were treated better than kings. Considering most died horrible deaths of disease, battle, or execution I think we did better than most. Being an American I wanted to get up close and personal with what our ex monarchy is up too. I started by going to Buckingham Palace and looking at royal fashion followed by the Royal Mews. I saw all the royal coaches, cars, and a couple of horses who get more vacation time ( 6 weeks long twice a year) than I do. Then I got to go inside Buckingham Palace itself and walk throughout exploring the different rooms and paintings while the Royals were away. Couple key takeaways, 1 gold is on almost everything, think Trump level. 2 they have a bunch of art that they claim they want the most people to see yet keep them in their house and charge money (I’m calling bull crap). 3 The gardens are very lovely, I just wish there was less grass.  Of course London isn’t just about royalty, my next locati
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