HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIFFANY!!!!!

First off, Happy Birthday to Tiffany :)

We are in Salzburg, Austria right now. We just got done with our Sound of Music tour, which was great. We were the only two people on the tour, so it was like having a private guide. I highly recommend using Bob's Tours if you ever come here. Also, it is snowing here, so the Austrian countryside is beautiful!

This last part of the trip (Lucerne - Munich - Austria) has been much more relaxing and it has been nice to be able to eat the great Bavarian food. Crepes in Paris are still our favorites. We are even thinking of opening up a crepe stand when we get back :P

Old people are really nice in this area and are always willing to help out. I can explain more on that later (only 4 minutes left to post this...)

I found myself a game store and got to get some German games, including an expansion to the bean game, so I'm happy :)

Other than that...we are going to a Mozart concert tonight and are having a great time relaxing at the end of the trip.

Pictures will have to wait until we get home and each of us have been writing each days activities down, so I can post all of that when we get back.

See you all in a week...

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Bonjour!!

Well, we made it to Paris (and the city is still intact).  We finished up in London by going to a couple of shows (Les Mis and Then There Were None -- both of them very fun).  We must also have done a decent job of fitting in there, since in the last few days we (well, Tricia actually, but I'll include myself anyways) were asked for directions from several people.  I think it was due to Tricia's new scarf she bought...everyone in Europe has one, don't you know :)

It seemed like London was an entire vacation unto itself, yet we were really only a quarter of the way through the whole trip...

Here are some highlights of Paris so far:

- Took the Chunnel to get here...and we both slept through most of it :p

- When we got into the train station, we realllllly had to use the bathrooms and I assured Tricia that our hotel was only "a few mintues away".  I'm sure most of you can fill in the rest of this story...anyways, we were about 30 minutes away on foot and it turns out that all of the public toilets we saw on the way were pay toilets and I had no Euro coins at the time :(  To make matters worse, we were heading in the completely wrong direction (I saw a sign for a hospital that had the same name as the street our hotel was on and followed that sign :-/)  A nice man noticed our confusion and thankfully pointed us in the right direction and we made it to our hotel.  I should note that this is the only time so far we have gotten lost...so we are learning from our mistakes well!

- Another interesting thing here is that everyone speaks French :O  We have learned that when you at least try to use French, the people are very nice and help you to learn it. Bonjour, merci, and pardon go a long way in most conversations.

- We like to eat the food here.  Most everything we have eaten is from one guy - a stand by our hotel that serves well priced paninis and crepes (and Tricia even had a hot dog).  He is happy to speak to us in English and seems to like talking to us.  Our first French friend!!

- The best crepe is Nutella and banana.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.  We've found a way to eat 2 crepes a day.  No way that anyone could do a low carb diet while living here...bread is everywhere.

- We've so far seen the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Ste. Chappelle, Champs Elysee, and gone for a guided walk through "Hemingway's Paris" (I'll have to give more stories from that walk later -- very fun).  Still to come -- Eiffel Tower, Orsay, Montmartre walk, Sacre Couer.

Sorry we haven't been able to post pictures yet.  We actually lost the pictures from the first four days as our compact flash card went kaput while I was getting my picture taken with a mummy in the British Museum :( We went and got a new card and are hopeful that I can use some recovery software to get the pictures off the old card.  Other than that, just haven't had time to get pictures up.  I'll try later, if we have the time. 

More blogging later...hopefully from Switzerland, but if not, then definitely from Germany.  See you all later -- Tricia says hi too -- she is sitting right here next to me as I write all this :)

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Quick blogging from London

I have 8 minutes before my £1 runs out on the hotel internet...

We made it to London and it has been a great time so far.  Here are the best stories for now:

- Never use a travel agent.  She screwed up our flight here and screwed up our transfer to the hotel.  ARRRRRGH.

- Although we have gotten good at using the public transit (metro and bus) we have had our moments.  We didn't put our tickets in correct on our trip from Heathrow to our hotel and were essentially "hopping the gate" without knowing it.  Then, we got lost when the metro near our hotel was under maintenance and we had to take a bus back to the hotel from the center of town.  We got left at the last stop of the bus about 6 miles from the hotel (although we didn't know that when we got left off).  Of course I figured I knew where I was going and Tricia was scared that we were going to never find our hotel.  It makes for a good story now :P

I type slow...just had to put another £1 in the machine to get more minutes :)

- Sites we've seen so far: Went to Kensington Gardens and had tea at the Orangery, visited Harrod's, saw the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the Tate Modern.  Then saw the fireworks for Guy Fawke's Day from outside the Tate Modern.  Yesterday, we went to the London Eye and did a guided walk along Westminster.  Today we are getting ready to go to Notting Hill and the National Gallery, then we have Les Mis tonight.  Tomorrow is Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert.  Phew.

- Best sites: St. Paul's (where we walked the 531 steps to the top of the dome - an awesome view) and the walk along Westminster where we learned a lot of stuff from our guide that you would never get in a book.

- Worst sites: London Bridge -- yaaaawn.  The London Eye was alright, but not that great.

- Great to see all the riots going on in France right now... :-/

We have been keeping track of all we've done everyday and I hope I'm able to write it all down when I get back.  Also, I haven't really had a chance to get pictures uploaded, as the computer here at the hotel is only an internet kiosk.

Feel free to leave comments to ask questions or send me an email if you aren't a myspace person (troy_olson@comcast.net).  Hopefully, I'll check things on here again before we leave for France.

Oh, and best part of the trip may be that the Ducks won in OT over Cal.  I was very excited when I just read that a few minutes ago :P

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Leaving for Europe...

Tricia and I are leaving for Europe tomorrow, so no more silly blog posts about tv, comics, or IBS for a while.  Now I'll just be posting silly blog posts about British food and French people :P

I'm hoping that I'm able to keep updates on here about our trip and post pictures at least once in each country with witty commentary from Tricia and myself...

Here is our itinerary for those who care:

Thursday, November 3
Depart Portland 2:00 PM
Arrive London (Heathrow) 11:00 AM

November 4 - November 9
London (Hotel: Encore London West )

November 9 - November 14
Paris (Hotel Langlois (Hotel Des Croises) )

November 14 - November 16
Lucern (Hotel: NH Luzern )

November 16 - November 18
Munich (Hotel: Hotel Uhland )

November 18 - November 21
Salzburg (Hotel: Centro Hotel )

Vienna (Hotel: Trend Hotel Messe )
November 21 - November 24

Thursday, November 24
Depart Vienna 10:40 AM
Arrive Portland 8:50 PM

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Feel free to leave comments on here about stuff and also to email me if you want to get in contact with us for any reason (troy_olson@comcast.net).

And Palmer family -- I apologize in advance because your 56k connection is going to be in pain when loading up all the pictures on the blog.  Feel free to go to my house and view it from there :)

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Halloween Pictures

Here are the pictures from the Halloween party at Heather and Brandon's:

Some people stand in the darkness
Afraid to step into the light
Some people need to help somebody
When the edge of surrenders in sight..

Don't you worry!
Its gonna be alright
'cause I'm always ready,
I won't let you out of my sight.

I'll be ready (I'll be ready)
Never you fear (no don't you fear)
I'll be ready
Forever and always
I'm always here.


You've gotta reach out
Take hold of my hand
You've gotta reach out
Till you're safe on dry land
You've gotta hold on
Baby never give up
You've gotta reach out
When you're caught in the current of love


Heather as a princess and Brandon as...um...we never did figure out what exactly Brandon was supposed to be...but it's HARDCORE!!!


Joylynn is an ANGRY pirate!!


Some folk'll never eat a skunk
But then again, some folk'll
Like Cle-tus the slack-jawed yokel


Brother Bowles and Brother Fischer would like you to please have this free Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price.


That stupid wig made my head itchy...


He's soooo pretty :P

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