So...

I think I'm done with this blog. I haven't updated it in awhile, and frankly it bores me. Plus I'll see you on Tuesday...So you can just ask me!

I'm excited about coming home!

Munich

I'm tired, so this one will be short.

We went to Munich today. It was kind-of like DC. There were a whole lot of old buildings, but then like a lot if bew ones. The Parliament building is on the same street and the Louis Vuitton store. So it was pretty, interesting.

We went to a church that has what it suppose to be the devils foot print. I don't think I believe the story though.

I also had a epic event happen to me today. For the first time, I order from Starbucks... in a German Starbucks, with a German name. It was awesome!

Pictures Tomorrow!

Pe@c3
Tomorrow - Eagles Nest (a.k.a Hitlers House)

How about a real blog?

I have not had time to actually sit down, and write to you about the things I have experienced. The cultures I have endured, and the beauty my eyes have scene.

I have seen things that no camera, no video camera, no iPhone, or mind can express. The beauty of this place is outstanding. Looking out the window I can see a mountain that is higher then any other mountain in America. I can walk by a stream that is as clear as Dasani. It is absolutely stunning. You can look into the water, and see the bottom of the stream. It's not brown or dark green. But its crystal clear! The skyline is breath-taking! The blue sky's, with the occasional cloud sprinkled in, creating a cast of the mountains. Yesterday I drove trough the Swiss Alps , I climbed a Mountain in the Swiss Alps, and visited a small town in the swiss alps. People complain because Johnston County is so small, and theres nothing to do. Picture this: A town so small that it fits on one post card, so small that it consist of not a single stop light. So small that there is a hotel, a restaurant, and a house, so small the the closest house is a 5 minute walk.

The people here are so different then the people home. So many of them speak English. How many people in America speak German, how many people speak a 2nd language, heck, how many people speak proper English? There so cultured, they think more about what they can do to help people visiting them, then when we can do to help them. But they, are also quiet rude. You smile at them, they look at you like your crazy. For them to give a smile, is like us giving someone 20 dollars. They also drink... a lot. One of out bus drivers had a beer in his hand! IN HIS HAND...DRIVING A BUS...DOWN A HUGE MOUNTAIN...A BEER! They drink from morning till night. Even the 16 year olds drink, its legal, but still. I know 16y/o people drink home, but gosh dern!

I have leaned so much since I've been here! Rachel H. - Watch out I'm get'n mo cultured be ready! (insider)

I wish I could say I missed home, but sadly, I don't lie. The only thing I do miss is my friends and c3, so, I say lets move here? Who's with me?

Pe@c3
Tomorrow - Munich City Tour

Free Day!

Today was a Free Day! We didn't have any tours or anything scheduled. Well I slept until about 10:00, which was an amazing thing! Then I walked down stairs got some Starbucks and a Snickers. Then Mom, Dad, and I walked to down town Garmish! It was very nice. I'm hopping I'll get the chance to go back before we leave, because I left my memory card for my camera! Quiet depressing.

Then I came home, and ate a sandwich and some chips. Then we walked up the road a little, it was kind of purposeless, but we're in Germany so what the Hay! Then we came back to the room. My mom and dad had a carriage ride. So I went to the giant outside hot tub. It is as big as a swimming pool. Then I went and sat in the sauna for a while. It was quiet nice.

We had dinner, which was buffet. It was pretty good!

Pe@c3
Tomorrow - Munich City Tour

Bus Ride...So Much Bus Ride!

So Today we went to the Three Country tour. It was so beautiful. But It was a lot of bus riding! A lot we left the lodge at 7:00am and got back at 8:00pm. But it was worth it. I don't want to write so much, cause I don't think you want to read about it. So I'll just do a lot of pictures today. But the countries we went to today were Lichtenstein, Austria, and SWITZERLAND (my absolute favorite so far).


So heres the pictures, you'll have to tilt your head on some, not time for photoshop =)

Austria!



Lichtenstein















AND SWITZERLAND

Day 2

Today we traveled to a couple of well known places in Germany. We went to the Cinderella Castle, or the Neuschwanstein Castle, we went to a wood carving shop, and then "The Church in The Meadow". It was so much fun! And the day flew by.

I woke up this morning and had totally for got I was in Germany while I was sleeping. So waking up was awesome! But sadly, I woke up and it was very cloudy and foggy, and it stayed like that for the rest of the day. Shortly after waking up, I went and got me some starbucks, and headed to the tour bus. The bus was large, and there we're not very many people in it. The tour guide was very nice, and was from Bavaria. We headed out shortly after.

(Neuschwanstein Castle )

The first place we went was the Cinderella Castle. It was one of King Ludwig's many castles. But it was unfinished because he died before completion. He had many castle's, and only one, the first one, ever got finished completely. You can see the castle above. No, I didn't take that picture, it was to cloudy to see from the bridge. King Ludwig, while his dad was king, and he was a prince, he became known as "Prince Charming" for his looks and good manners. Later, when he became king he was known as "King of Fairy tales" because all his castle we're huge and depict fairy tales. Then he did not like large crowds, lots of people, and liked to stay in his castle, and spent all his money on the castle, so he became known as "Crazy King". But the castle was beautiful. The Disney Castles got nothing on them. IT was huge, and it was made for only one guy. That was the amazing part, it was giant. And we're not able to see it all. It had a room, the name as slipped me, but its were the king sits during the day, its were you see the throne. There was a picture of Jesus looking down at the Kings Throne. He had that picture to say "Jesus, King above all kings". It was amazing inside. But, sadly, no pictures are allowed to be taken inside. Then we had lunch, it wasn't to bad, but then again it kind of was..lol.

(Church in The Meadow)

So we did not know that we were going to this when we originally signed up for the tour. But I'M very happy that we did. This church has an amazing story to it, so I will give to the clif notes. Two monks were ordered to make a statue of Jesus so it could be uses at the march on good Friday. The monks did not have enough money, so they took pieces from old statues. They created another one, and put a canvas over it, and painted it. Well when they showed the people, it appeared to be so life like, the people began to cry when they saw it. So the monks we ordered to make a new one, less life like. So they did, they took the old one and put it in a farm shed, and forgot about it completely. One day a woman stumbled upon it. She took it and put it in her house. Well one night while praying she noticed something about the statue. Jesus was crying, actually crying, it was not part of the painting. The word got out and so many people began to come to see it that they turned the original house into a church, but it continued to grow, so they built another one the a little further up. They moved the statue in there, and the church was stunning. It was very unexpected. Theres pictures below. We we're not sure of what kind of church it was, but we assumed catholic. It was my favorite part of the day. The pictures I took didn't come out to well. Sorry.

(The Organ on 2nd Floor) (Jesus Statue ) ( New and Old Church)

(Tilt your head and its a stomp carving)

And finally we went to the wood carving shop. It was pretty cool. A lot of crucifixes and nativtey scenes. Everything was hand crafted and really neat looking.

But right now I have to go and get ready for dinner. Its 5:45 here (11:45 there). So I will talk with you tomorrow! More pictures later!

Pe@c3!

Tomorrow - Three Country tour Switzerland, Austria, and Lichtenstein.

Oh, The joys of traveling!

Shot from the hotel

So I have spent the last, I don't know, 36 hours traveling from airport to airport, terminal to terminal, train to train, country to country. It has been all but relaxing thats for sure!

To start off I was packing all day Thursday until 12:00. We began to head to the airport. And everything is all fine. Except the fact my mother is stressing out, and is need of some serious need of some hard drugs. But we arrive at the airport, and realize we have to many bags. We had 7 to check in and 3 or 4 carry ons. But they all ended up going. Now to the exciting part, during security, as you know, you have to take every thing out of your pocket and put all your carry ons onto the x-ray machine. Well I put my phone in the bucket with all of my my moms stuff. Well we made it through, and began walking through the terminal, when I realized the GOD-POD was missing. I asked my mom if she picked up when she cleaned out her bucket and she said no. Well, needless to say, we were running back and forth from my gate and the security, which mind you was on side of the terminal to the other. But praise god, they found it in one of the buckets and it was not stolen. THANK YOU PEOPLE AT THE RDU AIRPORT SECURITY. So, as you can assume, I was quiet stressed out, so I got a Starbucks to calm my nerves. And the girl thought I looked like the guy from Hanson.
But the flight from RDU went fine. We had a 3 hour lay over in Philadelphia. Then we got to the plane. We had to sit on taxi (runway) for 1 hour and 45 minutes. One plane that was landing had issues with their hydrologist, which closed down one of the runways. So we were an hour and 45 behind schedule. I had dinner on the plane, which was delicious, and watched Sherk the Third, episodes of 2 and half men, and King of Queens.
But when we landed. O my goodness, everything was German. I know, huge surprise! The people, the signs, the food, the drinks, the planes all GERMAN! Even the Burger King. But we had to go catch a train right after lunch. We rode on that for about 45 minutes, and then we got on another one. We barley made it, and it was 1 hour and 45 minutes long. Then we had to get on a Taxi for a 15 minute drive. It took us forever to get to our final destination
At first on the train ride, when we started off in Munich, I was very unimpressed. But as the trip went on, and we got closer to Garmish, which is were the Lodge is, the more spectacular it became. The huge mountains sprinkled with the beautiful color of fall. The reds, yellows, and oranges filled my soul with a since of warmth. They were so beautiful, it just made me realize how America has nothing compared to these other countries. The hotel is awesome, and beautiful. We have an amazing view..
But now were here and were safe. Praise GOD.

Sorry the post was so boring today, I have to share my computer with Christopher. So its going to be a short and boring. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to tell you more about the actual experience and what I took from it all.

Tomorrow - Neuschwanstein Castle (The castle the Cinderella Castle was inspired from)

Last Night At Home

Tonight was my last night in Clayton N.C. for about 12 days! I'm leaving for Germany tomorrow. I made the blog so that I could keep in touch with all of you for the short time I was gone. It's also so that you can read, if you so wish to, about my trip, and my experiences. But I'm not going to use this particular entry to tell you about how much I'm going to miss you, because, well frankly, I'll see you in like 13 days.
Something I do want to share with you is tonight. First Wednesday may be my absolute favorite day ever. It is so unlike normal church service. We come together for one service as one congregation. And like Martha Fry said tonight, and what GOD's word says When two or more gather in his name, he his there. And man, was he there tonight, and every first Wednesday. I can feel his power, his love, his grace, breathing down my neck. He there, he's embracing us, and hes dancing with, and jumping with us. Tonight was an amazing time of Worship, and the message, like always, was powerful. The way we're not afraid to stand up, pray, kneel, jump, sing, scream, and woot when we want to, when we feel the presence of GOD telling us to, it amazes me.
We come together as more then a congergation, or a church, or a group, but we are family. We all come from different backgrounds, lifestyles, and situations, we all have our own problems and blessing. But we all have something in common. We are crazy, we are crazy for our father and heaven, and we don't care who knows. Paster Matt said tonight, you have to be willing to be a little crazy for GOD. Which coined the phrase for Rachel and I, Poco Loco. Which in Spanish means, of course, little crazy. The whole phrase would be "Poco Loco Para Cristo!"
But we need to make sure we are willing to be poco loco not just in church, but everywhere we go. Church, School, class, parking lots, Khols, Target, and of course Starbucks. You have to be willing to be loud, obnoxious, and crazy for Christ Jesus. You want the people around you to hear you, and know what you're doing. Those people need to want what we have, we have to make our faith appear to be fun to people looking in. Our faith does not appear to be fun to us, because it is awesome to us. But we are in the inside looking out, the people from the outside looking in need to see it too.

Well, I just thought I would share what was on my heart. I look forward to the next first Wednesday when we can maybe do this all again, and only about 6 of us know what all again means.

Pe@c3

Ps: I don't think I have ever had so much fun at starbucks. It's moments like those that make all the fights, all the drama, all the everything that surrounds it worth is. I thank GOD every day for you guys, I hope you know that. I don't think you guys can ever understand how much you mean to me. I love you guys with all my being, and can't wait till we can do this non-stop when we all make to Heaven.