Paris, France… again…

From South Africa, we were headed to Shanghai, China to connect with another friend. Josh’s friend Dawson from high school, whom I have not met yet. He’s been living in China for over a year now. He had been teaching ESL, but now he’s working in a business job for a hospital in Shanghai.

Before we get to China though, we have to connect through Paris. We stayed one more day in Paris. This one was planned though, so it wasn’t as stressful. We planned on going to Versailles, as it is one of the few attractions that we hadn’t seen yet.

Kruger National Park, South Africa

When Josh and I arrived at the Nelspruit Airport, Adam and Lora met us. Adam and Lora are friends of ours that we met in college, and they are currently volunteering with the Peace Corp. They work with some village schools at various projects to help the teachers and the students.

We drove to a grocery store and picked up some food, then we headed out to Kruger National Park. Adam and Lora told us some stories about the park that they had seen for themselves or heard from people in their village. We heard some stories about elephants crushing cars, and about hyenas jumping through a window, killing, and dragging away a man.

The US Embassy in Paris, France

After getting kicked off of our flight, Josh had to contact Delta and make sure that the rest of our itinerary would not be canceled. We were very uncertain what would happen with his passport at the Embassy, so we decided to come up with a backup plan in case we could not go to South Africa after all.

To South Africa or Bust?

Our cruise is done, and the next stop on our itinerary is South Africa. We’re going to meet up with our friends from college, Adam and Lora, who are serving as Peace Corp volunteers.

Josh and I made our way off of the boat and to the metro station, where we traveled to the Amsterdam airport. It is a very large building, working as an airport, a mall, and a metro station.

Brugge, Belgium

One stop that I would love to visit again is Brugge, Belgium. This town is a gorgeous, old fashioned town with modern stores, the best chocolate, canals, and parks. When we got there, we left the train station and saw the largest amount of bicycles in one place I’ve ever seen. There were rows and rows and rows and rows of cycles.

We Will Remember

We had an amazing opportunity to visit the Normandy Beaches on our trip. We rented a car in La Havre, and drove across the Normandy countryside. This was one of my favorite days. The countryside in Normandy is so picturesque and beautiful. We drove trhough many small villages, with cobblestone streets and stone manors. It’s so far removed from the industrialized cities, it was a wonderful day.

Cruising on the Norwegian Jade

A sea day is always going to be a relaxing day on a cruise ship. After the first days on the cruise, when we were stopping at so many interesting ports and wanting to see everything, we were very ready for our first sea day. Our second one was not as needed, since our recent stop of Cadiz, Spain was not very thrilling. We walked through some of the streets, and hung out in an internet cafe for a while.

Lisbon, Portugal

Rio De Janeiro and Lisbon are sister cities. Some may know that, but I bet that most wouldn’t know that they both have the large statues of Jesus, with outstretched arms. As we walked outside on the deck of the ship this morning, Josh and I saw Jesus watching over us.

It is a rainy day, but we had a plan. Lisbon is home to the second largest aquarium in the world, and we are visiting it. It’s called the Oceanario de Lisboa.

Malaga, Spain

Our port today was Malaga, Spain. I had looked up some things to see at each stop, and this one has a castle and fort. The fort had been built by Muslim rulers over a long period of rule in Malaga.

As we walked into the lower “fort” it turned into the most beautiful fort I’d ever seen. In fact, it was really a medieval mansion.

Pompeii (I see dead people)

After our exciting day in Rome, and almost missing the boat, we were ready for another fun day of sightseeing. Our stop was Naples, Italy but we wanted to go to Pompeii and see the ruins.

We got on a train that was supposed to stop at the ruins. Unfortunately, the train went in a different direction. We got off and were stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for a train to go back one stop to a hub where we could find the different train.