Our Trip to Europe

Bryan and I went to Europe for a week and our first stop was Belguim.  While in Belgium we meet with my first cousin and her family.  She is a cousin in the family from Armenia and so it was super exciting to get to meet her and talk about the family and find out a bunch of information about Armenia and Armenian culture.

We also went to a Chocolate Musuem and this egg was made of chocolate.  We learned how to make peanut butter cups and they had this sign up that stated how long chocolate would last and how to store it properly. 

In Europe they do not give you water at resturants and nothing is very hot or very cold.  I drank coca cola light the whole week. 

We also drove to Paris and saw the sites. 

I thought it was interesting Paris also has mounted police.

 This was a park near our hotel.  It was very petty and had several really neat features.

 We were walking towards the Eiffel Tower and saw this protest.  We didn't know what they protesting but later that night saw CNN International and they were holding Lybia flags.

 Here is the Eiffel Tower.

Here is Notre Dame.

 The photograp isn't good at all but the had amasing stained glass all over the church.

This is the plac by the statue below that I found very interesting.  They have this statue as a way to sorry for burning her alive. 

That night we ate at this restaurant across from Notre Dame.  They sit everyone very very close to each other at restaurants.  It can get very uncomfortable.

 I had the french onion soup since we were in France.

 Here is the Louvre at night.

The next day we went to the museum during the day. 

Here is the Mona Lisa.  When we were there people were walking away crying.  Bryan and I didn't get emotional, but it was pretty neat to see.

I had to take a picture of these shoes.  The toes stuck u so far it was hilarious. 

 This statue was on Bryan's list of things to see.

We found a McDonald's at the museum and I was beyond excited to get a large drink with ice and straw.  Well this is their large and there was a straw but no ice.  By this time I was dying for a Quik Trip or a Sonic.

This is the Arc De Triomphe.  Napoleon built it to celebrate his victories.  We climbed a spiral staircase all the way to the top.  It was a lot of steps.

 These are views from the top.

 This is Paris's tomb of the unknown solider.  It is under the Arc.

Here is the sign or Disneyland Paris.  I will one day visit each Disneyland Park.  I have visited the one in Florida, California and Japan. 

After Paris we drove into Germany.  My main reason for going to Germany is that is were my dad and 2 of his siblings were born and I was hoping to be able to find some sort of birth record.

This was the view out of our hotel room in Germany.

They have Aldi's in Germany and I love Aldi's.  We even stopped at one and got some treats.  They are basically the same as here only they carry different stuff.

While we were walking to find the records office in Stuttgart, we came across this situation. 

I took pictures the whole time and wasn't the only person taking pictures.  There was a restaurant full of people that walked to the windows to watch and take pictures.

We had lunch at a Burger King really quick one day and they have fry sauce.  I was intrigued to see if it was the same as they carry in Utah and it's just mayonnaise.

While doing some family history research in Germany we learned that the displace persons camp my dad and his family were in was in the city of Bad Cannestatt.  Here is a sign with the exit for the city.  We drove through the city.  While at the records office we got a lot of information to work with. We were able to get information from the expert genealogist/historian on displaced person's camp and he gave us 2 groups to contact to get information and records for the camp.

As we drove back to Belgium to fly out the next morning we made a quick stop at the Frankfurt Germany Temple.

We had an amazing trip.  It was great to meet with family that I had never meet and find out some more information on my dad's birth location.   With Bryan's travel benefits we were able to fly Business Class the whole trip and stay at Hilton Hotels that were amazing.