Enkenbach, Germany

I cannot believe this trip is nearly over! After four months, this trip is coming to an end. It has been an experience I will not forget anytime soon. I have learned so much about myself, history, different life styles, and have grown in my faith as well. My mind has been opened up to different ways of living that I would have never seen at home. It has been so fun to hang out with my family, even though they did drive me crazy at times. We have met so many awesome people along the way, and that has been really cool.

Four months has seemed like a year, and after a while, this trip felt like normal life. There were tough times and really good times, but overall it was really fun. This trip has really made me appreciate home a lot more. Seeing all the different places people live in has made me feel very lucky about the place I live in.

The town we’re staying in right now is full of so many kind people. We were even invited over to someone’s house to watch soccer. We have stopped sight seeing, which is a really nice break, and have just been hanging out and going to the pool. This was a really nice way to end off the trip.  

At the pool

Watching Germany's first soccer game in the World Cup with a family that lives in Enkenbach.

Eating breakfast with Grandma and Shirley.

This trip has been amazing, but I miss home and can’t wait to come back to Canada! I’m so sorry for the long gaps of time in which I didn’t post, and I’m sorry for the posts themselves which were not that great.  Thank you for following, and we’ll see you guys soon!

Black Forest, Germany (Schwartzwald)

The Black Forest was a very pretty area. Although, it doesn't seem like they're doing a whole lot to protect the forest.

There are small towns scattered amongst the hills here, so we have been exploring those, as well as hiking in the forest. We have also been to a lake side town as well.

Something really fun that we did here was go to an amusement park. I mean, hiking is fun and all, but sometimes you just need some good adrenaline. It was called Europa Park, and had a whole different section and different rides for each European country.

If you can see, this is the lederhosen.

Mittersill & Zwischenwasser, Austria

                                                                      Mittersill
Here we stayed with a Mennonite Your Way family, that finally has a girl close to my age. It was so fun to hang out with her, even though she was at school for most of the day. It has been so long since I've talked with another girl close to my age.

What we did mostly was go for hikes in the mountains, and go in the small towns near by.

    
                                                                   Zwischenwasser

This is us at the ruins of the Schellenberg castle. My great great grandmother was a Schellenberg, so my ancestors lived there. They had to flee from the castle because of religious persecution. There wasn't much left of the castle, but it was still cool to see.

At a cheese factory.

Salzburg, Austria

Its so pretty here, and it looks so much like scenes of the Sound of Music with the mountains and meadows. Also, people here actually wear lederhosen, they don't see it as a costume.

This is the place where the Vontrapp children fell off the canoe in the movie.

My "the hills are alive" picture.

Snow in the mountains!

In the above picture, we are lined up to go into the salt mine with are stern tour guide in white pants.

We also went on a slide thing down a hill, it was like tobogganing without snow.

Rothenburg, Germany

Rothenburg is a really pretty town, which is in Bavaria. The town is pretty touristy because of its picturesque buildings and surroundings, and lots of the shops that probably used to be old fashioned shops for the locals, are now tacky tourist stores. But that doesn't stop the buildings from looking like gingerbread houses.

We stayed at a place in the country, and while we were here we went on a zip lining and ropes course thing again.

Zwolle, Netherlands

 On the way to Zwolle, we stopped at Vimy Ridge, which was the sight of WW1 battle grounds, and is now a memorial for the Canadian soldiers. I thought we were going to be able to step onto Canadian ground, but its not pactually part of Canada.   

Danger: Undetonated explosives

In the cemented trenches.

Once we got into Zwolle, we met our Mennonite your way people, who were very kind as all of them are. The lady of the couple worked/volunteered at a horse riding center for disabled people, so she let us ride a bit. 

I really liked how the Dutch liked to bike pretty much everywhere. And they have really awesome bikes. Especially in Amsterdam, which was a lot nicer than I thought it would be. Everything is brick. The houses are brick and the streets and brick, and it was raining, so of course I gnawed on the street. On In Amsterdam, we visited Anne Frank's house. That was really interesting, I can't believe she spent two years inside her house without ever going outside.

Its like we're in Venice again, there are some canals in Amsterdam.

We also went to see Corrie Ten Boom's house in Harlem, if you know who that is. She is a lady who helped Jews with her sister and father, and got into a concentration camp. She survived and died recently. There are more details to that story obviously, but I won't mention all of them.

This is the place in Corrie Ten Boom's house where they hide Jews.

We were in the area where Menno Simons was born, and where some of the first Mennonite churches were built. We went to a dude that was supposed to give us info on Menno, and he was really nice but he just talked about stuff that made no sense, so that was too bad. But it was still very interesting to hear about Menno's life, and how all that stuff started.

Morocco: Surfing & Ziplining

After the desert tour in the Sahara, we went to Marrakech to meet Chris and Carolyn, which is who we traveled with from then on. We stayed at a really nice riad with an awesome pool. So, we spent a lot of our time swimming, and exploring the area. We also went to a really beautiful waterfall, which is a rare sight in dry and hot Morocco.

In the riad.

After hanging out in Marrakech, we traveled to a beach town called Oualidia. Along the way, we stopped at a zip line and ropes course place.

We then got to Oualidia. We explored the rocky cliffs by the ocean, as well as the town. It was really interesting to go to the little markets and stores. At the butcher's, there were whole carcasses hanging there.

 

The big highlight of this stay was surfing. There was a lot of falling involved, but I have discovered how much fun surfing is! The waves were really small, but that was probably best since it was our first time.

That guy in the back-round helped me and Aria a lot.

After all of that, we went back to Casablacna, which is where we landed at the very beginning of our Morocco trip. Here we stayed at Chris and Carolyn's apartment. Traveling with Chris and Carolyn has been really fun! Those guys are so kind and awesome, Morocco would never have been so awesome without them. Morocco is a world apart from Europe, even though they are pretty close together, and it has been really interesting to see a small window into Moroccan life. Now, we go back to Europe.