I'm baaack! Boy oh boy the last couple of weeks have been super exciting - in other words, I've been travelling up a storm. But one thing I learn over and over and over, no matter how great your trip is, it sure feels good to come home.

So a few weeks ago I found out that another exchange student (a girl I'd only met once or twice) was heading off to Trier. It's the oldest city in Germany, and my very first German teacher told me that I should visit if I ever got the chance. So I decided there was no harm in asking to join her. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

But the worst certainly didn't happen and Maria told me that I was more than welcome to come along. I was given only one warning - Maria (who's from Finland) was going to visit her Finnish friend Anu, so there was a high probability that I would hear a whole heck of a lot of Finnish. No problemo! I was perfectly content to sit there and listen (to what seemed to me to be gobbledegook), fascinated by the fact that it was a real language. And in the process I discovered that I could never learn Finnish, because I can't roll my r's worth beans!

After a 6 hour train ride through some simply gorgeous countryside, Maria and I arrived in Trier. First item on the menu - wandering around the city and seeing the sights. Below, I'm standing in front of the Porta Nigra - a gate left over from when the Romans occupied the city.

After that we saw lots of other historical buildings - churches, a palace, the roman baths, fountains... It put a smile on my face for the whole day :)

That's Maria and I sitting outside the palace ejoying the sunshine and the greenery.

After marvelling over the Roman baths (and taking some very silly pictures) we stumbled across this statue of a giant foot. Now, I thought it'd be quite fun to try and take a picture where the foot appeared to be stepping on me. However (and this will be a surprise to everyone...), I fell over. So instead we got a fun picture of Sandy after she fell off the giant foot. Boo hoo

(if you look really closely you can see that someone decided to paint it's baby toe red)

Here's a beautiful picture of Maria and Anu outside the Catholic cathedral in town. We could not have asked for nicer weather the whole time we were there. It was hot and sunny without a cloud in the sky.

Later on we walked beside the river and stopped at one of the many restaurants to enjoy a glass of wine in the late afternoon warmth. It was actually quite bizarre - Trier sits in the wine region of Germany. So not only had Maria and I left the south (and with that the southern accent), but we'd also left beer country. And, to top it all off, I don't think I saw a single person wearing a Dirndle or Leiderhosen all weekend. It's funny the things you miss... :)

Well, since we were on the western side of the country (and we weren't sure when we were going to be back there) we decided to do a day trip up to Colonge. And you can't go to Colonge and not climb up to the top of the Cathedral tower. Or at least that's what we told Maria. Clearly she's super pleased at the thought...

"I ain't climbin nuttin'"

Well she climbed it all right. We all did. All 600 steps. Up the small spiral staircase (picture a staircase from a medival castle). Around and around and around and around. And the best part was, it was the same staircase for people coming back down. That was a heck of a lot of fun when we had to pass the guy who decided to wear his hiking backpack... Very squishy. The view from the top was lovely.

And once we'd walked back down (which I actually found worse - it was totally hypnotizing) it was clearly time for an ice cream break. Mmmm ice cream.

The ice cream here in Germany is fabulous. There are a lot of Italian ice cream cafes, where they make the ice cream from scratch. And the have hundreds of flavours - vanilla, chocolate, tiramisu, mango, pistacchio, raspberry... It's brilliant!

Just thought I'd throw in my "artsy" shot of the cathedral. There was so much detail to the masonry!

Monday we headed out on another day trip. This time we left the country and went to... Luxembourg!! How cool is that?! It's a beautiful, small, rich country - the valley below was my favourite part. The bridge you can see in the bottom right was built in the 1400's or so. Again the weather was amazing!

We walked past the ducal residence - not the prettiest building I've seen in my travels, but so far the only one with a guard marching out front.

While we were walking along we found an outdoor New Orleans Jazz festival, so we decided to stop and listen for a while. And to try the local beer 'Bofferding'. How's that for a funny name?

Our last morning we decided to start the journey home early. That way we could stop in the tiny riverside village of Cochem. The route back to Bamberg travels along the river Mosel, and Maria had heard that this town in particular was a great place to stop. Plus, it had a castle. On a hill. More climbing... hooray!

Halfway up Maria and I found a Bamberg sign. Woohoo a little piece of home :)

And here you can see the view from the castle. It really was a cute little town.

Well, after a tour through the castle and a light lunch on the river it was time to catch our train and head back home. We almost missed our last connection because the train was late, but luckily it was just a close call.

And like I said at the beginning, coming home is always a great feeling (especially when the vegetable you accidentally left in your fridge didn't go bad!). But it was only for a short while, because 2 days after I got home I took off for Scotland! Wooohooo

Just you wait - it was a faboulous trip!