Yoga

I know this blog is supposed to be about travel plans but today I just needed to tell someone about my experience in yoga today. First off I do yoga twice a week it really helps with my flexibility and back pain. The type of yoga is from Barron Baptiste and is called Power Vinyasa Yoga, my mentor Judy has gone to Mexico the past two summers to retreats and is amazing!
Today was great my balance poses were going amazingly well and for the first time I got all the way to half moon. This one has been hard for me lately because of my hips being so tight, riding that darn bicycle too much (even though we all know that is Impossible). For some reason today I just felt in the zone. After this pose Judy pulled out a couple new poses and the next one that I was super excited about was Bird of Paradise. This is one that is extremely hard, in not only a balance sense but also in hamstring flexibility. Since my balance today was on it just felt amazing and that definitely made it easier. Here is a good step by step process that I found on the good old interweb.
One thing I really love about this yoga practice is day in and day out I don't have to be 100% in the zone to get all the benefits from it. Then every once in awhile you have a day, like today, where you just get a good yoga buzz going making you excited for the rest of your day.
If you ever have wanted to try a yoga class I definitely would recommend a power vinyasa class especially if you are a guy. It gets you sweating and is a little more athletic for those first time yoga goers.

Reservations are happening!

This past week has been a great one, less than two months away from my first abroad experience and reservations are happening. Today I booked our Hostel in Interlaken, its the Lazy Falken Backpacker. We are planning on staying there for four nights after our stay in Southern France at the La Mas Jorel, its a bed and breakfast in the Provence region.

Ashley will be MIA for the next couple of weeks. She is in the Alps getting to ski during one of her breaks that I think occur way too often (I'm just really jealous). She is staying with one of the teachers at her school who has a cabin/condo near the mountains. She was really excited to go and get her fix of skiing for the year. She will also be seeing a couple of different friends with short trips back and forth.

I will keep everyone informed of the latest happenings as they will be happening all to fast as we finish up the plans on our trip.

Christmas in France

This was my first time spending Christmas in a foreign country and it has been wonderful celebrating my absolute favorite holiday in France. It seemed like overnight that my little city of Troyes was transformed into a wonderful little Christmas village, complete with garland and lights strung across every street, shopkeeper's windows adorned with Christmas cheer, and even an entire Christmas tree forest in the heart of the city!

For the French, food is serious business and Christmas dinner comes as no exception. Typically the French celebrate by having a huge dinner on Christmas Eve. (Full course french dinners can easily last 4+hours...warning they are not for the faint of heart.) Typical dishes can include Oysters, Foie Gras, Turkey, Duck, Coquilles St. Jaques (scallops),and of course for dessert the Buche de Noel which, is a cake made to look like an yule log. Below are the Buche de Noels my family had for Christmas.

While my family was here we were able to do a little traveling. We went up to Reims and toured the Champagne Cave Pommery. Then we went to Strasbourg and saw les marchés de Noël (Christmas markets) Strasbourg has one of the most famous ones due to the Germanic influence. It is this mélange of cultures that makes this region in France truly unique.

The gorgeous Christmas display in Gallery Lafayette in Paris.

My sister Cassie drinking vin chaud (hot spiced wine..one of my favorites) at the Christmas market.
Bonne année à tous!

Happy New Year!!!

Well not much has changed in the past few weeks other than the end of the year and the start of the next. I have been working quiet a bit which is awesome it makes the days of anticipation go by faster.
Gas is rising, giving me even more incentive to toughen up and ride to work. This next week the forecast looks like we are going to get about a foot of snow. I'm excited, but wish the temperature would get in the 30's, or at least have the Nebraska wind settle just a little bit.

Plane Ticket Booked!

The past 4 months I have been looking at plane tickets using Cheapoair. It has worked really well and from Sunday until yesterday they dropped almost $200! Tickets were looking to be around $950 then yesterday they were down to $750 not sure why they dropped but I took advantage of this and called a travel agency back in Grand Island to do the actual booking, called First Holiday Tour and Travel.
Since this is such a big trip for me and I really don't want to have to deal with anything going wrong. I paid a little bit higher price but their insurance plan has everything I could possibly need in it, they really make sure if any unforeseen circumstances occur they can help you out. So if you ever have any traveling needs let them know I highly recommend them!
Keep Ashley's family in your prayers as they try to get to France, their flights got canceled yesterday and they had to make some alternative travel plans and can hopefully get to Ashley and spend Christmas how it should be spent, with family!

Switzerland

Having done a lot of research this past weekend, I have been looking in the Jungfrau Region, of Switzerland to spend our time in. An anonymous backpacker once wrote in a hostel guest book "If heaven isn't what it's cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmelwald." I feel like this place deserves some exploration. There are many different hiking trails that explore the surrounding towns of Murren and Stechelberg. From the sounds of it each is a great representation of storybook Switzerland.
Lauterbrunnen a town in a nearby valley that plays host to Trummelbach Falls which as you can see look amazing and is fed by alpine glaciers and snow deposits that melt during the warmer months and can range from a small trickle to 20,000 Liters per second!
The main attraction of the Jungfrau region is the 3 glacier covered monoliths, Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau (Ogre, Monk, and Virgin).
More to come...

Travel Plans

Naturally you have to have some sort of plan to take on Europe, because no matter how long you have you definitely can't see it all. Hopefully three weeks will be plenty of time to travel around Europe and still be able to make it back to the States with a job waiting for me when I return.

Ideas started out with Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Switzerland, and possibly Germany. With three weeks we finally decided that Germany was at the bottom of our list and would be cut. After even further debate on how we wanted to do our traveling we decided to include Southern France and cut Venice, this allowed us to stay at a more comfy Bed and Breakfast in Avignon and travel to smaller French towns and hopefully find some time to see the Mediterranean Sea! After many hours of debate our final decision is as follows.

Dustin arrives to Paris Wednesday April 13th and the catches a train to Troyes where Ashley will be awaiting since she has to teach class until the 15th. Enjoy all that Troyes has to offer and let myself get used to being "the weird foreigner."

On the 16th, catch an early train ride to Paris and proceed down to Avignon where we hope to stay at Clos des Saumanes, a Bed and Breakfast that one of Ashley's friends highly suggested.
Stay for 3 nights then catch the Eurail to Switzerland. Where we plan to stay in a hostel for cheap and do some hiking and possibly some other adventures since its the second best place for adventure sports in the world!

On the 22nd or 23rd return back to Paris and stay with some of Ashley's amazing friends and spend Easter Sunday worshiping God at Notre Dame Cathedral, attending the International Mass at 1130 (its the only one with English). After mass we will head back to Troyes to pack up Ashley from her humble little apartment.

We will then be in Troyes and the surrounding area until the morning of the 28th when we will take the Eurail again up to Amsterdam. During our days of "downtime" we plan on heading to the Fontainebleau Forest, home to hundreds of thousands of sandstone boulders. I just could not be this close to a world class bouldering area and not at least try to do some climbing. So if weather permits we plan to get a couple of days in climbing, if it does not provide conditions to climb I would still love to walk around this magical forest.

Then to Queen's Day, or koninginnedag! It is a festival celebrating national unity and consists of a festival-like atmosphere which includes, the only day of free market in the Netherlands, dancing, open air concerts, children's games, carnival floats, parades, street theatre, fireworks, DJ music, decorated canal boats, along with everyone dressing in the country's color of Orange! So if you have any great orange costume ideas let me know!

We plan to return to Paris on the 1st of May and explore until our flight back to the United States of America on the 3rd!