Catching up

Hello everyone! First off, I am sorry that you haven't heard from me in so long, but the days have been busy and the internet has been hard to find at times. So, I will use this blog to catch up on those days that have passed since I have written. So, this will be quite long but also quite enjoyable!
On the 6th we went to the Picasso museum and the Holocaust museum. The Picasso museum was pretty neat, he did a lot of sculptures and different sculpture like creations as well as paintings. I am very glad we decided to go to the Holocaust museum in Paris. I learned a lot of things, the biggest was I didn't know that in the part of France that wasn't occupied by Germany during World War II, the Vichy government actually helped the Nazis gather up the Jews and ship them out. There were lots of really moving pictures and individual stories as well.
In the night time, we went out for cocktails with Jasper, and then to an Irish pub. It was good to see Jasper and also hear some nice live bagpipe music (in the Irish pub.)

On the 7th, we got up early to climb Notre Dame. This was really great, except that it was quite windy. The gargoyles were my favorite part, and there were two of them that were my favorites. The first was one who was sticking his tongue out, and the second was one who seemed to be chewing on a chicken or duck or something. After this, we walked to the Opera Garnier, which is the Opera that the opera house from Phantom of the Opera is based on. This was a really neat opera house, but we couldn't go into the auditorium because there was a rehearsal! how stupid.

The 8th was the day to leave for Mannheim. We went to Rue Cler, and picked up things for a picnic. Everything was great, except for the cheese. I love munster cheese in America, so I decided to go for that, but in France this is disgusting! We wrapped this cheese in two ziploc bags just so we wouldn't smell it! I think this was one of the most disgusting thing I've ever smelled, and it tasted just as terrible!
We got on a bus for Mannheim, and 8 hours later we were there! We missed Kiran by about 10 minutes at the bus station, and wound up staying in a smelly hotel. gross.
The next day, we met up with Kiran and went into Mannheim. We first went to this museum of science and technology, which was pretty amazing. There was a really huge generator from 1920 that was pretty intriguing. Kiran and I took pictures by it to send to our Power Systems professor. My favorite part was the Biotechnic exhibit which showed how this in nature are engineered to work in modern day systems. One great example was showing a swimming penguin next to a streamlined jet. They had a remarkably similar shape.
We then walked around Mannheim, and saw the schloss that houses the university. At night, Cara and I went to a pub with Kiran and his friend Brad.

Next day Kiran and Cara and I went to Heidelberg. There was this really amazing huge castle, or schloss as they say. It had been sacked twice by the French (why do they ruin everything?) but was still mostly standing. This castle was so cool, and it made me very excited for the rest of the castles I will see on my adventure!

The 11th, we got up at 2am to get on the train for Hamburg. At 10am, we got into Hamburg and Jasper's father Wolfgang picked us up and we went to his house.

That is all for now! I hope you enjoyed the update, and I will tell you about Hamburg very soon!
I love you all!