My mom said my ratings will go down if I don't post more.

As I get deeper and deeper into the planning of this trip, it has become apparent that there is a good chance my family will be left stranded in a foreign country where we don't speak the language. In all honesty, it's pretty fun having all of this power. I've been using a German website, http://www.bahn.com/, to generate the "best" train routes to choose from. Here's just a short list of things that can go wrong with this.

1. We can't find the train. Who knows how any of these stations are set up. If we were staying in one place, it might be easy to look it up, and learn how to navigate it. However with nine destinations so far and connections on top of that, I wouldn't want to waste my valuable time looking up blueprints for every station.

2. We can't get reservations. On certain trains like the express or high speed trains, reservations are required. However, sometimes we are only going to use these trains for one leg of a trip with multiple transfers. So if we get to that train, and the reservations weren't made correctly, we're stuck! On top of that, every trip I've planned requires reservations that can't be made online. Which means we have to wait until we are over there to make them over the phone. I hope they don't have to be made too far in advance!

3. The final stations are miles from our house. Who doesn't like a 5 mile trek to some apartment?

4. We can't read the maps. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have no sense of direction. Seriously, take me on a car ride that lasts more than 10 minutes and tell me to point north. Every trip I've ever been on, I've had people to tell me where to go. Now it's just me and a foreign map!

5. Extra Fees. We are using Eurail passes for this trip. It would be nice if they were as simple as they seem. All you do is hop on a train and write down the date. However if we make reservations, there's a fee. If we have to use a night train for a longer trip, there's a fee. If we have to use another mode of transportation (taxi's, ferries, bus's) there's a fee. 

I spend a lot of time telling myself it will all just magically work out.

I took a break from all of this research last week for Friend Family Christmas. We took a trip to my Aunt Kenda, and Uncle Brian's house in Indy for some family time and a small gift exchange. We also got some quality cousin time in at the cabin. It only took a day for us to eat all of the candy from our stockings.

It's not a Friend Family Christmas without quality stocking
stufffers.

Arden says we look like twins because we are the same
height...

Last weekend I headed up to Purdue and was able to visit a Purduette rehearsal, and watch them in a church service on Sunday. Rehearsal was entertaining as always. From my new perspective from the outside looking in, I had a really fun time watching everyone's expressions while singing. I mean we all look at Youtube videos of our performances and find people making ridiculous faces, but this seeing it first hand was pretty entertaining. I spent the rest of the weekend spending time with friends and at Theta. We spent Saturday celebrating our 144th founders day and the rest of the time just hanging out. Thank God every room has a futon so we can still pile three people on one each night.