Baden-Baden

Hello! As you can see, I decided to do a blog for this trip after all. Turns out it is easier to upload pictures to this website than to upload them to an email, and I think this is probably a better format anyway since all of the updates will be in one place. I posted my original email update as the first post on this blog for anyone who wants to go back and read that one too.

So to update you all a little more about my trip in general, I have now been in Germany over a week. My days have been fairly quiet and laid-back, but that is a good thing because I still have travel-related things to research and plan. One reason for the name of this blog ("So Many Countries, So Little Time") is that I won't have as much time as I thought to do everything I want to do without a visa. Because most of Europe uses the same visa system, instead of being able to stay in any given country for 3 months without a visa like I thought at first, I can only stay in the larger visa area, called the Schengen area, for 3 months at a time.

The Journey Begins!

Hello family and friends!

I'm finally in Germany! I made it here safely with only minor flight delays on Saturday. It's so great to be with my sister, Danielle, after more than a year apart! So far most of our days have been pretty low key, since she still has to work as an au pair for the 2 weeks that I will be here, but I've had a great time seeing the city and meeting some of her friends. As soon as I got here I dove headlong back into eating meat and dairy after being a vegetarian for almost a year and vegan for a good amount of that time, and so far so good. I'm enjoying all of the German food I've had so far, including schnitzel! And of course the German beer.